54. ANCIENT REVELATIONS -- Zoroastrianism -- the Parsi -- "The Religion Which Might Have Been Ours"

Selectionsfrom
"The Viking
Portable Library
World Bible"
edited
by
Robert O. Ballou,
Viking Press,
1944

The Parsi

The Religion
Which
Might Have Been
Ours

On
a marble throne
high above
the
narrow strait
which stretched
between
the island
of Salamis
and
the southern coast
of Attica,
in 480 B.C.,
the great
Xerxes
sat waiting
to watch his navy
defeat
the Greek fleet.

At his back
burned
the city
of Athens,
fired
by the torches
of his soldiers.

At the pass
of Thermopylae
lay the bodies
of 300 Spartans
with that
of their leader,
Leonidas,
slain
by
the Asiatic hosts
of
the Persian Empire.

There remained
only the task
of destroying
the Greek fleet,
to wipe out
the bitter shame
of
the Persian failure
at Marathon
ten years before,
and
to establish
the Persian Empire
in Greece,
from whence
it could
sweep
throughout
Europe.

The Persian ships
outnumbered
the Greek fleet
three to one,
and
were
of
heavier construction.

But the Greeks,
using
the same
superior strategy
at sea
that Miltiades
had used
on land
at Marathon,
sank 200
of
the Persian vessels,
captured others,
and
drove the rest
from the strait.

The flight
of
the terror-stricken
Xerxes
signalized
not only
the end
of his dream
of conquest
in Europe,
but also
a vastly changed
religious prospect
for
the Western World.

For,
according to
no less an authority
than
the late Max Muller,
had it not been
for
the Persian defeats
at
the decisive battles
of Marathon
and Salamis,
if,
in other words,
the western march
of
the Persian Empire
had not
been stopped
there,
Zoroastrianism
rather than
Judeo-Christianity
would
undoubtedly
have been
the prevailing religion
of Europe
and
the Americas.

Yet in spite of
these crushing
military
and
naval defeats,
the resulting
decline
of
the Persian Empire,
and
the eventual
near-extinction
of
Zoroastrianism,
so great was
this religion's
vitality
and
so appealing
to
the human heart
were
so many
of its conceptions
and precepts
that
much
of Zarathushtra's creed
lives on
in the religions
of
Israel
and
Christ.

The date
when
a branch
of
the Indo-European
family
moved
into
Persia,
like
the date
of
their brothers'
entrance
into
India,
is unknown.

It is probable
that the migration
took place
between
the time
when Abraham
was said to have
made his compact
with Yaweh
(about 2000 B.C.)
and
when
Moses led
the Children of Israel
out of their captivity
in Egypt
(about 1200 B.C.).

Evidences
of Indo-European
names
and
of worship
of the old
Indo-European gods
are found
among
the Mitanni
of
the upper Euphrates
valley
during the century
1400 - 1300 B.C.

The region
upon which
the
newcomers settled
was
an elevated tableland,
parts of which
were well watered,
but which
included areas
that needed irrigation
to make
its fruitful soil
productive.

Irrigation and tillage
meant food
and social solidity;
sloth and neglect
brought social ruin.

Evidences
of
their early religion
are scant,
but
show many traces
of similarity
to
the Vedic religion
of India.

They paid homage
to
the sun god
Mitra,
whom they called
Mithra,
the sky god
Varuna
(who
is sometimes
called
Ahura,
equivalent
of the Indian
Asura
and forerunner
of
the one God
Ahura Mazda),
the fire god
Agni,
and
the old thunderer,
Indra.

There is evidence
that
Ahura Mazda
existed
in their conceptions
before
the birth of Zoroaster,
but
apparently
as
only one
of a list of gods,
just as,
in
the earlier conception
of the Jews,
Yaweh
was one
of many gods,
the tribal god
of Abraham,
and
only later
became Jehovah,
the one God,
maker
of heaven and earth.

The early Persians
believed
that
all good things
come to them
from
a region of light
above
and
all evil
from
a region of darkness
below.

Unto
this people
who depended
upon
rigorous tillage
of the soil
for their livelihood,
was born
Zarathushtra
or
Zoroaster
about 660 B.C.

Thus
his influence
was felt
in that
great age
of
religious consciousness
and reformation,
a little more than
half a millennium
before
the birth of Christ,
during which,
in India,
the Upanishads
were furthering
a conception of Brahma
as
the supreme God,
and
Gautama Buddha,
the
great enlightener,
was born,
when
in China,
Confucius
and
Lao Tze
were quickening
the moral
and religious
perceptions
of men,
and
in Israel
the Pre-Exilic prophets
were
paving the way
for
the
pure monotheism
of later Judaism.

There is
no certainty
as to
the exact locality
of Zarathushtra's
birth
or
of the details
of his early life.

The
traditional accounts
are interesting
chiefly because
of
the
fundamental similarity
which exists
between
the stories of his birth
and
those
of other great leaders.

Here, too,
the sense of shame
that accompanies
the thought of sex
in many early religions
is evidenced
by a tradition
of sexless conception.

How-tsieh,
one of
the
"first ancestors"
of China,
was conceived
when
his mother
"stepped upon
a
footprint of God."

The conception
of the Buddha
came about
when
the Buddha himself,
in the form
of
a white elephant,
struck
his future mother
on the side
with his trunk
while
she was dreaming.

Jesus
was
immaculately
conceived
of
a virgin
by
the
Holy Ghost.

And
the conception
of Zarathushtra
took place
when his mother,
also a virgin
(who "dazzled
by the radiance
of her body"),
took the milk
that
had miraculously
appeared
in
two
white virgin cows,
after
they had eaten
from a branch
of
the sacred
Haoma plant
on which
the archangels
had carried
Zarathushtra's spirit
to earth.

During his childhood,
according to
the same accounts
in
the Pahlavi Texts,
he showed
many evidences
of
wisdom
and
enlightenment,
as did
Christ
preaching
in the temple,
and
Gautama
when
he saw
"the four signs."

He
early enunciated
the principle
of duality
in the universe.

"When I
look upwards,"
he said,
"I saw that
our souls
that go up
to the sky
will go up
to
the best existence.

When I
looked downwards
I saw
the demon
and
the fiend,
the wizard
and
the witch,
become
buried below
in the earth
and fall
paralyzed
back to hell."

When he
was thirty
he announced
his
righteous purpose,
after
having talked
at great length
with
the archangels.

And
as
Satan
tempted Christ
and
Mara
attempted
to
turn the Buddha
from
his mission,
"forth rushed
Angra Mainyu,
the deadly,
the Daeva
of
the Daevas,"
and
attempted
to slay
Zarathushtra
before
he could
preach
his gospel
of righteousness.

During
the early years
of
his ministry
he
is reported
to have had
several visions
in which
he spoke
with
archangels
and
Ahura Mazda.

For ten years,
using these visions
as evidence
of his authority,
he sought converts
in vain.

Then,
after long pleading,
he succeeded
in converting
the monarch
Vishtaspa,
and,
under royal patronage,
the success
of the new religion
became assured
in the country
of his birth.

In
his forty-seventh year,
according to
the Pahlavi Texts
(in his
seventy-eighth
according to
the more
generally accepted
theory
of
the scholar
A. V. W. Jackson),
Zarathushtra died,
leaving behind him
a lusty religion
built
on
love of earth
and
its fruits,
whole-souled worship
of
the one God
Ahura Mazda,
an enlightened
ethical code,
and
the healing goodness
of work.

Such a creed
towered
high above
the
ceremonial polytheism
which
had existed
in Iran
before his birth.

The inclusive name
for
the sacred scriptures
of Zoroastrianism
is Avesta.

The books
include
the Yasna,
of which
the seventeen
Gathas
or psalms
are a part,
the Visperad,
the Vendidad,
and
the Yashts.

In Zarathushstra's
doctrine
there was
no place
for
a sterile asceticism
or
profitless ceremonials.

His
was a worship
of life
in
its full burgeoning;
the highest
religious exercise
possible
was
complete
co-operation
with
the beneficent forces
of nature.

His theology
was
fundamental
and
simple.

Ahura Mazda
is
the omniscient
and
potentially
omnipotent
creator
of the universe,
who made
the good earth
and
instructed man
to till it.

Delaying
full realization
of his omnipotence
and
undoing
as many
of his good works
as possible
was
Angra Mainyu
"who is
all death"
and
"who
counter-created"
evil.

But
the heavenly
helpers,
"Good Thought,
Perfect
Righteousness,"
and
others
will eventually
make it possible
for
Ahura Mazda
to
destroy
Angra Mainyu
and
achieve
his righteous
all-powerfulness.

Ahura Mazda
makes
rigid demands
of righteousness
upon mankind.

This righteousness
consists
of
truthfulness,
kindness,
benevolence,
justice,
devotion to God,
and
good works,
especially
in
the field
of agriculture
where
weed-less stands
of grain
are
more efficacious
in
the matter
of salvation
than are
prayers.

Here is no place
for
hypocrisy
which
may build
a reputation
for
sanctity
on
pious words,
prayers,
and
religious ceremonies.

A man's
field
may be seen!

All matters
connected
with agriculture
are given
an accented
religious importance.

Earth itself
is surrounded
by special sanctity
and
is
almost personified
in
the Zendavesta
in which
Ahura Mazda
recounts
the five places
in which
"the earth
feels most happy,
the five
where it
"feels sorest grief,"
and
the five kinds
of persons
who
"rejoice the earth
with greatest joy."

The five places
of
the earth's
happiness,
in the order
of their importance,
are
as follows:
The first
is where
"one
of the faithful
steps forward."

The second
is
"where
one of the faithful
erects a house
with
a priest within,
with cattle,
with a wife,
with children,
and
good herds within"
and
"wherein
afterwards
the cattle
continue
to thrive,
virtue
to thrive,
fodder
to thrive,
the dog
to thrive,
the wife
to thrive,
the child
to thrive,
the fire
to thrive,
and
every blessing
of life
to thrive."

The third place
of the earth's
greatest happiness
is
"where
one of the faithful
sow most
corn,
grass,
and
fruit,
where
he waters ground
that is dry,
or
drains ground
that is too wet."

The fourth
is the place
"where
there is
most increase
of flocks
and herds,"
the fifth
"where
flocks and herds
yield
most dung."

So sacred
is
the holy earth
that
it must not be
contaminated
by
the touch
of dead bodies,
which
putrefy quickly
in
the Persian climate.

Instead
of being buried,
these
are disposed of
by
being deposited
in
"towers of silence"
on grills
where
the birds
may
pick the bones
clean of flesh
before they
at last
drop to the ground.

Indeed
the earth
"feels
the sorest grief ...
where
most corpses
of dogs and men
lie buried,"
according to
the Zendavesta,
and
"the first
who rejoices
the earth
with greatest joy"
is he
who
"digs out of it
most corpses
of dogs and men."

The emphasis
upon
the goodness
and
usefulness
of the dog
is one
of
the most
beautiful details
in this religion
of shepherds
and cattlemen
which,
but for
two defeats in battle,
might have been
the religion
of
the Western World.

"The dog,
with
the prickly back,
with
the long
and thin muzzle ...
is
the good creature
among
the creatures
of
the Good Spirit ...

Whosoever
shall smite
either
a shepherd's dog
or
a house-dog,
his soul,
when passing
to the other world,
shall fly
howling louder
and
more sorely grieved
than
the sheep does
in
the lofty forest
where
the wolf ranges."

Various strict rules
protect this
"good creature
among
the creatures."

If
a bitch
whelps
while at large,
she
and her puppies
are
the
strict responsibility
of
the man
nearest whose house
she is.

He must care
for her
and
for her puppies
until they
are old enough
to care for
themselves,
and
if one of them
dies
through
his neglect
he is
to suffer
the same penalty
as he would
if
he had killed
a man.

There is
no animal worship
involved in this,
no
superstitious formalism
of
sacred beast.

The dog

is

"of the earth,
earthly."

The Zoroastrian attitude

towards him
is simply
one of the evidences
of
the lustiness
and
at the same time
the gentleness
of
Zarathushtra's creed.

By Zoroastrian rules

dog life
was protected
as
human life was,
first perhaps
because
of his usefulness
to a people
dependent upon
herds and flocks,
but also
because
of a recognition
of
the character
of the dog
which
has marked

true and realistic

dog lovers
of all times.

In
Ahura Mazda
we find
for
the first time
in the history
of
any religion
a clear
and
vigorous conception
of
the universal
loving Father-God
as
the
only
imaginable God --
a conception
which
eventually
came to us
through
later Judaism
and
Christianity.

Ahura Mazda
is
"the father
of
the
Toiling
Good Mind
within us."

His
daughter
is Piety.

He is
the one
"with
the
bounteous spirit."

He is
"the creator
of all."

He is
"Lord
of
the
Good Spirit."

"The souls
of
the righteous ...
will dwell
in
eternal immortality ...
in
his kingdom."

He is

"the Lord
of
saving power,
a friend,
a brother,
a father
to us,
Mazda Lord!"

He has many names,
among which
are
"the One
of whom
questions are asked,
the Herd-giver,
the Strong One,
Perfect Holiness,
Understanding,
Knowledge,
Weal,
Most Beneficent,
He
in whom
there is no harm,
Unconquerable One,
All-seeing One,
and
Healing One."

His is
"the glory

that cannot be
forcibly seized."

Intended
especially
for
Zoroastrian  priests
there are
"five
dispositions"
and
ten
admonitions
with which
all instruction
as to religion
is connected.

The five
dispositions
are
innocence,
discrimination
between
thoughts,
words,
and
deeds
("to distinguish
destruction
from
in-destructiveness,
and production
from
un-productiveness")
authoritativeness,
steadfastness

in religion,

and

to struggle
prayerfully
day and night
with

your own fiend.

The ten

admonitions
are:

(1) Proceed
      with good repute.

(2) Avoid

      evil repute.

(3) Do not beat

      your teacher

      with a stick.

(4) Whatever is taught

      to you

      deliver back

      to the worthy.

(5) Rewards

      for
      the doers

      of good works

      and
      punishment

      for

      the workers of evil

      must be

      established by law,
      in
      other words,
      they
      are
      not to be
      administered
      by

      the clergy.

(6) Keep the way

      of the good

      open

      to your house.

(7) Do not remain

      in impenitence

      of sin.

(8) Force malice

      away

      from your thoughts.

(9) Keep

      ever progressing

      with

      the progress

      of this religion,

      do not go

      backwards.

(10) Obey

        the ruler

        and

        the

        priestly authority.

The simplicity

and
broadness
of
these rules
for
the priesthood
are
in marked contrast
to
the elaboration
of

parallel rules

in

the Indian religions,

and

the radical character
of
the ninth admonition
marks Zoroaster
as a man
with vision

and

a forward-looking

intellect

almost

unparalleled

among

religious law makers.

For

consideration
of the nature
of
the Zoroastrian
heaven and hell,
the veneration paid
the souls
of the faithful,
and
the reverence
for the
"undying,
shining,
swift-horsed
sun,"

we leave you

to
the texts themselves.

What if
this religion,

instead of

Judeo-Christianity,

had become

our

faith?

Would

we have

a vastly different

theology

and
code

of ethical conduct?

We would
believe
in
a loving Father-God
who is
omniscient

and

concerned

with

the welfare

of

his children.

We would have,

instead
of Jesus,
Zarathushtra
who,
while
not peculiarly
the son of God,
was sent to earth
by God

to spread

his doctrine

and

do his work.

We would
look forward
to
"the Kingdom
of God".

We would have

the

ancient statement

of

a region

of darkness

and

a region

of light,

of

heaven and hell,

of

the good power

in conflict

with

the evil.

We

would have

Angra Mainyu,

instead of
Satan --
a mere difference
in
name.

We would have

angels

and

archangels.

We
would have
a statement
of
the final
resurrection
of
the dead
very similar
to that
in the
Judeo-Christian
Bible.

These things
we
have now.

Did they come
to us

from

the pious

and

vigorous mind

of

Zarathushtra

by way of
the

later prophets

of Israel

and

Christ,

or

were they

original conceptions

of

Judeo-Christianity?

How well

acquainted
the chroniclers
of
the Jewish
Old Testament
were
with
the Persian branch
of
the Indo-European
wanderers
is evidenced
by
their

frequent

references

to

the

Medes,

the

Persians,

and the

Hittites.

But there is also

definite evidence

of

borrowings

from

Zoroastrianism

in

the religious creeds

which

Christianity

absorbed

from

later Judaism.

Up to the time
of the exile,
the source
of both
good
and
evil
in the religion
of
the Israelites
was thought
to be
the God
Jehovah.

But
after the exile,

which is

to say

after the influence

of

Zarathushtra's

monotheistic doctrine

began

to be felt,
the Old Testament
writers
recorded
the doctrine
that Jehovah
was
the one God
of
the universe
and
a God
of
pure righteousness,
while
Satan

was charged

with

all evil creations.

It is probable
that

Satan --

or

the devil

of
later Judaism

and

Christianity --
is none other
than
Angra Mainyu,
the arch daeva
of
Zoroastrianism.

The elaborate
angelology
and
demonology
of
later Judaism,
the idea
of
a divine judgment
and
a final resurrection,
and
a future life
in a region
which may be
definitely
described --
all seem to
have come
from
the doctrines
of Zarathushtra
though
there is
no
definite proof
of this.

Indeed
there are
Christian

and
Hebrew

commentators
who believe
that
Zoroastrianism

borrowed

these conceptions

from later

Judaism,

but

they speak

with

less conviction

than do those

who hold

the

opposite view.

Almost

certainly
the Magi
who are
said
to have visited
Jesus
in
the manger
were
Zoroastrian priests,
and
Christ's word
"paradise"
was taken
from
the Persian
pairidaeza.

In the field
of human ethics
and
social behavior
we would have
in
Zoroastrianism
a code
which,
if followed,
would produce
a state
of
human welfare
that would be
difficult
to surpass.

Perhaps

the

chief differences

would be
in matters
of emphasis.

While
Zoroastrianism
and
Christianity
both
state
the necessity
of faith
and works,
the emphasis
in
Christianity
is
on
faith,
in Zoroastrianism
on
works.

When
Alexander the Great

conquered
Persia,

and
Greek cities
were established
there,
the decline
of Zoroastrianism
began.

Under
the

Mohammedans

the decline
continued
until
today
there are
scarcely
ten thousand followers
of Zarathushtra
in
the land of his birth --
they call
themselves
Parsis,
from
Pars
or
Persia --
and
about
one hundred thousand
in India.

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