I never knew Zorro drove a Mazda. Interesting!
Posted on 04/13/2011 3:52:31 AM PDT by Cronos
I thought this would be an interesting article to educate many who don’t know about other religions
ping. note — the number 250,000 is incorrect — odds has identified that the real number is closer to 2 million and there may be quite a few hidden Zoroastrians in Iran
Very interesting. Is Zoroastrianism dieing or is it still going strong??
I could see elements of all three great religions as well as Buddism. Interesting.
Thus Spake Zarathustra.
In India the group has around five deaths to each birth, so I wouldn’t expect them to be around long. Partly this is because the younger Parsees mostly emigrate.
I’ve learned that when it comes to most other religions, lots of folks simply make up what they don’t know.
Thanks, that was interesting.
I find it fascinating that all major religions have some aspects of Christianity in their teachings. Examples would be self denial in Buddhism and fidelity in Islam.
They just all lack a God that would make a supreme sacrifice for his creation.
Interesting bit of trivia: it’s not a coincidence of language - the Japanese Mazda automobile corporation is actually named after Ahura Mazda.
I thought it was dying at just 50,000 and dwindling in India, but odds pointed out to me reports that there are actually 2 million Zoroastrians in the world and not only that, but they are also finding fertile ground in Iran. I always knew that many Iranis hate the Ayatollahs (met quite a few in Britain where they can speakfreely) and hate the yoke of Islam. From that to accepting their ancient religion of Zoroastrianism is just a short step.
Interesting bit of trivia: it’s not a coincidence of language - the Japanese Mazda automobile corporation is actually named after Ahura Mazda.
Actually, it’s named after the founder Jujiro Matsuda. It’s just that non-Japanese can’t pronounce Matsuda well.
From Buddhism there will be a linkage as both stem from Aryanic religions -- the Zoroastrians from Iranic and the buddhists from Indic
I think if you look at Aryanic/Indo-European religion, the basic idea is of two families of god -- Devas/Daevas and Asuras/Ahuras
In the lowest form, the Nordics these are two nearly equal "families" of the Aesir and Vanir. In the Celtic this may be the basis for fairies.
In Greek (highly developed) and Latin (not developed but borrowed heavily from the Greeks, Etruscans, Phoenicians etc.) there is one family (Olympians) overthrowing an early, related family (Titans) -- names of the gods also tie across the three (Deus in Latin, Zeus in greek, Dyaus Pitr in Sanskrit -- meaning sky father)
In the advanced religions of Indo-Irani Aryanic cultures you see the highest development of these. among Indics you see the initial thrust of equal levels of gods, with in fact the higher Devas like Varuna or Agni called Asura almost like "Sir God!", but later Vedic Hinduism sees the Asuras reduced to lesser supernatural beings (not quite demons), then post Jainism (700 BC) and Buddhism (400 BC) the Asuras become evil supernatural beings and post the influence of Christianity (Christianity reached India in Apostolic times thanks to St. Thomas), the Asuras became demons
in Iran the opposite happened with the Ahuras ("s" in Indic becomes "h" in Irani languages hence Sindhus became Hindus) gaining prominence and the Daevas becoming purely gods of the hearth (akin to the Roman "genius" of the house), until Zoroaster came along and said all of these are just symbols/not gods - the real God is Ahura Mazda the God of Light and his counter-force Aingra Mainyu
Buddhism arose out of Vedic hinduism, but more clearly out of Jainism (founded by Mahavira Jaina in 700 BC but claiming eternal existence)
Jainism arose from a time when Vedic Hinduism was decaying. Vedic Hinduism which predates 1700 BC (supposed to be the time when the Rig Veda was composed) details a religion that has a strong emphasis on yagnas i.e. fire sacrifices including horse sacrifices (the highest sacrifice indicating the horseback origins of the Indo-Europeans like the Hittites in Anatolia) and then the Rishis (holy men who meditated a lot and had powers) dominating Hinduism.
Hinduism also began to stagnate as monasticism reached its peak and then Jainism came with the radical strong ahimsa, utter veganism, etc. ideas. along with the rejection of a creator deity and indeed of creation or destruction.
Buddhism took this and made it "lighter"
I don’t quite trust Bahai’ism — it being too syncretic in my opinion. It is still there in Iran to my knowledge, but heavily persecuted (far more than Christians or even Jews as Bahai’ism preaching a new prophet undermines Islam incredibly)
“The company’s name, “Mazda,” derives from Ahura Mazda, a god of the earliest civilizations in West Asia. We have interpreted Ahura Mazda, the god of wisdom, intelligence and harmony, as the symbol of the origin of both Eastern and Western civilizations, and also as a symbol of automobile culture. It incorporates a desire to achieve world peace and the development of the automobile manufacturing industry. It also derives from the name of our founder, Jujiro Matsuda.”
http://www.mazda.com/profile/vision/
True, we all do that -- me too :)
There are still a few hundred thousand Bahais in Iran, with their leaders in jail they’re keeping a low profile.
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