Religions of Iran

From Prehistory to the Present

Richard Foltz

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780743097
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

A sweeping new work exploring Iran's cultural import and influence on each of the world's major religions Today it is Iran's association with Islam that commands discussion and debate. But this perception obscures a far more influential and complex relationship with religion. Iran has in fact played an unparalleled role in shaping all the world religions, injecting Iranian ideas into the Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim traditions. This vivid and surprising work explores the manner in which Persian culture has interacted with and transformed each world faith, from the migration of the Israelites to Iran thousands of years ago, to the influence of Iranian notions on Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity. Travelling through thousands of years of history, Foltz's powerful and evocative journey uncovers a vital and fresh account of our spiritual heritage in this fascinating region.

Part 1

ANCIENT IRANIAN RELIGIONS

1

The Origins of Iranian Religion

Iranian cultural identity has been strong for over twenty-five centuries, yet it remains hard to define. The notion of “Iranian” as contrasted with “non-Iranian” (anērān) dates at least back to Achæmenid times (ca. 550–330 BCE), but even then the Iranian lands were considered to include non-Iranians, and the relationship between “Iranian” (aryān) and “Persian” (pārsa) was, as it remains today, somewhat confused. In the famous inscriptions at Naqš-e Rostam, Darius I describes himself as “an Achæmenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage” (haxāmanišiya pārsa pārsahayā puça ariya ariya ciça).¹

It is possible, however, to point out at least two features that have been strongly associated with Iranian identity throughout history. One is land—broadly speaking, the so-called Iranian plateau, which occupies the nexus between the Caucasus Mountains, the Mesopotamian plain, and the high mountain ranges of Central Asia (Middle Persian (MP.) Ērānšahr, New Persian (NP.) Īrānzamīn). The other is language—broadly, again, the Iranian branch of the so-called Indo-European family of languages, but often more specifically the language known as Persian, which is the official language of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as being one of the official languages of Afghanistan (where it is called darī) and Tajikistan (where it is called tojīkī).² “Farsi” (fārsī) is the Persian term for Persian, like deutsch for German or russkii for Russian. The English word for Persian is “Persian.”

In past times Persian was also the administrative and literary language of non-Iranian regions such as the Indian subcontinent and Anatolia. It is important to note that Iranian identity merely requires a strong affinity for the land and language, since many Iranians do not live in Iran, and many others even in Iran speak (or write) Persian only as a second language.

INDO-EUROPEANS AND THE SEARCH FOR ORIGINS

In Iran’s case, land and language came together during a period some three thousand years ago, following several centuries of southerly migration by nomadic bands of Proto-Iranian speakers from their previous home in western Siberia.³ These ancient Iranians, including the ancestors of the Medes, the Parthians, and the Persians, came into contact with the existing inhabitants of the regions south of the Caspian Sea, such as Hurrians, Kassites, Elamites and others, with whom they mixed and who eventually became Iranicized. Further east, some of their Indo-Iranian cousins became integrated into the more advanced Central Asian society, as attested by remains found within the Bactriana-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), while others continued their southeastward migration into the heavily populated Indian subcontinent.

These migrations highlight why it is a mistake to equate language with ethnicity, since when different human groups come into contact they typically blend their traditions over time, but with some cultural artefacts—for example, the language of one group—eventually taking over at the expense of the other. We should therefore understand that Etruscans, Aztecs, and others did not “die out” or become exterminated, so much as adopt the language (Latin, Spanish) and many of the customs and beliefs of their conquerors. The same is true for the ancient inhabitants of the Iranian plateau. What is less apparent are the influences that went the other way, from conquered peoples to their conquerors, but in many cases these can, at least to some extent, be surmised.

Since historically speaking this process of encounter and mutual influence ultimately takes the form of infinite regression, the same remarks could be made about the constitution of prehistoric peoples of the Central Eurasian steppes, whose ethnic or racial homogeneity cannot be presumed. Their culture must already have been a composite of previous encounters between distinct groups of people, including the inhabitants of the so-called BMAC.⁴ But beyond a certain point, the details disappear over the horizon of history like a ship sailing into the sunset.

Thus, in attempting to reconstruct the cultural and belief system of the Iranians’ prehistoric ancestors, we must be content to abandon our quest for “ultimate” origins and focus our attention on the period about six thousand years ago (give or take a millennium or so), long before these peoples began their migration into what is now Iran. By applying the methodologies of historical linguistics to literary vestiges which survive in various languages of the so-called Indo-European family (which includes the Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Greek, Slavic, Iranian, Indic, and many other branches), and combining this understanding with archaeological evidence from areas where these languages came to be spoken, scholars have begun to form a picture of the culture of the prehistoric steppe peoples who spoke the ancestor language now referred to as “Proto-Indo-European,” or PIE.

For example, common derivations of the name for the sky god worshiped as “Father” (*ph₂tḗr) by the PIEs, *deiwós,⁵ can be found in many Indo-European languages: Ju(piter) in Latin, Zeus in Greek, and Tiw in Old English—Tuesday (Tiw’s day) being originally devoted to him. The Iranian and Indian variants, Dyaoš and Dyáus(-pitar), respectively, refer to a deity who had become remote and was no longer worshiped by the time the Avestan and Vedic texts were composed. Other common roots suggest elements of the PIEs’ technology (*k^wek^wlóm → “cycle”, “wheel”), economy (*g^wōus → “cow”), environment (*bherh_x ĝos → “birch [tree]”), and so on.

The Aryans

Efforts have been made to reconstruct the PIE language itself; its grammar as well as its vocabulary, through comparisons of later languages which are genetically related, and projecting back in time transformations that are known from the laws of linguistics. However, since the PIE language was never written, such attempts are ultimately speculative.

Among the hundreds of Indo-European roots reconstructed by modern scholars, one finds the word *h₄eryos, likely meaning “member of our own group.”⁶ A later Indo-Iranian form, *arya, seems to have acquired the meaning “noble,” and became the principal self-designation (that is, Aryan) used by the ancestors of Iranian-speakers, who also applied the term to the lands where they eventually settled, which they referred to as Airyanəm vaējah. (The Vedic term Āryavarta has the same meaning, and the Irish name for Ireland, Eire, from the Old Irish aire, “freeman,” may reflect a similar notion.) In Middle Persian the term became Ērān-vēj, which is today’s Iran. Thus, etymologically, “Iran” means “Land of the Noble.”

Attempts during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to construct a theory of racial superiority on the basis of a purported “Aryan” heritage constitute one of the most egregious examples of how history can be abused through inappropriate back-projection. Ironically, during the earlier part of the nineteenth century, European scholars searching for an “original” Indo-European homeland tended to favor the Indian subcontinent, based on their assumption, now regarded as inaccurate, that Sanskrit represented an older form than other ancient Indo-European languages. By the end of that century the pendulum had swung the other way, with racialist theories resisting the notion that European civilization might owe anything to the non-white peoples they had colonized. Still later, with the reassertion of Indian (and specifically Hindu) identity in the wake of independence, within India an “indigenous Aryan” theory was championed once again, though it has not gained credence outside the subcontinent.⁷

Although the controversy over Indo-European origins remains a live one, continuing to treat it as a competition is surely a misplaced endeavour. Despite nineteenth-century European romanticism on the subject of Aryans and apart from the obvious perversions of the term perpetrated by the Nazis, PIE society seems a peculiar choice as an example of early “civilization,” since by the standards of their own time they were far less “civilized” than the various societies—Old European, Minoan, Mesopotamian, Indus—they appear in many cases to have subdued. (One should note that “civilizations” are almost always brought down by “barbarians.”) Moreover, from a twenty-first century perspective the most distinguishing characteristics of this society, which include patriarchy, aggressiveness, social stratification, and illiteracy, would hardly offer an inspiring model, although Christopher Beckwith has recently made a grand attempt to rehabilitate them.⁸

Probable Homeland and Cultural Features

Based on the available linguistic and archaeological evidence, it seems most likely that the PIE-speaking peoples lived in the area of the southern Russian steppe, ranging from what is now Ukraine to western Kazakhstan.⁹ Recent research has supported an alternate theory previously advanced by Colin Renfrew, placing the PIE homeland in Anatolia several millennia earlier, but even if true this could represent merely an earlier stage in their migration history.¹⁰

Their mixed agricultural and pastoral nomadic existence was precarious even by prehistoric standards, since they occupied lands subject to an extreme continental climate of very cold winters and very hot summers, along with very little rainfall. They were a people living on the margins, both literally and metaphorically. To the great civilizations with which they were contemporary—those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus valley, and eventually China—they were entirely peripheral, though there must have been some occasional contact with Mesopotamia across the Caucasus Mountains. And in terms of their subsistence lifestyle, the harsh ecology of their environment must have kept them more or less constantly on the edge of survival.

It may be assumed that the particular life circumstances of the PIE-speakers significantly influenced their culture and belief system. This hypothesis is consistent with much of what survives as distinctively Indo-European elements in the worldviews of historical cultures (especially where these survivals seem more compatible with the realities of steppe pastoralism than, say, those of agrarian India or even worse, industrial Germany!). Indeed, part of the enterprise of reconstructing this ancient culture, in the absence of any documents of its own, entails resituating what appear in their later forms to be anomalies—as with the Hindu soma and Zoroastrian haoma rituals, which must be performed without access to the original sacred substance, or the horse sacrifice, which was abandoned for scarcity of horses—into a putative “original” context.

According to the views of most contemporary anthropologists, pastoralism is said to have developed after agriculture, and not before it.¹¹ Presumably the ancestors of the PIEs practiced agriculture, but having experienced the ecological constraints of their steppe environment, many of their descendants largely abandoned tilling the soil in favor of a pastoral nomadic economy augmented by raiding. They did keep domestic animals, especially cattle and sheep. Indeed, wealth and social status were apparently measured mainly in terms of cattle ownership. (Even much later in Ireland, bo airig, “cattle-owning,” was the Celtic term for a freeman.) The PIEs endowed the act of cattle raiding with a sacred importance, and raids were ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents 
• Preface
• A Note on Transliteration
• Historical Timeline
• List of Illustrations
• Part 1: Ancient Iranian Religions
• Part 2: Foreign Religions in Iran
• Part 3: Challenges to Sasanian Zoroastrianism
• Part 4: Islamic Iran
• Part 5: The Impact of Modernity
• Conclusion: The Ever-Expanding Pool of Iranian Religion
• Endnotes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Color Plate