Posted on 12/23/2003 10:01:12 PM PST by freedom44
The opening bars of Richard Strauss composition Thus Spoke Zarathustra became famous as the theme for Stanle Kubricks 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. But apart from academics and some 300-thosuand believers, few people know much about ancient Iranian prophet Zarathustra and his teaching.
Yet only one thousand years ago, millions, millions espoused Zarathustras monotheistic percepts in nations which stretched from (the ancient Chinese city of) Sian (western China) to the Eastern China across central Asia, northern India, Iran, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia up Greece in the west and Arabia, north Africa and Ethiopia in the south, says Adi Davar, a board member of the World Zoroastrian Organization. Mr. Davar spoke at a recent seminar on Zoroastrian religion at the Library of Congress in Washington.
Zoroastrianism is based on the revelations of the Persian prophet Zarathustra, or Zoroaster in Greek. He taught that the world and everything in it was created by a Wise Lord, or Ahura Mazda. Before Zarathustra, Persians believed in multiple deities, as did most nomadic tribes at the time.
Stanley Isler, chairman of Iranian studies at Yale University, says Zarathustra was very impressed with nature and its ability for cyclical renewal. He believed repetition was the basis of knowledge, and people could learn everything from nature.
Surely, only a being of great power and wisdom was capable of fashioning the element of the cosmos and equally capable of creating the principle of truth that maintain their eternal design and rhythms, cites Professor Isler.
Internationally renowned conductor Zubin Mehta is a Parsi from Bombay. Creator Ahura Mazda is symbolized by light and fire, natures sources of life and energy. That is why Zoroastrians usually pray before a source of light, and an urn containing fire is a prominent feature of their place of worship. The good and wise lord Ahura Mazda is opposed by dark forces of evil. Zoroastrians believe truth is the source of all good and must be pursued in order to fight deceit, the source of evil. Since humans are created by a wise lord, they have an innate ability to discern good from evil. Zarathustra preaches three basic virtues: good thoughts, good words and good deeds. He says: "Happiness unto him who gives happiness unto others. Thus Zoroastrians value education and philanthropy. Lying, or deceit, represents a violation of basic Zoroastrian beliefs.
Cleanliness of the body as well as of the spirit is also very important. Dead and decaying bodies are considered extremely impure and so they must not contaminate water, air or earth, which are sources of life. Traditionally, Zoroastrians do not bury or burn dead bodies or throw them into water, but expose them to vultures. However, there is less emphasis on religious rites than there is on lifestyle choices.
Marriage is a lifelong commitment, often postponed for the sake of education. Inter-faith marriages and conversions have long been avoided, contributing to the decline in population. The conquest of Persia and spread of Islam, which started in the 7th century, dealt the first serious blow to Zoroastrians.
Relief depicting Persian King Darius, Iran. No one knows exactly when Zarathustra lived, but his origins are traditionally placed in the 6th century B.C. in the area of what is today north-eastern Iran. This would make him a contemporary of the Persians kings Cyrus or Darius. Many scholars think he lived earlier than that. Jehan Bagli, president of the North American Zoroastrian Council, says Zarathustras teachings were already widespread by that time.
Nowhere in these records do we find the mention of prophet Zarathustra, says Mr. Bagli. If the prophet was born 569 BCE and lived, as we know from the tradition, a little over 77 years, he would be contemporary with Darius the Great. It is inconceivable that the founder of the first monotheistic faith, who lived during the same time as these renowned monarchs, whose religion was spread across their vast empire and who was a mentor of the father of Darius, be so trivially overlooked. Mr Bagli adds: These circumstances certainly invalidate the traditional date.
Scholars say historic records of Zarathustras life may have been destroyed during two major invasions of Persia: one by Alexander the Great in 4th century B.C. and the other by Islamic tribes in the 7th century A.D. On both occasions fire temples and religious texts were burnt and many priests killed.
But there is evidence that the Avesta, the Zoroastrian equivalent of the Bible, contains Zarathustras original thoughts. Stanley Isler says the prophets hymns to God, or gathas, reveal much about his life and time: He tells us that he was a priest and a master of sacred words, a manthran someone who has power over the mantras, a word thats familiar to many. Yet, Zarathustra goes on to say he was rejected from his tribe and his community and driven from his land, forcing him to wander far and wide under great hardship and despair until finally he was accepted by a noble prince named Vishtaspa, who became his patron and ally.
Professor Isler notes the hymns also explain why the prophets own tribe exiled him. It was not only because he preached monotheism: He bitterly complains that evil rulers attacked just and innocent people, that the rich robbed the poor, that judges produced false decisions in order to aid their benefactors. And Zarathustra goes on to say that fury and violence terrorized the peoples on all fronts and that everywhere deceit and deception seemed to hold the upper hand.
The holy book also contains Zoroastrian prayers, rules of law and rituals. Until the 9th century AD, the Avesta was probably transmitted orally and modified along the way. Professor Isler says this makes it hard to discern truth from myth about the prophet. The 10th century persecution of Zoroastrians in Persia forced many either to convert or seek another place to live. A significant group settled in north-western India where they became known as Parsis, meaning Persians.
For a while, Parsis were growing in number and power. The city of Bombay became the center of Zoroastrianism, somewhat like Rome in the Catholic Church. But in the second half of the 20th century, the population of the Parsi-Zoroastrians fell by one third, from a peak of 114,000 in 1941 to 76,000 in 1991. In recent decades, Zoroastrians worldwide began forming local and international organizations and events to help fight their extinction. Adi Davar helped form one of these in 1980.
The World Zoroastrian Organization is an international organization of the global community of some 300-thousand Zoroastrians, says Mr. Davar and adds: Some 40-thousand of them live in North America and about a thousand in this metropolitan area.
Parsi children in Bombay. Zoroastrian organizations prevailed upon UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to proclaim the year 2003 as the 3000th Anniversary of Zoroastrianism. More attention is paid to young people who may be able to pass on their religion and culture to following generations. The Third World Zoroastrian Youth Congress is to take place in Pune, India, from December 27 to December 31.
Conversion, once rejected by the Zoroastrian faith, is now believed to be legitimate and indeed necessary by some adherents, who also approve marriage with members of other faiths.
Scholars have acknowledged the contribution of this ancient Persian faith to the worlds religions. Zoroastrians say their prophets teachings are just as relevant today since deceit, violence and oppression are as prevalent as they were thousands of years ago.
My daughter had to do an oral report on Zoastrianism in her college history class Spring semester, 2002. Her report included a post-sized drawing of Zoaster, and the poster ended up looking quite like Osama bid Laden. She also made posters with Arabic writing on them, and a big diagram/design of some sort.
Now her best friend is the wife of Marine, and they live on the base nearby here. Not thinking that her class report materials might be significant, she put them into her trunk after class and drove to her friend's house later that night. As luck would have it, she was pulled over for a random search by the guards at the gate to the base. They opened her trunk, then she said all of a sudden she was surrounded by about 8 Marines with weapons at the ready, and told to get out of her car now! She was quite frightened until she was able to explain that the materials were NOT terrorist related. Needless to say, that stuff was burned in the fireplace the next day!
Strauss' Thus Spoke Zarathustra was inspired by the work of the same name by Nietzsche.Nietzsche's Zarathustra was the prototype Superman,the ultimate 'individualist' whose goal was to destroy religion and collectivism and establish a new 'super' race of individualists(Hitler misunderstood and thought of it in biological instead of philosphical terms).The score was applied to 2001:A Space Odyssey because it was a story about the evolution from ape to man to Superman.Quite the opposite of Zoroastrian philosophy,though ofcourse they claimed the name first.
LOL!
You're assuming that there is nothing to the very early accounts of Genesis. Otherwise the first humans, Adam and subsequently Eve, would be "it." They saw God as He was which was, natch, monotheistic.
The Romans never really "defeated' the Parthians (or the Persians which preceded and succeeded them). They weren't invincible before Trajan; Marc Antony's legate Publius Ventidius defeated one of their invasions of Syria. Trajan conquered Mesopotamia and took the Parthian capital at Ctesiphon in 115. However, the Romans' ancient enemy had little trouble in recapturing the East, and periodic Roman expeditions had mixed success. The war of Julian the Apostate against the Persians in 363 BC was a catastrophe, culminating in the death of the Emperor. Later, of course, in the time of Heraclitus the Romans lost the entire East to the Parthians, effectively for good (they reconquered it, only to see it fall to Islam a few years later).
Trajan is quite extraordinary -- he pushed the Empire down into the Persian Gulf and dreamed, like Alexander before him, of getting to India. Imagine if the Emperors following him had had the gumption to do so, and Roman law, discipline was passed onto lands as far east as India. This would have put a more united front against Islam.
The Romans never really understood exactly how far it was to India, and so their logistics always failed. Julian's supply lines were extremely tenuous, and it's not clear that any Roman military occupation would have been able to hold on for any great period of time. The other significant problem is lines of communication, both cultural and governmental. The Roman world enjoyed the use of the Mediterranean, whereby it was possible to get from Gades to Alexandria in rather little time. To have half the Empire rely only on overland communications would have been extremely taxing. (Note that Gaul was well served by rivers, and that the Rhone actually flows into the Mediterranean.)
So it's not a question of gumption - it's a question of logistics. A lasting Roman conquest of Parthia would have been logistically and culturally extremely difficult. Alexander managed to race through and nominally seize the whole region, but what he left behind him was simply a new Persia with a change of dynasty, and which thought of itself as theoretically Greek in outlook. The Romans probably would have been able to do little better.
I agree completely. That's why it's cool to leave a pain-in-the-ass last request like that.
I agree with that view. The other is speculation--I probably should have caveated that statement more strongly...
Aingra Mainyu.
Is that not just the most evil name for an evil spirit!? I'm fascinated by this stuff as well.
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