ZOROASTER, or rather ZATtATIIIISTRA (which in Greek and Latin was corrupted into ZARASTRADES and ZonoAsTREs; while the Persians and Parsecs altered it into ZERDUSTIT), is the name of the founder of what is now known as the Parsee religion. The original meaning of the word is uncertain, and though there have been many conjectures formed about it, yet not one of them seems to be borne out by recent investigations. Most prob ably it only indicates the notion of "chief," "senior,' " high-priest," and was a common designation of a spiritual guide and head of a district or province. Indeed, the founder of Zoroastrianism is hardly ever mentioned without his family name—viz., Spitama. He seems to have been born in Bactria. The terms he applied to himself are either Man thran, i.e., a reciter of Manthras; a messenger sent by Ahuramazda; a speaker; one who • listens to the voice of oracles given by the spirit of nature; one who receives sacred words from Ahuramazda through the flames. His life is completely shrouded in darkness. Both the Greek and Roman, and most of the Zend accounts about his life and works are legend ary and utterly unhistorical. In the latter, he is to a great extent represented, not as a his torical but as a dogmatical personality, vested with superhuman or rather divine powers, standing next to God, above the archangels themselves. His temptations by the devil, whose empire is threatened by him, form the subject of many traditional reports and legends. He is represented as the abyss of all wisdom and truth, and the master of the whole living creation. " We worship"—so runs one of the prayers in the Fravardin Yasht—" the rule and the guardian angel of Zarathustra Spitama, who first thought good thoughts, who first spoke good words, who first performed good actions, who was the first priest, the first warrior, the first cultivator of soil, the first prophet, the first who was inspired, the first who has given to mankind nature, and reality, and word, and hearing of word, and wealth, and all good things created by Mazda, which embellish reality; who first caused the wheel to turn among gods and men, who first praised the purity of the living creation and destroyed idolatry, who confessed the Zarathustrian belief in Ahuramazda, the religion of the living God against the devils. . . . Through whom the whole true and revealed word was heard, which is the life and guidance of the world. . . . Through his knowledge and speech the waters and trees become desirous of growing; through his knowledge and speech all beings created by the Holy Spirit are uttering words of happiness." In the old Yazna (sec ZEND-AVESTA) alone, he appears like a living reality, a man acting a great and prominent part both in the history of his country and that of man kind. His father's name seems to have been Pouruslidspa, and that of his daughter, the only one mentioned of his children, Pouruchista. Very obscure, however, remains, even by this account, the time when he lived. The dates generally given are as follows:
Xanthos of Lydia places him about 600 years before the Trojan war; Aristotle and Ethioxus place him 6,000 years before Plato; others, again, 5,000 years before the Trojan 'var. Berosos, a Babylonian historian, makes him a Babylonian king, and the founder of a dynasty which reigned between 2200 and 2000 B.C. over Babylon. The Parsecs place hint at the time of Hystaspes, Darius's father, whom they identify with a king mentioned in the Shith-Nameh (q.v.), from whom, however, Hystaspes is totally distinct. This account would place him at about 550 13.C. Yet there is scarcely a doubt that he must be considered to belong to a much earlier age, not later than 1000 B.C. ; possibly be was a contemporary of Moses. It is almost certain that Zoroaster was one of the Sosh yantos, or fire-priests, with whom the religious reform, which he carried out boldly, first arose. These were probably at first identical with the Vedic Atharvans (fire-priests), as indeed Zoroastrianism is merely an advanced stage of Brahmanism. The former creed, that of Ahura, by way of eminence, transformed, after the outbreak of the schism, the good beings of the latter into devils or devas; e.g., the purely Brahmanic India, Sharva, Niisatya, etc.—unless it promoted them into saints and angels (yagatas). The conflict that led to this schism between the Iranians and those Aryan tribes which immigrated into Hindustan proper, and whose leaders became afterward founders of Brahmanism, sprung from many social, political, and religious causes. The Aryans seem to have originally led a nomad life, until some of them, reaching, in the course of their migra tions, lands fit for permanent settlements, settled down into agriculturists. Bactria and the parts between the Oxus and Jaxartes seem to have attracted them most. The Iranians became gradually estranged from their brother tribes, who adhered to their ancient nomad life; and by degrees, the whilmn affection having turned into hatred, considered those peaceful settlements a fit prey for their depredations and inroads. The hatred thus nourished, by further degrees included all and everything belong ing to these devastators; even their religion, originally Identical with that of the settlers. The "Devi religion" became, in their eyes, the source of all evil. Molded into a new form, styled the "Ahura" religion, the old elements were much more changed than was the case when Judaism became Christianity. Generation after gen eration further added and took away, until Zarathustra, with the energy and the clear eye that belongs to exalted leaders and founders of religions, gave to that which had originally been a mere reaction and spite against the primitive "Brahmanic" faith a new and independent life, and forever fixed its dogmas, not a few of which have sprung from his own brains.