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| Zoroaster ?????????? Zaraθuštra | |
|---|---|
| 19th-century Indian Zoroastrian perception of Zoroaster derived from a figure that appears in a 4th-century sculpture at Taq-e Bostan in South-Western Iran. The original is now believed to be either a representation of Mithra or Hvare-khshaeta.[1] | |
| Born | c. 1500 BC – 1000 BC[2][3] Airyanem Vaejah[4] |
| Died | c. 1500 BC – 1000 BC[2][3] (aged 77)[5] Airyanem Vaejah[4] |
| Venerated in | Zoroastrianism Manichaeism Bahá’í Faith Mithraism Ahmadiyya |
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Zoroaster (/ˈzɒroʊæstər/, UK also /ˌzɒroʊˈæstər/; Greek: Ζωροάστρης, Zōroastrēs), also known as Zarathustra (/ˌzærəˈθuːstrə/, UK also /ˌzɑːrə-/; Avestan: ??????????, Zaraθuštra), Zarathushtra Spitama or Asho Zarathushtra [6] (Persian: زرتشت), was an ancient Iranian prophet, religious reformer and spiritual leader who founded what is now known as Zoroastrianism.
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy considers Zoroaster to have been the first philosopher.[7][8] Zoroaster has also been described as the father of ethics, the first rationalist and the first monotheist (having belief in just one God) as well as the first to articulate the notions of heaven and hell, judgment after death and free will.[9][10][11]
The religion founded by Zoroaster was the first major world religion and has had significant influence on other religious and philosophical systems, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the Bahá’í Faith, Gnosticism and Greek philosophy.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18] His teachings challenged the existing traditions of the Indo-Iranian religion and inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia. He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau, but his exact birthplace is uncertain.[19][20]
There is no scholarly consensus on when he lived.[21] However, approximating using linguistic and socio-cultural evidence allows for dating to somewhere in the second millennium BC. This is done by estimating the period in which the Old Avestan language (as well as the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Iranian languages and the related Vedic Sanskrit) were spoken, the period in which the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion was practised, and correlation between the burial practice described in the Gathas with the archeological Yaz culture. However, other scholars still date him in the 7th and 6th century BC as a near-contemporary of Cyrus the Great and Darius I to as far back as the sixth millennium BC.[22][23][2][24][25][26]
Zoroastrianism eventually became the official religion of Ancient Persia and its distant subdivisions from the 6th century BCE to the 7th century CE.[27] Zoroaster is credited with authorship of the Gathas as well as the Yasna Haptanghaiti, hymns composed in his native dialect, Old Avestan, and which comprise the core of Zoroastrian thinking. Most of his life is known from these texts.[19] By any modern standard of historiography, no evidence can place him into a fixed period, and the historicization surrounding him may be a part of a trend from before the 10th century that historicizes legends and myths.[28]
Name and etymology
Zoroaster’s name in his native language, Avestan, was probably Zaraϑuštra. His English name, “Zoroaster”, derives from a later (5th century BC) Greek transcription, Zōroastrēs (Ζωροάστρης),[29] as used in Xanthus‘s Lydiaca (Fragment 32) and in Plato‘s First Alcibiades (122a1). This form appears subsequently in the Latin Zōroastrēs and, in later Greek orthographies, as Ζωροάστρις Zōroastris. The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration or semantic substitution of Avestan zaraϑ- with the Greek ζωρός zōros (literally “undiluted”) and the Avestan -uštra with ἄστρον astron (“star“).
In Avestan, Zaraϑuštra is generally accepted to derive from an Old Iranian *Zaratuštra-; The element half of the name (-uštra-) is thought to be the Indo-Iranian root for “camel”, with the entire name meaning “he who can manage camels”.[30][a] Reconstructions from later Iranian languages—particularly from the Middle Persian (300 BCE) Zardusht,[further explanation needed] which is the form that the name took in the 9th- to 12th-century Zoroastrian texts—suggest that *Zaratuštra- might be a zero-grade form of *Zarantuštra-.[30] Subject then to whether Zaraϑuštra derives from *Zarantuštra- or from *Zaratuštra-, several interpretations have been proposed.[b]
If Zarantuštra is the original form, it may mean “with old/aging camels”,[30] related to Avestic zarant-[29] (cf. Pashto zōṛ and Ossetian zœrond, “old”; Middle Persian zāl, “old”):[31]
- “with angry/furious camels”: from Avestan *zarant-, “angry, furious”.[32]
- “who is driving camels” or “who is fostering/cherishing camels”: related to Avestan zarš-, “to drag”.[33]
- Mayrhofer (1977) proposed an etymology of “who is desiring camels” or “longing for camels” and related to Vedic Sanskrit har-, “to like”, and perhaps (though ambiguous) also to Avestan zara-.[32]
- “with yellow camels”: parallel to younger Avestan zairi-.[34]
The interpretation of the -ϑ- (/θ/) in Avestan zaraϑuštra was for a time itself subjected to heated debate because the -ϑ- is an irregular development: As a rule, *zarat- (a first element that ends in a dental consonant) should have Avestan zarat- or zarat̰- as a development from it. Why this is not so for zaraϑuštra has not yet been determined. Notwithstanding the phonetic irregularity, that Avestan zaraϑuštra with its -ϑ- was linguistically an actual form is shown by later attestations reflecting the same basis.[30] All present-day, Iranian-language variants of his name derive from the Middle Iranian variants of Zarϑošt, which, in turn, all reflect Avestan’s fricative -ϑ-.[citation needed]
In Middle Persian, the name is ?????? Zardu(x)št,[35] in Parthian Zarhušt,[36] in Manichaean Middle Persian Zrdrwšt,[35] in Early New Persian Zardušt,[35] and in modern (New Persian), the name is زرتشت Zartosht.