Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/871

Rh ZOROASTER 821 a moment to think of a later period of composition by a priesthood whom we know to have been devoid of any historical sense, and incapable of reconstructing for themselves the spiritual conditions under which Zoroaster lived. As soon as the position has been fully mastered that in the Gathas we have firm historical ground on which Zoroaster and his surroundings may rest, that here we have the beginnings of the Zoroastrian religion then it becomes impossible to answer otherwise than affirmatively every general question as to the historical character of Zoroaster. On the other hand, we must not expect too much from the Gathas in the way of definite detail. They give no historical account of the life and teach ing of their prophet, but rather are, so to say, versus memorialcs, which recapitulate the main points of interest, often again in an allusive way. It must be remembered too that their extent is but limited. As to the birthplace of Zoroaster the Avesta is silent. In later tradition two places contended for this honour : the older and more widely spread story made him a native of Rai (Rhagye) in Media, another of Shiz, the capital of Atropatene, also in Media. It is hard to decide whether both traditions rest merely upon priestly pretensions of a later date or whether one of them is not perhaps authentic. According to Yasna, 19, 18, the &quot; zaratliushtrotema &quot; or supreme head of the Zoroastrian priesthood had at a later (Median or Sasanian 1 ?) time his residence in Rhagae. But there is a passage in even the Gathas (Y., 53, 9) which seems to contain a lurking allusion to Rhagse ; unfortu nately, however, both text and meaning are uncertain. However this may be, the activity of Zoroaster as a teacher is certainly to be placed in the east of Iran. On this point also the Gathas say nothing. The later Avesta names, as the locality of his advent, &quot;Airyanem vaejo,&quot; a quite fabulous country, which, according to Vd., 1, 3 and 7, was not identified with Bactria. He taught under the reign of a ruler named Vishtaspa (later Gushtasp, the Greek Hystaspes), with whom and with whose court he stood in close and friendly relations. This Vishtaspa must be care fully distinguished from Hystaspes the father of Darius. According to the epic legend, Vishtaspa was king of Bactria. Already in the later Avesta he has become a half mythical figure, the last in the series of heroes of east Iranian legend, in the arrangement of which series priestly influence is unmistakably evident. He stands at the meeting-point between the old world and the new era which begins with Zoroaster. In the Gathtis he appears as a quite historical personage ; it is essentially to his power and good example that the prophet is indebted for his success. In Yasna, 53, 2, he is spoken of as a pioneer of the doctrine revealed by Onnuzd. In the relation between Zoroaster and Vish taspa already lies the germ of the state church which after wards became so completely subservient to the interests of the dynasty and sought its protection from it. Among the grandees of the court of Vishtaspa mention is made of two brothers Frashaoshtra and Jamfispa ; the latter, according to the later legend, was the minister of Vishtaspa. Zoroaster was nearly related to both ; his wife Hvovi seems to have been their sister, and the husband of her daughter, Pourucista, was a son of Jamfispa. Apart from this connexion, the new prophet relies especially upon his own kindred (hvaetusli) and their followers (airy- aman). His first disciple, Maidhyoimaongha, was a rela tion ; his father was, according to the later Avesta, Pouru- shaspa, his great-grandfather Haecataspa, and the ancestor of the whole family Spitama, for which reason Zarathushtra usually bears this surname. His sons and daughters are repeatedly spoken of. His death is, for reasons easily intelligible, nowhere mentioned in the Avesta ; in the Shdh- Ndma he is said to have been murdered at the altar by the Turanians in the storming of Balkh. We are quite in the dark as to the date of Zoroaster ; King Vishtaspa has no place in any historical chronology, and the Gathas give no hint on the subject. But at any rate he must have lived long before Cyrus, by whose time the new religion had already become established in western Iran (Nic. Damasc., fr. 66). Duncker places him about the year 1000 B.C. Merely conjectural also is the opinion once orally expressed by Gutschmid that Zoroaster may have been a contemporary of Moses, thus belonging, according to Gutschmid s view, to about the 14th century B.C., a period of great religious activity throughout western Asia. It was a new religion that Zoroaster taught. This must not, however, be taken as meaning that everything he taught came, so to say, out of his own head. His doctrine was a product of the time, and had its roots in the nature and history of the people to which he belonged. Usually he is spoken of as a reformer of the old Iranian faith. But in order to be sure of this it would be necessary first to know something about the nature of that faith as it existed before he arose. Was it still essentially the same as that of the nearly- allied ancient Hindus, as found in the Rig- Vedal To this question no distinct answer is forthcom ing ; we are ignorant as to how far the way had been pre pared for Zoroastrianism or how far it was wholly new. But still there is room for conjecture as to what it was that gave the prophet the first impulse and occasion for his work. The most striking difference between Zoroaster s doctrine of God and the old religion of India lies in this, that, while in the Avesta the evil spirits are called daeva (Modern Persian dlv), the Aryans of India, on the other hand, in common with the Italians, Celts, and Letts, gave the name of deva to their good spirits, the spirits of light. An -alternative designation for deity in the Rig-Veda is asura. In the more recent hymns of the Rig- Veda and in later India, on the other hand, only evil spirits are understood by asurds, while in Iran the corresponding word aJmra was, and ever has continued to be, the designation of God the Lord, especially of the supreme God, with the epithet of Mazddo (the Wise). Thus ahura-daeva, deva-asura in Zoroastrian and in later Brahman theology are in their meanings exactly opposed. This difference no one has as yet satisfactorily accounted for, and yet it supplies the key to the doctrine of Zoroaster. The difference proceeded from an old distinction between the ideas deva and asura. An original ideal difference, a different conception of god associated with the two words, grew in the two lands into a sharp antithesis, a formal conflict, but in opposite senses. In India the development still admits of being traced. In the older Rig- Veda the difference is latent. Here a god is spoken of as deva, but not every deva is an asura. Asura is some thing which is attributed only to certain particular gods as a special attribute, notably to Varuna, though also to others, such as Indra, but only by the so-called &quot; katheno- theism &quot; of the Vedic religion. On the other hand, it is expressly stated that in the case of Indra the dignity of an asura was only a conferred one (Rig-V., 6, 10, 2). In Rig- Veda, 4, 42 Varuna claims as against Indra the priority in the asura dignity. This hymn, like 10, 124, is of import ance for the whole question. The contrast there implied between Varuna and Indra, the rivalry between them as to which is the greater, comes to light sometimes more strongly, sometimes less so, throughout the entire Rig- Veda. The contrast is really in other terms the old con trast between asura and deva, between a more spiritualistic and a more materialistic conception of deity. Asura is ethically the higher conception, deva the lower : Jeva is the vulgar notion of God, asura is theosophic. The super- sensuous figure of Varuna is the type of an asura, the sensuous figure of Indra the type of a deva. In the Rig- Veda, Varuna, the old king of the gods, is going down, while Indra, the popular national god, is in the ascendant. Along with Varuna, but in a still higher degree, the very