The date of Zoroaster is uncertain. Various authors assign him to different periods, from 2500 to 1000 B. C.; while others refer him to still remoter dates.
Anquetil Duperron places him in the time of Hystaspes, father of Darius; and Bunsen at 2500 B. C.; but scholars generally agree upon the period between 1400 to 1000 B. C.
At the date of Darius, 521 B. C., Zoroastrianism was the national religion of the Persians. In one of the inscriptions of Darius, we find this reference:
“Mazda, who created this earth and that heaven, who created man and man’s dwelling place, who made Darius king, the one and only king of many.”
This and other references in the inscriptions indicate the time of Zoroaster as before the date of Darius.
Ancient Persian traditions represent Zoroaster as a native of Bactria, and that the important address to king Vistacpi and his court was delivered in the ancient city of Balkh.
Dr. Bunsen says of Zoroaster’s conception, that “it was not less grand than that of Abraham; but that the distinctive difference lay in these facts; Zoroaster attempted a conciliatory compromise between his stern antagonism to nature worship, and the retention of the ancient rites and symbols of such worship.”
Abraham, on the other hand, excinded nature worship altogether, and sought to banish it as utterly as possible from his religiously segregated society. “In this,” he urges, “the Hebrew man of God stands above the Aryan.”
From happy Bactria, this religion of “excellence” spread among the numerous tribes of Iranians into all Persia, finally becoming the state religion. This was also known from its earliest to its latest history, as the “Book Religion.”
According to Parsee tradition, Zoroaster was the author of the Avesta, which, when first written, consisted of twenty-one nosks or parts.