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The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism Hardcover – May 9, 2011
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length392 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLiterary Licensing, LLC
- Publication dateMay 9, 2011
- Dimensions7 x 0.88 x 10 inches
- ISBN-101258011468
- ISBN-13978-1258011468
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Product details
- Publisher : Literary Licensing, LLC (May 9, 2011)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 392 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1258011468
- ISBN-13 : 978-1258011468
- Item Weight : 1.97 pounds
- Dimensions : 7 x 0.88 x 10 inches
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Zaehner makes it admirably clear, though, that the ups and downs of Zoroastrianism didn't prevent it from exercising major influence on concurrent and later religions: Christianity, Mithraism, and Manicheism especially, but Judaism and Islam too. He explores in detail how the Zoroastrian mythos, theology, ritual, and teachings developed from the same Sanskrit roots as Hinduism, and how they gradually morphed - or were corrupted - into the Mithraic cult of the Hellenized Near East. Some of the parallels with Christianity, such as the similarity of the Zoroastrians' Haoma ritual to the Catholic conception of the Eucharist, are plumbed to pedantic depths that some readers may shy from. Useful illustrations show the Zoroastrian influences on art from early Achaemenids through the Mithraists and Parsees of India.
Overall this is an excellent book. Zaehner's scholarship is without peer, and his over-attention to detail is forgivable in an author so wholly the master of his subject. It is unfortunate that the only other flaw in the book - its somewhat stiff writing style - accentuated that problem. Nevertheless, I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of a religion with a strong, but too little known, influence on the sects and societies that followed it.
Zaehner goes to the very beginning: Zoroaster himself. He dates him to the traditional, but mostly now discredited, time of about 250 years before Alexander's conquest. The evidence for this comes from a single unreliable source, and most of the evidence indicates a time between 1600 and 1300 BCE. The primary line of evidence comes from the language and manner in which the Gathas, the songs of Zoroastrianism and the Avesta, the first scriptures are written: they indicate an undeveloped pastoral culture that had not yet begun to coalesce into a dominant Persian culture. The inaccuracy is not a big deal for this work. Zoroaster's ideas were truly revolutionary, to have a most dramatic impact on history in his singular development of the binary dualism of the cosmic sphere and metaphysical reality. He claimed there was one God worthy of worship, Ahura Mazda, who had one primary adversary, Angra Mainyu, who embodied the Lie and all that was evil. These beings were primal and respectively chose, according to the true natures, good and evil before the dawn of creation. Later to also be incorporated into certain sects of second Temple Judaism and in Christianity, these two beings were engaged in a cosmic battle for control over the world that would one day be finalized in an eschatological drama in Ahura's favor with the devil forever consigned to misery and torment. The prophet reduced the daevas, beings worshipped by the original Indo-Iranians to demons; they were the gods of the cattle raiders and symbolized cosmic chaos. The former benevolent deities were changed to the status of Amesha Spenta, emanations of the one God. Most likely, Zoroaster is also responsible for turning Indra, an important warrior-god, into a malevolent deity. In so doing, Zoroaster created the first unequivocally dualist religion, embodied by the strict separation of the good and the true from the bad and the false into two distinct beings, a religion which every man was to choose which side he was on.
The world was created by Ahura Mazda in order to help defeat the forces of evil, and was subsequently despoiled by Angra Mainyu who constantly attempted to thwart Ahura's will, an example being his sullying of glorious fire with smoke. Gaining the patronage of Vishtaspa, a northeasterly king, Zoroaster's message spread throughout the Iranian plateau. By the time Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon, the new religion had become the dominant one, although having been altered subsequent to his death, most likely by Magi, by a lessening of the strictness of the monotheistic claim. It became the official religion of the Persian Empire and there is clear evidence that at least by the time of Darius, it was the one that was faithfully adhered to by the nobles and general population. This ascendancy represents Zaehner's "dawn" of the religion.
Zaehner discusses various strains within Zoroastrianism in extensive detail: hard monotheism, Zurvanism, of which there were at least two distinct types, and Manichaeism. All of these represented misunderstandings or syncretistic alterations of the original faith. Orthodox Zoroastrianism was marked by an eschatological fervor, the first religion to exhibit such qualities. The present world would one day end, after the appearance of one of Zoroaster's miraculously conceived descendants, called the Saoshyant, the forces of the Lie would be defeated, and humans would be bodily resurrected into a new paradise that would last forevermore. In the end, grace would be universal: after punishment and purification of the followers of the Lie, all human beings would eventually participate in this blessed existence, a true and lasting victory for Ahura Mazda, while Angra Mainyu would be reduced to ruin for eternity.
Zoroastrianism thrived in Iran, competed with Christianity and Manichaeism, and eventually gave in to Islam, after holding out respectably. Today it is a minority faith with less than one million adherents, mostly in India and Iran. Its effect was to last to this day, however: Christianity, via Judaism, and Islam would adopt much of its teaching, primarily reflected in their ethical dualism and eschatology.
This is the seminal work on the faith and is an excellent resource and must own for the history of religion enthusiast.