40 Tenets and History
I. Introduction
Zoroastrianism, religion founded in ancient Persia by the prophet Zoroaster. The doctrines preached by Zoroaster are preserved in his metrical Gathas (psalms), which form part of the sacred scripture known as the Avesta.
II. Tenets
The basic tenets of the Gathas consist of a monotheistic worship of Ahura Mazda (the “Lord Wisdom”) and an ethical dualism opposing Truth (Asha) and Lie, which permeate the entire universe. All that is good derives from, and is supported by, Ahura Mazda’s emanations: Spenta Mainyu (the “Holy Spirit” or “Incremental Spirit,” a creative force) and his six assisting entities, Good Mind, Truth, Power, Devotion, Health, and Life. All evil is caused by the “twin” of Spenta Mainyu, who is Angra Mainyu (the “Fiendish Spirit”; Persian. Ahriman), and by his assistants. Angra Mainyu is evil by choice, having allied himself with Lie, whereas Spenta Mainyu has chosen Truth. So too, human beings must choose. Upon death each person’s soul will be judged at the Bridge of Discrimination; the follower of Truth will cross and be led to paradise, and the adherents of Lie will fall into hell. All evil will eventually be eliminated on earth in an ordeal of fire and molten metal.
III. The Gathas and the Seven Chapters
The structural complexity of the Gathic scheme has best been explained by the assumption that Zoroaster amalgamated two religious systems. The first is outlined in the Gathas and is most probably Zoroaster’s own; this is the monotheistic worship of Wisdom and his emanations (including Asha). The second, describing a cult worshiping a Lord (Ahura) who is custodian of Asha, is actually attested to in a portion of the Avesta, the Liturgy of the Seven Chapters, composed after Zoroaster’s death in his own dialect. Zoroaster’s teaching is praised and revered in the later section; its religious outlook, however, in part amalgamating earlier beliefs in Persia, is quite different from that of the Gathas. In the Seven Chapters, the emanations occur in the company of other sacred abstractions; Ahura has the epithet “possessing Asha,” but Lie and Angra Mainyu are not mentioned. Many natural objects and mythical creatures, as well as ancestor spirits, are worshiped, and the very figure of Ahura Mazda resembles not so much Zoroaster’s deity as the god Varuna (sometimes called the Asura, “Lord”) of the most ancient Indian religious compositions, the Rig-Veda. See Veda.
The ancestors of the Persians (that is, the Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European peoples) and the invaders of northern India were of the same stock, and it may be assumed that they worshiped a number of similar deities. The Ahura of the Seven Chapters has wives, called Ahuranis, who, like Varuna’s Varunanis, are rain clouds and waters. Ahura is possessor of Asha, as Varuna is custodian of Rta (“Truth” or “cosmic order” = Asha = Old Persian. Arta). The sun is the “eye” of both deities, and the name of Ahura is at times joined to that of the g