the real Zoroaster
an ancient Iranian prophet and religious poet. the author of the gathas, the liturgical core of zoroastrianism.
also called zarathushtra and known in modern Persian as zartosht.
the language of the scriptures is avestan, very close to the language of the vedas in India. (vedic sanscrit)
there is some controversy about his name’s meaning in avestan but in greek where it first appears (mid 5th century b.c. )there is a definite association with astro*.. star. zar is said to mean ‘gold’. It could be the star of gold which is of course the sun.. sol. who knows? some people say it means 'camel' something.. i doubt it.
dates vary also. but the association of his language with vedic sanscrit certainly argues for his alignment with some very old tradition. there is little to say that there hasn’t been several zoroasters… (though people put him at about 1000 yrs before jesus Christ, its not that important. the words are ancient and deserve a truly respectful hearing.) (one native source indicates that the origonal Zarathustra was reincarnated 13 times, the last one a while before alexander ….) lets just say long long ago…..or once upon a time. shall we?
the place is also not specific.. but lets say iran. several regions like Rai, are said to claim him.
part of the avesta dealing with his life are no longer extant. though there are Iranian legends from later times. he is said to have had a wife and 6 children. he is said to have been murdered at the alter by turanians in the storming of balkh.
the important thing is his place in the development of thought.
a word of caution must be given. for a sustained period, the niche reserved in popular imagination (particularly in the Hellenic world,) for the exotic sage was occupied by the name/image of Zoroaster..(lost ancient wisdom scam) as a recipient of ‘western tradition’ on the subject one must be careful to avoid the vortex of fantasic distortion in his case. the priests of Zoroastrianism were magi and have long been associated with the weird and magical.. chaldean astrology... the magi even appear in the nativity story of jesus son of mary and have enjoyed a huge reputation from long before that event.
it seems that some greeks, rather than seek to understand the perfectly good sources of their own philosophical tradition found it necessary to look to some fanciful ideology said to be from Zoroaster.. in my view nietzche was continuing in this vein.
so as for his ideas, there has been considerable misunderstanding.
the gathas were first translated into English by martin haug (german orientalist) in the 1850s who seems to have misunderstood some basic ideas re. monotheism and dualism. like all sacred writ, its the space between the lines that is to be seen in terms of order of magnitude..
ie.. the living tradition is where the real dirt is.. the text but the map.
his system was revealed to him by God.. Ahura-Mazda in avestan..
the universe is a cosmic struggle between truth and falsehood.
the purpose of mankind is to sustain truth while participating in a life of virtue.
it doesn’t seem that difficult but due to obsessions about monotheism and the nature of good and evil by idiots with no idea at all, his vision is very easy to obfuscate.
there may be some truth in the idea that he makes one god out of the ‘ahuras’ (asuras in sanscrit) ---mazda and another pole of chaos from the devas.. which reflects different usage--- at least different from that of the hindus and others who see the devas as good/divine. (though ‘devil’ (and cognates) is way close to be a coincidence.)
it seems that mazda created two spirits who were free to choose.. one chose to be good .. the other to be evil. so god didn’t create evil.. god created freedom which became perverted. I think this is the crux of zoroaster’s teaching. these are issues so profond that the human mind can only conjecture.. reason falls dumb at majesty.
like islam, zohar and other faiths, Zoroastrian thought upholds the perennial religion’s creed of the sevenfold nature of creation, the angels, the priesthood, 5 daily prayers the community etc.
his followers have been harried a lot by fanatics over the years.
somehow I doubt that anyone much would be interested in him if they knew that all he was promoting was a life of virtue.
* the greeks saw zo as related to ‘life’ and ro as flux. (as in revma.)
tejas fu
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