Indian Antiquary Vol 34

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 21

JANUARY, 1905.)
THE RELIGION OF THE IRANIAN PEOPLES.
2. Zarathushtra and his Entourage in the Gathas. Throughout the Avesta Zarathushtra passes for a great reformer, one to whom Ahura Mazda has disclosed his revelation and who communicates the same to humanity. Not less than the views of the learned, the reports of the Oriental and Greek writers differ as to the aathor of this religion. If, according to some he was a contemporary of Hystaspes, father of Darius, – 8 view which has obviously resulted from confounding Hystaspes with the Vishtaspa of the Zarathushtrian legenda, — in the opinion of others he lived six centaries prior to the beginning of the Christian era, while there are those who would go still farther back. If a few call him a Median, a Persian, or a Medo-Persian, others declare him to have been a Baktrian or even a Babylonian. It is impossible to educe historical facts out of this medley of accounts; and the more so because Herodotas, on whom we may rely with the greatest confidence, makes no mention of Zarathushtra.
The name itself of Zarathushtra is net easy to interpret. Whichever way it is construed we have to recognise an anomaly in the compound word — a deviation from the rules of Iranian phonetics. It is unintelligible how the Greeks came by the formation Zoroastros, as it is against all the Oriental metamorphoses of the appellation, and the one we find in Diodorus is probably borrowed from Ktēsias, viz., Zathraustes, which, however, makes a nearer approach to the original. Semitic derivation (which has been atterapted) was foredoomed to failure. It could not surmount the difficulty which lies in the th end which is not solved by the suggestion of Sir Henry Rawlinson who would make Zarathushtra equal to the Assyrian Zirnishtar. The name is undoubtedly Aryan, but perhaps it belongs to a stage in the evolution of the language preceding the Iranian we know: hence the uncertainty of its significance.92 -
No wonder that the hazy incertitude of the meaning has given rise to the theory that Zarathushtra was no historical personage, but purely a mythical figure, possibly an embodiment of the school or sect from which the new religion issued, or a semi-anthropomorphic image of the god Mithra.
Other scholars hold it impossible to set up anything like a biography of the prophet from the narratives bequeathed to us, and would delegate all that the younger Avesta and the later Persian writings relate of him to the limbo of myth. They, however, urge that that view does not preclude the possibility that a real prophet bearing the name once lived and taught and laid the foundation of the Mazdayasnian religion. There are, on the other hand, distinguished Orientalists, as who, with Martin Heog at their head, consider Zarathustra not merely as & historic personality, but clain for him, or failing that for his contemporaries and disciples, to some extent the composition of the G&thar.
First of all to investigate this last hypothesis. Let us admit without further ado that several chants in the Gathic collection are calculated to appear as the authentio production of Zarathushtra himself and his earliest believers. One hymn directly claims him for its author. It is the opening one in the Gátha Ushtavaiti (Yasna 43). The minstrel describes how the Deity himself came attended by Vohamano to him and asked,.“ Who art thou ? whose art thou ?." Wherenpon he immediately answers, Zarathashtra,' and expresses his desire to prove a stern chastiser of transgressors, a friend and a help to the righteous, and to win over
13 Kern regards Zarathushtra as a star-genius or a light-god and analyses the name into Zara-thushtra which he translates like Windischmann by "gold-brillianoe." Most scholare divide the compound into Zarath and ushtr, finding" camel" in the second component, which occurs also in Dames like Avaracahtrs, Frasaoshtra, &o., and the first is reduced to carat or karadh, making of the whole "gold camel," or "yellow camel," or "oamel-hearted," or
*posesting bolai
#To-them belong Bartholomae, Geldner, and William Jackson.