Zarathushtra Spitama, more commonly known as Zoroaster or Zarathustra, was an Iranian religious reformer who challenged the tenets of the contemporary Ancient Iranian religion, becoming the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism. Variously described as a sage or a wonderworker; in the oldest Zoroastrian scriptures, the Gathas, which he is believed to have authored, he is described as a preacher and a poet-prophet. He also had an impact on Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagoras, and the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, or was like a heretic, and his religion gradually reconciled with other religions and traditions, such as Christianity and Islam.
The Avesta is the primary collection of religious literature of Zoroastrianism. It was compiled and redacted during the late Sassanian period although its individual texts were ″probably″ produced during the Old Iranian period. Before their compilation, these texts had been passed down orally for centuries. All texts in the Avesta are composed in the Avestan language and are written in the Avestan alphabet. The oldest surviving fragment of a text dates to 1323 CE.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
The Avestan period is the period in the history of the Iranians when the Avesta was produced. It saw important contributions to both the religious sphere, as well as to Iranian mythology and its epic tradition.
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.
The Adrian Temple of Tehran, also called the Great Adorian, is a Zoroastrian fire temple in Tehran, Iran. Opened during the late Qajar period in 1917, it is the only fire temple in Tehran, and has been on the Iran National Heritage List since 2003. The fire continuously burning within the temple goes back to a line of fires burning since 470 CE.
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