Zoroastrianism

An Introduction

Jenny Rose

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780857735485
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Zoroastrianism is one of the world's great ancient religions. In present-day Iran, significant communities of Zoroastrians (who take their name from the founder of the faith, the remarkable religious reformer Zoroaster) still practise the rituals and teach the moral precepts that once undergirded the officially state-sanctioned faith of the mighty Sasanian empire. Beyond Iran, the Zoroastrian disapora is significant especially in India, where the Gujarati-speaking community of emigrants from post-Sasanian Iran call themselves 'Parsis'. But there are also significant Zoroastrian communities to be found elsewhere, such as in the USA, Britain and Canada, where western cultural contexts have shaped the religion in intriguing ways and directions. This new, thorough and wide-ranging introduction will appeal to anyone interested in discovering more about the faith that bequeathed the contrasting words 'Magi' and 'magic', and whose adherents still live according to the code of 'Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.' The central Zoroastrian concept that human beings are continually faced with a choice between the path of 'good' and 'evil', represented by the contrasting figures of Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, inspired thinkers as diverse as Voltaire, Mozart and Nietzsche. Jenny Rose shows why Zoroastrianism remains one of the world's most inspiring and perennially fascinating systems of ethics and belief. 'Jenny Rose's lively and engaging account comprises a very readable, well informed survey of Zoroastrianism and its history. The book is a pleasure to read throughout, and the author's writing style is markedly beautiful, placing her very much within Mary Boyce's literary tradition. Rose has read widely round the subject, engaging with important primary and secondary sources and rendering her thorough treatment of Zoroastrianism fully up-to-date. I particularly welcomed her valuable discussion of Zoroastrianism in Central Asia. All in all, the book is a fine example of considered synthesis and compression. This is a book one wants to read from beginning to end without putting it down. It will find a warm welcome from students of the subject and their teachers.'
- Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Professor of Zoroastrianism, SOAS, University of London

Chapter I

Zoroastrians Present and Past

This I ask you, tell me truly, O Ahura

Who was the first father of Order and gave it birth?

Gathas 2.44.3–4¹

‘There is lately published in Paris, a Work intitled Zend-Avesta, or the Writings of Zoroaster, containing the Theological, Philosophical and Moral Ideas of that Legislator, and the ceremonies of Religious Worship that he established…. I have cast my Eye over the Religious Part; it seems to contain a nice Morality, mix’d with abundance of Prayers, Ceremonies and Observations.’

A letter from Benjamin Franklin, London, 1772²

Zoroastrians Now: A Living Faith

Our exploration of Zoroastrianism begins with the question, ‘Who is a Zoroastrian?’ This is a question that in recent years has divided Zoroastrians to the extent that some consider there to be at least two, if not more, forms of the religion today, each one considering itself to be authentic. Opinions diverge on correlated issues of theology, including textual translation and interpretation, conversion, interfaith marriage and disposal of the dead. The range of attendant selfdefinitions will be considered in more detail later, but for the purposes of introducing Zoroastrianism as a lived and living faith, the immediate focus will be on normative praxis. I have chosen this approach because it spotlights an area of the religion that remains vital to its adherents and that addresses in a pragmatic way those ultimate, existentialist questions to do with the purpose and meaning of life: Where do we come from? Why are we here? What happens when we die? What powers do we have to shape our own existence and ending? The answers to such questions enable humans to make sense of the world in which they find themselves.

Such answers as religion provides tend to be couched within a cosmology that establishes an order to existence. Although a clear moral philosophy underpins all Zoroastrian ‘faith in action’, it is the pattern of daily prayers, seasonal rituals, social celebrations and acts of philanthropy that gives a concrete sense of cohesion and continuity for most Zoroastrians, and is their main form of public religious expression. Such concrete expression is an example of the concept that moral understanding has a social reference extending beyond individual rights to the wider community. The notion of a ‘connectedness in prayer’ among co-religionists is articulated in the Parsi-Gujarati term hambandagi (literally, ‘bondedness together’),³ which embodies the sense that the pursuit of goodness is not just a means but an end, leading to cooperation and harmony.

I experienced this ‘community unity’ for myself when, in the late spring of 2009, I spent a few days in the central Iranian province of Yazd. A Zoroastrian colleague from California was also in the area at the time, and together we visited some of the small villages on the outskirts of the city of Yazd. As we wandered past the adobe-covered buildings of one village, we encountered a couple of elderly women wearing colorful headscarves. My colleague, Jamshid, used the Dari greeting ‘Rujkoryak’, a variant on Persian ‘Ruzgar-e nik’ meaning ‘Good Day’, rather than the pan-Islamic ‘Salaam aleikum’. This brought an instant recognition that Jamshid was of the same faith, and an invitation to follow the women down the road to the village hall, where a community seasonal celebration – a gahanbar – was taking place.

In a plain, whitewashed room, a mobedyar⁴ sat on the floor, his knee nudging a folded cloth filled with seven kinds of dried fruits, dates, chickpeas and nuts, which constitute the lork – the festival food shared among the community at the end of the recitation of the gahanbar prayers (Fig. 1). Members of the community either sat in the hall or chatted quietly together in a reception room just outside, counting off the prayers as they were recited.

This was the second gahanbar we had been invited to in as many days, and we encountered another in a neighboring village on the following evening. These successive gahanbars celebrated the midspring season traditionally called Maidhyoi-zaremaya, a (Young) Avestan word meaning ‘mid-greening’, in allusion to the growth of crops sown in late winter or early spring. That such pastoral references have endured for over 2,500 years is attested in the farmers’ calendar of Old Persian (OP) inscriptions. A sixth century CE Middle Persian (MP) text advocates the importance of observing gahanbars as an integral part of ‘the ordered existence’,⁵ and they are recommended in a later New Persian (NP) text as being among the duties prescribed for all Zoroastrians.⁶ Participation in such community festivals provides a sense of being part of an unbroken chain of practice that is constantly acting to revitalize the elements of the created world, including the humans who participate. This holistic conception of humans as agents of healing in the world is an ancient notion that is expressed in the Gathas, the earliest texts of the religion, and it remains integral to the Zoroastrian ethos.

Fig. 1. Gahanbar celebration in the community prayer hall, Mazra-ye Kalantar, Yazd province, Iran.

Most Zoroastrian praxis can be viewed in this way – as activity intended to strengthen both adherents and the cosmos. A Middle Persian text proposes the idea that each person’s thoughts, words and actions have profound repercussions in the wider world.⁷ The individual is formally recognized as a participant in the work of reenergizing the world when he or she chooses to adopt the ethical outworking of the code of ‘Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds’ at an initiation ceremony. For many Parsi (Indian) Zoroastrians, the post-initiation practice of wearing the sudreh (white cotton shirt worn under clothing) and kusti (cord worn around the waist over the shirt) acts as a constant reminder of this ethical imperative. The sudreh has a small pocket at the front to encourage the accumulation of good deeds, and the kusti is wrapped around the waist three times to remind the wearer to generate good thoughts, good words and good deeds at all times. In a passage from the Chimi Kustig (‘Reasons for the kusti’), a father explains to his ‘knowledgedesiring’ son that the reason for tying the cord around the waist is that the body of a human is ‘a world in miniature’.⁸ In other words, humans are a microcosmic representation of the macrocosm. The three tassels on each end of the kusti are said to remind the wearer of the six gahanbars, the seasonal festivals celebrating the cycle of growth and the order of the year. So, the person who wears the kusti affirms his or her part in sustaining that growth and order.

Traditionally, the age of religious maturity for Zoroastrians is 15 years old (Vd 18.54), but initiations can take place from the age of seven. A Parsi initiate is referred to as Navjote, usually translated as ‘new person who offers prayers’, but sometimes as ‘new birth’. The Persian term for the initiation ceremony of Iranian Zoroastrians is Sedreh-Pushi, ‘the putting on of the sacred shirt’. The format and symbolism of the initiation ceremony is the same for boys and girls, and are said to date back to ancient times (Fig. 2). The kusti may be linked to the same ancient tradition as the sacred thread of Hindu initiation.

One young Parsi acquaintance of mine, Burzin, who comes from a priestly family, had his navjote ceremony performed by his father a couple of years ago. Burzin says that he has been asked many times about his religion and the sudreh-kusti he wears: ‘Once I explain it to my friends at school most of them understand. I wear these garments regularly, except when I am in the gym or go swimming, I remove my kusti because I am afraid somebody might pull it by mistake and break it.’ Some younger Zoroastrians in diaspora communities may decide not to wear the sacred garments for fear of taunts or teasing by their peers, while others claim that the practice has no material value, being more of a psychological prop or a symbolic gesture. On the other hand, some choose to put on the sudreh and kusti and to say the accompanying prayers as a means of focusing their intentionality, and to further their spiritual development and that sense of hambandagi.

Since his navjote, Burzin has taken the further step of being ordained as a priest in the navar ceremony, the first initiation into priesthood. Both he and his father, Poras, speak of the encouragement they receive from the community, and the sense of reward they feel through serving their Zoroastrian community in the USA. Although the Zoroastrian priesthood remains exclusively male, and the texts have been composed, transmitted and interpreted by males, women have also contributed significantly to the perpetuation of the religion throughout history. Until the mid-twentieth century, this contribution was largely within the sphere of domestic praxis, including the education of children in their daily prayers, the preparation of the home and community meeting-place for rituals, and social welfare, such as making soup for the needy. This lay activity, sustained for centuries, forms the bedrock on which much popular religious expression is founded.

Fig. 2. Navjote (initiation) ceremony attended during the author’s first visit to Bombay in 1987.

One such activity is the ritual of perfuming the house with sweetsmelling herbs or incense, which is still regularly performed by Zoroastrians in Iran and India and, to a lesser extent, in diaspora. Iranian Zoroastrians use rue or marjoram, Parsis use sandalwood and loban, a tree-resin. My friend Anahita grew up in a Zoroastrian household in Karachi, Pakistan, where, no matter how hectic things were, her mother would do this ritual after saying her kusti prayers in the morning. Anahita remembers her grandmother and aunts performing the same ritual each day. In her husband’s family, it was the father who walked through the house with the incense. In some homes, this ritual is performed at sunset as well. When Anahita arrived in America, although she lit an oil lamp on special occasions, such as birthdays or Nav Ruz (New Year: literally ‘New Day’), she did not perform the morning incense ritual until one of her aunts gave her a small fire-holder. Now, on Sundays, or before she sits to pray with the prayer book (Khordeh Avesta), she will walk around the house with the loban and chant a prayer for the health and well-being of its inhabitants. This allows the smoke and aroma of the incense to waft through her home.

Anahita comments, ‘Friends who visit us within an hour of the loban will often comment how pleasant it feels.’ The loban spreads fragrance both literally and figuratively: ‘Just as the fire burns brightly, but the sweet aroma of sandalwood and loban leaves behind a fragrance, similarly I promise to lead a useful life filled with good deeds that will leave a memorable mark on the world.’ The pungent smell of the incense is intended to imbue the house and its occupants with good thoughts, and also to keep bugs away. The maintenance of the home as a physical stronghold against harm is also sustained in both India and Iran through an early morning sweeping of the house and scouring of the front porch.

Such practices incorporate the ancient understanding that both the conceptual (menog) and corporeal (getig) worlds are to be cared for and sustained by the faithful. The ‘dualism’ that is often attributed to the Zoroastrian religion is not so much a division between mind and matter, but rather a vertical split between good and evil (see Fig. 3). The dialectical process that engages each Zoroastrian is based on the premise that the actualities of life are intrinsically good, but that the harmony and growth of both the individual and the collective whole are threatened by chaos, confusion and destruction.

The rise of a materialist worldview that poses new challenges concerning the efficacy of any ritual has been accompanied by a correlate decline in status and nu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author biography
• I.B.TAURIS INTRODUCTIONS TO RELIGION
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Maps
• Zoroastrianism: An Introduction
• Chapter I: Zoroastrians Present and Past
• Chapter II: The Ancient Persians: Truth-Tellers and Paradise-Builders
• Chapter III: A Zoroastrian Presence from Seleucia to Sistan: The Parthian Period
• Chapter IV: Eranshahr: The Sasanian Center of the World
• Chapter V: The Zoroastrians of Central Asia
• Chapter VI: Gabr-Mahalle: Zoroastrians in Islamic Iran
• Chapter VII: Parsipanu: Zoroastrianism in India
• Chapter VIII: Zoroastrians Present: Revisited
• Chapter IX: Zarathushtra Present and Past
• Appendix 1: Textual Timeline
• Appendix 2: The Five Gathas
• Appendix 3: Outline of the Yasna
• Appendix 4: A Selective Historical Timeline
• Glossary of Names and Terms
• Illustration, Map and Picture Credits
• Notes
• Select Resources