History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 1

by Maneckji Nusservanji Dhalla

 

PRE-GATHIC PERIOD

FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO ABOUT 1000 B. C.

 

 

HISTORY OF ZOROASTRIANISM

 

CHAPTER I

 

THE SOURCES

 

The data of information. The materials that we gather for the preparation of the history of the religion that Zarathushtra preached in Ancient Iran come from varied sources. The earliest native records are embodied in the sacred texts in which the prophet and his immediate disciples propounded the new religion. These are furnished by the Avestan literature, which is followed by the Pahlavi and Pazend works and finally by the writings in Modern Persian down to the end of the eighteenth century.

Peoples of diverse faiths and nationalities have, likewise, written about Zoroaster and his teachings from the earliest to the modern times. Greeks and Romans and Christians in the Occident and Indians, Hebrews, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, and Chinese in the Orient have contributed to the fund of information on the subject. Zarathushtra has founded a new religion and we shall begin with the consideration of the materials used in the foundation, which are to be gleaned from the Avesta, the earliest literature produced by Iran.

The Avestan Nasks. Tradition credits Zarathushtra with having written profusely. Pliny states that the great philosopher Hermippus, who flourished in the early part of the third century before the Christian era, had studied some 2,000,000 verses composed by Zoroaster.^[1] The Arabic historians Tabari and Masudi state that the Zoroastrian texts were copied on 12,000 cowhides.^[2] Parsi tradition speaks of twenty-one Nasks or volumes written by Zarathushtra. These, we are informed, dealt with religion, philosophy, ethics, medicine, and various sciences. King Vishtaspa ordered two archetype copies of these sacred texts and deposited them in the libraries of Dizh-i Nipisht and Ganj-i Shapigan.^[3] One of these copies perished in the flames when Alexander burned the royal palace at Persepolis.^[4] The other copy, tradition maintains, was taken by the conquering hordes to their own country^ where it was rendered into Greek.^[5]

The collection of the scattered texts was begun under the last of the Arsacids and completed in the early Sasanian period. The twenty-one original Avestan Nasks were artificially made to correspond to the twenty-one words of the Ahuna Vairya formula. The holy Manthra is made up of three lines and the twenty-one Nasks were, likewise, divided into three equal parts of seven each to correspond with them. These three divisions are classified under the headings: Gasanik, that is, pertaining to the Gathas or devotional hymns, the Hadha Mansarik, which as Dinkard^[6] says, is intermediary between the Gathik and the last division, namely the Datik, which is that pertaining to law."^[7] It is estimated that the twenty-one volumes contained about 345,700 words of written text.^[8]

This canonical compilation has suffered heavily during the last thirteen centuries since the downfall of the last Zoroastrian empire in the seventh century. The entire collection of the Avestan texts that has reached us consists of about 83,000 words,^[9] that is, about one-fourth of the original twenty-one Nasks. The Vendidad is the one Nask that has survived the ravages of time in its complete form. Some of the lost Nasks are preserved in part in the Yasna, Yashts, and Nirangistan. We shall draw upon this Avestan material in our discussion of the Gathic and Avestan periods.

The Pahlavi, Pazend, and Persian sources. During the chaos that prevailed in Iran after the downfall of the Achaemenian empire, the Avestan language began to decay. When it grew unintelligible to the people, the learned priests undertook translations and explanations of the Avestan texts into Pahlavi, the new language which originated during the period. These commentaries on the original Avestan texts are called āzainti in Avesta, and zand in Pahlavi. The explanatory texts now came to be known as Avastak-u Zand or the Avesta and the commentaries. Pahlavi was the court language of the Sasanians and it survived the downfall of their empire by at least three centuries. Extensive Pahlavi literature that came into existence under the Sasanians has mostly perished. The works that have reached us were written after the downfall of the Sasanian empire, mostly during the Abbasid period. The compilation of the most important work of the period, the Dinkard, for example, was commenced by the learned high-priest Atarfarnbarg Farokhzad in the beginning of the ninth century and completed by one of his successors, Adarbad Hemed, towards the end of the ninth century. The Dinkard, Vijirkard-i Dinik, and the Persian Rivayets give us summaries of the lost Nasks. We gather from the contents of the lost Nasks given in the Dinkard that, with the exception of the eleventh Nask, altogether twenty Avestan Nasks, nineteen along with their Pahlavi commentaries and one without it, still existed in the ninth century. The greater part of these works has perished during the unsettled times when Persia fell under the barbarous rule of the Tartars. Pahlavi works on religious subjects that are extant consist of about 446,000 words.^[10]

With the invention of the modern Persian alphabet, Pahlavi fell into the background. An admixture of Aryan and Semitic make up the Pahlavi language as written. It was later simplified by the elimination of all Semitic words and replacing them with their Iranian equivalents. The original Avestan texts were explained and interpreted by the Pahlavi commentary which, as we saw, was called Zand. A further need was felt to make explanatory versions of the Pahlavi texts themselves. This further explanation and added commentary is called Pazand from the Avestan word paiti zainti. Short benedictory prayers are composed in Pazend as supplementary prayers to the original Avestan prayers. The Pazend texts were written in Avestan script. With the introduction of the Arabic script in Persia, the Pahlavi script fell into disuse.

Zoroastrian works came to be written in the modern Persian alphabet. A considerable literature, both in prose and poetry, has sprung up during the last seven centuries in Persian on Zoroastrian subjects.^[11] The Pahlavi and Pazend works originated in Persia, whereas both Persia and India contributed in the production of the Persian works.

Parsi-Sanskrit and Gujarati sources. An Indian school of Parsi Sanskritists of the thirteenth century, headed by Neryosang Dhaval, has translated some parts of the Avestan texts into Sanskrit from their Pahlavi version. Besides these, they have left for us the Sanskrit translation of a few Pahlavi works.

A considerable literature, in prose and verse, has appeared in Gujarati on Zoroastrian subjects in India. A Gujarati version of the Yasna and Vendidad and two renderings of the Khordah Avesta were published in the beginning of the nineteenth century, that is, before the influence of Western scholarship penetrated into India. Works written in Gujarati continue to be published to the present day.

Oriental sources. The Indo-Iranians shared a common religious heritage, and the Rig Veda furnishes us with the earliest sacred texts that are helpful in the better understanding of the religious beliefs of the pre-Gathic, Gathic, and the Younger Avestan periods of the history of Zoroastrianism. There are, likewise, scattered passages in the Vedas, Brahmanas, Smriti, and Puranas that refer to the Iranians and their religion. Judaism under the Exile was influenced by Zoroastrian teachings and furnishes us with points of resemblance between the angelology, demonology, and eschatology of the Iranians and the Hebrews. The Armenian historians Moses of Khoren and Elisaeus, the theologians Eznik and the Syrian Theodore bar Khoni, the Acts and Passions of Persian Saints and Martyrs, works written by Zoroastrian converts to Christianity, the Syriac, Armenian, Judaic, and Christian polemic literature against Zoroastrianism, and the writings of the Mandaeans are full of views held by those who opposed the state religion of Persia during the Sasanian period. A host of Arabic and Mohammedan Persian writers from the days of Ibn Khurdadhbah (a.d. 816) and al-Baladhuri (a.d. 851), al-Biruni (a.d. 973-1048), al-Shahrastani (a.d. 1086-1153), to Yakut (a.d, 1250), Kazwini (a.d. 1263), Mirkhond (a.d. 1432-1498) and Mohsan Fani (a.d. 1600-1670) give valuable information on our subject. There are stray passages in Chinese literature with reference to the religious beliefs and practices of the Zoroastrians.

Occidental sources. The contact of Persia with Greece began in the fifth century b.c. under the Achaemenians. It continued with Rome up to the middle of the seventh century a.d., to the last days of the Sasanians. Ktesias was the court physician of king Artaxerxes II. Xanthus and Herodotus began to acquaint their readers with the manners and customs and religious beliefs of the Persians. Hermippus (b.c. 250) is said to have studied the writings of Zarathushtra. Theopompus and Hermippus are the two writers upon whose writings on Persian religion the later writers have drawn considerably. Plutarch was familiar with the lost work of Theopompus and gives useful information on his authority. Diogenes Laertius says that Aristotle was familiar with the theory of Persian dualism. Plutarch, Strabo, and a few others write from their personal observation. Cicero, Pliny, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other Roman writers continued to write about Persia up to the Middle Ages. The writings of the earlier classical authors throw special light upon the religious beliefs and practices of the Achaemenians.

Inscriptions, coins, and tablets as the last source of information. The Old Persian Inscriptions with their Babylonian and New Elamitic renderings found at Behistan, Persepolis, Naqsh-i Rustam, Elvand, Susa, Kerman, and Suez; the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek inscriptions, together with the works of the ancient classical writers, furnish us with information about the religious beliefs and practices of the Achaemenians. The Pahlavi inscriptions, likewise, add to our knowledge of the religious life of the Sasanian period. The names of about ten Zoroastrian Amesha Spentas and Yazatas that appear on the coins of Indo-Scythic rulers of Northwestern India in Greek characters and the epigraphic texts in Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek contribute to the information that we get about Zoroastrianism from varied sources.

 

1. HN. 30. 2. 1.
2. Annales, i. 675; Masudi, ed. Barbier de Meynard, 2. 123.
3. Dk., vol. 9, p. 577.
4. Diodorus, 17. 72; Curtius, 5. 7; Dk., vol. 9, p. 569.
5. Dk., vol. 9, p. 569.
6. Dk. 8, 1, 7.
7. See Geldner, Avesta Literature, tr. by Mackichan in Avesta, Pahlavi, and Ancient Persian Studies in honour of Dastur Peshotanji B. Sanjana, p. 31.
8. So West in SBE., vol. 37, Introd. p. 45.
9. See Geldner, ib., p. 30.
10. See West, GIrPh. 2, 90, 91.
11. See West, GIrPh. 2. 122-129.