In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet
It is the last Sunday of the month and in keeping with the Persian history I’ve been reading about, this month’s book on religion is In Search of Zarathustra: Across Iran and Central Asia to Find the World’s First Prophet by Paul Kriwaczek. So let’s do this.
Zarathustra, known more commonly in the west by his Greek name Zoroaster, was one of the world’s first prophets for a mono-theistic religion….sort of. I’m not going to say I know NOTHING about Zoraostrianism, I know enough to be a little skeptical about some of the authors claims. And some of his claims directly contradicts himself. Like saying it’s a monotheistic religion.
Because Zoroastrianism has two clearly defined sides in the fight between good and evil. There is Ahura Mazda, and to sum up, those who follow Ahura Mazda choose good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.
And then there are those who follow the opposition...Angra Mainyu. Angra Mainyu is the spirit of chaos, destruction, and lies. And in the spirit of acknowledging free will, Zoroastrians fully acknowledge that there are those who might choose the dark path of Angra Mainyu.
This is one of the contradictions I mentioned. Because the author traces pieces of Zoroastrianism across the centuries to highlight some of the impact Zoroastrianism has had across the Eurasian continents, and one of the impacts he mentions is the heresy at Montsegur, which resulted in the Roman Catholic church calling down a crusade on the people of Montsegur in 1244. And what was their crime? Believing that there were two ruling powers, one for good, one for evil.
So, not quite monotheistic. But one can see how that belief plays out in Christianity, for example.
Kriwaczek does a fairly good job of highlighting pieces from Zoroastrianism that may have impacted other religions across the Mediterranean world, most definitely including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. To a lesser extent there were possible impacts and crossovers with Buddhism, although he does not explore that in depth.
He credits Nietzsche, and rightly so, for saving Zarathustra from obscurity, along with Richard Strauss, who gave us the musical version of Also sprach Zarathustra, which basically everyone has heard at least the opening bars of, thanks to 2001: A Space Odyssey, so thanks also to Stanley Kubrick. Basically, because of these three, the west had at least HEARD of Zarathustra outside the halls of academia.
But by and large, Zarathustra’s story lies in the far distant past, anywhere from 2500 to 4000 years ago. Kriwaczek puts him at about on par with Moses. Maybe. There is a linguistic link to Sanskrit and it’s a strong one, with the author quoting the Persian:
Tem amavangtem zazatem surem damohu sevishtem mithrem zazai zaothrabyo.
Which in Sanskrit reads:
Tam amavantam yajatam shuram dhamasu shavistham mitram yajai hotrabhyah.
Translated this means “With libations will I worship Mithra, that strong and mighty angel, most bountiful to all creatures.”
Now, Mithra is a name that should be familiar to anyone with a western traditions education, since we all came within a hairs breadth of being Mithraists rather than Christians. Like, it really was a close call and no one really knows why Mithraism faded and Christianity rose, although, making connections back to the start and midpoint of my reading project, books by both Ben Shapiro and Brian Muraresku hint at why, and the author of this weeks book even says that Christianity was preferred by women and so that’s why it took off.
From 5 years ago, Shapiro’s book referenced that Christianity prohibited the killing of your children, which made the women happy. From Muraresku’s book, women held the keys to seeing god and so Christianity slowly took over from Dionysus and remained hidden in plain site until the inquisition took over. Kriwaczek says women were not allowed to participate in Mithraic rites, only men were, and so it’s his belief that that is why Christianity rose. As we see happening in Iran now, when you cut off half the population from participating, you lose half your potential power base. More than half, since...well, women outnumber men, statistically speaking, which means a lot of men have sisters they love and don’t want to see abused. But I digress.
I don’t think any of these ideas, either the ones from Shapiro or Muraresku or Kriwaczek cancel each other out. In fact, I rather think they support each other to make a pretty strong argument for the rise of Christianity over Mithraism...and hence, Zoroastrianism. Because Mithra was one of Ahura Mazda’s Angels. And Kriwaczek argues that it is from Zoroastrianism that we get the idea of angels and devils...known as Daeva’s, in Zoroastrianism….and Djinn in the middle east. Lot of linguistic connections made.
So what do we know for sure? We do know that the early Acheamenid empire followed Ahura Mazda, at least as early as Darius I, who directly references Ahura Maza in many of the carvings left behind in his name. And as we learned from Persians: The Age of the Great Kings, which I read a few weeks ago, Darius I did not reference Zarathustra...like at all. Which leads me to wonder if the religion of Ahura Mazda actually predates Zoraostrianism...like maybe Zoroaster came later, kind of like Jesus came well after Judaism was established, and then a new religion formed after the death of Christ by his followers.
Maybe Ahura Mazda was on the decline until Zarathustra showed up well after the fact, and even after the Acheamenids. Because remember...none of the Achaemenid’s reference Zarathustra. But several of them mention Ahura Mazda. Is it so inconceivable that the god came first, and then his prophet arrived as the gods power was waning?
But Kriwaczek does not think so. He thinks the magi—the priest class, hence the Heirophant cocktail, because Kriwaczek believes that Zarathustra was a magi priest of Ahura Mazda and was chased out, sort of like Jesus Christ in his time, for heretical thoughts. Thoughts like not wanting to use Hoama...which has been identified in modern times as ephedra.
Except...well Kriwaczek provides no evidence that Zarathustra was actually against the use of Hoama, and in fact Hoama is still considered a sacred herb in modern Zoroastrianism. So it strikes me as odd that if Zoroaster was against it’s use, the religion named for him would still use it.
I sort of got the sense that the AUTHOR is against the use, and so fell into that same academic trap that no ancient would ever use pharmaceuticals to see god, an idea with saw Carl P. Ruck blacklisted for refuting when he helped write The Road to Eleusis.
Kriwaczek claims that Islam is the inheritor of Zoroastrianism, I’m guessing he’s basing that claim off of Islam having invaded and taken over the Persian homeland of Zarathustra in the 7th century. A claim which I strongly suspect most Persians would roundly reject, since they are fighting so very hard to have Islam removed from her country.
But he does lay a solid foundation for Zoroastrianism remaining hidden in plain site, right under the noses of Iran’s Islamist overlords. The most interesting proof of this was his discussing of Nowruz, the Persian new year. This is not celebrated in Islamic countries in general, but only in Persia, and absolutely predates Islam and quite possibly Zoroastrianism, as it is mentioned in Persians: The Age of the Great Kings. One of the rites they celebrate is the haft sin table. It’s a table put out on which are placed seven items that start with the letter s (in Persian). So it might have sib (apples), sekkeh (coins), sir (garlic), serkeh (vinegar), sabzi (greens), somboleh (ears of grain), or anything colored surkh...red.
During his search in Iran for the historical Zarathustra, he ran into a family, headed by who he surmises to be a school teacher, given the inflections with which the man was explaining things to his family. They got to talking, the gentleman said that “Before Islam, Noruz was celebrated with the haft shin not sin table. We put on seven things beginning with ‘sh’. We put on sharab (wine) for celebration, shir (milk) for nourishment, sharbat (sherbet) for enjoyment, shamshir (a sword) for security, shemshad (a box) for wealth, sham (a candle) for illumination, and shahdaneh (hemp seeds) for enlightenment. So that these things would be ours during the coming year.”
Specificity trumps silliness, in my opinion. And the fact the man knew what each specific item was for, lends credence to his belief of why it was a haft-shin table, not a haft-sin table.
But I think the biggest skepticism I have about the author’s claim that Islam inherited Zoroastrianism is that throughout the book, he made comments and statements that show he purchased whole cloth the Ayatollah’s bullshit claims about the royal family that preceded them. I kind of got a sense of disdain from him whenever he mentioned the royal family, and when he points out that they were “dangerously heterodox” for fixing up Zoroastrian shrines.
No wonder the Persian people are rising up and reclaiming their heritage. They’re choosing Ahura Mazda, over the spirit of Angra Mainyu that has infested Islam. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.
On the other hand, this book was published in 2002. Which means he was probably finishing up his writing and research as 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror unfolded. And it was definitely during the Presidency of Mohammad Khatami, who Homa Katouzian dubbed not that bad, in his book The Persians: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Iran that I read two weeks ago.
This book was kind of...meh….for me. The author does get to the point of his chapters eventually, but man does he beat around the bush to get there. The book was only 231 pages long and I had to fight to keep myself focused enough to read the pages.
