becomes Zardusht), was born, as far as can be guessed, in Bactria, which
became the stronghold of Avestic religion and the last refuge of the
national monarchy on the Arab invasion. There was a time when his
existence was denied, but no one doubts it now. Eight hundred years
before Christ is the date which most modern scholars assign to him,
though some place him much farther back, while others think they discern
reasons for his having appeared after Buddha. The legend of his life
(not to be found in the Avesta) begins in the invariable way: he was
descended from kings; as a young man he retired to a grotto in the
desert, where he lived an austere life of reflection for seven years.
Zoroaster never taught asceticism, but tradition attributes to him the
season of solitude and self-collection without which perhaps, in fact as
well as in fable, the supreme power over other men’s minds was never
wielded by man.
Various marvellous particulars are related: he was suckled by two ewes;
wild animals obeyed his voice; when thrown under the feet of oxen and
horses, they avoided hurting him. In his seven years’ retirement he
meditated on idol-worship, on false gods and false prophets. The people
of Iran, substantially monotheist but prone to sliding into degrading
superstition, offered a field for his mission. He took to him a few
disciples and began to preach to as many as would hear, but he met with
great difficulties. At last, he found favour with a king by curing his
favourite horse, and he might have ended his days in peace but the
spirit urged him to continue his apostolate. Not to princes but to
peasants did he chiefly address himself; he did not call them away from
their work but exhorted them to pursue it diligently. “He who cultivates
the earth will never lack, but he who does not, will stand idly at the
doors of others to beg food.” Labour is not an evil, man who earns his
bread by the sweat of his brow is not under a curse: he is the
fellow-worker with God! This was the grandest thing that Zoroaster
taught. It is singular to note the affinity between his teaching and the
Virgilian conception of the husbandman as half a priest. In the Middle
Ages the same thought arose where one would not look for it: among those
religious orders which had the luminous inspiration that in work not in
indolence lay the means of salvation: “_Laborare est orare._”
The care of the God-created animals brought with it a special blessing:
it was actually a way to heaven. If a friend gave us a cherished animal,
should not we treat it well for that friend’s sake as well as for its
own value? Would not it remind us of the giver? Would not we be anxious
that he should find it in good health if by chance he came on a visit?
This is how Zoroaster wished man to feel about the cow, the sheep, the
dog. Auguste Comte considered domestic animals as a part of humanity.
Zoroaster considered them as a trust from God.
Moslem traditions finish the story of the Mazdean prophet by telling
that he was beaten to death by “devil-worshippers,” probably Turanian
raiders. Zoroastrian authorities are silent about his end, which is
thought to bear out the legend that it was unfortunate.
The Parsis hold that the whole Avesta was the work of Zoroaster. Much of
the original material has disappeared, and although Western writers are
disposed to throw all the blame on the Moslem invaders, the steady
Persian tradition which accuses “Alexander the Rûman” of having caused
the destruction of an important part of it, cannot be well answered by
saying that such barbarism was not likely to be committed by the
Macedonian conqueror. When Persepolis was reduced to ruins some of the
sacred books “written with gold ink on prepared cow-skins” may have been
destroyed by accident, but as it was certain that the Zoroastrian
priests would do all they could to foment resistance to the hated
idolater, we cannot be too sure that the deed was not done on purpose.
The way of disposing of the dead set the Greeks against the
Zoroastrians, and they even thought or affected to think that the dying
as well as the dead were given to dogs. The Arabs, no doubt, burnt what
they could lay their hands on of what was left, and it tells much for
the devotion of the faithful few, the persecuted remnant in Persia, and
the band of exiles who found a happier fate in India, that nevertheless
the Avesta has been preserved in a representative though incomplete
form, to take its place in among the sacred literatures of the world.
When the Parsis return, as they hope to do, to a free Persia, they may
carry the Avesta proudly before them as the Sikhs carried the Granth to
the prophet-martyr’s tomb at Delhi: they have done more than keep the
faith, they have _lived it_.
The present Avesta consists of five books. The Gâthâs or hymns alone
really claim to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, and this claim
is admitted by European scholars who disagree with the Parsis in denying
that the other four books are by the same author. They are: the “Yasna,”
a ceremonial liturgy, the “Vispered,” a work resembling the “Yasna,” but
apparently less ancient; the “Vendîdâd,” which contains the Mazdean
religious law, and the “Khordah Avesta,” a household prayer-book for the
laity. The original text was written in an Aryan dialect related to
Sanscrit; after a time, this tongue was understood by no one but the
priests and not much by them; it was decided, therefore, to make a
translation, which was called the “Zend,” or “interpretation,” or, as we
should say, “the authorised version.” At first Europeans thought that
“Zend” meant the original tongue in which the work was written.
Curiously enough, the language into which the Scriptures were rendered
was not Iranian or Old Persian, but Pahlavi, a _lingua franca_ full of
Semitic words, which had been coined for convenience in communicating
with the Assyrians and Syrians when they were under one king. Pahlavi
was also used for official inscriptions, for coinage, for commerce; it
was a sort of Esperanto. The text and the translation enjoyed equal
authority, but the former was called “the Avesta of Heaven” and the
latter “the Avesta of Earth.”
The first fragment of the “Avesta” that reached Europe was a copy of the
“Yasna” brought to Canterbury by an unknown Englishman in 1633. Other
scraps followed, but no real attempt to translate it was made till the
adventurous Anquetil Duperron published in 1771 the version which he had
made with the assistance of Parsi priests and which was rejected in
unwise haste by Sir William Jones as a _supercherie littéraire_, chiefly
on the score that its contents were for the most part pure nonsense, and
hence could not be the work of Zoroaster. Germany at once was more just
than England to the man who, though he had not succeeded in making a
good translation, deserved the highest honour as a pioneer.
Even now that better translations are available, the Avesta is apt to
dishearten the reader on his first acquaintance with it. Many passages
have remained obscure, and the desire to be literal in this as in some
other Oriental works has hindered the translators from writing their own
languages well. It needs a Sir Richard Jebb to produce a translation
which is a classic and is yet microscopically accurate. I once asked
Professor F. C. Burkitt why the Septuagint did not make more impression
on the Hellenic and Roman students of Alexandria by mere force of the
literary power of the Bible? He replied that he thought it was to be
explained by the poor degree of literary skill possessed by the Greek
translators or by most of them. Another reminiscence comes to my mind
here: I recollect that eminent scholar and deeply religious-minded man,
Albert Réville, saying to me: “The Bible is so much more amusing than
the Koran!” I am afraid one must confess that the Koran is so much “more
amusing” than the Avesta. It is a good rule, however, to approach all
religious books with patience and with reverence, for they contain, even
if concealed under a bushel, the finest thoughts of man.
When we have grown accustomed to the outward frame of the Avesta, the
inner sense becomes clearer. It is like a piece of music by
Tschaikowsky: at first the modulations seem bizarre, the themes
incoherent; then, by degrees, a consecutive plan unwinds itself and we
know that what appeared meaningless sound was divine harmony.
The essential teaching of the Avesta is summed up in the text: “Adore
God with a pure mind and a pure body, and honour Him in His works.”
Force, power, energy, waters and stagnant pools, springs, running
brooks, plants that shoot aloft, plants that cover the ground, the
earth, the heavens, stars, sun, moon, the everlasting lights, the
flocks, the kine, the water-tribes, those that are of the sky, the
flying, the wild ones—“We honour all these, Thy holy and pure creatures,
O Ahura Mazda, divine artificer!”
“The Voice said: Call My works thy friends.”
If the lyric note of great religious expression is rarely reached (only,
perhaps, in a few pieces, such as the noble hymn to the sun-symbol), the
sustained exposition of life is so reasonable and yet so lofty that to
contemplate it after gazing at the extravagances of pillar-saints and
Indian Yogi, signals, as it were, a return to sanity and health after
the _nuit blanche_ of fever.
The “Khordah Avesta” contains this counsel or good wish: “Be cheerful;
live thy life the whole time which thou wilt live.” Man is not asked to
do the impossible or even the difficult: he is asked to _enjoy_. To the
extreme spirituality which shrank from making even a mental image of God
is joined a “this worldliness” which saw in rational enjoyment a
religious duty. Instead of choosing poverty, man was ordered to make
good use of wealth; instead of mortifying the flesh, he was to avoid
calumny, evil-speaking, quarrels, to give clothes to the poor, to pray
not only for himself but for others. If he does wrong, let him repent
honestly in his heart and do some practical good work as a pledge of his
repentance. The soul which grieves for its wrongdoing and sins no more
comes back into the light of “God the giver, Forgiver, rich in Love, who
always is, always was, always will be!” When it was asked, “What is in
the first place most acceptable to this earth?” the answer came: “When a
holy man walks on it, O Zarathustra!” Good men work _with_ God, who,
sure of ultimate triumph, is yet Himself struggling now against the
Power of Darkness. There is no religion without a good life: “All have
not the Faith who do not hear it; all hear it not who are unclean; all
are unclean who are sinners.” God did not send calamities to His
servants, but He compassionates them in their trials: “The voice of him
weeping, however low, mounts up to the star-lights, comes round the
whole world.” It is no sin to desire riches: “Thy kingdom come, O Ahura,
when the virtuous poor shall inherit the earth.” In spite of the
sufferings of good people, even on this fair earth there is more of
pleasantness for the good than for the wicked, and in the next world
there is bliss eternal. I do not think that Robert Browning studied the
Avesta, but to the thoroughly Zoroastrian line quoted above I am tempted
to add this other which is not less so:—
“Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph.”
For the individual, as for the universe, Right must triumph. If the
prophet of optimism has a harder task than the oracle of despair, it is,
perhaps, a more profitable task.
The Parsi repeats daily, as his ancestors did before him, the so-called
Honover or “Ahuna-Vairya,” or _logos_ which brings God down to man as
the Gayatri lifts man up to God: “One Master and Lord, all holy and
supreme; one teacher of His Law, appointed by God’s almighty will as
shepherd to the weak.” The Mazdean “law” was a thought-out system to
prevent idolatry and atheism, and to make men lead good lives. There is
no racial exclusiveness in it: the Mazdeans had no shibboleth or
peculiar sign; Zoroaster, himself a foreigner, did not appeal to a
chosen people or to a miraculously evolved caste: he only knew of good
men and bad. A really good man, truthful and charitable in all his ways,
had three heavens open to him even though he “offered no prayers and
chanted no Gâthâs”; only the fourth heaven, a little nearer the presence
of God, was reserved for those who had devoted their lives to religion.
Temperance was enjoined, as without temperance there could not be
health. The family was sacred and marriage meritorious: children, the
gift of Ahura Mazda, were recruits for the great Salvation Army of the
future. Immorality was severely censured, but the victims of it were
befriended. Stringent and most humane religious laws protected the
_fille-mère_ from being driven “by her shame” to destroy herself or her
offspring. Girls were married at sixteen: the address to young brides
may be compared with that in the Rig-Veda: “I speak these words to you,
maidens who wed. I say them unto you—imprint them on your hearts. Learn
to know the world of the Holy Spirit according to the Law. Even so, let
one of you take the other as the Law ordains, for it will be to you a
source of perfect joy.”
At the time when Zoroastrianism was the State religion, the Sásánian
period, we find that the kings frequently had harems. It is certain,
however, that if in this as in other things the priests were complacent,
they were untrue to orthodox Zoroastrian doctrine and custom, which only
permitted the taking of a second wife in some rare cases, as when there
was no issue by the first.
Even then, it does not seem to have been encouraged. The blot on Avestic
morality is the strange recommendation of consanguineous marriages,
which the Parsis interpret as far as possible in a figurative sense, but
it must have been intended to be followed, though it is plain that such
unions were never popular. The declared object was the hypothetical
maximum purity of race: exactly the same object as that contemplated in
the union of Siegemund and Siegelind in the Nibelungenlied—a curious
parallel. To my mind, the desire to keep agricultural property together
may have had something to do with it. The present moral ideas of the
Parsis do not differ from those of Europeans, and when they requested to
be placed under the English instead of the Hindu marriage law, their
wish was granted.
In Avesta times the priests both married and toiled like the rest of the
people. When their prosperity under the Sásánians tended to make them a
class apart, they seem to have become less faithful to the ideals of
their master, less stern in opposing evil in high places. It is a common
experience of history. Originally they were true citizen-priests, mixing
with the people as being of them. There was no life better or holier
than the common life of duty and work. Isolation of any kind was
contrary to the central Zoroastrian view of man as a social being. Among
the wicked souls in hell, each one thinks itself utterly alone: it has
no sight or knowledge of the host around it. Nothing could illustrate
more powerfully than this the saying of a great French writer: “_Seul a
un synonyme: mort!_” Solitude is the death of the soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VII
ZOROASTRIAN ZOOLOGY
NO investigator of early Iran can afford to neglect the _Shahnameh_ of
Firdusi, which was as good history as he could make it; that is to say,
it was founded on extremely old legendary lore collected by him with a
real wish to revive the memory of the past. Firdusi sang the glories of
the “fire-worshippers” with such enthusiasm that one cannot be surprised
if, when he died, the Sheikh of Tús doubted whether he ought receive
orthodox Moslem burial: a doubt removed by an opportune dream in which
the Sheikh saw the poet in Paradise. In Firdusi’s epic we are told that
the earliest Persian king (who seems to have been not very far off the
first man) lived in peace with all creation. Wild animals came round and
knew him for their lord. He had a son who was killed by demons and a
grandson named Húsheng, who, as soon as he was old enough, made war on
the demons (Turanians?) to avenge his father’s murder. Every species of
wild and tame beast obeyed Húsheng:—
“The savage beasts, and those of gentler kind,
Alike reposed before him and appeared
To do him homage.”
In his war on the demon’s brood, Húsheng was helped by wolf, tiger,
lion, and even by the fowls of the air. All this while mankind had lived
on fruit and the leaves of trees. Húsheng taught his people to bake
bread. He was succeeded by his son Taliumen, in whose reign panthers,
hawks, and falcons were tamed. The next king introduced weaving and the
use of armour. His successor was remembered for having kept a herd of
1,000 cows whose milk he gave to the poor. Then came Zorák, who owned
10,000 horses. Zorák was seduced by Iblís, the evil spirit, who, in
order to accomplish it, became his chief cook. Iblís was the real
founder of the culinary art; till then, people lived still almost
entirely on bread and fruit, but the king’s new _chef_ prepared the most
savoury dishes, for which he used the flesh of all kinds of birds and
beasts. Finally, he sent to table a partridge and a pheasant, after
which Zorák promised the devil to grant him any request he might make.
[Illustration:
_Photo:_ _J. Dieulafoy._
KING FIGHTING GRIFFIN WITH SCORPION’S TAIL.
Palace of Darius.
(_By permission of M. Marcel Dieulafoy._)]
Here there are fugitive reminiscences of parallel legends in the
_Bundehesh_, a Parsi religious book belonging to post-Avestic times. The
first human couple served God faithfully till, for some unexplained
reason, they were induced to ascribe creation and supreme power to the
daevas. This was the “unforgivable sin,” the ascription of the
miraculous power of God to the devil. Ahriman rejoiced at their treason,
though it is not said that he was the cause of it: man could choose
between good and evil. After their defection, the man and the woman
clothed themselves in leaves and took to hunting. Ahriman put it into
their heads to kill a goat and then to light a fire by rubbing two
sticks: they blew on the fire to fan the flame and roasted a piece of
the goat. One bit they threw in the air as a sacrifice to the Nature
spirits, saying, “This for the Yazatas!” A kite flew past and carried
off the sacrifice. Afterwards, the man and woman dressed in skins and
told innumerable lies. Going from bad to worse, they engendered a large
family whence sprang the twenty-five races of mankind.
How this story got into the _Bundehesh_ I do not know, but I am sure
that Zoroaster would have disowned it. He knew of no collective “fall of
man,” whether in connexion with partridges, pheasants, or goat-flesh.
The Avesta, in its sober cosmogony, is content to speak of the
proto-man, Gayo Marathan (mortal life), and the proto-good-animal, Geus
Urva, from whom all human beings and all animals of the good creation
are derived. Nevertheless, Ahura Mazda is described frequently as
_creating_ each animal; the proto-creature was only the _modus operandi_
of the divine power. As in biology, divided sex was a secondary
development. From the bull, Geus Urva, proceeded first his own species,
and then sheep, camels, horses, asses, birds, water-animals.
The distinguishing qualification given him of _good and laborious_ is
the most striking proof of the originality of Magian ideas: instead of
the strong bulls of Basan roaring in their might, the bull we have here
is one with the ploughing ox:—
“T’amo, o pio bove; e mite un sentimento
Di vigore e di pace al cor m’infondi....”
—the patient, the long-suffering, the gentle, though strong-limbed
helper of man in his daily toil, good in his vigour, good in his
mildness, but good most of all in his labour, for Zoroaster called
labour a holy thing. The animal which did most to cultivate God’s earth
and make the desert flower like a rose, was the paragon of creatures. It
must not be thought that to the Geus Urva or his kind was ever rendered
the homage due to their Creator. If there was one thing more abhorrent,
to the Zoroastrian mind than idolatry it was zoolatry: when Cambyses
killed a new Apis with many of his followers in Egypt, he had no reason
to fear Mazdean criticism.
The soul of the bull receives _dulia_ not _latria_. “We honour the soul
of the bull ... and also our own souls and our cattle’s souls who help
to preserve our life; the souls by which they exist and which exist for
them.” So runs one of the Gâthâs, one of the hymns of Zoroaster himself.
“We honour the souls of the swift, wild animals; we honour the souls of
just men and women in whatever place they are born, whose pure natures
have overcome evil. We honour saintly men and saintly women, living
immortal, always living, always increasing in glory—all man and woman
souls faithful to the Spirit of God.”
In this song of praise we have brought before us vividly a fundamental
doctrine of the Avesta which pervades every page of it: the belief in
the Fravashi, the soul-partner, the double or angel, which exists before
birth as during life and after death. This belief has a great interest
for us as it would seem that it was only by chance that it did not pass
into the body of Christian dogma. The Jews of the new school had held it
for quite two hundred years before Christ. Besides other allusions, are
the three distinct references to the soul-partner in the New Testament.
Christ Himself speaks of the angels of the children who are always in
the presence of God and who complain to Him if the children are
ill-treated. Secondly, when Peter issued from prison, those who saw him
said, “It is his angel.” Thirdly, it is stated that the Sadducees
believed that there was no resurrection, “neither angel nor Spirit,” but
that the Pharisees, of whom Paul was one, “confessed both.” These three
references become intelligible for the first time after reading the
Gâthâs. True it is that he who knows only one religion, knows none.
Ahriman inflicted every sort of suffering on the primal creature—this
was the beginning of cruelty to animals. At last, he caused its death.
The soul of the Bull dwells in the presence of God, and to it, as
intercessor, all suffering creatures lift their plaints. Why were they
made to suffer wrath, ill-usage, hunger? Will no one lead them to sweet
pastures? The creature-soul carries the cry of the creatures to God.
Ahura Mazda promises the advent of Zoroaster, redresser of all wrongs.
But the Bull-soul weeps and complains: how can the voice of one weak man
avail to help? It invokes stronger and more effectual aid.
The hymn is really a litany of suffering animals, the grandeur of the
thought flashing across obscurities which make it almost impossible to
translate. Very mysterious is the expression of incredulity in the
efficacy of the help of Zoroaster, an expression which stands quite
alone, and in which some have seen a proof that this hymn was not
written by the Prophet. But would any one else have dared to question
his power or to call him “one weak man”? Can it be that Zoroaster was
distressed to find his efforts to prevent cruelty so unavailing, and
that he here covertly invokes the “strong arm of the law” to do what he
had failed in doing?
In the pages of the Avesta everything is tried to enforce humanity:
hopes of reward, threats of punishment, appeals to religious obedience,
common gratitude, self-interest. It cannot but appear singular that
among an Eastern pastoral and agricultural people such reiterated
admonitions should have been needful. The cow and the horse, “animals
manifestly pure which bring with them words of blessing,” inflict
terrible anathemas on their tormentors:—
The cow curses him who keeps her: “Mayest thou remain without
posterity, ever continuing of evil report, thou who dost not
distribute me food, and yet causest me to labour for thy wife,
thy children and thy own sustenance.”
The horse curses his owner: “Mayest thou not be he who harnesses
swift horses, not one of those who sit on swift horses, not one
who makes swift horses hasten away. Thou dost not wish strength
to me in the numerous assembly, in the circle of many men.”
The cow which is led astray by robbers calls to Mithra “ever with
unlifted hands, thinking of the stall,” and Mithra, here figuring as the
vengeance of God, destroys the house, the clan, the confederacy, the
region, the rule of him who injured her. She is the type of prosperity:
“O thou who didst create the cow, give us immortal life, safety, power,
plenty.” She is dear to her Creator: “Thou hast given the earth as a
sweet pasture for the cow.” She is praised because she furnishes the
offerings, flesh, milk, and butter.