Zoroastrianism

[User]

What is it? What are it's primary scriptures?

[andy_d]

This (http://www.religioustolerance.org/zoroastr.htm) is a great site for general infromation about any religion.

I also like this one (http://www.godulike.co.uk/faiths.php?chapter=105&subject=intro) because it's a little more conversational.

Both have pretty good information, though.

[Sarpedon]

The Zend Avesta is the main Zoroastrian text, and let me tell you, it is as tedious as the Bible, and twice as sadistic. Its kind of a boring religion anyway.

[premjan]

I kind of like mythology and metaphysics (or at least a little better than prophecy which seems to just be wishful thinking) since they at least may make interesting reading.

I haven't actually read the Avesta though although I've seen summaries of its mythology.

poetry and song are the best sort of devotional literature I find.

[Dargo]

Didn't the Jews borrow the concepts of hell and Satan from Zoroastrianism?

[lugotorix]

Originally posted by Dargo
Didn't the Jews borrow the concepts of hell and Satan from Zoroastrianism?

Yes, and also the concept of an afterlife and Judgement day, and the idea of a cosmic struggle between good and evil. Seems like just about every major religion has borrowed from Zoroastrianism, including Buddhism -- the Buddha of the West, Amitabha, was most likely an incoporation of Ahura Mazda when Buddhism was in Kushana (Afghanistan / Pakistan). The Bodhisattva Maitreya might also be the Buddhist version of Mithras.

Daniel

[shivalinga]

zoroastar or zarathustra, (lived from ?-?)
supposedly changed the ancient aryan religion
practiced in Iran,modified it, and that is Zoroastrianism.

basically it is a perversion or bastardization of
the ancient Vedic or Aryan theology.


today they are the Parsis,mostly in India.

Gnosticism is a bastardization of Zoroastrianism,
the basic dogma is born out of aryan or vedic
concepts, twisted up a bit, and coming out
sideways sort of.

The Vedic concept was the God(Vishnu) has a Potency(Maya)
that takes care of this material world,Vishnu enjoys in the
Spiritual realm,while his potency,Maya takes care of business
here, kind of like Hugh Hefner lives at the playboy mansion,
but his potency or company takes care of business.

The Zoroastar change made this concept into Two opposing
Gods, The God of the spirtitual world was named Ahura,
which comes from the sanskrit Asura,which was what the Aryans in India called the Aryans in Persia, it means
A=non Sura=Godly, so Asura was a perjorative word
used by aryans, the persian aryans incorporated this
into their new religion ,Ahura became the main Good God,
while Angri-mainyu, the Evil God,A deava(from sanskrit deva,meaning god,
which is what the indian aryans called themselves) or demonic
Satan figure created and rules this material world.

It is a bastardization of more ancient aryan concepts
retold and twisted into a new dogma by the outcastes
from Indian aryan society who lived in persia.


these concepts of an evil god who rules over
the material world, with a original creator God
not really taking part much here,aloof ,in Heaven,
crept into western religions,and became standard
judeo christian and Islamic, and gnostic conceptions,
all just misunderstood,bastardized Vedic dogma.

[premjan]

you're a bastard, you!

[premjan]

I don't think this is the correct concept at all.

The fact is that the "Aryan" religion is not that old and does not correspond to the oldest streams of thought in India. The Indus-Saraswati civilization may have been Indo-European but it was probably not "Aryan".

Even today, the "Aryan" physical features are more observed in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Northeastern India (e.g. Punjab) than in interior regions of India. Hence the Aryans probably were a specific group of Indo-Europeans with sharp facial features and good military skills. These people brought Sanskrit and the first three Vedas to India in ca. 1900 BC.

A heterodox stream of these "Aryans" included the Persians such as Zarathosht. There was some theological drift between the Indian and Persian streams, accounting for inversion of some theological concepts.

As for the legends/histories of Rama, Krishna, Shiva and Shakti, these existed in India much before the incursion of the Aryan Vedas. They may have been transcribed into Sanskrit on the incursion of the Aryans but are not owed to them.

The dates of the Vedas and the Gathas of Zoroaster are comparable and lie in the range 1900-1500 BC, and also correspond to the time line of the incursion of the Celts into Europe.

The Atharva Veda consists of more indigenous Indian concepts that were slow to be accepted into the "Aryan" religion (that is why it is the fourth Veda). Also most of current Indian religion borrows only peripherally from the Vedas. Sages such as Visvamitra/Vashishta/Angirasa and so on represent the conquering stream of "Aryans" who came from outside India as the latest group of Indo-European invaders into India in ca. 1900 BC.

Concepts such as "Vishnu" and "Brahma" are Vedic in nature (and can be dated to post-1900 BC or thereabouts), while Shiva is not.

I think the above theory is more in keeping with the evidence and smacks less of cultural superiorism besides.

Moreover, there is evidence in the RigVeda of white Aryans subjugating darker peoples. There is also shade bias in modern Indian society. These are residua of the Aryan invasion. Kshatriya groups are known to be more "European" genetically (except for the Rajputs who are Mongols). While Brahmana groups are a little more assimilated into the Indian/Asian genetic stream. However, the memory of invasion by White foreigners is definitely still there in the superiority which North Indians tend to show over South Indians. However in modern terms, many South Indians are stronger intellectually than North Indians (at least the IT industry has flowered better there) despite being of somewhat weaker physical stock.

[premjan]

I think the Indian civilization is more Sumerian/Dravidian/indigenous tribal in nature. In any case, the genetic evidence puts it as being older than the later addition of the Vedas.

[shivalinga]

hi premjan, we've allready been through this atwho were the aryans (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=61536) thread.

your ideas are based as i show there, on unsubstantiated
theories created in the 19th century by eurocentric
colonialists with a poiticla/economic agenda,since
then those theories have been discredited.

[premjan]

your theories are clearly based on vague and circumstantial evidence.

scripture and mythology as a basis for reasoning is just plain crazy. you can justify any claim on the basis of those.

[premjan]

your desire to establish the antiquity of the vedas does not to my mind, establish their antiquity.

the fact is that Tamil is a completely independent tradition to the north indian languages (although dravidians are not totally unlike indo-europeans genetically, they are fairly distinct culturally). it is a different language group entirely. tamil may have entered india around the same time as the aryans did, or it may be a little older. in any case, there was probably yet another population of indo-aryans in north india at this time: the ones to whom such figures as rama, krishna and shiva belong.

what is the evidence that the indus valley civilization is sanskritic? that is just a circumstantial assertion: one language was clearly seal- and writing- based. another one was largely oral. I see them as distinct traditions that may have merged together.

I'm not saying the indus-saraswati valley civilization was brought down by the aryana invaders. Yet, there are clearly genetic and cultural divisions within india that have been partially papered away over the centuries and yet have not completely vanished.

[Sarpedon]

I thought the evidence pointed to the saraswati river drying up circa 4000 bc because of a major earthquake owing to the fact that the whole of northern india is major tectonic zone. The continental divide changed locations, and most of the river's tributaries dried up or flowed elsewhere. This establishes the age of some of the vedas (perhaps) but does not in any way establish the aryan-harrappan connection in any way. To connect this with the mesopotamian flood myth is rather peculiar. Though it is clear that there are linguistic similarities between the so called "aryan" family groups, it doesn't seem clear that there was any common religion, outside the fact that natural phenomena were worshipped as god(s). I find any claims as to find commonalities between the religions of the Celts and the Greeks to be dubious at best, let alone the Celts and the Hindus. More likely, when the aryans came to india, they combined their various gods with those of the more civilized people that they found there. Similarly, the persians would have found influences stemming from the Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Mittanians, and even the Egyptians. Of course their religon was affected! We can see similarities between Ahura Mazda and Marduk. In the Rg veda, the gods mentioned are Soma, Indra, Rudra, and Agni (there are other, more minor deities too) All of these gods fell out of fashion in later times. They are hardly worshipped today. Therefore, I see no basis to claim that Zoroastrianism is any more bastardized than Hinduism, or indeed, any religion, as every religion is a composite of pre-existing traditions, all the way back to the point where humans first began interpreting dreams and burying the dead. The early aryans had no written language, every group's myths would have been different. Who is to say which was pure and which were bastardized? They are all alike.