The Iranian religions—Cyrus in Lydia and at Babylon: Cambyses in Egypt —Darius and the organisation of the empire.
The Median empire is the least known of all those which held sway for a time over the destinies of a portion of Western Asia. The reason of this is not to be ascribed to the shortness of its duration: the Chaldæan empire of Nebuchadrezzar lasted for a period quite as brief, and yet the main outlines of its history can be established with some certainty in spite of large blanks and much obscurity. Whereas at Babylon, moreover, original documents abound, enabling us to put together, feature by feature, the picture of its ancient civilisation and of the chronology of its kings, we possess no contemporary monuments of Ecbatana to furnish direct information as to its history. To form any idea of the Median kings or their people, we are reduced to haphazard notices gleaned from the chroniclers of other lands, retailing a few isolated facts, anecdotes, legends, and conjectures, and, as these materials reach us through the medium of the Babylonians or the Greeks of the fifth or sixth century B.C., the picture which we endeavour to compose from them is always imperfect or out of perspective. We seemingly catch glimpses of ostentatious luxury, of a political and military organisation, and a method of government analogous to that which prevailed at later periods among the Persians, but more imperfect, ruder, and nearer to barbarism—a Persia, in fact, in the rudimentary stage, with its ruling spirit and essential characteristics as yet undeveloped. The machinery of state had doubtless been adopted almost in its entirety from the political organisations which obtained in the kingdoms of Assyria, Elam, and Chaldæa, with which sovereignties the founders of the Median empire had held in turns relations as vassals, enemies, and allies; but once we penetrate this veneer of Mesopotamian civilisation and reach the inner life of the people, we find in the religion they profess—mingled with some borrowed traits—a world of unfamiliar myths and dogmas of native origin.
The main outlines of this religion were already fixed when the Medes rose in rebellion against Assur-bani-pal; and the very name of Confessor—Fravartîsh—applied to the chief of that day, proves that it was the faith of the royal family. It was a religion common to all the Iranians, the Persians as well as the Medes, and legend honoured as its first lawgiver and expounder an ancient prophet named Zarathustra, known to us as Zoroaster.* Most classical writers relegated Zoroaster to some remote age of antiquity—thus he is variously said to have lived six thousand years before the death of Plato,** five thousand before the Trojan war,*** one thousand before Moses, and six hundred before Xerxes’ campaign against Athens; while some few only affirmed that he had lived at a comparatively recent period, and made him out a disciple of the philosopher Pythagoras, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century B.C.
* The name Zarathustra has been interpreted in a score of
different ways. The Greeks sometimes attributed to it the
meaning “worshipper of the stars,” probably by reason of the
similarity in sound of the termination “-astres” of
Zoroaster with the word “astron.” Among modern writers, H.
Rawlinson derived it from the Assyrian Zîru-Ishtar, “the
seed of Ishtar,” but the etymology now most generally
accepted is that of Burnouf, according to which it would
signify “the man with gold-coloured camels,” the “possessor
of tawny camels.” The ordinary Greek form Zoroaster seems to
be derived from some name quite distinct from Zarathustra.
** This was, as Pliny records, the opinion of Eudoxus; not
Eudoxus of Cnidus, pupil of Plato, as is usually stated, but
a more obscure personage, Eudoxus of Rhodes.
*** This was the statement of Hermodorus.
According to the most ancient national traditions, he was born in the Aryanem-vaêjô, or, in other words, in the region between the Araxes and the Kur, to the west of the Caspian Sea. Later tradition asserted that his conception was attended by supernatural circumstances, and the miracles which accompanied his birth announced the advent of a saint destined to regenerate the world by the revelation of the True Law. In the belief of an Iranian, every man, every living creature now existing or henceforth to exist, not excluding the gods themselves, possesses a Frôhar, or guardian spirit, who is assigned to him at his entrance into the world, and who is thenceforth devoted entirely to watching over his material and moral well-being,* About the time appointed for the appearance of the prophet, his Frôhar was, by divine grace, imprisoned in the heart of a Haoma,** and was absorbed, along with the juice of the plant, by the priest Purushâspa,*** during a sacrifice, a ray of heavenly glory descending at the same time into the bosom of a maiden of noble race, named Dughdôva, whom Purushâspa shortly afterwards espoused.
* The Fravashi (for fravarti, from fra-var, “to support,
nourish”), or the frôhar (feruer), is, properly speaking,
the nurse, the genius who nurtures. Many of the practices
relating to the conception and cult of the Fravashis seem to
me to go back to the primitive period of the Iranian
religions.
** The haoma is an Asclepias Sarcostema Viminalis.
*** The name signifies “He who has many horses.”
Zoroaster was engendered from the mingling of the Frôhar with the celestial ray. The evil spirit, whose supremacy he threatened, endeavoured to destroy him as soon as he saw the light, and despatched one of his agents, named Bôuiti, from the country of the far north to oppose him; but the infant prophet immediately pronounced the formula with which the psalm for the offering of the waters opens: “The will of the Lord is the rule of good!” and proceeded to pour libations in honour of the river Darêja, on the banks of which he had been born a moment before, reciting at the same time the “profession of faith which puts evil spirits to flight.” Bôuiti fled aghast, but his master set to work upon some fresh device. Zoroaster allowed him, however, no time to complete his plans: he rose up, and undismayed by the malicious riddles propounded to him by his adversary, advanced against him with his hands full of stones—stones as large as a house—with which the good deity supplied him. The mere sight of him dispersed the demons, and they regained the gates of their hell in headlong flight, shrieking out, “How shall we succeed in destroying him? For he is the weapon which strikes down evil beings; he is the scourge of evil beings.” His infancy and youth were spent in constant disputation with evil spirits: ever assailed, he ever came out victorious, and issued more perfect from each attack. When he was thirty years old, one of the good spirits, Vôhumanô, appeared to him, and conducted him into the presence of Ahura-mazdâ, the Supreme Being. When invited to question the deity, Zoroaster asked, “Which is the best of the creatures which are upon the earth?” The answer was, that the man whose heart is pure, he excels among his fellows. He next desired to know the names and functions of the angels, and the nature and attributes of evil. His instruction ended, he crossed a mountain of flames, and underwent a terrible ordeal of purification, during which his breast was pierced with a sword, and melted lead poured into his entrails without his suffering any pain: only after this ordeal did he receive from the hands of Ahura-mazdâ the Book of the Law, the Avesta, was then sent back to his native land bearing his precious burden. At that time, Vîshtâspa, son of Aurvatâspa, was reigning over Bactria. For ten years Zoroaster had only one disciple, his cousin Maidhyoi-Mâonha, but after that he succeeded in converting, one after the other, the two sons of Hvôgva, the grand vizir Jâmâspa, who afterwards married the prophet’s daughter, and Frashaoshtra, whose daughter Hvôgvi he himself espoused; the queen, Hutaosa, was the next convert, and afterwards, through her persuasions, the king Vîshtâspa himself became a disciple. The triumph of the good cause was hastened by the result of a formal disputation between the prophet and the wise men of the court: for three days they essayed to bewilder him with their captious objections and their magic arts, thirty standing on his right hand and thirty on his left, but he baffled their wiles, aided by grace from above, and having forced them to avow themselves at the end of their resources, he completed his victory by reciting the Avesta before them. The legend adds, that after rallying the majority of the people round him, he lived to a good old age, honoured of all men for his saintly life. According to some accounts, he was stricken dead by lightning,* while others say he was killed by a Turanian soldier, Brâtrôk-rêsh, in a war against the Hyaonas.
* This is, under very diverse forms, the version preferred
by Western historians of the post-classical period.
The question has often been asked whether Zoroaster belongs to the domain of legend or of history. The only certain thing we know concerning him is his name; all the rest is mythical, poetic, or religious fiction. Classical writers attributed to him the composition or editing of all the writings comprised in Persian literature: the whole consisted, they said, of two hundred thousand verses which had been expounded and analysed by Hermippus in his commentaries on the secret doctrines of the Magi. The Iranians themselves averred that he had given the world twenty-one volumes—the twenty-one Nasks of the Avesta,* which the Supreme Deity had created from the twenty-one words of the Magian profession of faith, the Ahuna Vairya. King Vîshtâspa is said to have caused two authentic copies of the Avesta—which contained in all ten or twelve hundred chapters**—to be made, one of which was consigned to the archives of the empire, the other laid up in the treasury of a fortress, either Shapîgân, Shîzîgân, Samarcand, or Persepolis.***
* The word Avesta, in Pehlevi Apastâk, whence come the
Persian forms âvasta, ôstâ, is derived from the
Achæmenian word Abasta, which signifies law in the
inscriptions of Darius. The term Zend-Avesta, commonly used
to designate the sacred book of the Persians, is incorrectly
derived from the expression Apastâc u Zend, which in
Pehlevi designates first the law itself, and then the
translation and commentary in more modern language which
conduces to a knowledge (Zend) of the law. The customary
application, therefore, of the name Zend to the language of
the Avesta is incorrect.
** The Dinkart fixes the number of chapters at 1000, and the
Shâh-Nâmak at 1200, written on plates of gold. According to
Masudi, the book itself and the two commentaries formed
12,000 volumes, written in letters of gold, the twenty-one
Nasks each contained 200 pages, and the whole of these
writings had been inscribed on 12,000 cow-hides.
*** The site of Shapîgân or Shaspîgân is unknown. J.
Darmesteter suggests that it ought to be read as Shizîgân,
which would permit of the identification of the place with
Shîz, one of the ancient religious centres of Iran, whose
temple was visited by the Sassanids on their accession to
the throne. According to the Ardâ-Vîrâf the law was
preserved at Istakhr, or Persepolis, according to the Shâh-
Nâmak at Samarcand in the temple of the Fire-god.