Zoroastrianism
In week 4, we had learnt very interesting topic which was about the “Ethic different perspective”. It is something related with religions. There were different kinds of religions which Mr. John briefly went through one by one in the class. Among them, I would like to explain about Zoroastrianism which I did research. Zoroastrianism is one of the religions initiated by the prophet Zarathushtra, also known as Zoroaster in ancient times in Greeks. It also called Mazdaism and Magianism. Normally people worshipped many deities before the Bronze Age. Therefore, in the eastern part of ancient Persia, more than one thousand years BCE, a religious philosopher called Zoroaster simplified the pantheon of early. The Supreme Being is called Ahura Mazda which means “Wise Lord.” and is all good. Ahura Mazda created the world and all good things including people. Anghra Mainyu which means “Destructive Spirit is opposite of him and he is opposed by,” the embodiment of evil and creator of all evil things. The cosmic battle between good and evil will ultimately lead to the destruction of all evil.
Zoroastrianism was the influential world religion during the Persian empires (559 BC to 651 AC), and was thus the most powerful world religion at the time of Jesus. Besides, it had a major influence on other religions and it is still practiced world-wide, especially in Iran and India.
Here, I would like to explain a little bit about the family background of prophet Zarathushtra. “The prophet Zarathushtra is from the Spitaman family and son of Pourushaspa, and also, is known to us primarily from the Gathas seventeen great hymns which he composed and which have been faithfully preserved by his community. These are not works of instruction, but inspired, passionate utterances, many of them addressed directly to God; and their poetic form is a very ancient one, which has been traced back (through Norse parallels) to Indo-European times. It seems to have been linked with a mantic tradition, that is, to have been cultivated by priestly seers who sought to express in lofty words their personal apprehension of the divine; and it is marked by subtleties of allusion, and great richness and complexity of style. Such poetry can only have been fully understood by the learned; and since Zoroaster believed that he had been entrusted by God with a message for all mankind, he must also have preached again and again in plain words to ordinary people. His teachings were handed down orally in his community from generation to generation, and were at last committed to writing under the Sasanians, rulers of the third Iranian empire. The language then spoken was Middle Persian, also called Pahlavi; and the Pahlavi books provide invaluable keys for interpreting the magnificent obscurities of the Gathas themselves.”
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