Zoroastrians Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices General Editor: John R. Hinnells The University, Manchester In the series: The Sikhs W. Owen Cole and Piara Singh Sambhi Zoroastrians Their Religious Beliefs and Practices MaryBoyce ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL London, Boston and Henley HARVARD UNIVERSITY, UBRARY.: DEe 1 81979 First published in 1979 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD, Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN and 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA Set in 10 on 12pt Garamond and printed in Great Britain by Lowe & BrydonePrinters Ltd Thetford, Norfolk © Mary Boyce 1979 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Boyce, Mary Zoroastrians. - (Libraryof religious beliefs and practices). I. Zoroastrianism - History I. Title II. Series ISBN 0 7100 0121 5 Dedicated in gratitude to the memory of HECTOR MUNRO CHADWICK Elrington and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon in the University of Cambridge 1912-4 1 Contents Preface XJ1l Glossary xv Signs and abbreviations XIX \/ I The background I Introduction I The Indo-Iranians 2 The old religion 3 cult The J The gods 6 the 12 Death and hereafter Conclusion 16 2 Zoroaster and his teaching 17 Introduction 17 Zoroaster and his mission 18 Ahura Mazda and his Adversary 19 The heptad and the seven creations 21 .. vu Contents Creation and the Three Times 25 Death and the hereafter 27 3 The establishing of Mazda worship 30 Introduction 30 The Zoroastrian badge 31 The times and manner of praying 32 The seven festivals 33 The oldest prayers 34 The creed 35 The liturgy and Yenhe hattlm 37 The Ashem vohu 38 The hymns 38 4 The unrecorded centuries 39 The early days 39 Doctrinal developments 40 Belief in a world Saviour 42 The extension of purity laws 43 Priests and worship 46 Conclusion 46 5 Under the Achaemenians 48 The Medes, the Persians and Zoroaster 48 The early kings 50 Cy rus 50 Cambyses 53 Darius the Great 54 Xerxes 56 Achaemenian palaces and tombs 57 " Fires and firealtars 60 The divine beings 61 Icons and temples 62 The priesthood 65 Vlll Contents The Zurvaniteheresy The Zoroastrian calendar The three world Saviours Practices of the faith - The spread of Zoroaster's teaching 6 Under the Seleucids and Arsacids Alexander and Iran The Seleucids and Iran The rise of the Parthians Eastern Iranian borders: the Kushans Western Iranian borders: Armenia Fire temples and image shrines Funerary practices Developments in calendar and chronology -- The A vesta Developments in the scribal tradition Human affairs Next-oJ-kin marriages Ecclesiastical organization Unbelievers Conclusion 100 7 Under the early Sasanians IOI The rise of the Sasanians 101 T ansar, a religious propagandist 102 Calendar changes 104 Iconoclasm and sacred fires I06 The rise of Kirder, the second great prelate 109 The prophet Mani III Zurvanism in the early Sasanian period 112 Learning and writing 113 The summit of Kirder's power II4 Persian made the officiallanguage of all Iran II6 Conclusion 117 lX Contents 8 During the mid Sasanian period II8 Upholding a Zurvanite orthodoxy lI8 The three great sacred fires 123 Liturgical reform 125 Religious literature and royal propaganda 126 Calendar reform 128 The Mazdakite movement 13° 9 Under the later Sasanians IF Khosrow 'the Just' IF The written Avesta 134 The Pahlavi literature 136 Religious observances 138 The last years of Zoroastrian Iran 141 Conclusion 143 - 10 Under the Caliphs 145 The Arab conquest of Iran 145 Inducements and barriers to conversion 147 Islam takes root in Iran 15° Zoroastrians in ninth-century Iran IF Zoroastrians in tenth-century Iran 156 Turkish and Mongol invasions of Iran 161 11 Under Il-Khans, Rajahs and Sultans 163 Zoroastrian survival 163 Manuscript copying and preservation 165 The Parsi founding fathers 166 Parsis in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries 168 Parsis in the fifteenthcentury 171 Irani Zoroastrians in the sixteenth century 175 Parsis in the sixteenth century 175 x Contents I2 Under the Safavids and Mughals 177 Irani Zoroastrians under Shah cAbbas: their beliefs and practices 177 Parsis in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 182 Eighteenth-century Parsi religious disputes 188 Irani Zoroastrians in the eighteenth century 190 The Parsi Panchayat of Bombay 192 Eighteenth-century European studies of Zoroastrian beliefs 194 13 Under the Qajars and British 196 Christian missionaries and Parsi beliefs 196 Parsi religious reforms 199 Haug and West on Zoroastrian beliefs 202 Theosophy and the Parsis 204 Ilm-i Khshnum: Zoroastrian occultism 205 Parsis and the printed word 206 The Parsi practice of the faith 207 Irani Zoroastrians in the nineteenth century 209 Parsi calendar and religious reform in the early twentieth century 212 "'/"14 In the twentieth century 216 Urban Pars is 216 Zoroastrians in modern Iran 218 Parsis in independent India and Pakistan 223 Recent interpretations of Zoroastrian belief 224 International dispersion 226 Bibliography 229 Index 237 Xl Maps I Imperial Iran xx After the Arab conquest 11 XXI .. Xll Preface Zoroastrianism is the most difficult of living faiths to study, because of its antiquity, the vicissitudes which it has undergone, and the loss, through them, of many of its holy texts. Q[iginating over 3500 years ago in�}3r()I1zeAge culture on the Asian steppes, it became the state religIon of three mighty Iranian empires in succession, and so was endowed for many centuries with temporal power and wealth. Its lofty original doctrines came accordingly to exert their influence throughout the Middle East - an area where J udaism developed, and Christianity and Islam were born. To the east Iranian rule extended into Northern India, and there Zoroastri<lflisIl}- ' made-. a contribution to the development of Mahayana Buddhism. Some knowledge of the teachings of Zoroaster and of thehis1:ory of his faith is therefore needed by every serious student of world religions; and the recent expansion of religious studies in universities has created a demand for an introductory book on this theme. The present work is an attempt to meet that demand. In it it has been sought to treat Zoroastrianism not merely as a mighty seminal influence, but also as a noble faith in its own right, which has held the loyalty of its followers over millennia and through harsh persecutions. Instead, therefore, of stopping, as is usual, with the worldly eclipse of Zoroastrianism by Islam, the book traces the continual history of the community through the subsequent years of oppression, down into the prosperity of modern times. Xlll Preface In the interests of clarity and conciseness only basic references are given, and this has occasionally entailed embodying the results of recent work by other scholars without due acknowledgment. A fuller treatment of the subject-matter of the earlier chapters already exists in the author's A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. I (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Leiden 1975); and it is intended in the remaining volumes of that work to cover in detail the whole fieldof the present book, when detailed references and acknowledgments will be possible. In compliance with the usage of the present series, words are supplied with diacritics only in the index. Zoroastrian technical terms are set between apostrophes at their firstoccurrence, and thereafter appear undifferentiated; but those which recur regularly are to be found in the glossary at the beginning of the book. Since Zoroastri anism covers not only a great span of time, but also vast physical distances, the two maps are designed primJ.rily to give a clear picture of its spheres of influence and of survival, and not every town or archaeological site referred to in the text is to be found on them; but it should always be possible to locate each place fairly closely by region. The photograph on the jacket shows Dastur Firoze M. Kotwal, high priest of the Wadia Atash Bahram, Bombay, tending a ritual fire. I am indebted to him for his generous pennission to use it. It remains for me to express my gratitude to my friend, Mr J. R. Hinnells, the general editor of the series, both for inviting me to undertake this work, and for helping, with patience, labour and wise counsel, to bring it to fruition. I am also indebted to the editorial staff of Messrs Routledge & Kegan Paul for their courtesy and helpful advice. XIV Glossary Note: A word sometimes occurs in more than one form, according to different periods of history. In such cases the older form is given first. agiary Parsi term for a Zoroastrian place of worship, a fire temple Ahuna Vairya, the holiest Zoroastrian prayer, equivalent to the Lord's Ahunvar Prayer in Christianity akabir Arabic plural, 'great ones', used for elders or leading men Amesha Spenta 'Holy Immortal', a term for one of the divine beings of Zoroastrianism, evoked by God; often used especially of the six greatest among them anjoman 'assembly', a gathering or council of local Zoroastrians asha 'order, truth, justice', a principle which governs the world ashavan 'righteous, true, just' atakhsh, atash 'fire' Atakhshi 'fireof fires', a sacred fireof the second grade Aduran, Atas Aduran Atakhshi 'fire of (the divine being) Varahram/Bahram', a sacred Varahram, fireof the highest grade Atash Bahram xv Glossary atash-zohr 'offering to fire' Avesta the sacred books of the Zoroastrians Avestan the Iranian language spoken by Zoroaster, in which the Avesta is composed barashnom ritual ablution, part of a prolonged rite of purification baresman, bundle of twigs held by the officiating priest at acts of bars om worship behdin 'the good religion' i.e. Zoroastrianism; also 'of the good religion' i.e.