Iranians celebrate 'Yalda' as longest night of the year [Ancient Zoroastrian Holiday]

Tehran, Dec 20, IRNA -- Millions of Iranians all over the world Monday night will celebrate 'Yalda', the longest night of the year and the first night of winter as a token of victory of the angel of goodness over the devil of badness.

'Yalda' is a Syriac word meaning birth and according to Mithraism, a faith that initially originated from Persia and later spread out throughout the ancient civilized world, the first day of winter which falls on December 21 this year, was celebrated as the birthday of Mithra, the angel of light.

Ancient Iranians believed that two groups of angels -- good and bad -- were in constant fight on the earth with each other and that on the dawn of the first day of the month of 'Dey', beginning December 21, and with the victory of the rising sun as the symbol of 'Ahuramazda', the Zoroastrian god, over the evil of darkness the fight would come to an end.

People had developed the idea that the longest night of the year, when the evil of darkness found an opportunity to stay longer, was an inauspicious occasion and, therefore, they would gather together and stay awake the whole night by holding celebrations and lighting fire in order to leave behind the ominous night.

They would try to keep the fire lit all through the night and the person in charge of the task was called 'Atropat' or the 'guardian of fire' who used to have a religious rank in ancient Persia.

Ancient Iranians believed that the beginning of the year marked with the re-emergence or rebirth of the sun which coincided with the first day of the month of 'Dey' when sun was salvaged from the claws of the devil of darkness and gradually spread its domination over the world.

However, apart from its religious and traditional characteristics, 'Yalda' has long been observed in the Iranian culture as the longest night of the year.

On this night, all members of the family stay together, narrate old stories, play traditional games and eat dried fruits and candies. The fruits that are specially served at this night are sweet melon, water melon, grapes and pomegranates.

Another tradition that is observed on the night of Yalda is reading poems of the highly revered Iranian poet 'Hafez'.

They read and interpret the poem appearing on the page after reciting some holy words and opening a page of his Divan.

Thanks F44.

From the "Would You Like Fries With That?" Department...

All Consuming Faith
by Debora MacKenzie
5 August 2000
New Scientist magazine
Griffon vultures are dying across India, apparently succumbing to a mysterious illness. Wildlife experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the viability of one species in particular. But for India's ancient Parsee religion the vultures' decline poses a more practical problem. Parsees, the religious descendants of the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia, rely on vultures to dispose of their dead, and the bodies are piling up.
Earliest Civilizations of the Near East
by James Mellaart
1965, LOC 65-19415
Library of Early Civilizations
"The people of Catal Huyuk buried their dead below the platforms of their houses and shrines only after the flesh had been removed, probably for the sake of hygiene. The primary process of excarnation may have taken place in light structures, built of reeds and matting as depicted on the wall of a shrine, or by means of vultures." [p 86]

"In this book we see the first beginnings of agriculture from somewhere around 9000 BC, continuing in cultures in which at first pottery, long thought to be the main criterion of a 'neolithic' culture, was not in fact made, and then before many centuries have elapsed, the first use of metals -- copper or lead or gold, cold-worked from the native metal from the sixth millennium BC. The old technological-evolutionary stages of Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and so on are rapidly losing their crisp outlines, but only because we are now able to perceive something which, because it is more muddled and imprecise, is more human." [Stuart Piggott, general editor's preface]

It's amazing the things which have survived, and particularly in this case considering that this particular faith was not necessarily well thought of by the ancient Hindu.

Dancing with Siva:
Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism
by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
[pp 558-559, "Zoroastrianism"]
"Asceticism and celibacy are condemned; purity and avoidance of defilement... are valued... Zoroastrianism stresses monotheism, while recognizing the universal sway of two opposite forces... Man's life... is a moral struggle, not a search for knowledge or enlightenment. He is put on the earth to affirm and approve the world, not to deny it, not to escape from it... Man has but one life. He also has the freedom to choose between good and evil... At death, each is judged and consigned to his deserved abode... Though there is resurrection of the dead, a judgment and a kingdom of heaven on earth... all sins are eventually burned away and all of mankind exists forever with Ahura Mazda. Hell, for the Zoroastrian, is not eternal."

Regarding their ancient scriptures, Mary Settegast wrote:

Plato Prehistorian
by Mary Settegast
[pp 212-214]
Perhaps three-fourths of the original Zend-Avesta... is believed to be lost... The Avesta was not written down until the Sassanian period (the third to seventh centuries A.D.)... Zarathustra's Gathas are particularly obscure... Not only do the Gathas appear to be a good deal older linguistically than even the oldest parts of the Younger Avesta, but the same characters who speak and act with immediacy... are represented in the Younger Avesta as belonging to a remote past... The Fravardin Yast [of the Younger Avesta] ...contains references to Iranian peoples who were apparently unknown to the earliest Achaemenid records of the sixth century B.C. And with the single exception of "Ragha," believed to be ancient Rayy near Tehran, no allusion is made to a known Iranian city or village... A generic use of the prophet's name might also explain the occasional indications in ancient literature that there was more than one historical Zarathustra. Pliny, for example, when referring to the Zarathustra born 6,000 years before Plato, remarked that "it is not so clear whether there was only one man of this name, or another one later on."

Luciano Canforra wrote:

The Vanished Library
by Luciano Canforra
[pp 24]
The translation of the Iranian writings attributed to Zoroaster, amounting to more than two million lines of verse, was remembered centuries later as a notable feat...

The followers of Zoroaster were persecuted by the hierarchy of Zervan. The worship of Zervan was largely abandoned in favor of Zoroastrianism, but may have hung on here and there until Islam arrived. Zervan temples are not known to me; maybe a search will turn up something. My guess is that Zervan was worshipped in shrines at geographically significant places (foot of the mountain pass, ford over the river) and on the outskirts of villages and towns. I think now of Petra, with its high places where great bonfires were built to worship their now-obscure deities.

The major sites, language, history, and king lists of the Elamites remain mostly unknown except for references in the annals of their ancient neighbors (and the Elamite king who temporarily ruled Mesopotamia in the book of Genesis) and short inscriptions found in some Persian sites (Susa for example was an Elamite town before the Persians came along). This has significance because Elam lay mostly in what is modern Iran, the wellspring of Zervanism and Zoroastrianism.

the preceding message was reprised from another topic, but quite a while back.

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