Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is the ancient pre-Islamic religion of Iran that survives there in isolated areas and, more prosperously, in India, where the descendants of Zoroastrian Iranian (Persian) immigrants are known as Parses, or Pareses. In India the religion is call Parsiism. Founded by the Iranian prophet and reformer Zoroaster in the 6th century BC, the religion contains both monotheistic and dualistic features. It influenced the other major Western religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The ancient Greeks saw in Zoroastrianism the archetype of the dualistic view of the world and of man's destiny. Zoroaster was supposed to have instructed Pythagoras in Babylon and to have inspired the Chaldean doctrines of astrology and magic, could be considered the arch-heretic. In more recent times the study of Zorastrianism has played a decisive part in reconstructing the religion and social structure of the Indo-European peoples. Though Zoroastrianism was never, even in the thinking of its founder, as aggressively monotheistic as, for instance, Judaism or Islam, it does represent an original attempt at unifying under the worship of one supreme god a polytheistic religion comparable to those of the ancient Greeks, Latins, Indians and other early peoples.

Its other salient feature, namely dualism, was never understood in an absolute, rigorous fashion. Good and Evil fight an unequal battle in which the former is assured of triumph. God's omnipotence is thus only temporarily limited. In this struggle man must enlist because of his capacity of free choice. He does so with his soul and body, not against his body, for the opposition between good and evil is not the same as the one between spirit and matter. Contrary to the Christian or Manichaean attitude, fasting and celibacy are proscribed, except as part of the purifacatory ritual. Man's fight has a negative aspect, nonetheless: he must keep himself pure; i.e., avoid defilement by the forces of death, contact with dead matter, etc. Thus Zoroastrian ethics, although in itself lofty and rational, has a ritual aspect that is all percading. On the whole, Zoroastrianism is optimistic and has remained so even though the hardship and oppression of its believers.

The religion of Iran before the time of Zoroaster...

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...tises written during the brief renascence under Islam in the 9th century. Finally there are books written in Persian, either in verse or in prose. The latter include the correspondence exchanged between the Aoroastirians of Iran and India and the teatise.

Zoroastrianism is not the purely ethical religion it may at first seem. In practice, despite the doctrine of free choice, a Zoroastrian is so constantly involved in a meticulous struggle against the contamination of death and the thousand causes of defilement, and against the threat, even in his sleep, of ever present demons, that he does not often believe that he is leading his life freely and morally.

Apart from this attitude, the belief in the power of destiny sometimes culminates in fatalism. The latter is easily associated with Zurvanism, itself sometimes tainted with materialism. In the it is stated that though one be armed with the valor and strength of wisdom and knowledge, yet it is not possible to strive against the fate. On the whole, however, as RC Zeahner notes, the theological premisses of Zorastrianism are based on an essentially moralistic view of life.