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).

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• 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.

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• 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.

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