Classical Islamic Literature - Thus Spoke Zoroaster

“I profess myself a Mazda-worshipper, a Zoroastrian, having vowed it and professed it. I pledge myself to the well-thought thought, I pledge myself to the well-spoken word, [and] I pledge myself to the well-done action.” [1]

This oath to believe in God and act according to his principles comes from Zoroastrian scripture, a representative of the millennia-old literature of Persia. Despite its age, scholars have not examined Persian literature to any great degree. Many of its few extant remains lay spread across the Earth, residing in public and private hands, improperly inventoried or even unrecorded. Those receive at best incomplete supplementation from meager references in the writings of Greek, Latin, and Arabic authors. Therefore, in combination with their own scarcity, students of Persian literature have yet to construct a whole model of ancient Persian literary works. [2]

The first written Persian literature appears in Pahlavi, the language of Persia under the Sasanian dynasty, rulers of Iran from 226 to 651 AD. [3] Pahlavi spawned from Old Persian, the only traces of which are rock inscriptions commanded by Darius the Great and later Archaemenian kings, and it evolved into Modern Persian. The Pahlavi literature scholars know about today compares to the Bible’s Old Testament in size and deals largely with religion and liturgy. [4]

As it did on the Arabian Peninsula, [5] poetry also held importance in Persia. When Iranian poetry arose is uncertain, but a legend from the famous Iranian poet Firdausi places its invention at around 3000 BC, during the reign of King Jamshid in Iran’s Golden Age. Two types of poetry existed at first: the ballad and the epic. The ballad, which tells a story, eventually begot the lyric, the hymn, the satire, and the panegyric. The epic, a longer storytelling mechanism, of which The Shah-Namah by Firdausi is an example, likely derived from the ballad as well. In the modern era, nothing remains of the first ballads, nor of any “love poetry” artists might have created. Heretofore-mentioned Zoroastrian scripture comprises the first Persian poetry on record. [6]

Zoroaster, from whom Zoroastrianism takes its name, resided in either northwestern Iran around 600 BC, [7] or in eastern Iran around 1400 BC, [8] depending upon the source. Wherever Zoroaster originally lived, the teachings of “one of the great religious leaders of the East” [9] soon spread throughout Persia. [10] Zoroaster told of a Dualistic world where good and evil dominate; leading the forces of good is Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, [11] the “lord of wisdom, the one, eternal, uncreated, good, wise, and munificent god.” [12] Commanding the forces of evil is Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman. Good and evil will struggle against each other until the end of the present world, when Ahriman will fail, as men, with their free will, choose good, banish evil, and bring vohu hsapra, or paradise.

Meanwhile, before the coming of paradise, Ormazd describes the actions of humans in his “life-book,” which Ormazd will use to determine people’s judgments upon death. Men who have lived well will cross the Cinvat Bridge into heaven, and men who have lived poorly will experience the torture of hell or the wait for ultimate decision in purgatory. [13] During their lives, humans should pray before “the life-giving force” that is fire. This is not fire worship, as many have erroneously assumed, but worship of God via the fire. [14]

Enjoying some of its greatest influence 1,000 years before the rise of Christianity as the state religion of the Archaemenian kings, Zoroastrianism faltered after Alexander the Great conquered Persia in 333 BC and destroyed many of its holy books. Following the Mesopotamian invasion came a dark age of 550 years, in which any literary or religious activity that might have occurred left no trace, either in poetry or in prose. [15] With the coming of the Sasanian dynasty, though, Persian religion and literature restarted. After ousting the Parthians in 229 AD, the Sasanians revived Iranian traditions that had lapsed into disuse. [16] Pahlavi prose evidence reveals a rebirth of Iranian poetry, recording that even two Sasanian kings were poets. One king, Bahram Gur (420 to 438 AD), allegedly created the Persian rhyming couplet while lion hunting with his gorgeous lover, Dilaram. [17]

In the spiritual realm, the Sasanians revived Zoroastrianism as the religion of state once more. This time, however, the Sasanians instituted a church hierarchy, similar to that of the Byzantine Christian church. The priests who comprised this hierarchy were the Magi, who had already established themselves as Zoroastrian adepts before the Sasanian dynasty. (Some of these Magi, according to Christian theology, were the Wise Men who witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ.) The Magi maintained the prayer fires and helped people make sense of the myriad forces of light and darkness on Earth. [18]

Zoroastrianism prevailed in Iran until the Muslims conquered it in 651 AD. Despite their respect for other monotheistic religions, the Muslims henceforth suppressed worship of Ormazd. To escape oppression, some Zoroastrians ran for India, while a few others elected to weather Muslim discontent and remain in Iran. Remnants of these Zoroastrian groups, known as Parsis, still exist today, and only through them has the modern world learned about Zoroastrianism and its scriptures. [19]

The main component of those scriptures is the Avesta, the “bible and prayer book” of the Zoroastrians. [20] Though it debuted sometime afterwards, the Avesta’s meter bears similarity to that of the Indian Vedas. [21] Avistak, the Pahlavi word from which Avesta probably comes, means “wisdom, knowledge, the book of knowledge” or “the original text, the scripture, the law.” [22] Appearing throughout the Avesta are bits and pieces of poetry, which though few, prove the utilization of poetic expression in Iran at least 3,000 years ago. [23]

The language in which the Zoroastrians constructed the Avesta takes its name from the work: Avestic. It is a sister language of Old Persian and Sanskrit, and therefore, in spite of its manifestations in Pashto, it is not an ancestor of Modern Persian. [24] What actual script Avestic might have used is a mystery, because Alexander’s Macedonians ruined most of the original books, and the Sasanians wrote down the Avesta in Pahlavi when they recorded it from their oral tradition. In this Pahlavi text, instead of reading the Avesta from left to right, as a Westerner would, one reads it “from right to left.” [25]

Several divisions form the Avesta. The oldest part, the Gathas, likely promulgated from Zoroaster himself. Other sections came later, as subsequent generations of Zoroastrians, up to the Sasanians, worked on and added to the Avesta. [26] An example of the newer sections is the Yashts, which contained poetry, interspersed with prose, proclaiming the virtues of several demigods, heroes, and powers. Octosyllabic meter formation, a la the Kalevala verse from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” characterized the Yashts’ poetry. The language of the Yashts is younger than that of the Gathas, but the Yashts are poetically and religiously older, [27] featuring polytheistic notions and other religious principles antedating Zoroaster. [28] The tenth Yasht, for instance, praises a figure from early Iranian mythology, Mithra, who observes and helps men, sparks battles, and dispenses justice. [29]

The Avesta would remain unknown to most of the world but for the Parsis, individuals who continued their Zoroastrian ways after the Muslim seizure of Persia, and who thus preserved the Avesta through the generations. These Parsis, in the middle of the 18^th century, introduced Westerners to the Avesta, exposing them for the first time to a native and contemporary source about early Iranian literature and thought. This allowed scholars to begin serious research of Persian literature and religion. [30]

Effects of that Persian religion and literature continue to reverberate across the globe. Modern monotheistic religion, still the primary driving force behind geopolitical events, has borrowed extensively from Persian Zoroastrianism, with, amongst other examples, the Muslims appropriating the concept of an “unbegotten” God, [31] and the Christians copying the notion of a purgatory. [32] While in Babylonia’s captivity, the Jews interacted frequently with the Persians, likely adopting, or at least considering, some of their ideas, which in turn passed to their monotheistic progeny. [33] The physical remains of Zoroastrianism and early Persian literary and religious thought might be few—only scraps of manuscripts [34] and 140,000 Parsis exist [35] —but their influence will exert itself for millennia to come.

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