RELIGIQUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Zonaras Zoroaster
They are regarded by ethnologists as forming with the Aryans who entered India from the northwest a section of the family named above, and the language of the Avesta is close in structure and formation to the Sanskrit. The native literature classifies peoples with reference to their attitude toward the Zoroastrian or ‘‘ Mazdayaznian” faith. Yet, as was the case with Mohammedanism (see Moxnammep, Monammepanism), the religious tie overcame the tribal, though great pride was always manifested in the common origin of the people. The hostility born of difference of race appears often in the scriptures, especially that toward the nomadic Turanians (Vendidad, iii. 11; Yasht, vil., x.). Prayers for protection from these are frequent. But opponents in faith were fair objects of raids, whatever their race, and the believer asked in his prayers for permission to snatch away from the enemy fields and herds. The foes, however, were not all of alien race; some Iranians rejected the truth and were reckoned among the adversaries. The sacred writings bear witness to their origin in a period of stress, caused in no little degree by the nomadic Turanians. True believers lived a life of hazard, and the faith won its way through persecution and conflict, based upon religious, racial, and economic grounds. The Avesta praises the agriculturist and the herdsman, for both reclaim the waste places, forward productiveness, and advance civilization (Vendidad, iii.). To the people physical perfection was a boon sought of deity, health and bodily vigor were highly prized. This lay in the very roots of the religion, since evil of all kinds, including physical defect and disease, were of Angra Mainyu. Width of chest, breadth of hips, high instep, and a clear eye were marks of a good physique. Man craved height of stature, litheness, strength, length of arm, and a goodly measurement around the calves; woman desired symmetry of form, a slender waist, large eyes, a blooming complexion, and welldeveloped bosom.
IfI. Sources: The principal sources for a knowledge of the religion of Zoroaster are (1) the literature emanating from the Zoroastrians themselves: (a) the so-called Zend-Avesta; (b) the Old-Persian inscriptions in Behistun, Naks-i-Rustem, and Persepolis; (c) a large number of writings in what is known as Pahlavi (see below, IV., §§ 8-9); (d) translations and fragments in Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic; and (2) reports of classical writers such as:. the ‘‘ History ”’ of Herodotus; citations from the “ Philippics ” of Theopompus (flourished ec. 340 B.c.) in Plutarch’s “Isis and Osiris,” xlvi—xlvii.; those from Hermippus in the writings of the younger Pliny (the loss of the work of Hermippus is irreparable, since there is considerable reason to think that it was an account of Zoroastrianism from the early sources in the then extant sacred books); and mention in Diogenes Laertius, Strabo, Dio Chrysostom, Pausanias, and other classical writers (these are most conveniently collected and with practical completeness in A. V. W. Jackson’s Zoroaster, New York, 1899); (3) a number of Persian writings, such as Firdusi’s Shah Namah.
IV. The Literature: Under the Sassanians the literature was very much more extensive than at
present. Evidence of the loss of much of the literature consists (1) in the tradition of the Parsees, who assert, e.g., that there were originally
1. Outline thirty Yasts, one for each day in the
History month; (2) in the Pahlavi translations
of the there are references to and citations Literature. from many lost books; (3) classic Persian and Arabic literature furnishes additional citations and references, as when Pliny speaks of 2,000,000 verses by Zoroaster (Hist. nat., xxx. 1-2), or when Pahlavi books speak of 1,200 chapters or Masudi tells of a copy of sacred writings on 12,000 cowhides; (4) an analysis of Zoroastrian sacred literature in Pahlavi made in the ninth century shows as either extant or at least then within knowledge a very much larger body than has remained to the present. The tradition of twentyone Nasks is fairly constant (as against the conceptually complete thirty), and the amount of this has been estimated as consisting of 345,700 words, while of the Pahlavi translations and commentaries the estimated extent was 2,094,200 words. The twenty-one Nasks asserted as existent under the Sassanidze were divided into three groups: the Gatha (“song ” or “ theological ’’) group, the legal group, and the mixed group. The names of these Nasks are known (for a list cf. SBH, vol. iv., pp. XXxiv.-xxxv.). Of the twenty-one only two remain entire, there are also the most important part of another, considerable sections from four others, and selections or fragments from eight besides. That the remains of a literature so vast are now comparatively scanty (though yet equaling in bulk the Iliad and the Odyssey) is attributed by the Parsees to Alexander’s destruction of one of the complete copies, and by losses under the Mohammedan conquest and during the subsequent removal to India of the Parsees. In spite of these losses, however, it may be remarked that the general outlines of the lost writings are given in the Pahlavi literature, notably in the Dinkart (ninth century a.D.).
The accounts are mixed up with theories that evince once again claims to an origin for the sacred books of Zoroastrianism similar to that made for his by the devotee of another faith. Thus, much as the Koran existed in a
Accounts heavenly exemplar communicated to
of the Mohammed by Gabriel, so the twenty- Scriptures. one Nasks were created by Ahura Mazda from the twenty-one words of the
Ahuna Vairya (one of the most sacred prayers of the faith). The Dinkart affirms that the Nasks were brought by Zoroaster to Vishtaspes, the king who was the first royal convert, who had two copies made, each on 12,000 ox-hides, one of which copies was placed in the treasury and the other in the record office. Zoroaster is credited with mental possession of the scriptures, so that a third copy is not in question. Alexander’s invasion is charged with the burning of one of these in the treasury, while it is asserted that the other was carried off by the Greeks and translated into their language. The most that can be said for this tradition is that there is likely a historical basis, and that sacred writings were lost at the time mentioned; but the Nask remaining (Vendidad) bears marks of a much later origin,
2. Native
Zoroaster