Search Results for “zoroaster”

• ZOROASTER

  Multiple Authors

  the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam. 

• ZOROASTER iii. ZOROASTER IN THE AVESTA

  Manfred Hutter

  Zaraθuštra is considered the founder of the Mazdayasnian religion who lived in Eastern Iran during the end of the second millenium BCE.

• ZOROASTER v. AS PERCEIVED BY THE GREEKS

  Roger Beck

  The Greek constructions of Zoroaster relate to the historical Zoroaster and to the Zoroaster of the Zoroastrian faith in one respect only. The Greeks knew that Zoroaster was the “prophet,” in the sense of the human founder, of the national Persian religion of their times.

• ZOROASTER i. THE NAME

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  The authentic form of Zoroaster’s name is that attested in his own songs, the Gathas: Old Av. Zaraθuštra-, on which are based regular derivatives like zaraθuštri- “descending from Zoroaster."

• ZOROASTER vi. AS PERCEIVED IN WESTERN EUROPE

  Michael Stausberg

  There is a continuous tradition of reports about Zoroaster among early and later medieval Christian historians, chroniclers, and annalists. In slightly modified form, this tradition continues through the early modern periods stretching from Humanism to Enlightenment.

• ZOROASTER vii. AS PERCEIVED BY LATER ZOROASTRIANS

  Jenny Rose

  This entry treats the development of the concept and image of Zoroaster among the Zoroastrians of Persia and India after the Islamic conquest (10th century onwards).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ZOROASTER iv. In the Pahlavi Books

  A. V. Williams

  Although Pahlavi was spoken as long ago as the 3rd century BCE, most of the written works that survive were compiled from older Zoroastrian material in the period after the Muslim conquest up to the 10th century CE.

• ZOROASTER ii. GENERAL SURVEY

  W. W. Malandra

  “Zoroaster” is the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam.

• EPIPHANIUS

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  (b. Eleutheropolis, Judaea, ca. 315; d. Constantia, Cyprus), bishop of Constantia on Cyprus, founded on the remains of Salamis.

• HERMIPPUS OF SMYRNA

  J. Wiesehöfer

  third-century BCE Greek grammarian who wrote on “Zoroaster’s writings.”

• GƎUŠ TAŠAN

  William W. Malandra

  (the fashioner of the Cow), a divine craftsman who figures prominently in the Gathas of Zoroaster but falls into obscurity in the Younger Avesta, being there associated with the fourteenth day of the month, known in Middle Persian simply as Gōš.

• ARJĀSP

  A. Tafażżolī

  a chief of the Iranian tribe of the Xyōns and an enemy of Kay Goštāsp, patron of Zoroaster.

• BARUCH

  Sh. Shaked

  scribe and disciple of the prophet Jeremiah, at the time of the first Jewish exile to Babylonia (586 B.C.).  Baruch was identified with Zoroaster by some Syriac authors, followed by some Arab historians.

• DUGDŌW

  D. N. MacKenzie

  the name of Zoroaster’s mother, which appears in several different spellings in the Pahlavi texts, mostly more or less corrupted from an original attempt at representing the Avestan form.

• GƎUŠ URUUAN

  William W. Malandra

  “the soul of the Cow,” the name of the archetypal Bovine, whose plight is a subject of Zoroaster’s gāθā, often identified as “the Cow’s Lament.”

• ARSACIDS vi. Arsacid chronology in traditional history

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  The Parthian rule lasted 474 years, longer than any dynastic period in Iranian history, but post-Sasanian sources give various figures for the duration of the Arsacid rule.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• GAOTƎMA

  Bernfried Schlerath

  an Avestan proper name only attested in Yt. 13.16: “An eloquent man will be born, who makes his words heard in verbal contests, ... victorious over the defeated Gaotəma.”

• CEDRENUS, GEORGIUS

  James R. Russell

  twelfth-century Byzantine historian who edited the Synopsis Historiōn of John Skylitzēs.

• ZARATHUSTRA

  Cross-Reference

  the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam. See ZOROASTER.

• DŪRĀSRAW

  D. N. MacKenzie

  according to the Pahlavi tradition the name of two legendary personages in the history of Zoroastrianism.

• ARA THE BEAUTIFUL

  J. R. Russell

  son of Aram, mythical king of Armenia.  

• DĀITYĀ, VAŊHVĪ

  Gherardo Gnoli

  the name of a river connected with the religious law, frequently identified in scholarly literature with the Oxus or with rivers of the northeastern region.

• CHARPENTIER, JARL

  Bo Utas

  (Hellen Robert Toussaint; b. 17 December 1884, d. 5 July 1935), Swedish Indologist, Indo-Europeanist, and Iranist, born in Gothenburg as the son of an army officer.

• OSTANES

  Morton Smith

  legendary mage in classical and medieval literature.

• AKES

  M. A. Dandamayev

  (Greek Akēs), a river in Central Asia, the modern Tejen or Harī-rūd (q.v.).

• SAOŠYANT

  William Malandra

  a term in Zoroastrianism sometimes rendered as “savior.” Since the term also occurs frequently in reference to contemporary individuals, a more neutral translation such as “benefactor” or “helper” (Lommel) may be preferred. 

• Z~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the Z entries

• DIO COCCEIANUS

  Roger Beck

  surnamed Chrysostom ("golden-mouthed"), a traveling scholar who in his 36th Oration (known as the “Borysthenian” or “Olbian” from its dramatic setting), written about 100 C.E., purports to summarize a hymn composed by Zoroaster and sung by the magi in secret rites.

• ČANGRANGHĀČA-NĀMA

  Žāla Āmūzgār

  a narrative work in Persian verse by Zartošt or Zarātošt, son of Bahrām-e Paždū, a poet of the 7th/13th century.

• BĪDERAFŠ

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  in the traditional history, a Turanian hero of the army of Arjāsp.

• NOWRUZ i. In the Pre-Islamic Period

  Mary Boyce

  Nowruz, “New Day”, is the holiest and most joyful festival of the Zoroastrian year. It is also its focal point, to which all other high holy days relate.

• XANTHUS THE LYDIAN

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Greek historiographer, son of a certain Kandaules, probably born in Sardis, and a Hellenized Lydian.

• CLEMENT, PSEUDO-

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  the unknown author of a work of fiction falsely ascribed to Pope Clement I (88-­97 CE) and now generally known as the Pseudo­-Clementines, which contains passages reflecting myths and teachings of Persian origin.

• HĀMUN, DARYĀČA-YE ii. IN LITERATURE AND MYTHOLOGY

  Gherardo Gnoli

  In the literature and mythology of ancient Persia, Lake Hāmun occupied, along with the Helmand Riiver, a position of particular importance, especially in Zoroastrian eschatology.

• DASĀTĪR

  Fatḥ-Allāh Mojtabaʾī

  the most important tract of the Āḏar Kayvānī sect, almost certainly the work of its founder, Āḏar Kayvān.

• AHURA.ṰKAĒŠA

  M. Boyce

  an infrequent Avestan adjective meaning “following the Ahuric doctrine.”

• CLEMENT of Alexandria

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  (Titus Flavius Clemens, probably b. Athens ca. 150 C.E., d. Cappadocia ca. 215), Greek convert to Christianity who became the leading theologian of his time, a polemicist particularly noted for his attempts to reconcile Greco-Roman thought with Christian teachings.

• DARĪGBED

  Richard N. Frye

  title of a low-ranking official at the Sasanian court.

• ARTĒŠTĀR

  W. Sundermann

  a learned calque on and translation of the Avestan raθaēštā.

• FRAWARDĪN YAŠT

  Mary Boyce

  the thirteenth of the Zoroastrian yašt hymns, devoted to the fravašis.

• BASTŪR

  A. Tafażżolī

  (Mid. Pers. Bastwar, Av. Bastauuairi), a hero of the Iranian national epic, son of Zarēr, King Goštāsp’s brother.

• BAHRĀM PAŽDŪ

  Ž. Āmūzgār

  Zoroastrian poet of the 13th century. His only surviving poem celebrates spring, Nowrūz and those who had propagated the Zoroastrian religion.

• HYDE, THOMAS

  A. V. Williams

  (1636-1703), D.D., English orientalist, Professor of Arabic and Hebrew in the University of Oxford, the first scholar to attempt to write a comprehensive description of the religion of Zoroaster.

• DIOGENES LAERTIUS

  Wolfgang Felix

  author of a biographically arranged history of Greek philosophy in ten books that also deals with the Persian Magi, especially in the first book on the origins of philosophy.

• AIRYAMAN

  M. Boyce

  an ancient Iranian divinity and a yazata of the Zoroastrian pantheon, known in Manichean Middle Persian as Aryaman, in Pahlavi as Ērmān.

• DINON

  Wolfgang Felix

  (fl. approximately 360-30 B.C.E.), author of a historical work on the Ancient Orient.

• KARAPAN

  William Malandra

  (or Karpan), designation of members of a class of daivic priests opposed to the religion of Zarathustra.

• ĀΘRAVAN-

  M. Boyce

  (Avestan) “priest” regularly used to designate the priests as a social “class,” one of the three into which ancient Iranian society was theoretically divided.

• ĀDUR-ANĀHĪD

  Ph. Gignoux

  3rd century CE  Sasanian “queen of queens.”  

• CONSTELLATIONS

  D. N. MacKenzie

  The first and only two constellations to be named in Old Iranian sources are Ursa Major and the Pleiades, in the Younger Avesta. The next possible mentions of constellations are of two kinds, both dating from late Middle Persian times but only actually attested in works or manuscripts from the Islamic period.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANQUETIL-DUPERRON

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  (1731-1805), French orientalist, born in Paris on 7 December 1731. In June, 1759, he was able to send news to Paris that he had completed (in three months) a translation of that Vendidad.

• HERZFELD, ERNST v. HERZFELD AND THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT IRAN

  Josef Wiesehöfer

  Herzfeld’s classical education, giving him familiarity with Greek and Latin literature, and his training in Oriental philology as well as in archeology and architectural techniques proved of great benefit in his study of pre-Islamic Iranian history and culture.

• DAQĪQĪ, ABŪ MANṢŪR AḤMAD

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

   b. Aḥmad, one of the famous poets of the last years of the Samanid (819-1005) dynasty.

• ASTVAṰ.ƎRƎTA

  M. Boyce

  the Avestan name of the Saošyant, the future Savior of Zoroastrianism.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (3) Chronological Table

  Ehsan Yarshater

  A chronological table of events. This records major happenings of Iranian pre-history and history from the most ancient times to 2005.

• KAʿBA-YE ZARDOŠT

  Gerd Gropp

  “Kaʿba of Zoroaster,” an ancient building at Naqš-e Rostam near Persepolis.

• ĀFRĪN

  F. M. Kotwal and J. W. Boyd

  “blessing,” benedictory prayers said at the conclusion of every Zoroastrian ceremony of blessings (āfrinagān).

• BAHMAN (1)

  J. Narten, Ph. Gignoux

  the New Persian name of the Avestan Vohu Manah (Good Thought) and Pahlavi Wahman.

• GUMĒZIŠN

  D. N. Mackenzie

  a Middle Persian noun, spelled gwmycšn in Pahlavi and gwmyzyšn in Manichean script, meaning “mixing, mingling, mixture.”

• ARDWAHIŠT

  M. Boyce

  one of the six great Aməša Spəntas who, with Ahura Mazdā and/or his Holy Spirit, make up the Zoroastrian Heptad. Of the six, Aša has the clearest pre-Zoroastrian antecedents.

• DEŽ Ī NEBEŠT

  Mansour Shaki

  (Mid. Pers. diz ī nibišt “fortress of archives,” lit. “writing”), supposedly one of two repositories in which copies of the Avesta and its exegesis (zand) were deposited for safekeeping.

• ESḤĀQ TORK

  ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb

  propagandist sent by Abū Moslem Ḵorāsānī (governor of Khorasan and leading figure in the ʿAbbasid revolution) to the Turkish people of Transoxania.

• MIRACLES i. In Ancient Iranian Tradition

  Philippe Gignoux

  The written accounts of miracles in ancient Iran, both those relating to Zoroaster and his family and those regarding the legendary heroes of the Kayanid dynasty, have come down to us through the Pahlavi religious literature. These miracles do not reflect historical events; they are always associated with the mythical and legendary history of Mazdaism and the ancient Iranian epic.

• CONVERSION vii. To the Zoroastrian faith in the modern period

  Pargol Saati

  Modern Zoroastrians disagree on whether it is permissible for outsiders to enter their religion. Now scattered in small minority communities in Persia, India, Europe, and North America and without a reli­gious hierarchy, the Zoroastrians are governed by councils and high priests whose authority is only local. 

• MESSINA, GIUSEPPE

  Carlo G. Cereti

  (1893-1951), SJ, Italian scholar of Middle and Modern Iranian studies.

• ĀB-ZŌHR

  Mary Boyce

  “offering of water,” the Middle Persian form of a Zoroastrian technical term, Av. Ape zaoθra. Making the offering of water is the culminating rite of the main Zoroastrian act of worship, the yasna; and preparing and consecrating it is at the center of the rituals of the second part of this service.

• HUMATA HŪXTA HUVARŠTA

  Mary Boyce

  three Avestan words which encapsulate the ethical goals of Zoroastrianism. In form verbal adjectives,  they were substantivized to mean “good thought, good word, good act.”

• ALFARIC, PROSPER

  H. C. Puech

  (1876-1955), French historian of religions.  

• AMƎŠA SPƎNTA

  M. Boyce

  an Avestan term for beneficent divinity, meaning literally “Holy/Bounteous Immortal” (Pahl. Amešāspand, [A]mahraspand).

• ARMAITI

  M. Boyce

  one of the six great Aməša Spəntas in Zoroastrianism.

• AHURA MAZDĀ

  M. Boyce

  the Avestan name with title of a great divinity of the Old Iranian religion, who was subsequently proclaimed by Zoroaster as God.

• ČĒČAST

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  a mythical lake in eastern Iran, later identified in the Pahlavi and Persian sources with Lake Urmia in Azerbaijan.

• HELMAND RIVER ii. IN ZOROASTRIAN TRADITION

  Gherardo Gnoli

  According to Avestan geography, the region of the Haētumant River extends in a southwest direction from the point of confluence of the Arḡandāb with the Helmand.

• DŪZAḴ

  Mansour Shaki

  hell.

• EBRĀHĪM

  Amnon Netzer

  Abraham, the name of the first patriarch of the Hebrew people.

• BULSARA, SOHRAB JAMSHEDJI

  Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

  (1877-1945), Parsi scholar of Avestan, Pahlavi, Pazand, and Persian and Iranian history, born to a middle class family in Bulsar, Gujarat.  

• OXYARTES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Bactrian noble, satrap under Alexander the Great.

• SŪDGAR NASK and WARŠTMĀNSR NASK

  Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

  the first and second of three commentaries on the Old Avesta, extant in a Pahlavi resume in book nine of the Dēnkard, the third being the Bag nask.

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• FRAHANG Ī OĪM

  William W. Malandra

  an Avestan-Pahlavi glossary so named after its first entry, Av. oīm glossed by Pahl. ēwag, though the work is introduced with the lengthy title: “On the understanding of the speech and words of the Avesta, namely, what and how its zand is.”

• CAMA, KHARSHEDJI RUSTAMH

  James R. Russell

  (1831-1909), Parsi Zoroastrian scholar and community leader. Cama worked for the organization of Parsi madres­sas (madrasas), and his consultation was sought also in the establishment of Hindu and Muslim schools. He was associated with the University of Bombay.

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• BASILIUS OF CAESAREA

  J. P. Asmussen

  or Basilius the Great (ca. A.D. 330-79), bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370, after Eusebius, who wrote regarding the Magi.

• BEHRŪZ, ḎABĪḤ

  Paul Sprachman

  (1889-1971), Persian satirist,  writer of highly popular parodies and burlesques.

• KAĒTA

  William W. Malandra

  an Avestan word whose approximate meaning is ‘soothsayer.’

• SCHMIDT, HANNS-PETER

  Touraj Daryaee

  (1930-2017), a German Indo-Iranist who specialized in studies on Indian mythology and the Zoroastrian religion.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ČIHRDĀD NASK

  D. N. MacKenzie

  one of the lost nasks of the Avesta.

• CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  classical philologist and historian of religions, whose research resulted in a substantial contribution to the understanding of Mithraism and other oriental reli­gions in the Roman empire.

• ARŠĀMA

  E. Bresciani

  name of several Achaemenid notables.

• ŠĀYEST NĒ ŠĀYEST

  Fereydun Vahman

  (Proper and Improper), a work in the Middle Persian/Pahlavi language dealing with Zoroastrian jurisprudence and containing miscellaneous laws concerning sins, purity, and impurity.

• APARNA

  P. Lecoq

  (Gk. Aparnoi/Parnoi, Lat. Aparni or Parni), an east Iranian tribe established on the Ochos (modern Taǰen, Teǰend) and one of the three tribes in the confederation of the Dahae.

• ARDAŠĪR II

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Sasanian king of kings, A.D. 379-83; he was deposed by the nobles in favor of Šāpūr III.

• BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN vii. History of Religions

  François de Blois

  In this article some of his remarks on pre-Islamic Iranian religions, on Christian­ity and Judaism, and on Muslim sects will be discussed.

• GOŠTĀSP

  A. Shapur Shabazi

  Kayanian king of Iranian traditional history and patron of Zoroaster.

• AVESTAN PEOPLE

  M. Boyce

  The term Avestan people is used here to include both Zoroaster’s own tribe, with that of his patron, Kavi Vištāspa, and those peoples settled in Eastern Iran.

• BIBLE ii. Persian Elements in the Bible

  Morton Smith

  Identification of Persian elements in the Bible is difficult because: (1) nobody knows just what was “Persian” when the biblical books were being written. (2) many things then “Persian” were also elements of other cultures.

• DABESTĀN-E MAḎĀHEB

  Fatḥ-Allāh Mojtabāʾī

  (school of religious doctrines), an important text of the Āḏar Kayvānī pseudo-Zoroastrian sect, written between 1645 and 1658.

• GATHAS ii

  William W. Malandra

  Of the entire corpus of the Avesta, the Gathas have been translated far more frequently than any of its other divisions.

• CLASS SYSTEM i. In the Avesta

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  The evidence for the existence of a highly developed class structure in the community in which the Avestan texts were composed is very slight, and the available information must be culled from sources chronologically as far apart as the Avesta itself and the Pahlavi texts.

• NIETZSCHE AND PERSIA

  Daryoush Ashouri

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), the great German thinker, is best known as a philosopher of culture.

• XERXES i. The Name

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the common Greek (Xérxēs) and Latin form (Xerxes, Xerses) of the Achaemenid throne-name which in Old Persian is spelled x-š-y-a-r-š-a. 

• ĀBĀN YAŠT

  Mary Boyce

  Middle Persian name of the fifth hymn among the Zoroastrian hymns to individual divinities. It is the third longest, with 131 verses.