It is impossible to fix exactly the era when the great reformer Zarathustra—"splendor of gold"—lived. The Greek and Roman historians make him very ancient. Xanthos of Lydia, 470 B. C., the first Greek writer who mentions Zoroaster, is convinced that he must have flourished about six hundred years before the Trojan war. Aristotle and Eudoxus place his era even earlier. Berosus, the Chaldean priest and historian, who translated the history of his native country, Babylonia, into the Greek language, and dedicated the work to Antiochus, one of the Greek kings of Syria, makes him a king, or rather founder of a dynasty which reigned over Babylon between 2200 and 2000 B. C.[16] The Fire-worshippers hold that their great priest and reformer lived about five hundred and fifty years B. C. They identify him with the great Kavan-Vistaspa of the Zend-Avesta, called Khai Gustasp in the Shahnamah.[17] But it is very evident that even the ancient Persians themselves were very uncertain as to who this Kavan Vistaspa was. It is clear, however, that Darius's father, who was also named Vistaspa, and the Kavan-Vistaspa of the Zend-Avesta and the Shahnamah, were entirely distinct persons.
There is very little doubt that this confusion of opinions is owing to the similarity of names. A very common habit even in India to-day is to name persons after heroic kings, great priests, or even after the gods, without any mark being added to distinguish them in after years; and when any period of time has elapsed it is almost impossible to separate the personality of the father from the son, or the disciple from the teacher, or the priest from the god. Zoroaster, or rather "Zara Thustra," means illustrious like gold, or, in another sense, simply high priest; and this being taken afterward as the proper name of the celebrated priest and reformer of ancient Iran, gave rise to the endless confusion of dates and opinions which has always prevailed with regard to the age in which he lived.
There is, however, internal evidence in the language and religion which he reformed that he lived at a very early age, and there are many traces of his great antiquity in the Zend-Avesta itself. First, that he stands at the head of the extensive Zend literature,[18] which must have required centuries for its growth, and which was already in a state of perfection when Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born, from four to five hundred years before Christ; and secondly, that he is expressly called Aryana Veèdgo, "the celebrated one," in the Aryan home whence the Aryans, now called Hindoos, emigrated in times immemorial. This title, Martin Haug justly observes, would not have been given him had his followers not believed him living at that early time. Under no circumstance can we assign to him a later date than the year 1000 B. C.
The causes which led to the schism between the early Fire-worshippers may be readily learned from the Zend-Avesta, where the gods of the dissenters are called "dèvas" (to whence our word devil) by the orthodox "Soshyantos," or Fire-priests. It was a vital and successful struggle against that form of the early religion which inclined to Brahmanism, and later to open idolatry. Thus, for instance, the Vèdic gods Aditya, Mitra, Varuna, and Indra became the devils of the Zoroastrian religion; and this struggle must have taken place when Indra was declared the chief of the gods by a large portion of the Aryans, before they had immigrated into Hindostan proper. In the later period of Vèdic literature we find Indra at the head of the gods; then in the great epics, the Mahâbhárata and Râmayâna, he gives place to the Trimourtri, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. A compromise was thus effected between the esoteric doctrine of the metaphysicians and the common forms of worship, giving rise to what was henceforth to constitute the orthodox system of belief of the Brahmanic caste. The Vèdic pantheon, however, is not altogether discarded in the Zend-Avesta; the existence of the old gods is recognized, but in a very different way from that of the mysterious triple divinity which represents not only the eternal, infinite soul, but Brahma himself in his active relation to mundane occurrences; and moreover, as the Trimourtri is never alluded to in the Zend-Avesta, where most of the other Vèdic gods are named, we are obliged to fix the religious struggle at a much earlier date than that assigned to the Indian poems.
The only source whence we derive anything like reliable historical facts, and those of the most meagre kind, respecting this great reformer Zoroaster, is in the Yasnahs, where he is distinguished by his family name S'pitama. His father's name was Poorooshaspa. Of his children, only his son S'pitama and his daughter Poroochista are mentioned. In these fragments, rather than books, he appears to us as a real man, earnest, strong, and true, just and generous in every act of his life, taking a prominent part in the history of his country and the welfare of his fellow-creatures. It was he who struck a deathblow to the idolatrous practices that had crept in among the Fire-priests—who established in his own country a new community, governed by new laws; he called upon every man to take his part in the battle between good and evil, adding the firm assurance that good will always prevail. In his own works he calls himself a "Dutah"—i. e. "a messenger"—sent by the great Ahura-Mazda. His ideal of home, of father and mother living together under one roof in freedom and love and unity, cemented by a supreme and unalterable bond of love and friendship, has never yet been equalled save by Christianity.
This remarkable reformer, according to the Yasnahs, was born in the sacerdotal city of Ragha, near Teheran, the capital of Persia. His father was an aged priest named Poorooshaspa, a man noted for his purity of life. Like all such histories, his birth was miraculously ordained.[19] One evening as Poorooshaspa and Dhogdha his wife, a childless old couple, were praying in a lonely place, the atmosphere around them became suddenly luminous. They looked up, and saw a form of exquisite beauty standing in the midst of a bright cloud, and as they gazed upon this beautiful vision there was handed to them a cup fashioned out of an amethyst filled with the wine of heaven. "Drink this," said the angel, "and renew your youth, for Ahura-Mazda has chosen you to bring a savior into the world." Having drank the wine, they became the parents of one son, S'pitama.
It is related that the ruler of the city of Ragha sought to destroy the child; at his command he was snatched from his mother's arms and thrown into a narrow lane where cattle passed, in the hope that they might tread him to death; but, lo! in the evening a sensible and motherly cow brought him on her horns to his weeping, disconsolate mother. Then again, by the order of the same cruel governor, he was cast into a blazing fire; but he lay there unscathed, smiling so serenely upon his persecutors that they were at once converted into friends. In fact, every attempt made by enemies to destroy the infant is said to have been arrested by divine agency. At last the child was permitted to grow up unmolested with his friends and relatives, who were among his earliest followers.
Zoroaster did not so much reveal a new religion as reform the old Fire-worship of his country. He abolished stone images, necromancy, magic, witchcraft, all of which were identified with the worship of fire. He investigated astrology, and confirmed its practices as true and elevating. He inspired the old materialistic teaching of the Fire-priests with a new and more spiritual meaning. He made war on the idolatrous practices of his fellow-men, and banished from Iran all who still bowed down before wood and stone. At the age of thirty he completed a new code of laws, and also the Zend-Avesta, with the Izeshnee, a still more sacred book. He distinctly recognized, above and beyond all manifestations of sun, light, or fire, a purer, higher, unconditioned Being.[20] When moved by deepest awe he bowed his head and reverently called this Being "the Truth of the Truth, the Wisdom of the Wise, the Purity of the Pure." So also in his famous prayer of one-and-twenty words, "The world is produced, and all that is good in thought, word, and deed, because of the Truth."
The problem of the origin of evil, the most difficult to be solved, seems to have been constantly before his mind. It seemed to him impossible that the Truth, whom he conceived to be eternally pure, good, just, and perfect, had created evil. The ancient Aryans attributed the struggles in the physical world around them to the strife between good and evil; Zoroaster seized this idea, applied it with the deepest emphasis to the moral and spiritual world, and it became the basis of his system of dualism. Together with Ahura-Mazda, the good principle, he admitted the existence of an evil principle or spirit equal in power and of a similar nature[21]—Angra Mainyus; in Persian Ahriman. This spirit is the author of all moral and physical evil, sin, disease, suffering, and death.