CHAPTER XIII.
ZOROASTRIANISM.
Zoroaster an historical person—The Parsees—Iranian branch of Aryan family—Zoroaster a religious reformer—Scene at Balkh—Conversion of Gushtasp—Doctrines of the ‘excellent religion’—Monotheism—Polarity—Dr. Haug’s description—Ormuzd and Ahriman—Anquetil du Perron—Approximation to modern thought—Absence of miracles—Code of morals—Its comprehensiveness—And liberality—Special rites—Fire-worship—Disposal of dead—Practical results—The Parsees of Bombay—Their probity, enterprise, respect for women—Zeal for education—Philanthropy and public spirit—Statistics—Death and birth rates.
Zoroastrianism is commonly supposed to derive its name from its founder Zoroaster, a Bactrian sage or prophet, who lived in the reign of King Gushtasp the First. Zoroaster’s name has come down to us from antiquity in much the same relation to this form of religion as that of Moses to Judaism, or of Sakya-Mouni to Buddhism. As in those cases, certain learned commentators have endeavoured to show that the alleged founder was purely mythical and had no real historical existence, basing their argument mainly on the fact that a number of supernatural attributes, and embodiments of metaphysical and theological ideas, became attached to the name, just as a whole cycle of solar myths became associated with the name of Hercules. But this seems to be carrying scepticism too far. Experience shows that religions have generally originated in the crystallisation of ideas floating in solution at certain periods of the evolution of societies, about the nucleus of some powerful personality. Nearly all the great religions of the world, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, and Mahometanism, clearly had historical founders, and it would be hypercritical to deny that such a man as Jesus of Nazareth really lived because many of his sayings and doings may be traced to applications, more or less erroneous, of ancient prophecies, or because his human nature became transfigured into the Logos and other metaphysical conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy.
In the case of Zoroaster, the argument for his historical existence seems even stronger, for his name is connected with historical reigns and places, and his genuine early history contains nothing supernatural or improbable. He is represented as simply a deep thinker and powerful preacher, like Luther, who gave new form and expression to the vague religious and philosophical ideas of his age and nation, reformed its superstitions and abuses, and converted the leading minds of his day, including the monarch, by the earnestness and eloquence of his discourses. At any rate, for my purpose I shall assume his personality, for my object is not to write a critical essay on the origin and development of the Zoroastrian religion, but to show that in its fundamental ideas and essential spirit it approximates wonderfully to those of the most advanced modern thought, and gives the outline of a creed which goes further than any other to meet the practical wants of the present day, and to reconcile the conflict between faith and science. This will be most clearly and vividly shown by assuming the commonly accepted historical existence of Zoroaster to be true, and by confining myself to the broad, leading principles of his religion, without dwelling on its varying phases, or on the mythical legends and ritualistic observances which, as in the case of all other old religions, have crystallised about the primitive idea and the primitive founder.
Zara-thustra, or, as he is commonly called, Zoroaster, and the religion which goes by his name, are known to us mainly from the sacred books which have been preserved by the modern Parsees. The Parsees, a small remnant of the Persians who under Cyrus founded one of the mightiest empires of the ancient world, flying from their native country to escape from persecution after the Mahometan conquest, formed a colony in India, and are now settled at Bombay. They form a small but highly intelligent community, who have preserved their ancient religion, and, fortunately, some considerable fragments of their sacred scriptures. The oldest of these are written in the Gata dialect of the Avesta or Zend language, which is contemporary with Sanskrit, and bears much the same relation to it as Latin does to Greek. The primitive Aryan family at some very remote period became divided into two branches, and radiated from their Central Asian home in two directions. The Hindoo branch migrated to the south into the Punjaub and Hindostan; the Iranian westwards, into Bactria and Persia; while other successive waves of Aryan migration in prehistoric times rolled still further westwards over Europe, obliterating all but a few traces of the aboriginal population.
The period of this separation of the Iranian and Hindoo races must be very remote, for the Rig-Veda is probably at least 4,000 years old, and the divergence between its form of Sanskrit and the Gata dialect of the Zend is already as great as that between two kindred European languages such as Greek and Latin. The divergence of religious ideas is also evidently of very early date. In the Hindoo, and all other races of the primitive Aryan stock, the word used for gods and good spirits is taken from the root ‘div,’ to shine. Thus, Daeva in Sanskrit, Zeus and Theos in Greek, Deus in Latin, Tius in German, Diews in Lutheranism, Dia in Irish, Dew in Kymric, all mean the bright or shining one represented by the vault of heaven. But in Iranian the word has an opposite sense, and the ‘deevs’ correspond to our ‘devils.’
The primitive Aryan religions were evidently all derived from a contemplation of the powers and phenomena of nature. The sky, with its flood of light and vault of ethereal blue, was considered to be the highest manifestation of a Supreme Power; while the sun and moon, the stars and planets, the winds and clouds, the earth and waters, were personified, either as symbols of the Deity or as subordinate gods. The original simple faith was thus apt to degenerate into a system of polytheism, and, as the gods came to be represented by visible forms, into idolatry.
Zoroaster appears to us, like Mahomet at a later age and among a ruder people, as a prophet or reformer who abolished these abuses and restored the ancient faith in a loftier and more intellectual form, adapted to the use of an advanced and civilised society. The records of his life and teaching have fortunately been preserved in so authentic a form, that distant as he is from us we can form a singularly accurate idea of who he was and what he taught.