Part 12

In Old Iran the Sacred Fire was kept perpetually alight. Sweet perfumes were spread around the place of prayer, for which a little eminence was chosen, but there were no images and no temples. Archæologists have failed to find traces of a building set apart for religious worship among the splendid ruins of Persepolis: the “forty towers” only tell of the pleasure-palace of an Eastern king. Was it that the profound spirituality of this people shrank not only from carving a graven image of the deity, but also from giving him a house made with hands? What could the maker of the firmament want with human fanes? Some such thought may have caused the Iranians to suppress for so long a time the instinct which impels man to build temples. In any case, it seems as if Cyrus and after him Darius threw themselves into the scheme for rebuilding the Hebrew temple with all the more enthusiasm from the fact that immemorial custom held them back from temple-building at home. The cuneiform inscriptions bear witness that these kings were monotheists: they believed in one sole creator of heaven and earth, by whose will kings reign and govern, and if they invoked the aid of heavenly hierarchs they never confused the creatures, however powerful, with the creator. That Creator they called by the name of Ahura Mazda, but they recognised that he was one, whatever the name might be by which he was called. “Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia: the Lord God of Heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem, which is Judah.” In the uncanonical Book of Esdras, it is said more significantly that King Cyrus “commanded to have the house of the Lord in Jerusalem built where they should worship with eternal fire.” The recently deciphered Babylonian inscriptions have been brought forward to show that the Jews were mistaken in thinking that Cyrus was a monotheist, because he honoured Merodach in Babylon just as he had honoured Jehovah at Jerusalem. He was, it is said, a “polytheist at heart.” If he was, his honouring Merodach does not prove it. To my mind it proves exactly the reverse. Cyrus understood the monotheism which was at the bottom of the Babylonian religious system and which these very tablets have revealed to modern scholarship. He understood that “however numerous and diversified the nations of the earth may be, the God who reigns over them all can never be more than one.”

Footnote 2:

Words written by a Japanese reformer named Okubo about fifty years ago.

He was governed by expediency in his respect for the faiths of his subject peoples, but he was governed also by something higher than expediency. That Darius Hystaspis, who is allowed to have been a monotheist, continued his policy, shows that it was not thought to involve disloyalty to Ahura Mazda since of such disloyalty Darius would have been incapable.

If we grant that the Iranians were, in the main, monotheistic at a date when not more than a part of the population professed Zoroastrianism, the question follows, of what was the difference between the reformed and the unreformed religion? To answer this satisfactorily, we must remember that the paramount object of Zoroaster was less change than conservation. Like Moses whom an attractive if not well-founded theory makes his contemporary, he saw around a world full of idolatry, and he feared lest the purer faith of Iran should be swamped by the encroachments of polytheism and atheism (for, strangely enough, the Avesta abounds in references to sheer negation). The aim of every doctrine or practice which he introduced was to revivify, to render more comprehensible, more consistent, the old monotheistic faith.

With regard to practice, the most remarkable innovation was that which concerned the disposal of the dead. It cannot be explained as a relic of barbarism: it was introduced with deliberation and with the knowledge that it would shock human sensibility then, just as much as it does now. The avowed reason for giving the dead to vultures or animals is that burial defiles the earth. It was recognised that this argument was open to the objection that birds or beasts were likely to drop portions of dead bodies on the earth. The objection was met with scholastic resourcefulness not to say casuistry: it was declared that “accidents” do not count. Though so strongly insisted on in the Avesta, the practice only became general at a late period: even after Mazdeism had made headway, bodies were often enveloped in wax to avoid defilement of the earth while evading the prescribed rite. Cremation, the natural alternative to burial, would have polluted the sacred fire. It was observed, no doubt, that the consumption of the dead by living animals was the means employed by Nature for disposing of the dead. Why do we so rarely see a dead bird or hare or rabbit or squirrel? The fact is not mysterious when we come to look into it. It may have been thought that what Nature does must be well done. The Parsis themselves seem to suppose that this and other prescriptions of their religious law were inspired by sanitary considerations, and they attribute to them their comparative immunity from plague during the recent epidemics at Bombay. Defilement of water by throwing any impurity into rivers is as severely forbidden as the defilement of the earth. Possibly another reason against burial was the desire to prevent anything like the material cult of the dead and the association of the fortunes of the immortal soul with those of the mortal body, such as prevailed among the Egyptians, whose practices doubtless were known to the Magi by whom, rather than by any one man, the Mazdean law was framed. Finally, the last rites provided a recurrent object-lesson conducive to the mental habit of separating the pure from the impure. They reminded the Mazdean that life is pure because given by Ormuzd; death impure because inflicted by Ahriman. The rule of every religion is designed largely, if not chiefly, as a moral discipline.

Footnote 3:

Among the Buddhists of Thibet the dead are given to dogs and birds of prey as a last act of charity—to feed the hungry.

The true originality of Zoroastrianism as a religious system lies in the dualistic conception of creation which is the nexus that connects all its parts. This was seen at once, when the Avesta became known in Europe, but the idea was so entirely misunderstood and even travestied, that Zoroaster was represented as a believer in two gods whose power was equal, if, indeed, the power of the evil one were not the greater. Recently among the manuscripts of Leopardi were found these opening lines of an unfinished “Hymn to Ahriman”:—

“Re delle cose, autor del mondo, arcana Malvagità, sommo potere e somma Intelligenza, eterno Dator de’ mali e regitor del moto....”

They are fine lines, but if Anro-Mainyus might fitly be called “arcana malvagità” and “dator de’ mali,” nothing could be farther removed from the Zoroastrian idea than the rest of the description. Ahriman possessed neither supreme power nor supreme intelligence, nor was he author of the world, but only of a small portion of it. To this day, however, it has pleased pessimists to claim Zoroaster, the most optimist of prophets, as one of their fraternity.

The real Ahriman gains in tremendous force from the vagueness of his personality. Sometimes he acts as a person: as in the Temptation of Zoroaster when he offers him the kingdoms of the world if he will but serve him. But no artist would have dared to give him human form. And surely no one in Iran would have alluded to him by mild or good-humoured euphemisms. He shares this, however, with the mediæval devil, that he works at an eternally pre-destined disadvantage. He is fore-doomed to failure. Good is stronger than Evil, and Good is lasting, Evil is passing. In the end, Evil must cease to be.

Though not immortal, Ahriman was primordial. Unlike the fallen star of the morning, what he is, that he was. He did not choose Evil: he is Evil as Ormuzd is Good. He can create, but only things like himself. The notion that both Ormuzd and Ahriman proceeded from a prior entity, Boundless Time, is a late legend. Ormuzd and Ahriman existed always, the one in eternal light, the other in beginningless darkness. An immense vacuum divided the light from the darkness and Ahriman knew not Ormuzd, Evil knew not Good, till Good was externalised in the beneficent creation.

“Young life lowed through the meadows, the woods and the echoing mountains, Wandered bleating in valleys and warbled on blossoming branches.”

The sight of created things gave Ahriman the will to create corresponding things, evil instead of good. He made sin, disease, death, the flood, the earthquake, famine, slaughter, noxious animals. So the pieces were set down on the chess-board of being, and, as in all religions, man’s soul was the stake.

The difference from other religions lay in the determined effort to grapple with the problem of the origin of evil. The tribe of divine students among whom Mazdeism sprang up saw in that unsolved problem the great cause of unbelief, and they set themselves to solve it by the theory which J. S. Mill said was the only one which could reconcile philosophy with religion—the theory of primal forces at war. The Indian did not attempt to fathom it; the Egyptian and Assyrian set it aside; we know the offered Hebrew solution: “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil, I, the Lord, do all these things.” But this is a statement, not a solution, because though it may be believed, it cannot be thought. The attraction of the dualistic conception is shown by nothing more clearly than by the extraordinary vitality of Manichæism in the face of every kind of persecution both in the East and West, although Manichæism, with its ascription of the creation of mankind to the Evil Principle, its depreciation of woman, its out-and-out asceticism which included abstinence from animal food (a rule borrowed by Mani from the Buddhists in his journey in India) contrasts unfavourably with the faith that did not make a single demand on human nature except to be good, even as its Creator was good.

The origin of the Magians was Semitic, or, as some think, præ-Semitic and præ-Aryan. Travellers brought tales of them to the ancient world which listened with a fascinated interest, while it failed to see the importance of the mighty religious phenomenon of Israel. The “Wise men of the East” had a charm for antiquity, as they were to have for the Infant Church which never tired of depicting them in its earliest art. Mention of the “Persarum Magos” is frequent from Herodotus to Cicero, who speaks of them under that name. According to Herodotus the Magi sang the Theogony, and Pausanias describes them as reading from a book which was certainly the Avesta, though it must not be overlooked that never but once does it contain the smallest reference to them. This tribe of divine students enjoyed a high reputation at the Babylonian Court, which seems less unexpected by the light of recent research than it did when the Babylonians and Assyrians were thought to be destitute of any trace of an esoteric religion tending to monotheism. That the Magians were monotheists cannot be disputed. Probably they were skilled in astronomy and in medicine, the two sciences which almost covered what was meant then by learning in the East. Probably also they were astrologers like other searchers of the heavens, but they were not magic-workers, a calling that had a bad name. The Magi in the Gospel story are supposed to have been guided by astronomical calculations; whatever these may have been, they could not have been ignorant of the prophecy in their own Scriptures of a Virgin who should give birth to the Saviour and Judge of men. The ante-natal soul of this Virgin had been venerated for centuries in Iran. An infiltration of Messianic prophecies might induce them to conclude that the Child would be “King of the Jews.” It was not likely that they would take so long a journey to do homage to any new-born earthly king, but it was quite possible that they might go in search of the promised Saviour.

Photo: Mansell. COUNTING CATTLE. British Museum. (Egyptian Fresco.)]

In Media we know that the people lived at one time in tribes, without kings. In one form or another, the tribal organisation existed and exists everywhere in the East. What is caste but a petrified tribal system? The first discovery which a European makes on landing on the skirts of the East, is that everything is done by tribes. The Algerian conjurors who swallow fire, drive nails into their heads and do other gruesome feats are a semi-religious tribe which has thrived from time immemorial on the exercise of the same profession. The dwarfs of the late Bey of Tunis, whom I saw at Bardo, belonged to a tribe which does nothing but furnish dwarfs. Apply to a high or worthy end this corporate pursuit of a given object and it must produce remarkable results.

The unanimous belief of the Greeks that Zoroaster was founder of the Magians is held no longer, but he is still thought to have been one of them. Moslem tradition made him the servant of a Hebrew prophet, and even serious Western students were inclined to trace Mazdeism to the Jewish prisoners who were brought into Media by the Assyrians. It is unnecessary to say that at present the Jews are regarded as the debtors.

There is no figure of a religious teacher so elusive as that of Zoroaster, and they are all elusive. But in the case of Zoroaster it is not only the man that eludes us—it is also his environment. Brahmanical India of to-day reflects as in a glass the society into which Sakya Muni cast his seed; in fact, we understand the seed-sowing better than the harvest; Buddhism at its apogee seems of the nature of an interlude in the history of the changeless East. China still throws light on its passionless sage, passionless in a sense so far deeper than the Indian recluses, who, though they knew it not, did but substitute for the passion of the flesh the more inebriating passion of the spirit. From the splendid treasury of præ-Islamic poetry, we know that the Arab race had acquired its specialised type before the Muezzin first called the faithful to prayer. The moral petrifaction of the many and the religious and patriotic ferment of the few which formed the milieu of nascent Christianity, can be realised without any stretch of the imagination. Buddha, Confucius, and He that was greater than they, came into highly civilised societies in organised states; Mohammed came into an unorganised state which lacked political and religious cohesion, but the unity of race was already developed: the Emirs of the Soudan whose star set at Omdurman were the living pictures of the Arabs who first rallied to the Prophet’s banner. Of the society of Old Iran to which Zoroaster spoke, it is difficult to form a distinct idea and to judge how far it had moved away from early Aryan simplicity. We gather that it was still a society in which sheep-raising and dairy-farming played a preponderant part. Those modern expressions may serve us better than to say “shepherds” and “herdsmen,” since fixity of dwelling with the possession of what then was considered wealth seems to have been a very common case. Nomadic life lasted on, but it was held in disrepute. There appears to have been nothing like a national or warlike spirit such as that possessed by the Jews, though occasional Turanian incursions had to be repelled. There were few towns and many scattered villages and homesteads. We are conscious that these impressions derived from the Avesta may be partially erroneous. Teachers of religion only take note of political or other circumstances so far as it suits their purpose.

Zoroaster (the Greek reading of Zarathustra, which in modern Persian 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.