Zoroaster, in Farsi also known as Zarathustra, was a religious reformer and the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism. In the second millennium BC he founded the first documented monotheistic religion in the world and also had an impact on Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagoras, and the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Zoroastrians believe that he was a prophet who transmitted God's messages and founded a religious movement that challenged the existing traditions of ancient Iranian religion, while in the minority Ahmadiyya branch of Islam and in the Baháʼí Faith, he is also considered a prophet. He was a native speaker of Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian plateau, but his exact birthplace is uncertain.
Avestan is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages, Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism; the Avesta serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.
Middle Persian literature is the corpus of written works composed in Middle Persian, that is, the Middle Iranian dialect of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau. Middle Persian was the prestige dialect during the era of Sasanian dynasty. It is the largest source of Zoroastrian literature.
Mehregan or Jashn-e Mehr is a Zoroastrian and Iranian festival celebrated to honor the yazata Mithra, which is responsible for friendship, affection and love.
Lawrence Heyworth Mills, DD, MA,, who generally published as L. H. Mills, was Professor of Zend Philology or the Persian language at Oxford University.
Pazend or Pazand is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used to write Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.
Apas is the Avestan language term for "the waters", which, in its innumerable aggregate states, is represented by the Apas, the hypostases of the waters.
Āzar Kayvān was the Zoroastrian high priest of Istakhr and a gnostic philosopher, who was a native of Fars, Iran and later emigrated to Patna in the Mughal Empire during the reign of Emperor Akbar. A member of the Sepāsīān community, he became the founder of a Zoroastrian school of ishraqiyyun or Illuminationists, which exhibited features of Sufi Muslim influence. This school became known as the kis-e Abadi "Abadi sect".
Zartosht Bahram e Pazhdo, was a significant Persian Zoroastrian poet and the son of Bahram-e-Pazhdo. He was born in the early or mid 13th century. He is the eponymous author of the Zarātoštnāma, although the work may have been written earlier by a figure named Kaykāvūs ibn Kaykhosrow.
The Ashem Vohu is the second most important mantra, and one of the most important prayers in Zoroastrianism. It is dedicated to Asha, a Zoroastrian concept denoting truth, order or righteousness.
Zoroastrian or Iranian cosmology refers to the origins (cosmogony) and structure (cosmography) of the cosmos in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrian literature describing cosmographical beliefs include the Avesta and, in later Middle Persian literature, texts including the Bundahishn, Denkard, and the Wizidagiha-i Zadspram.
The Yenghe hatam is one of the four major mantras, and one of the most important prayers in Zoroastrianism. It is interpreted as a call to pray specifically to the Amesha Spentas, or generally to all Zoroastrian divinities.
Criticism of Zoroastrianism has taken place over many centuries not only from the adherents of other religions but also among Zoroastrians themselves seeking to reform the faith.
Zaratosht-nama or Cangranghaca-nama is a religious epic poem in Persian language composed in 13th century CE. The poem is about the life of Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastianism. The author of the poem is Kay Kavus pur-i Khosrow. The poem is erroneously attributed to Zartosht Bahram-e Pazhdo who is actually the copier of the first surviving manuscript of the work. The poem contains 600 distichs and is composed in the same meter as Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. The work is based on the oral narratives of Zoroastrians and has a lot of similarities with Middle Persian literature such as the Denkard. Arabic loanwords are not common in the work. It also contains some rare Pahlavi words.
The Rivayats are a series of exchanges between the Zoroastrian community in India and their co-religionists in early modern Iran. They have been ascribed the same importance of the Talmud to Judaism by Jivanji Jamshedji Modi.
Xwedodah is a spiritually-influenced style of consanguine marriage assumed to have been historically practiced in Zoroastrianism before the Muslim conquest of Persia. Such marriages are recorded as having been inspired by Zoroastrian cosmogony and considered pious. It was a high act of worship in Zoroastrianism, and there were punishments for not performing it. This form of direct familial incest marriage allowed Zoroastrians to marry their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, and their own mothers to take as wives. Xwedodah was widely practiced by royalty and nobility, and possibly clergy, but it is not known if it was commonly practiced by families in other classes. In modern Zoroastrianism it is near non-existent, having been noted to have disappeared as an extant practice by the 11th century AD.
Persian astronomy or Iranian astronomy refers to the astronomy in ancient Persian history.
Zoroastrian prayer covers a wide range of invocations and utterances, aimed at connecting the faithful with Ahura Mazda or other Zoroastrian divinities. They may be performed in private, in public or at a fire temple.
A mantra or manthra is a prayer, sacred formula or inspired utterance considered in Zoroastrianism to have spiritual power. Their use already goes back to Zarathustra who described himself in his Gathas as a knower of mantras.
Helmut Humbach was a German linguist and Iranist. He was a professor of Indo-European philology at University of Mainz. He is recognized particularly for his work on the Gathas of Zarathustra.
Literatureportal 
Religionportal