the east of Iran, in Bactria and its neighbouring regions. The contrast there existing between peasant and nomad is of vital consequence for the whole position of his creed. Among the adherents whom he gained was numbered, as already mentioned, a Turanian, one Fryana and his household. The west of Iran is scarcely ever regarded in the Avesta, while the districts and rivers of the east are often named. The language, even, is markedly different from the Persian; and the fire-priests are not styled Magians as in Persia—the word indeed never occurs in the Avesta, except in a single late passage—but athravan, identical with the atharvan of India (πύραιδοι, “fire-kindlers,” in Strabo xv. 733). Thus it cannot be doubted that the king Vishtaspa, who received Zoroaster's doctrine and protected him, must have ruled in eastern Iran: though strangely enough scholars can still be found to identify him with the homonymous Persian Hystaspes, the father of Darius. The possibility that Zoroaster himself was not a native of East Iran, but had immigrated thither (from Rhagae?), is of course always to be considered; and this theory has been used to explain the phenomenon that the Gathas, of his own composition, are written in a different dialect from the rest of the Avesta. On this hypothesis, the former would be his mother-tongue: the latter the speech of eastern Iran.
This district is again indicated as the starting-point of Zoroastrianism, by the fact that dead bodies are not embalmed and then interred, as was usual, for instance, in Persia, but cast out to the dogs and birds (cf. Herod. i. 140), a practice, as is well known, strictly enjoined in the Avesta, ruthlessly executed under the Sassanids, and followed to the present day by the Parsees. The motive of this, indeed, is to be found in the sanctity of Earth, which must not be polluted by a corpse; but its origin is evidently to be traced in a barbaric custom of nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes who leave the dead to lie on the steppe; and we know from Greek sources that this custom was widely diffused among the tribes of eastern Iran.
The next clue towards determining the period of Zoroaster is, that Darius I. and all his successors, as proved by their inscriptions and by Greek testimony, were zealous adherents of the pure word of Zoroastrianism; which consequently must already have been accepted in the west of Iran. That Cyrus too owned allegiance to the creed, cannot be doubted by an unprejudiced mind, although in the dearth of contemporary monuments we possess no proof at first hand. The Assyrian inscriptions demonstrate, however, that Zoroaster's teaching was dominant in Media two centuries before Cyrus. For in the list of Median princes, to which we have already referred, are two bearing the name of Mazdaka—evidently after the god Mazda. Now this name was the invention of Zoroaster himself; and he who names himself after Mazda thereby makes a confession of faith in the religion of Zoroaster whose followers, as we know, termed themselves Mazdayasna, “worshippers of Mazda.”
Thus, if the doctrine of Zoroaster predominated in Media in 714 B.C., obviously his appearance in the rôle of prophet must have been much earlier. A more definite date cannot be deduced from the evidence at our disposal, but his era may safely be placed as far back as 1000 B.C.
The religion which Zoroaster preached was the creation of a single man, who, having pondered long and deeply the problems of existence and the world, propounded the solution he found as a divine revelation. Naturally he starts from the old views, and is indebted to them for many of his tenets and ideas; but out of this material he builds a uniform system which bears throughout the impress of his own intellect. In this world, two groups of powers confront each other in a truceless war, the powers of Good, of Light, of creative Strength, of Life and of Truth, and the powers of Evil, of Darkness, Destruction, Death and Deceit. In the van of the first stands the Holy Spirit (spenta mainyu) or the “Great Wisdom” Mazdao. His helpers and vassals are the six powers of Good Thought (vohu manō, Ὠμανός), of Right Order (asha, Ind. rta, Pers. arta, “lawfulness”), of the Excellent Kingdom (khshathra vairya), of Holy Character (spenta ārmaiti), of Health (haurvatāt), and of Immortality (ameretat). These are comprised under the general title of “undying holy ones” (amesha spenta, amshaspand); and a host of subordinate angels (yazata) are ranked with them. The powers of evil are in all points the opposite of the good; at their head being the Evil Spirit (angra mainyu, Ahriman). These evil demons are identical with the old gods of the popular faith—the devas (div)—while Mazdao bears the name Ahura, above discussed; whence Ahuramazda (Ormuzd).
From this it will be manifest that the figures of Zoroaster's religion are purely abstractions; the concrete gods of vulgar belief being set aside. All those who do not belong to the devils (devas), might be recognized as inferior servants of Ahuramazda: chief among them being the Sun-god Mithras (see Mithras); the goddess of vegetation and fertility, especially of the Oxus-stream, Anāhita Ardvisura (Anaitis); and the Dragon-slayer Verethraghna (Gr. Artagnes), with the god of the intoxicating Haoma (the Indian Soma). In the religion of the people, these divinities always survived; and the popularity of Mithras is evinced by the numerous Aryan proper names thence derived (Mithradates, &c.). The educated community who had embraced the pure doctrine in its completeness scarcely recognized them, and the inscriptions of Darius ignore them. Only once he speaks of “the gods of the clans,” and once of “the other gods which there are.” Not till the time of Artaxerxes II. were Mithra and Anaitis received into the official religion of the Persian kings. But they always played a leading part in the propaganda of the Persian cults in the West.
Only one element in the old Aryan belief was preserved by Zoroaster in all its sanctity: that of Fire—the purest manifestation of Ahuramazda and the powers of Good. Thus fire-altars were everywhere erected; and, to the prophet also, the Fire-kindlers (āthravan) were the ministers and priests of the true religion and the intermediaries between God and man; at last in the popular mind, Zoroastrianism was identified with Fire-worship pure and simple,—inadequate though the term in reality is, as a description of its essentials.
Midway in this opposition of the powers of Good and Evil, man is placed. He has to choose on which side he will stand: he is called to serve the powers of Good: his duty lies in speaking the truth and combating the lie. And this is fulfilled when he obeys the cornmands of law and the true order; when he tends his cattle and fields, in contrast with the lawless and predatory nomad (Dahae); when he wars on all harmful and evil creatures, and on the devil-worshippers; when he keeps free from pollution the pure creations of Ahuramazda—fire foremost, but also earth and water; and, above all, when he practises the Good and True in thought, word and work. And as his deeds are, so shall be his fate and his future lot on the Day of judgment; when he must cross the Bridge Cinvat, which, according to his works, will either guide him to the Paradise of Ahuramazda or precipitate him to the Hell of Ahriman. Obviously, it was through this preaching of a judgment to come and a direct moral responsibility of the individual man, that, like Mahomet among the Arabs, Zoroaster and his disciples gained their adherents and exercised their greatest influence.
In this creed of Zoroastrianism three important points are especially to be emphasized: for on them depend its peculiar characteristics and historical significance:—
1. The abstractions which it preaches are not products of metaphysical speculation, as in India, but rather the ethical forces which dominate human life. They impose a duty upon man, and enjoin on him a positive line of action—a definite activity in the world. And this world he is not to eschew, like the Brahman and the Buddhist, but to work in it, enjoying existence and life to the full. Thus a man's birthday is counted the highest festival (Herod. i. 133); and thus the joie de vivre, rich banquets and carousals are not rejected by the Persian as godless and worldly, but are even prescribed by his religion. To create offspring and people the world with servants of Ahuramazda is the duty of every true believer.[1]
2. This religion grew up in the midst of a settled peasant population, whose mode of life and views it regards as the natural disposition of things. Consequently, it is at once a product of, and a main factor in civilization; and is thereby sharply differentiated from the Israelite religion, with whose moral precepts it otherwise coincides so frequently.
3. The preaching of Zoroaster is directed to each individual man, and requires of him that he shall choose his position with regard to the fundamental problems of life and religion. Thus, even though it arose from national views, in its essence it is not national (as, for instance, the Israelite creed), but individualistic, and at the same time universal. From the first, it aims at propaganda; and the nationality of the convert is a matter of indifference. So Zoroaster himself converted the Turanian Fryana with his kindred (see above); and the same tendency to proselytize alien peoples survived in his religion. Zoroastrianism, in fact, is the first creed to work by missions or to lay claim to universality of acceptance. It was, however, only natural that its adherents should be won, first and chiefly, among the countrymen of the prophet, and its further success in gaining over all the Iranian tribes gave it a national stamp. So the Susan translation of Darius' Behistun inscription
- ↑ These ideas are strongly exposed in a polemic against the Christians contained in an official edict of the Persian creed to the Armenians by Mihr Narseh, the vizier of Yazdelgerd II. (about A.D. 450), preserved by the Armenian historian, Elishe.
