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82-448: Zarathushtra Spitama , more commonly known as Zoroaster or Zarathustra , was an Iranian religious reformer who challenged the tenets of the contemporary Ancient Iranian religion , becoming the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism . Variously described as a sage or a wonderworker ; in the oldest Zoroastrian scriptures, the Gathas , which he is believed to have authored, he is described as

164-411: 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. All present-day Iranian-language variants of his name derive from

246-539: A " Manifestation of God ", one of a line of prophets who have progressively revealed the Word of God to a gradually maturing humanity. Zoroaster thus shares an exalted station with Abraham , Moses , Krishna , Jesus , Muhammad , the Báb , and the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh . Shoghi Effendi , the head of the Bahá'í Faith in the first half of the 20th century, saw Bahá'u'lláh as

328-484: A Prophet and describe the expressions of the all-good Ahura Mazda and evil Ahriman as merely referring to the coexistence of forces of good and evil enabling humans to exercise free will. Manichaeism considered Zoroaster to be a figure in a line of prophets of which Mani (216–276) was the culmination. Zoroaster's ethical dualism is—to an extent—incorporated in Manichaeism's doctrine which, unlike Mani's thoughts, viewed

410-495: A branch brought by Zoroaster from Paradise and to have stood in today's Kashmar in northeastern Iran and to have been planted by Zoroaster in honor of the conversion of King Vishtaspa to Zoroastrianism. According to the Iranian physicist and historian Zakariya al-Qazwini , King Vishtaspa had been a patron of Zoroaster who planted the tree himself. In his ʿAjā'ib al-makhlūqāt wa gharā'ib al-mawjūdāt ('The Wonders of Creatures and

492-408: A curse upon Zoroaster, causing him to suffer Leprosy , and exiling him. Zoroaster later moved to a place of modern-day Azerbaijan which ruled by Bashtaasib ( Vishtaspa ), governor of Nebuchadnezzar, and spread his teaching of Zoroastrianism there. Bashtaasib then followed his teaching, forces the inhabitants of Persia to convert to Zoroastrianism and killed those who refused. Ibn Kathir has quoted

574-477: A date around 1000 BC to be the most likely, others still consider a range of dates between 1500 and 500 BC to be possible. Classical scholarship in the 6th to 4th century BC believed he existed 6,000 years before Xerxes I 's invasion of Greece in 480 BC ( Xanthus , Eudoxus , Aristotle , Hermippus ), which is a possible misunderstanding of the Zoroastrian four cycles of 3,000 years (i.e. 12,000 years). This belief

656-411: A faithful community, and married three times. His first two wives bore him three sons, Isat Vâstra, Urvatat Nara, and Hvare Chithra, and three daughters, Freni, Thriti, and Pouruchista. His third wife, Hvōvi, was childless. Zoroaster died when he was 77 years and 40 days old. There are conflicting traditions on Zoroaster's manner of death. The most common is that he was murdered by a karapan (priest of

738-589: A fixed period and the historicization surrounding him may be a part of a trend from before the 10th century AD that historicizes legends and myths. Zoroaster's name in his native language, Avestan , was probably Zaraθuštra . His translated name, "Zoroaster", derives from a later (5th century BC) Greek transcription, Zōroastrēs ( Ζωροάστρης ), as used in Xanthus 's Lydiaca (Fragment 32) and in Plato 's First Alcibiades (122a1). This form appears subsequently in

820-416: A following dental consonant. Although denti-alveolar consonants are often described as dental, it is the point of contact farthest to the back that is most relevant, defines the maximum acoustic space of resonance and gives a characteristic sound to a consonant. In French , the contact that is farthest back is alveolar or sometimes slightly pre-alveolar. Dental/denti-alveolar consonants as transcribed by

902-428: A late dating to the 7th and 6th centuries BC, based on the indigenous Zoroastrian tradition, and an early dating, which places his life more generally in the 15th to 9th centuries BC. Some scholars propose a period between 7th and 6th century BC, for example, c.  650–600 BC or 559–522 BC. The latest possible date is the mid 6th century BC, at the time of Achaemenid Empire's Darius I , or his predecessor Cyrus

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984-554: A preacher and a poet-prophet. He also had an impact on Heraclitus , Plato , Pythagoras , and the Abrahamic religions , including Judaism , Christianity , and Islam . He spoke an Eastern Iranian language , named Avestan by scholars after the corpus of Zoroastrian religious texts written in that language . Based on this, it is tentative to place his homeland somewhere in the eastern regions of Greater Iran (perhaps in modern-day Afghanistan or Tajikistan ), but his exact birthplace

1066-575: A vision of the seven Amesha Spenta , and his teachings were collected in the Gathas and the Avesta . Eventually, at the age of about 42, Zoroaster received the patronage of queen Hutaosa and a ruler named Vishtaspa , an early adherent of Zoroastrianism (possibly from Bactria according to the Shahnameh ). According to the tradition, he lived for many years after Vishtaspa's conversion, managed to establish

1148-405: Is aša ), creation (that is aša ), existence (that is aša ), and as the condition for free will. The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain and align itself to aša . For humankind, this occurs through active ethical participation in life, ritual, and the exercise of constructive/good thoughts, words, and deeds. Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered

1230-673: Is primarily proposed on linguistic similarities between the Old Avestan language of the Zoroastrian Gathas and the Sanskrit of the Rigveda ( c.  1700 –1100 BC), a collection of early Vedic hymns. Both texts are considered to have a common archaic Indo-Iranian origin. The Gathas portray an ancient Stone - Bronze Age bipartite society of warrior-herdsmen and priests (compared to Bronze tripartite society ; some conjecture that it depicts

1312-600: Is quite alveolar and apical in articulation. To native speakers, the English alveolar /t/ and /d/ sound more like the corresponding retroflex consonants of their languages than like dentals. Spanish /t/ and /d/ are denti-alveolar , while /l/ and /n/ are prototypically alveolar but assimilate to the place of articulation of a following consonant. Likewise, Italian /t/ , /d/ , /t͡s/ , /d͡z/ are denti-alveolar ( [t̪] , [d̪] , [t̪͡s̪] , and [d̪͡z̪] respectively) and /l/ and /n/ become denti-alveolar before

1394-698: Is recorded by Diogenes Laërtius , and variant readings could place it 600 years before Xerxes I, somewhere before 1000 BC. However, Diogenes also mentions Hermodorus 's belief that Zoroaster lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War , which would mean he lived around 6200 BC. The 10th-century Suda provides a date of 500 years before the Trojan War. Pliny the Elder cited Eudoxus which placed his death 6,000 years before Plato, c.  6300 BC . Other pseudo-historical constructions are those of Aristoxenus who recorded Zaratas

1476-738: Is simply a toponym meaning 'plain, hillside.' Apart from these indications in Middle Persian sources that are open to interpretations, there are a number of other sources. The Greek and Latin sources are divided on the birthplace of Zoroaster. There are many Greek accounts of Zoroaster, referred usually as Persian or Perso-Median Zoroaster; Ctesias located him in Bactria , Diodorus Siculus placed him among Ariaspai (in Sistan ), Cephalion and Justin suggest east of greater Iran whereas Pliny and Origen suggest west of Iran as his birthplace. Moreover, they have

1558-464: Is the original form, it may mean 'with old/aging camels', related to Avestic zarant- ( cf. Pashto zōṛ and Ossetian zœrond , 'old'; Middle Persian zāl , 'old'): The interpretation of the -θ- ( /θ/ ) in the 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

1640-449: Is uncertain. His life is traditionally dated to sometime around the 7th and 6th centuries BC, making him a contemporary of Cyrus the Great , though most scholars, using linguistic and socio-cultural evidence, suggest a dating to somewhere in the second millennium BC. Zoroastrianism eventually became Iran's most prominent religion from around the 6th century BC, enjoying official sanction during

1722-646: The Zaradushtiya , among which Al-Shahrastani asserts that only the last of the three were properly followers of Zoroaster. As regards the recognition of a prophet, Zoroaster has said: "They ask you as to how should they recognize a prophet and believe him to be true in what he says; tell them what he knows the others do not, and he shall tell you even what lies hidden in your nature; he shall be able to tell you whatever you ask him and he shall perform such things which others cannot perform." (Namah Shat Vakhshur Zartust, .5–7. 50–54) The Ahmadiyya Community views Zoroaster as

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1804-723: The zaraθuštrotema , or supreme head of the Zoroastrian priesthood, is said to reside in 'Ragha' ( Badakhshan ). In the 9th- to 12th-century Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrian tradition, this 'Ragha' and with many other places appear as locations in Western Iran. While the land of Media does not figure at all in the Avesta (the westernmost location noted in scripture is Arachosia ), the Būndahišn , or "Primordial Creation", (20.32 and 24.15) puts Ragha in Media (medieval Rai ). However, in Avestan, Ragha

1886-622: The 9th century BC or before was suggested by Silk Road Seattle, using its own interpretations of Victor H. Mair 's writings on the topic. Mair himself guessed that Zoroaster could have been born in the 2nd millennium BC. Almut Hintze , the British Library , and the European Research Council have dated Zoroaster to roughly 3,500 years ago, in the 2nd millennium BC. Traditions favoring a late date for Zoroaster's life have fallen out of vogue with some Zoroastian communities, who see

1968-693: The Arianoi . Strabo , in his Geographica (1st century AD), mentions of the Medes , Persians, Bactrians and Sogdians of the Iranian Plateau and Transoxiana of antiquity: The name of Ariana is further extended to a part of Persia and of Media, as also to the Bactrians and Sogdians on the north; for these speak approximately the same language, with but slight variations. The Bactrian (a Middle Iranian language) inscription of Kanishka (the founder of

2050-526: The Chaldeaean to have taught Pythagoras in Babylon , or lived at the time of mythological Ninus and Semiramis . According to Pliny the Elder, there were two Zoroasters. The first lived thousands of years ago, while the second accompanied Xerxes I in the invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Some scholars propose that the chronological calculation for Zoroaster was developed by Persian magi in the 4th century BC, and as

2132-742: The Iranic peoples , are the collective ethno-linguistic groups who are identified chiefly by their native usage of any of the Iranian languages , which are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages within the Indo-European language family . The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in Central Asia around the mid-2nd millennium BC. At their peak of expansion in

2214-511: The Kushan Empire ) at Rabatak, which was discovered in 1993 in an unexcavated site in the Afghan province of Baghlan , clearly refers to this Eastern Iranian language as Arya . All this evidence shows that the name Arya was a collective definition, denoting peoples who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on

2296-872: The Parthians , the Persians , the Sagartians , the Saka , the Sarmatians , the Scythians , the Sogdians , and likely the Cimmerians , among other Iranian-speaking peoples of West Asia , Central Asia, Eastern Europe , and the Eastern Steppe . In the 1st millennium AD, their area of settlement, which was mainly concentrated in the steppes and deserts of Eurasia , was significantly reduced due to

2378-765: The Sintashta culture and the subsequent Andronovo culture within the broader Andronovo horizon, and their homeland with an area of the Eurasian steppe that borders the Ural River on the west and the Tian Shan on the east. The Indo-Iranian migrations took place in two waves. The first wave consisted of the Indo-Aryan migration through the Bactria-Margiana Culture , also called "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex," into

2460-687: The Yaz culture ), and that it is thus implausible that the Gathas and Rigveda could have been composed more than a few centuries apart. These scholars suggest that Zoroaster lived in an isolated tribe or composed the Gathas before the 1200–1000 BC migration by the Iranians from the steppe to the Iranian Plateau . The shortfall of the argument is the vague comparison, and the archaic language of Gathas does not necessarily indicate time difference. Another possible date from

2542-1244: The Zazas . Their current distribution spreads across the Iranian Plateau ;– stretching from the Caucasus in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south and from eastern Anatolia in the west to western Xinjiang in the east – covering a region that is sometimes called Greater Iran , representing the extent of the Iranian-speaking peoples and the reach of their geopolitical and cultural influence. The term Iran derives directly from Middle Persian Ērān / AEran ( 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭 ) and Parthian Aryān . The Middle Iranian terms ērān and aryān are oblique plural forms of gentilic ēr- (in Middle Persian) and ary- (in Parthian), both deriving from Old Persian ariya- ( 𐎠𐎼𐎡𐎹 ), Avestan airiia- ( 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀 ) and Proto-Iranian *arya- . There have been many attempts to qualify

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2624-424: The old religion ) named Brādrēs, while performing at an altar. The Dēnkart , and the epic Shahnameh , ascribe his death to a Turanian soldier named Baraturish, potentially a spin on the same figure, while other traditions combine both accounts or hold that he died of old age . The Cypress of Kashmar is a mythical cypress tree of legendary beauty and gargantuan dimensions. It is said to have sprung from

2706-597: The (Parthian or) Middle Persian form, which the Armenians took over ( Zaradušt or the like), was merely metathesized to pre-Arm . *Zuradašt ". There is no consensus on the dating of Zoroaster. The Avesta gives no direct information about it, while historical sources are conflicting. Some scholars base their date reconstruction on the Proto-Indo-Iranian language and Proto-Indo-Iranian religion , while others use internal evidence. While many scholars today consider

2788-478: The Avestan form of the name. However, the modern Iranologist Rüdiger Schmitt rejects Andreas's assumption, and states that the older form which started with *zur- was just influenced by Armenian zur ('wrong, unjust, idle'), which therefore means that "the name must have been reinterpreted in an anti-Zoroastrian sense by the Armenian Christians". Furthermore, Schmitt adds: "it cannot be excluded, that

2870-811: The Book" cannot apply in light of the Zoroastrian assertion that their books were destroyed by Alexander. Citing the authority of the 8th-century al-Kalbi , the 9th- and 10th-century Sunni historian al-Tabari (I, 648) reports that Zaradusht bin Isfiman (an Arabic adaptation of "Zarathushtra Spitama") was an inhabitant of Israel and a servant of one of the disciples of the prophet Jeremiah . According to this tale, Zaradusht defrauded his master, who cursed him, causing him to become leprous (cf. Elisha 's servant Gehazi in Jewish scripture). According to Ibn Kathir , Zoroaster came into conflict with Jeremiah which resulted in angry Jeremiah cast

2952-453: The Great . This date gains credence mainly from attempts to connect figures in Zoroastrian texts to historical personages; thus some have postulated that the mythical Vishtaspa who appears in an account of Zoroaster's life was Darius I 's father, also named Vishtaspa (or Hystaspes in Greek). However, if this was true, it seems unlikely that the Avesta would not mention that Vishtaspa's son became

3034-756: The Greek sources. Herodotus , in his Histories , remarks about the Iranian Medes that "Medes were called anciently by all people Arians " (7.62). In Armenian sources, the Parthians, Medes and Persians are collectively referred to as Iranians . Eudemus of Rhodes (Dubitationes et Solutiones de Primis Principiis, in Platonis Parmenidem) refers to "the Magi and all those of Iranian ( áreion ) lineage". Diodorus Siculus (1.94.2) considers Zoroaster ( Zathraustēs ) as one of

3116-603: The Indo-Aryans who founded the Mitanni kingdom in northern Syria; ( c.  1500  – c.  1300 BC ) the other group were the Vedic people. Christopher I. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun , an Indo-European Caucasian people of Inner Asia in antiquity , were also of Indo-Aryan origin. The second wave is interpreted as the Iranian wave, and took place in the third stage of

3198-614: The Indo-European migrations from 800 BC onwards. The Sintashta culture, also known as the Sintashta–Petrovka culture or Sintashta–Arkaim culture, is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the northern Eurasian steppe on the borders of Eastern Europe and Central Asia , dated to the period 2100–1800 BC . It is probably the archaeological manifestation of the Indo-Iranian language group. The Sintashta culture emerged from

3280-591: 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 BMAC substrate -uštra with ἄστρον , astron , ' star '. In Avestan, Zaraθuštra is generally accepted to derive from an Old Iranian *Zaratuštra- ; The element half of

3362-675: The Levant, founding the Mittani kingdom ; and a migration south-eastward of the Vedic people, over the Hindu Kush into northern India. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians, whereafter they were defeated and split into two groups by the Iranians, who dominated the Central Eurasian steppe zone and "chased [the Indo-Aryans] to the extremities of Central Eurasia." One group were

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3444-523: The Marvels of Creation'), he further describes how the Al-Mutawakkil in 247 AH ( 861 AD ) caused the mighty cypress to be felled, and then transported it across Iran, to be used for beams in his new palace at Samarra . Before, he wanted the tree to be reconstructed before his eyes. This was done in spite of protests by the Iranians, who offered a very great sum of money to save the tree. Al-Mutawakkil never saw

3526-428: The Middle Iranian variants of Zarθošt , which, in turn, all reflect Avestan's fricative -θ- . In Middle Persian, the name is 𐭦𐭫𐭲𐭥𐭱𐭲 , Zardu(x)št , in Parthian Zarhušt , in Manichaean Middle Persian Zrdrwšt , in Early New Persian Zardušt , and in modern (New Persian ), the name is زرتشت , Zartosht . The name is attested in Classical Armenian sources as Zradašt (often with

3608-524: The Tedzen Delta in present-day Turkmenistan . Sarianidi considered the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex region as "the native land of the Zoroastrians and, probably, of Zoroaster himself." Boyce includes the steppes to the west from the Volga . The medieval "from Media" hypothesis is no longer taken seriously, and Zaehner has even suggested that this was a Magi-mediated issue to garner legitimacy, but this has been likewise rejected by Gershevitch and others. The 2005 Encyclopedia Iranica article on

3690-416: The West through their influence on Judaism and Platonism and have been identified as one of the key early events in the development of philosophy. Among the classic Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster's thinking. In 2005, the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy ranked Zoroaster as first in the chronology of philosophers. Zoroaster's impact lingers today due in part to

3772-492: The Zoroastrian religion. The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies comments that the Islamic conquest of Persia caused a huge impact on the Zoroastrian doctrine. After the Islamic conquest of Persia and the migration of many Zoroastrians to India and after being exposed to Islamic and Christian propaganda, the Zoroastrians, especially the Parsis in India, went so far as to deny dualism and consider themselves completely monotheists. After several transformations and developments, one of

3854-569: The age of 30, Zoroaster experienced a revelation during a spring festival; on the river bank he saw a shining being, who revealed himself as Vohu Manah (Good Purpose) and taught him about Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord) and five other radiant figures. Zoroaster soon became aware of the existence of two primal spirits, the second being Angra Mainyu (Destructive Spirit), with opposing concepts of Asha (order) and Druj (deception). Thus he decided to spend his life teaching people to seek Asha . He received further revelations and saw

3936-662: The command of Shapur I gives a more clear description. The languages used are Parthian, Middle Persian, and Greek. In Greek inscription says "ego ... tou Arianon ethnous despotes eimi" , which translates to "I am the king of the kingdom ( nation ) of the Iranians". In Middle Persian, Shapur says "ērānšahr xwadāy hēm" and in Parthian he says "aryānšahr xwadāy ahēm" . The Avesta clearly uses airiia- as an ethnic name ( Videvdat 1; Yasht 13.143–44, etc.), where it appears in expressions such as airyāfi daiŋˊhāvō ("Iranian lands"), airyō šayanəm ("land inhabited by Iranians"), and airyanəm vaējō vaŋhuyāfi dāityayāfi ("Iranian stretch of

4018-403: The cult of Ohrmazd. The academic usage of the term Iranian is distinct from the state of Iran and its various citizens (who are all Iranian by nationality), in the same way that the term Germanic peoples is distinct from Germans . Some inhabitants of Iran are not necessarily ethnic Iranians by virtue of not being speakers of Iranian languages. Some scholars such as John Perry prefer

4100-450: The cypress, because he was murdered by a Turkic soldier (possibly in the employ of his son) on the night when it arrived on the banks of the Tigris. Athanasius Kircher identified Zoroaster with Ham . The French figurist Jesuit missionary to China Joachim Bouvet thought that Zoroaster, the Chinese cultural hero Fuxi and Hermes Trismegistus were actually the Biblical patriarch Enoch . The Encyclopædia Iranica indicates that

4182-786: The diacritic for dental consonant is U+ 032A ◌̪ COMBINING BRIDGE BELOW . When there is no room under the letter, it may be placed above, using the character U+ 0346 ◌͆ COMBINING BRIDGE ABOVE , such as in / p͆ /. For many languages, such as Albanian , Irish and Russian , velarization is generally associated with more dental articulations of coronal consonants. Thus, velarized consonants, such as Albanian /ɫ/ , tend to be dental or denti-alveolar, and non-velarized consonants tend to be retracted to an alveolar position. Sanskrit , Hindustani and all other Indo-Aryan languages have an entire set of dental stops that occur phonemically as voiced and voiceless and with or without aspiration. The nasal /n/ also exists but

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4264-405: The distinctive features of the Zoroastrian religion gradually faded away and almost disappeared from modern Zoroastrianism This provides an explanation of why a number of parallels have been drawn between Zoroastrian teachings and Islam. Such parallels include the evident similarities between Amesha Spenta and the archangel Gabriel , praying five times a day, covering one's head during prayer, and

4346-461: The early Greeks learned about him from the Achaemenids, this indicates they did not regard him as a contemporary of Cyrus the Great, but as a remote figure. Some later pseudo-historical and Zoroastrian sources (the Bundahishn , which references a date "258 years before Alexander") place Zoroaster in the 6th century BC, which coincided with the accounts by Ammianus Marcellinus from the 4th century AD. The traditional Zoroastrian date originates in

4428-413: The era of the Sasanian state in ancient Persian that refer to the Zoroastrian doctrine do not match the sources that appeared after the collapse of the state, such as the Pahlavi source and others. The reason is that because of the fall of the Sasanian state, the Zoroastrian clerics tried to save their religion from extinction through modifying it to resemble the religion of Muslims to retain followers in

4510-419: The expansion of the Slavic peoples , the Germanic peoples , the Turkic peoples , and the Mongolic peoples ; many were subjected to Slavicization and Turkification . Modern Iranian peoples include the Baloch , the Gilaks , the Kurds , the Lurs , the Mazanderanis , the Ossetians , the Pamiris , the Pashtuns , the Persians, the Tats , the Tajiks , the Talysh , the Wakhis , the Yaghnobis , and

4592-469: The fulfillment of a post-Sassanid Zoroastrian prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid emperor Bahram ; Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly 1000 years before Jesus. In the Gathas , Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between aša and druj . The cardinal concept of aša —which is highly nuanced and difficult to translate—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who

4674-411: The good Dāityā"). In the late part of the Avesta (Videvdat 1), one of the mentioned homelands was referred to as Airyan'əm Vaējah which approximately means "expanse of the Iranians". The homeland varied in its geographic range, the area around Herat ( Pliny 's view) and even the entire expanse of the Iranian Plateau ( Strabo 's designation). The Old Persian and Avestan evidence is confirmed by

4756-473: The history of Zoroastrianism summarizes the issue with "while there is general agreement that he did not live in western Iran, attempts to locate him in specific regions of eastern Iran, including Central Asia, remain tentative". Zoroaster is recorded as the son of Pourushaspa of the Spitama family, and Dugdōw, while his great-grandfather was Haēčataspa. All the names appear appropriate to the nomadic tradition. His father's name means 'possessing gray horses' (with

4838-399: The influence of the late Abashevo culture , a collection of Corded Ware settlements in the forest steppe zone north of the Sintashta region that were also predominantly pastoralist . Allentoft et al. (2015) also found close autosomal genetic relationship between peoples of Corded Ware culture and Sintashta culture. Dental consonant In the International Phonetic Alphabet ,

4920-425: The interaction of two antecedent cultures. Its immediate predecessor in the Ural-Tobol steppe was the Poltavka culture , an offshoot of the cattle-herding Yamnaya horizon that moved east into the region between 2800 and 2600 BC. Several Sintashta towns were built over older Poltavka settlements or close to Poltavka cemeteries, and Poltavka motifs are common on Sintashta pottery. Sintashta material culture also shows

5002-488: The length of successive generations, until they concluded that Zoroaster must have lived "258 years before Alexander". This estimate then re-appeared in the 9th- to 12th-century Arabic and Pahlavi texts of Zoroastrian tradition, like the 10th century Al-Masudi who cited a prophecy from a lost Avestan book in which Zoroaster foretold the Empire's destruction in 300 years, but the religion would last for 1,000 years. In modern scholarship, two main approaches can be distinguished:

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5084-470: The literature of Avesta . The earliest epigraphically attested reference to the word arya- occurs in the Bistun Inscription of the 6th century BC. The inscription of Bistun (or Behistun ; Old Persian : Bagastana ) describes itself to have been composed in Arya [language or script]. As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but Iranian . In royal Old Persian inscriptions,

5166-449: The mention of Thamud and Iram of the Pillars in the Quran . The Sabians , who believed in free will coincident with Zoroastrians , are also mentioned in the Quran 22:17. Like the Greeks of classical antiquity, Islamic tradition understands Zoroaster to be the founding prophet of the Magians (via Aramaic, Arabic Majus , collective Majusya ). The 11th-century Cordoban Ibn Hazm (Zahiri school) contends that Kitabi "of

5248-399: The mid-1st millennium BC, the territory of the Iranian peoples stretched across the entire Eurasian Steppe ; from the Danubian Plains in the west to the Ordos Plateau in the east and the Iranian Plateau in the south. The ancient Iranian peoples who emerged after the 1st millennium BC include the Alans , the Bactrians , the Dahae , the Khwarazmians , the Massagetae , the Medes ,

5330-571: The name ( -uštra- ) is thought to be the Indo-Iranian root for 'camel', with the entire name meaning 'he who can manage camels'. Reconstructions from later Iranian languages—particularly from the Middle Persian (300 BC) Zardusht , 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- . Subject then to whether Zaraθuštra derives from *Zarantuštra- or from *Zaratuštra- , several interpretations have been proposed. If Zarantuštra

5412-412: The original narrative was borrowed from Tabari's record of the "History of Jerusalem". He also mentioned that Zoroastrian was synonymous with Majus . Sibt ibn al-Jawzi instead stated that some older narration said that Zoroaster was a former disciple of Uzair . Al-Tabari (I, 681–683) recounts that Zaradusht accompanied a Jewish prophet to Bishtasb/Vishtaspa. Upon their arrival, Zaradusht translated

5494-523: The period immediately following Alexander the Great 's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC. The Seleucid rulers who gained power following Alexander's death instituted an "Age of Alexander" as the new calendrical epoch. This did not appeal to the Zoroastrian priesthood who then attempted to establish an "Age of Zoroaster". To do so, they needed to establish when Zoroaster had lived, which they accomplished by (erroneously, according to Mary Boyce some even identified Cyrus with Vishtaspa) counting back

5576-489: The prospect of their faith having more ancient roots than previously thought as a welcome development. The birthplace of Zoroaster is also unknown, and the language of the Gathas is not similar to the proposed north-western and north-eastern regional dialects of Persia. It is also suggested that he was born in one of the two areas and later lived in the other area. Yasna 9 and 17 cite the Ditya River in Airyanem Vaējah (Middle Persian Ērān Wēj ) as Zoroaster's home and

5658-498: The ruler of the Persian Empire, or that this key fact about Darius's father would not be mentioned in the Behistun Inscription . It is also possible that Darius I's father was named in honor of the Zoroastrian patron, indicating possible Zoroastrian faith by Arsames . Scholars such as Mary Boyce (who dated Zoroaster to somewhere between 1700 and 1000 BC) used linguistic and socio-cultural evidence to place Zoroaster between 1500 and 1000 BC (or 1200 and 900 BC). The basis of this theory

5740-423: The sage's Hebrew teachings for the king and so convinced him to convert (Tabari also notes that they had previously been Sabis ) to the Magian religion. The 12th-century heresiographer al-Shahrastani describes the Majusiya into three sects, the Kayumarthiya (an otherwise undocumented sect that – per Sharastani – seems to have had a stronger doctrine of Ahriman's "non-reality"), the Zurwaniya and

5822-401: The same period and the same region of historical Persia also consider Azerbaijan as the birthplace of Zarathustra. By the late 20th century, most scholars had settled on an origin in eastern Greater Iran. Gnoli proposed Sistan , Baluchistan (though in a much wider scope than the present-day province) as the homeland of Zoroastrianism; Frye voted for Bactria and Chorasmia ; Khlopin suggests

5904-643: The scene of his first appearance. The Avesta (both Old and Younger portions) does not mention the Achaemenids or of any West Iranian tribes such as the Medes , Persians , or even Parthians . The Farvardin Yasht refers to some Iranian peoples that are unknown in the Greek and Achaemenid sources about the 6th and 5th century BC Eastern Iran. The Vendidad contain 17 regional names , most of which are located in north-eastern and eastern Iran. However, in Yasna 59.18,

5986-416: The stories of Zoroaster's life were distorted by quoting stories from Christianity and Judaism and attributing them to Zoroaster, but the most quotations were from Islam after the entry of Muslims into Persia, as it was a means for the Zoroastrian clergy to strengthen their religion. The orientalist Arthur Christensen in his book '' Iran During The Sassanid Era'' , mentioned that the sources dating back to

6068-678: The suggestion that there has been more than one Zoroaster. On the other hand, in post-Islamic sources Shahrastani (1086–1153), an Iranian writer originally from Shahristān, in present-day Turkmenistan , proposed that Zoroaster's father was from Atropatene (also in Medea) and his mother was from Rey . Coming from a reputed scholar of religions, this was a serious blow to the various regions which all claimed that Zoroaster originated from their homelands, some of which then decided that Zoroaster must then have then been buried in their regions or composed his Gathas there or preached there. Arabic sources of

6150-947: The system of religious ethics he founded called Mazdayasna . The word Mazdayasna is Avestan and is translated as 'Worship of Wisdom/Mazda' in English. The encyclopedia Natural History (Pliny) claims that Zoroastrians later educated the Greeks who, starting with Pythagoras , used a similar term, philosophy, or "love of wisdom" to describe the search for ultimate truth. Iranian peoples Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European The Iranian peoples , or

6232-482: The term Iranic as the name for the linguistic family of this category (many of which are spoken outside Iran), while Iranian for anything about the country Iran. He uses the same analogue as in differentiating German from Germanic or differentiating Turkish and Turkic . German scholar Martin Kümmel also argues for the same distinction of Iranian from Iranic . The Proto-Indo-Iranians are commonly identified with

6314-457: The term arya- appears in three different contexts: In the Dna and Dse, Darius and Xerxes describe themselves as "an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of a Persian, and an Aryan, of Aryan stock". Although Darius the Great called his language arya- ("Iranian"), modern scholars refer to it as Old Persian because it is the ancestor of the modern Persian language. The trilingual inscription erected by

6396-659: The time of the Sassanid Empire , until the 7th century AD, when the religion itself began to decline following the Arab-Muslim conquest of Iran . Zoroaster is credited with authorship of the Gathas as well as the Yasna Haptanghaiti , a series of hymns composed in Old Avestan that cover the core of Zoroastrian thinking. Little is known about Zoroaster; most of his life is known only from these scant texts. By any modern standard of historiography, no evidence can place him into

6478-612: The variant Zradešt ). The most important of these testimonies were provided by the Armenian authors Eznik of Kolb , Elishe , and Movses Khorenatsi . The spelling Zradašt was formed through an older form which started with *zur- , a fact which the German Iranologist Friedrich Carl Andreas (1846–1930) used as evidence for a Middle Persian spoken form *Zur(a)dušt . Based on this assumption, Andreas even went so far to form conclusions from this also for

6560-490: The verbal root of ar- in Old Iranian arya- . The following are according to 1957 and later linguists: Unlike the Sanskrit ārya- ( Aryan ), the Old Iranian term has solely an ethnic meaning. Today, the Old Iranian arya- remains in ethno-linguistic names such as Iran , Alan , Ir , and Iron . In the Iranian languages , the gentilic is attested as a self-identifier included in ancient inscriptions and

6642-486: The word aspa meaning 'horse'), while his mother's means 'milkmaid'. According to the tradition, he had four brothers, two older and two younger, whose names are given in much later Pahlavi work. Zoroaster's training for priesthood probably started very early around seven years of age. He became a priest probably around the age of 15, and according to Gathas, gaining knowledge from other teachers and personal experience from traveling when he left his parents at age 20. By

6724-522: The world as being locked in an epic battle between opposing forces of good and evil. Manicheanism also incorporated other elements of Zoroastrian tradition, particularly the names of supernatural beings; however, many of these other Zoroastrian elements are either not part of Zoroaster's own teachings or are used quite differently from how they are used in Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster appears in the Bahá'í Faith as

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