Destructive dogmas

It is in vogue today to pose as an authority on Zoroastrianism. I for one have no such pretensions. The conservative diehards use abusive language at meetings and talk as if they have direct information from the prophet himself and any deviation from the current Parsi rituals of the day they say is against the religion of Zoroaster. The matter of conversion, intermarriage and the method of disposal of the dead have disturbed the peace of the community for ages. A young educated liberal Parsi may well ask that "is it really true that conversion, interfaith marriages and the disposal of the dead other than by exposure are against the basic tenets of Zoroas­trianism?”

I tried to get down to the root of this problem and decided to read some of the available authorities on the subject and have come to the following observations:

All the recognized scholars of Zoroas­trianism — Nyberg, Herzfeld Geldner, Hertel Christian Bartholomew and Zaehner to name a few have derived their information from a study of the Avesta. Their interpretation of words whose meanings are not known or are imperfectly known have a diverse range. Each one of these authorities has given a different interpretation to suit their theories and Nyberg and Herzfeld have given diametrically opposite views which they have derived from their interpretation of the same text. Thus we see that the source of our information, because of its antiquity, is suspect.

A study of the original Gathas written by Zoroaster (or what remains of it), the Gathas of the seven chapters written much after the death of the Prophet (800 AD) and the Pahlavi texts reveal that there are three forms of Zoroastrianism: The pristine message of the Prophet, essentially monotheistic, was contrary to the current belief of the times and met with a lot of opposition. Catholic Zoroastrianism saw re-paganization of the Prophet’s message in which some of the old gods were readmitted and an element of polytheism brought in for compromise and acceptability. Reformed Zoroastrianism — a new dualistic orthodoxy which came into its own in Sassanian times — brought a revival of the religion after a period of decline. In this version of Zoroastrianism the wise Lord Ahura Mazda again asserts his absolute ascendancy over all that is good in creation but where Ahriman the destructive spirit is separate, is co-eternal and can challenge Ahura Mazda on equal terms. This is the dualism that appears in the Videvdat and the Pahlavi texts — the religion accepted in the Sassanian period. This was a far cry from Zo­roaster’s ori­-gi­nal message. A fur­ther dilution of the pristine message came about by grafting Mithraism and Zur­vanism and handing over control of the religion to the Magi.

Now coming to the bone of contention in the community: The Prophet converted. The Achemenian and Sassa­­nian kings converted and so did the Magi. The Achemenians, despite their excellent record of tolerance, betrayed the original instinct of proselytizing as did Darius with the Elamites, Xerxes with the Greeks and the other Acheme­nian monarchs with their non-Zoroas­trian Iranian subjects. The Sassanian kings were however not so tolerant, for they openly persecuted and converted the Jews to Zoroastrianism and Firdausi in his Shah Nameh says that the devout Khosrow converted his Indian bride to Zoroastrianism.

It is mentioned that Behram took an Indian bride and the great warrior Rustom married a Turkish princess and that intermarriage, though not rampant, was not frowned upon by the Persian Zoroastrians.

During the highwater mark of Persian Zoroastrian civilization, disposal of the dead was by burial. Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Ataxerxes, Shapur I and Behram I to mention a few were all buried. The disposal of the dead by exposure was introduced into Zoroastrianism by the Magi. It was never a basic tenet of Zoroastrianism.

If we desire our community and our religion to survive let us lay these issues to rest and let peace prevail for only in peace can constructive work be done to build our people into a cohesive force for their own good and for the good of the country we live in. We have proved in the past, time and again that we can contribute in a big measure to any constructive human endeavor and even excel at what we do, if we have the will to do so. Let us therefore not fritter away our energy on dog­ma and ritual the source of which is lost in antiquity and about which even the serious scholars of our religion are in disagreement. The debate is pointless and self-destructive and will never be resolved.

DR HIRJI S. ADENWALLA

Trichur