Zoroastrianism - Russian Historical Library
Zoroaster taught that purity of thoughts, words and deeds gives a person the surest protection from the devas; made a hard-working life, abstinence from vices, especially from lies, spiritual piety, virtue as the duties of a person. Of sins, he said that they should be expiated by repentance. Zoroastrian priests interpreted the concept of purity in the sense of external purity, and came up with many commandments to preserve it, many rites to restore it if it was violated in any way. These extremely precise and detailed rules of purification, and the same detailed rules regarding sacrifices, prayers, liturgical rites, turned the religion of serving the light into a servile execution of petty decrees, into overwhelming formalism, and distorted the moral teachings of Zoroaster. He wanted to stimulate diligent cultivation of the land, concern for the strengthening of moral strength, energetic work and the development of spiritual nobility. The Zoroastrian priests replaced this with a casuistic system of rules about what deeds of repentance and what rites cleanse various sins, consisting mainly in touching unclean objects. Especially everything that was dead was impure, because Ormuzd created the living, not the dead. The Avesta gives the most detailed rules for precautions and cleansing from defilement when someone has died in the house and when a corpse is buried. Adherents of Zoroastrianism did not bury corpses in the ground and did not burn them. They were taken to special places, prepared for that, and left there to be eaten by dogs and birds. The Iranians carefully avoided approaching these places.
If a Zoroastrian has become defiled, then he can restore his purity only by repentance and the transfer of punishment according to the charter of the good law. “A good law,” says the Vendidad, “takes away all the sins committed by a person: deceit, murder, burying the dead, unforgivable deeds, a lot of highly accumulated sins; it takes away all the bad thoughts, words and deeds of a pure person, just as a strong, fast wind from the right side clears the sky; a good law completely cuts off all punishment.” Repentance and purification among adherents of Zoroastrianism consist mainly in prayers and spells, pronounced at certain times of the day with strict observance of the rites prescribed for this, and in washing with cow or bull urine and water. The most powerful cleansing that removes all filth from a Zoroastrian, " nine night cleansing", - an extremely complex rite, which can be performed only by a pure person who knows the law well and is valid only if this purifier of the sinner receives such a reward as he himself wants. These and other similar commandments and customs imposed chains on the life of the Zoroastrians, taking away from him all freedom of movement, filling his heart with a dreary fear of being defiled. For every time of the day, for every deed, every step, for every everyday occasion, prayers and rituals, rules of consecration were established. All life was brought under the yoke of service to painful Zoroastrian formalism.
Sacrifices in Zoroastrianism
Herodotus tells the following details about sacrifices among the Zoroastrians (I, 131). “The Persians have no custom of building temples and altars; they even consider those who do it stupid because they do not think, like the Hellenes, that the gods have a human form. When they want to offer a sacrifice, they don't erect an altar, they don't kindle a fire, they don't pour wine; they have no pipes, no wreaths, no roasted barley at their sacrifices. When a Persian wants to make a sacrifice, he leads the sacrificial animal to a clean place, prays to God, and usually braids the tiara with myrtle branches. The sacrificer cannot ask God for mercy for himself alone, he must also pray for all the Persians and for the king. Having cut the sacrificial animal into pieces and boiled the meat, he covers the ground with the most tender grass, usually clover, and puts all the meat on this mat. When he has done this, the magician comes up and begins to sing a hymn about the birth of the gods, as they call the spell. Without a magician, the Persians cannot perform sacrifices. After that, the one who offered the sacrifice takes the meat and does with it as he wants.
In Strabo we find the following details about the Zoroastrian sacrifices: “The Persians have a wonderful building, called pyrethia; in the middle of the pyrethium stands an altar, on which there is a lot of ashes, and magicians keep an eternal flame on it. During the day they enter this building and pray for an hour, holding a bunch of sticks in front of the fire; on their heads they have felt tiaras that go down both cheeks and cover their lips and chin. - They offer sacrifices in a clean place, after praying and placing a wreath on the animal being sacrificed. The magician, having made a sacrifice, distributes the meat; each takes his piece and leaves, leaving nothing to the gods, because the god only needs the soul of the victim; but according to some, they throw a piece of omental membrane into the fire. When they sacrifice to water, they go to a pond, river, or stream, dig a hole, and cut the sacrifice over it, taking care that the blood does not fall into the water and defile it. Then they put pieces of meat on myrtle or laurel branches, light a fire with thin sticks and sing incantations, pouring oil mixed with milk and honey, but not into fire or water, but onto the ground. They sing long incantations, and at the same time they hold a bunch of dry myrtle sticks in their hands.
History of the sacred books of Zoroastrianism
The following legends about the fate of the sacred books of Zoroastrianism have come down to us. Denkard, a Zoroastrian work believed by the Parsees to have been written at the time Sassanid, says that King Vistashpa ordered to collect all the books written in the language of the magicians, so that the faith of the worshipers of Ahuramazda would have a firm footing. The book Arda-Viraf Nameh, which is also considered to have been written back in the time of the Sassanids, says that the religion received from God by the pious Zoroaster remained pure for three hundred years. But after that, Ahriman stirred up Iskander Rumi (Alexander the Macedonian), and he conquered and devastated Iran and killed the Iranian king. He burned the Avesta, which was written on cowhide in golden letters and was kept in Persepolis, killed many Zoroastrian priests and judges, who were the pillars of the faith, brought discord, enmity and confusion into the Iranian people. The Iranians now had neither a king nor a mentor and a high priest who knew the religion. They were filled with doubt... and they had different religions. And they had different faiths, until the time when Saint Aderbat Magresphant was born, on whose chest molten metal was poured.
Denkard's book says that the surviving fragments of the Avesta were collected under the Parthian Arsacids. Then the Sasanian king Artakshatr ( Ardashir) summoned to his capital the herbad Tosar, who brought the sacred books of Zoroastrianism, which had previously been scattered. The king commanded that they be the law of faith. his son, Shapur I(238 - 269 A.D.) ordered to collect and reattach to the Avesta medical, astronomical and other books that were scattered throughout Hindustan, Rum (Asia Minor) and other countries. Finally, at Shapure II(308 - 380) Aderbat Magresfant cleared the additions of the sayings of Zoroaster and renumbered ours(chapters) of sacred books.
The Zoroastrian gods Ahuramazda (right) and Mitra (left) hand over signs of royal power to the Sasanian Shah Shapur II. Relief of the 4th century A.D. in Taq-e-Bostan
From these legends it is clear that:
1) Zoroaster gave the sacred law under King Gustasp (Vistashpa). At one time it was believed that this Gustaspes was Hystaspes, the father Darius I, and therefore they thought that Zoroaster lived in the middle of the VI century BC; this seems to have been supported by other evidence; and if so, then Zoroaster was a contemporary of the Buddha. Some even believed that the teachings of Zoroaster were found in Buddhism. But researchers of the 19th century (Spiegel and others) came to the conclusion that Vistashpa of the Avesta is not Hystasp, the father of Darius, but the Bactrian king, who lived much earlier, that Gustasp, who ends the first cycle of Iranian legends retold in the first sections of the Shahnameh Ferdowsi, and therefore Zoroaster , like this Gustasp or Wistashpe, must be attributed to prehistoric times. But this does not mean at all that the books attributed to him belong to a very ancient time. They are collections, little by little compiled by the Zoroastrian priests, some earlier, others later.
2) Traditions say that Zoroastrian books were burned by Alexander, that he killed believers and suppressed religion. According to other stories, he ordered books on astronomy and medicine to be translated into Greek, and all others to be burned, and then these burnt books were restored from memory (like Chinese books). These stories are implausible; firstly, they are completely contrary to the policy of Alexander, who tried to win the favor of the Asiatics, and not offend them; secondly, the news of Greek and Roman writers clearly show that the sacred books of the Persians continued to exist under the Seleucids and Parthians. But the storms of war that broke out over Persia after the death of Alexander, and for many centuries destroyed everything in Iran, were, in all probability, very harmful to Zoroastrianism and its sacred books. Even more disastrous for these beliefs and books was the influence of Greek education, which was spread throughout Iran by Greek cities founded in all its regions. The religion of Zoroaster was probably superseded by the higher Greek culture and some of its sacred books were lost at this time. They could perish all the more easily because the language in which they were written was already incomprehensible to the people. Probably, this was the reason for the emergence of the legend that the Zoroastrian sacred books were burned by Alexander.
3) Traditions say that the Zoroastrian religion was restored and again made dominant in Iran under the Sasanian kings Ardashir and Shapur. This message is confirmed by history. The foundation of the power of the overthrown Parthians in the III century AD dynasty Sassanid was the restoration of the old Persian institutions and, in particular, the national religion. In their struggle with the Greco-Roman world, which threatened to completely swallow Iran, the Sassanids relied on the fact that they were the restorers of the old Persian laws, customs and beliefs. They called themselves the names of the old Persian kings and deities; restored the ancient structure of the army, convened a large council of Zoroastrian magicians, ordered to search for sacred books that had survived somewhere, established the rank of great magician to manage the clergy, who received a hierarchical structure.
The main Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda presents signs of royal power to the founder of the Sassanid dynasty, Ardashir I. Relief of the 3rd century A.D. in Nakhsh-e-Rustam
The ancient "Zend" language was already incomprehensible to the people. Most of the priests did not know him either; therefore, the Sassanids ordered the sacred books to be translated into the then vernacular language of western Iran, Pahlavi or Guzvaresh, is the language in which the inscriptions of the first times of the Sasanian dynasty were made. This Pahlavi translation of the Zoroastrian books soon acquired canonical significance. It divides the text into chapters and verses. Numerous theological and philological commentaries were written on it. It is very possible that experts in the sacred Zoroastrian scripture, celebrated in the Parsi traditions, Arda Viraf and Aderbat Magresfant, participated in this translation. But the meaning of the text of the sacred books, apparently, underwent many changes in the Pahlavi translation, partly, probably because some parts of the original were not understood by the translators, partly because the ancient law no longer covered all the social relations of modern life, and it was necessary to supplement his alterations and insertions. From the theological studies of that time, a treatise emerged, outlining the results of scientific research on cosmogony and other tenets of the religion of Zoroaster - Bundehes. It is written in the Pahlavi language and is highly respected by the Parsis.
The kings and people very strictly adhered to the restored Zoroastrian religion, the flowering period of which was the time of the first Sassanids. Christians who did not want to accept the creed of Zoroaster were subjected to bloody persecution; and the Jews, although they enjoyed greater tolerance, were much embarrassed in the execution of the rules of their faith. The Prophet Mani, who made an attempt to combine the Christian teaching with the teaching of Zoroaster in his Manichaeism, was put to a painful death. The wars of the Byzantines with the Sassanids worsened the position of Christians in Persia, because the Persians assumed in their Christians sympathy for fellow believers; subsequently, they, by political calculation, patronized Nestorians and other heretics excommunicated from the Orthodox Byzantine Church.
The Sassanid kingdom fell with death in the fight against the Arabs of the last shah of the dynasty, Yazdegerda, and spread throughout Persia Islam. But five centuries passed before the worship of fire completely disappeared from it. Zoroastrianism fought so stubbornly against Muhammadan rule that even in the 10th century there were uprisings with the aim of restoring the throne of the Sassanids and again making the doctrine of Zoroaster the state religion. When the ancient creed of Zoroastrianism was completely defeated, the Persian priests and scientists became mentors to their conquerors in all sciences; Persian concepts acquired a strong influence on the development of Muhammadan education. A small Parsi community held out for some time in the mountains. When the persecution reached her refuge before that, she moved to India and, having experienced many hardships there, finally found herself a solid shelter in the Gujarat Peninsula. There she has survived to this day, and remains faithful to the ancient teachings of Zoroaster, the commandments and rituals of the Avesta. Vendidad and some other parts of the Pahlavi translation of the Avesta, brought to India by these settlers, were here in the 14th century AD translated from Pahlavi into Sanskrit and into the vernacular.
