The origin of the Zoroastrians dates back to prehistoric Central Asia in the second millennium BCE. According to their traditions, the religion was founded by Zarathustra and worshipped Mazda. Afterward, the Greeks changed his Iranian name to Zoroastres, from where the name Zoroastrian originated, indicating a devotee of the religion of Zoroaster. The belief of Zoroastrianism grew for more than thousand years as the national faith of the three large Iranian kingdoms including, the Parthians, the Achaemenids, and the Sasanians, although Islam believers ejected it during the Arab conquest of Iran around 651 CE. Migration attested essential for the religion's survival (Dhalla, 2003). After the conquest by Arabs, Zoroastrians migrated to India in the hunt for religious liberty and better living atmosphere and, due to their origin from Persia they were recognized as Parsis. In the era of the British colony, they were amongst the first Indians to modernize and soon turn into a business, lawful, medical and other specialists. The principal concept of Zoroaster's lessons is to replace the various ahuras or gods of cultural Indo-Iranian beliefs with just single ahura, the ultimate God or ‘wise lord', Ahura Mazda.
There is only one god according to Zoroaster known as Ahura Mazda or the ‘wise spirit' and one evil known as Ahriman. Ahura Mazda is referred to as eternal light, stays in the eternal lights of the highest heaven. Representation of Mazda through light is manifested in various ways comprising fire on earth; burning substance in the bowel of the world; a glow of the sun in the horizons of heaven; silvery sheen of the moon in the sky; brightness of the stars in the skies or inform of energy spread in the entire sphere (Dhalla, 2003). That is explained by the prophets in the ancient Iran who made fire as the sign of their belief, a sign which was the form of sublimity, magnificence, and purity of the earthly image of the heavenly lord, who is unequaled by any of its kind in the earth.
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Ahura Mazda is portrayed in the Zoroastrian scriptures as a type of trinity with twin spirits. The twin spirits are mostly reflected on as good and evil, but somewhat they are two notions that symbolize all the contraries of life (Binford, 2003). The main scripture is the Avesta, with the most sacred area of Avesta being the Gathas or Hymns of Zarathushtra, which are as well regarded as the most mysterious. The term Avesta direct to the explanations made by the heirs of Zoroaster on his script. Afterward, explanations to the script were made in the Persian language, making the Zoroastrian scriptures to be found in various languages. The scripture contains teachings on regulations of purification and for prevention of sins in both expenses and exclusion.
The Zoroastrian teaches on personal righteousness, with human belonging to the world of uprightness and is sent to the world for the furtherance of righteousness and destruction of global wickedness. Human is referred to as a friend of goodness and an enemy of the wickedness. In the teachings to fight evil in a wicked outer sphere, an individual should first institute order in his internal humanity. Harmony and not disharmony, organize and not disorganization, uprightness, and not evilness, need to be the inward experience of humanity (Jafarey, 2006). A Zoroastrian is taught to conquer his passion, eliminate evil thoughts from his intellect, and overcome the animal in him by a continual fight with forces of evilness. The path to uprightness leads to the house of Ahura Mazda, but the course is not without challenges and tests.
The Zoroastrian ideology comprises a task to protect nature leading to the proclamation of the religion as the first ecological religion. The faith outlines that energetic partaking in existence through good actions is essential in ensuring happiness and keeping off negative outcomes. The active partaking is a key aspect in Zoroaster's notion of free will, and Zoroastrianism refuses all kinds of monasticism. In their belief, Ahura Mazda will in the end triumph over evil Ahriman, during when the world will undergo an immense renovation and time will cease. In the Zoroastrian culture, living is a temporary condition in which being is anticipated to partake in the persistence struggle between right and wrong actively. Before being born, the soul (urvan) of a person is silently connected with its guardian spirit (fravashi), which has been in existence since the creation of the universe by Mazda. The faiths of Asha guides to felicity, individuals who follow the tracks of evilness demolish the world of Asha's uprightness.
In the course of life, the fravashi performs as a custodian and defender. The soul is joined with its fravashi on the fourth day subsequent to passing away, in which the practices of existence in the material sphere are gathered for the enduring of the battle in the spiritual sphere. Zoroastrianism does not, for the most part, have the idea of rebirth, at least not pending the final reformation of the earth (Binford, 2003). Fire (atar, Azar) and water (apo, aban) are means of ritual cleanliness in Zoroastrianism, and the related purification festivals are regarded as the foundation of ritual life. Water and fire in Zoroastrian notion were respectively second and last prehistoric aspects to have been formed, and scripture refers fire to have originated in the water. Water and fire are both considered as life-sustaining, and the Zoroastrians commonly pray in the existence of some kind of fire. The fire has deemed a means through which spiritual approaches and wisdom is attained, with water regarded as the source of that wisdom.
References
Binford, H. (2003). Zoroastrianism: History, beliefs, and practices. Theosophical Society in America . Retrieved on 3 July 2018, from https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/42-publications/quest-magazine/1231-zoroastrianism-history-beliefs-and-practices
Dhalla, M. N. (2003). History of Zoroastrianism . Retrieved on 3 July 2018, from http://www.avesta.org/dhalla/dhalla_history.pdf
Jafarey, A. (2006). Zoroastrian ethics and culture. International Journal of Good Conscience , 1 (1), 1-8.
