Makaranda Madhukar Anand Mahendale Festshrift

Author(s): M A Dhaky, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: Shardaben Chimanbhai Educational Research Centre

Page 245

234
N. M. Kansara
Makaranda
teachings of the Prophet, summed up in metrical stanzas which he composed as a nucleus of his discourses.
Among the nations of antiquity there seems to have been none else, except the Vedic ones, that had a more clearly developed system of eschatology, a firmer conviction of the immortality of the soul, and a surer belief in a resurrection and a future life, than had the ancient Iranians as can be judged from their sacred literature. Through all the writings of Zoroastrianism runs a stain of hope that the good will be rewarded hereafter and the wicked punished; that right will triumph and evil will be vanquished; that the dead shall arise and live again; and that the world will be restored to perfection so that joy and happiness may reign supreme. In the Gathās themselves, the pious expectatin of a new order of things is the motif upon which Zarathushtra rings continual changes.
The Avesta and the Pahlavi texts often refer to a new era and the rejuvenation as frasokereti and fraskart, respectively. In this way the millennium is really the preparation of all mankind for eternity and perfection of the world, a blessed consummation in which man should have a shares. At the great crisis or final change of the world there will be a decisive division and separation of the evil from the good, and a complete establishment of Ahura's sovereignty, 'the Good Kingdom''. This dogma of a 'new heaven and a new earth' is found both in the Gathās and in the Younger Avesta. It is decidedly a millennial doctrine which is closely associated with the belief in the coming of a saviour (Saosyant) and the resurrection of the dead.
In Gäthā Ushtavaiti, Zarathushtra declares his message of immortality saying: 'All those who will give hearing for Meunto this one (the prophet) will come unto Salvation and Immortality through the works of the Good Spirit. 'Zarathushtra's pre-eminent concern with the bearing of eschatology was on conduct, as can easily be seen from a study of the Gathās. Faith and works form the foundation of the doctrine of salvation in the religion of Ancient Iran. A belief in the freedom of the will, in the acknowledgment of man's ability to choose the right or to choose the wrong, and in his consequent responsibility to his Creator, lies at the basis of the moral and ethical system