Ten Great Religions by James Freeman Clarke

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"Darius the King, King of Kings, son of Hystaspes, successor of the
Ruler of the World, Djemchid."

Another:--

"Xerxes the King, King of Kings, son of Darius the King, successor of
the Ruler of the World."

More recently, other inscriptions have been deciphered, one of which is
thus given by another German Orientalist, Benfey:--[107]

"Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd) is a mighty God; who has created the earth, the
heaven, and men; who has given glory to men; who has made Xerxes king,
the ruler of many. I, Xerxes, King of Kings, king of the earth near and
far, son of Darius, an Achaemenid. What I have done here, and what I
have done elsewhere, I have done by the grace of Ahura-Mazda."

In another place:--

"Artaxerxes the King has declared that this great work is done by me.
May Ahura-Mazda and Mithra protect me, my building, and my
people[108]."

Here, then, was the palace of Darius and his successors, Xerxes and
Artaxerxes, famous for their conquests,--some of which are recorded on
these walls,--who carried their victorious arms into India on the east,
Syria and Asia Minor on the west, but even more famous for being defeated
at Marathon and Thermopylae. By the side of these columns sat the great
kings of Persia, giving audience to ambassadors from distant lands. Here,
perhaps, sat Cyrus himself, the founder of the Persian monarchy, and
issued orders to rebuild Jerusalem. Here the son of Xerxes, the Ahasuerus
of Scripture, may have brought from Susa the fair Esther. For this is the
famous Persepolis, and on those loftier platforms, where only ruinous
heaps of stones now remain, stood that other palace, which Alexander
burned in his intoxication three hundred and thirty years before Christ.
"Solitary in their situation, peculiar in their character," says Heeren,
"these ruins rise above the deluge of years which has overwhelmed all the
records of human grandeur around them, and buried all traces of Susa and
Babylon. Their venerable antiquity and majestic proportions do not more
command our reverence, than the mystery which involves their construction
awakens the curiosity of the most unobservant spectator. Pillars which
belong to no known order of architecture, inscriptions in an alphabet
which continues an enigma, fabulous animals which stand as guards at the
entrance, the multiplicity of allegorical figures which decorate the
walls,--all conspire to carry us back to ages of the most remote
antiquity, over which the traditions of the East shed a doubtful and
wavering light."

Diodorus Siculus says that at Persepolis, on the face of the mountain,
were the tombs of the kings of Persia, and that the coffins had to be
lifted up to them along the wall of rock by cords. And Ctesias tells us
that "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, had a tomb prepared for himself in the
double mountain during his lifetime, and that his parents were drawn up
with cords to see it, but fell and were killed." These very tombs are
still to be seen on the face of the mountain behind the ruins. The figures
of the kings are carved over them. One stands before an altar on which a
fire is burning. A ball representing the sun is above the altar. Over the
effigy of the king hangs in the air a winged half-length figure in fainter
lines, and resembling him. In other places he is seen contending with a
winged animal like a griffin.

All this points at the great Iranic religion, the religion of Persia and
its monarchs for many centuries, the religion of which Zoroaster was the
great prophet, and the Avesta the sacred book. The king, as servant of
Ormazd, is worshipping the fire and the sun,--symbols of the god; he
resists the impure griffin, the creature of Ahriman; and the half-length
figure over his head is the surest evidence of the religion of Zoroaster.
For, according to the Avesta, every created being has its archetype or
Fereuer (Ferver, Fravashis), which is its ideal essence, first created by
the thought of Ormazd. Even Ormazd himself has his Fravashis,[109] and
these angelic essences are everywhere objects of worship to the disciple
of Zoroaster. We have thus found in Persepolis, not only the palace of the
great kings of Persia, but the home of that most ancient system of
Dualism, the system of Zoroaster.

Sec. 2. Greek Accounts of Zoroaster. Plutarch's Description of his Religion.

But who was Zoroaster, and what do we know of him? He is mentioned by
Plato, about four hundred years before Christ. In speaking of the
education of a Persian prince he says that "one teacher instructs him in
the magic of Zoroaster, the son (or priest) of Ormazd (or Oromazes), in
which is comprehended all the worship of the gods." He is also spoken of
by Diodorus, Plutarch, the elder Pliny, and many writers of the first
centuries after Christ. The worship of the Magians is described by
Herodotus before Plato. Herodotus gives very minute accounts of the
ritual, priests, sacrifices, purifications, and mode of burial used by the
Persian Magi in his time, four hundred and fifty years before Christ; and
his account closely corresponds with the practices of the Parsis, or
fire-worshippers, still remaining in one or two places in Persia and India
at the present day. "The Persians," he says, "have no altars, no temples
nor images; they worship on the tops of the mountains. They adore the
heavens, and sacrifice to the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and
winds."[110] "They do not erect altars, nor use libations, fillets, or
cakes. One of the Magi sings an ode concerning the origin of the gods,
over the sacrifice, which is laid on a bed of tender grass." "They pay
great reverence to all rivers, and must do nothing to defile them; in
burying they never put the body in the ground till it has been torn by
some bird or dog; they cover the body with wax, and then put it in the
ground." "The Magi think they do a meritorious act when they kill ants,
snakes, reptiles."[111]

Plutarch's account of Zoroaster[112] and his precepts, is very
remarkable. It is as follows:--

"Some believe that there are two Gods,--as it were, two rival workmen; the
one whereof they make to be the maker of good things, and the other bad.
And some call the better of these God, and the other Daemon; as doth
Zoroastres, the Magee, whom they report to be five thousand years elder
than the Trojan times. This Zoroastres therefore called the one of these
Oromazes, and the other Arimanius; and affirmed, moreover, that the one of
them did, of anything sensible, the most resemble light, and the other
darkness and ignorance; but that Mithras was in the middle betwixt them.
For which cause, the Persians called Mithras the mediator. And they tell
us that he first taught mankind to make vows and offerings of thanksgiving
to the one, and to offer averting and feral sacrifice to the other. For
they beat a certain plant called homomy[113] in a mortar, and call upon
Pluto and the dark; and then mix it with the blood of a sacrificed wolf,
and convey it to a certain place where the sun never shines, and there
cast it away. For of plants they believe, that some pertain to the good
God, and others again to the evil Daemon; and likewise they think that
such animals as dogs, fowls, and urchins belong to the good; but water
animals to the bad, for which reason they account him happy that kills
most of them. These men, moreover, tell us a great many romantic things
about these gods, whereof these are some: They say that Oromazes,
springing from purest light, and Arimanius, on the other hand, from pitchy
darkness, these two are therefore at war with one another. And that
Oromazes made six gods[114], whereof the first was the author of
benevolence, the second of truth, the third of justice, and the rest, one
of wisdom, one of wealth, and a third of that pleasure which accrues from
good actions; and that Arimanius likewise made the like number of contrary
operations to confront them. After this, Oromazes, having first trebled
his own magnitude, mounted up aloft, so far above the sun as the sun
itself above the earth, and so bespangled the heavens with stars. But one
star (called Sirius or the Dog) he set as a kind of sentinel or scout
before all the rest. And after he had made four-and-twenty gods more, he
placed them all in an egg-shell. But those that were made by Arimanius
(being themselves also of the like number) breaking a hole in this
beauteous and glazed egg-shell, bad things came by this means to be
intermixed with good. But the fatal time is now approaching, in which
Arimanius, who by means of this brings plagues and famines upon the earth,
must of necessity be himself utterly extinguished and destroyed; at which
time, the earth, being made plain and level, there will be one life, and
one society of mankind, made all happy, and one speech. But Theopompus
saith, that, according to the opinion of the Magees, each of these gods
subdues, and is subdued by turns, for the space of three thousand years
apiece, and that for three thousand years more they quarrel and fight and
destroy each other's works; but that at last Pluto shall fail, and mankind
shall be happy, and neither need food, nor yield a shadow.[115] And that
the god who projects these things doth, for some time, take his repose and
rest; but yet this time is not so much to him although it seems so to man,
whose sleep is but short. Such, then, is the mythology of the Magees."

We shall see presently how nearly this account corresponds with the
religion of the Parsis, as it was developed out of the primitive doctrine
of Zoroaster.[116]

Besides what was known through the Greeks, and some accounts contained in
Arabian and Persian writers, there was, until the middle of the last
century, no certain information concerning Zoroaster and his teachings.
But the enterprise, energy, and scientific devotion of a young Frenchman
changed the whole aspect of the subject, and we are now enabled to speak
with some degree of certainty concerning this great teacher and his
doctrines.

Sec. 3. Anquetil du Perron and his Discovery of the Zend Avesta.

Anquetil du Perron, born at Paris in 1731, devoted himself early to the
study of Oriental literature. He mastered the Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian
languages, and by his ardor in these studies attracted the attention of
Oriental scholars. Meeting one day in the Royal Library with a fragment of
the Zend Avesta, he was seized with the desire of visiting India, to
recover the lost books of Zoroaster, "and to learn the Zend language in
which they were written, and also the Sanskrit, so as to be able to read
the manuscripts in the _Bibliotheque du Roi_, which no one in Paris
understood."[117] His friends endeavored to procure him a situation in an
expedition just about to sail; but their efforts not succeeding, Du Perron
enlisted as a private soldier, telling no one of his intention till the
day before setting out, lest he should be prevented from going. He then
sent for his brother and took leave of him with many tears, resisting all
the efforts made to dissuade him from his purpose. His baggage consisted
of a little linen, a Hebrew Bible, a case of mathematical instruments, and
the works of Montaigne and Charron. A ten days' march, with other
recruits, through wet and cold, brought him to the port from whence the
expedition was to sail. Here he found that the government, struck with his
extraordinary zeal for science, had directed that he should have his
discharge and a small salary of five hundred livres. The East India
Company (French) gave him a passage gratis, and he set sail for India,
February 7, 1755, being then twenty-four years old. The first two years in
India were almost lost to him for purposes of science, on account of his
sicknesses, travels, and the state of the country disturbed by war between
England and France[118]. He travelled afoot and on horseback over a great
part of Hindostan, saw the worship of Juggernaut and the monumental caves
of Ellora, and, in 1759, arrived at Surat, where was the Parsi community
from which he hoped for help in obtaining the object of his pursuit. By
perseverance and patience he succeeded in persuading the Destours, or
priests, of these fire-worshippers, to teach him the Zend language and to
furnish him with manuscripts of the Avesta. With one hundred and eighty
valuable manuscripts he returned to Europe, and published, in 1771, his
great work,--the Avesta translated into French, with notes and
dissertations. He lived through the French Revolution, shut up with his
books, and immersed in his Oriental studies, and died, after a life of
continued labor, in 1805. Immense erudition and indomitable industry were
joined in Anquetil du Perron to a pure love of truth and an excellent
heart.

For many years after the publication of the Avesta its genuineness and
authenticity were a matter of dispute among the learned men of Europe; Sir
William Jones especially denying it to be an ancient work, or the
production of Zoroaster. But almost all modern writers of eminence now
admit both. Already in 1826 Heeren said that these books had "stood the
fiery ordeal of criticism." "Few remains of antiquity," he remarks, "have
undergone such attentive examination as the books of the Zend Avesta. This
criticism has turned out to their advantage; the genuineness of the
principal compositions, especially of the Vendidad and Izeschne (Yacna),
has been demonstrated; and we may consider as completely ascertained all
that regards the rank of each book of the Zend Avesta."

Rhode (one of the first of scholars of his day in this department) says:
"There is not the least doubt that these are the books ascribed in the
most ancient times to Zoroaster." Of the Vendidad he says: "It has both
the inward and outward marks of the highest antiquity, so that we fear not
to say that only prejudice or ignorance could doubt it[119]."

Sec. 4. Epoch of Zoroaster. What do we know of him?

As to the age of these books, however, and the period at which Zoroaster
lived, there is the greatest difference of opinion. He is mentioned by
Plato (Alcibiades, I. 37), who speaks of "the magic (or religious
doctrines) of Zoroaster the Ormazdian" (_magedan Zoroastran ton
Oromazon_[120]). As Plato speaks of his religion as something established
in the form of Magism, or the system of the Medes, in West Iran, while the
Avesta appears to have originated in Bactria, or East Iran[121], this
already carries the age of Zoroaster back to at least the sixth or seventh
century before Christ. When the Avesta was written, Bactria was an
independent monarchy. Zoroaster is represented as teaching under King
Vistacpa. But the Assyrians conquered Bactria B.C. 1200, which was the
last of the Iranic kingdoms, they having previously vanquished the Medes,
Hyrcanians, Parthians, Persians, etc. As Zoroaster must have lived before
this conquest, his period is taken back to a still more remote time, about
B.C. 1300 or B.C. 1250[122] It is difficult to be more precise than this.
Bunsen indeed[123] suggests that "the date of Zoroaster, as fixed by
Aristotle, cannot be said to be so very irrational. He and Eudoxus,
according to Pliny, place him six thousand years before the death of
Plato; Hermippus, five thousand years before the Trojan war," or about
B.C. 6300 or B.C. 6350. But Bunsen adds: "At the present stage of the
inquiry the question whether this date is set too high cannot be answered
either in the negative or affirmative." Spiegel, in one of his latest
works,[124] considers Zoroaster as a neighbor and contemporary of Abraham,
therefore as living B.C. 2000 instead of B.C. 6350. Professor Whitney of
New Haven places the epoch of Zoroaster at "least B.C. 1000," and adds
that all attempts to reconstruct Persian chronology or history prior to
the reign of the first Sassanid have been relinquished as futile.[125]
Doellinger[126] thinks he may have been "somewhat later than Moses, perhaps
about B.C. 1300," but says, "it is impossible to fix precisely" when he
lived. Rawlinson[127]| merely remarks that Berosus places him anterior to
B.C. 2234. Haug is inclined to date the Gathas, the oldest songs of the
Avesta, as early as the time of Moses.[128] Rapp,[129] after a thorough
comparison of ancient writers, concludes that Zoroaster lived B.C. 1200 or
1300. In this he agrees with Duncker, who, as we have seen, decided upon
the same date. It is not far from the period given by the oldest Greek
writer who speaks of Zoroaster,--Xanthus of Sardis, a contemporary of
Darius. It is the period given by Cephalion, a writer of the second
century, who takes it from three independent sources. We have no sources
now open to us which enable us to come nearer than this to the time in
which he lived.

Nor is anything known with certainty of the place where he lived or the
events of his life. Most modern writers suppose that he resided in
Bactria. Haug maintains that the language of the Zend books is
Bactrian[130]. A highly mythological and fabulous life of Zoroaster,
translated by Anquetil du Perron, called the Zartusht-Namah[131],
describes him as going to Iran in his thirtieth year, spending twenty
years in the desert, working miracles during ten years, and giving lessons
of philosophy in Babylon, with Pythagoras as his pupil. All this is based
on the theory (now proved to be false) of his living in the time of
Darius. "The language of the Avesta," says Max Muller, "is so much more
primitive than the inscriptions of Darius, that many centuries must have
passed between the two periods represented by these two strata of
language[132]." These inscriptions are in the Achaemenian dialect, which
is the Zend in a later stage of linguistic growth.

Sec. 5. Spirit of Zoroaster and of his Religion

It is not likely that Zoroaster ever saw Pythagoras or even Abraham. But
though absolutely nothing is known of the events of his life, there is not
the least doubt of his existence nor of his character. He has left the
impress of his commanding genius on great regions, various races, and long
periods of time. His religion, like that of the Buddha, is essentially a
moral religion. Each of them was a revolt from the Pantheism of India, in
the interest of morality, human freedom, and the progress of the race.
They differ in this, that each takes hold of one side of morality, and
lets go the opposite. Zoroaster bases his law on the eternal distinction
between right and wrong; Sakya-muni, on the natural laws and their
consequences, either good or evil. Zoroaster's law is, therefore, the law
of justice; Sakya-muni's, the law of mercy. The one makes the supreme good
to consist in truth, duty, right; the other, in love, benevolence, and
kindness. Zoroaster teaches providence: the monk of India teaches
prudence. Zoroaster aims at holiness, the Buddha at merit. Zoroaster
teaches and emphasizes creation: the Buddha knows nothing of creation, but
only nature or law. All these oppositions run back to a single root. Both
are moral reformers; but the one moralizes according to the method of
Bishop Butler, the other after that of Archdeacon Paley. Zoroaster
cognizes all morality as having its root within, in the eternal
distinction between right and wrong motive, therefore in God; but
Sakya-muni finds it outside of the soul, in the results of good and evil
action, therefore in the nature of things. The method of salvation,
therefore, according to Zoroaster, is that of an eternal battle for good
against evil; but according to the Buddha, it is that of self-culture and
virtuous activity.

Both of these systems, as being essentially moral systems in the interest
of humanity, proceed from persons. For it is a curious fact, that, while
the essentially spiritualistic religions are ignorant of their founders,
all the moral creeds of the world proceed from a moral source, i.e. a
human will. Brahmanism, Gnosticism, the Sufism of Persia, the Mysteries of
Egypt and Greece, Neo-Platonism, the Christian Mysticism of the Middle
Ages,--these have, strictly speaking, no founder. Every tendency to the
abstract, to the infinite, ignores personality.[133] Individual mystics we
know, but never the founder of any such system. The religions in which the
moral element is depressed, as those of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece,
Rome, are also without personal founders. But moral religions are the
religions of persons, and so we have the systems of Confucius, Buddha,
Zoroaster, Moses, Mohammed.[134] The Protestant Reformation was a protest
of the moral nature against a religion which had become divorced from
morality. Accordingly we have Luther as the founder of Protestantism; but
mediaeval Christianity grew up with no personal leader.

The whole religion of the Avesta revolves around the person of Zoroaster,
or Zarathustra. In the oldest part of the sacred books, the Gathas of the
Yacna, he is called the _pure_ Zarathustra, good in thought, speech, and
work. It is said that Zarathustra alone knows the precepts of Ahura-Mazda
(Ormazd), and that he shall be made skilful in speech. In one of the
Gathas he expresses the desire of bringing knowledge to the pure, in the
power of Ormazd, so as to be to them strong joy (Spiegel, Gatha Ustvaiti,
XLII. 8), or, as Haug translates the same passage (Die Gathas des
Zarathustra, II. 8): "I will swear hostility to the liars, but be a strong
help to the truthful." He prays for truth, declares himself the most
faithful servant in the world of Ormazd the Wise One, and therefore begs
to know the best thing to do. As the Jewish prophets tried to escape their
mission, and called it a burden, and went to it "in the heat and
bitterness of their spirit," so Zoroaster says (according to Spiegel):
"When it came to me through your prayer, I thought that the spreading
abroad of your law through men was something difficult."

Zoroaster was one of those who was oppressed with the sight of evil. But
it was not outward evil which most tormented him, but spiritual
evil,--evil having its origin in a depraved heart and a will turned away
from goodness. His meditations led him to the conviction that all the woe
of the world had its root in sin, and that the origin of sin was to be
found in the demonic world. He might have used the language of the Apostle
Paul and said, "We wrestle not with flesh and blood,"--that is, our
struggle is not with man, but with principles of evil, rulers of darkness,
spirits of wickedness in the supernatural world. Deeply convinced that a
great struggle was going on between the powers of light and darkness, he
called on all good men to take part in the war, and battle for the good
God against the dark and foul tempter.

Great physical calamities added to the intensity of this conviction. It
appears that about the period of Zoroaster, some geological convulsions
had changed the climate of Northern Asia, and very suddenly produced
severe cold where before there had been an almost tropical temperature.
The first Fargard of the Vendidad has been lately translated by both
Spiegel and Haug, and begins by speaking of a good country, Aryana-Vaejo,
which was created a region of delight by Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd). Then it
adds that the "evil being, Angra-Mainyus (Ahriman), full of death, created
a mighty serpent, and winter, the work of the Devas. Ten months of winter
are there, two months of summer." Then follows, in the original document,
this statement: "Seven months of summer are (were?) there; five months of
winter were there. The latter are cold as to water, cold as to earth, cold
as to trees. There is the heart of winter; there all around falls deep
snow. There is the worst of evils." This passage has been set aside as an
interpolation by both Spiegel and Haug. But they give no reason for
supposing it such, except the difficulty of reconciling it with the
preceding passage. This difficulty, however, disappears, if we suppose it
intended to describe a great climatic change, by which the original home
of the Aryans, Aryana-Vaejo, became suddenly very much colder than before.
Such a change, if it took place, was probably the cause of the emigration
which transferred this people from Aryana-Vaejo (Old Iran) to New Iran, or
Persia. Such a history of emigration Bunsen and Haug suppose to be
contained in this first Fargard (or chapter) of the Vendidad. If so, it
takes us back further than the oldest part of the Veda, and gives the
progress of the Aryan stream to the south from its original source on the
great plains of Central Asia, till it divided into two branches, one
flowing into Persia, the other into India. The first verse of this
venerable document introduces Ormazd as saying that he had created new
regions, desirable as homes; for had he not done so, all human beings
would have crowded into this Aryana-Vaejo. Thus in the very first verse of
the Vendidad appears the affectionate recollection of these emigrant races
for their fatherland in Central Asia, and the Zoroasterian faith in a
creative and protective Providence. The awful convulsion which turned
their summer climate into the present Siberian winter of ten months'
duration was part of a divine plan. Old Iran would have been too
attractive, and all mankind would have crowded into that Eden. So the
evil Ahriman was permitted to glide into it, a new serpent of destruction,
and its seven months of summer and five of winter were changed to ten of
winter and two of summer.[135]