Marriage

Author(s): Natubhai Shah
Publisher: UK Jain Academy

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bring this world to an end and create a world, which will be free of suffering and evil. To facilitate this, humans have to assist Hlm by exercising free moral choice and living a life of perfect righteousness and virtues such as truthfulness, chastity, charity and kindness.
Zoroastrians believe the soul (uvan), the immortal essence or directing principle enables humans to make the choice between the forces of good and of evil on the basis of wisdom, innate reason, intellect, will and consciousness.
Death is the negation of life and is a work of evil wreaking havoc and destruction upon Ahura Mazda's creations. It believes in a life after death strictly in accordance with the law of retributionheaven for people of righteous deeds and hell for those of evil deeds. However, damnation to hell is not eternal; the imperfect ones in hell will be cleansed before joining Ahura Mazda in heaven and but eventually all souls will join the blessed; the world will be perfect state and Ahura Mazda will become all-powerful, as the evil will have been made ineffective in this world by good deeds. Zoroastrianism promises an ultimate happy and good life to all. t is individuals who are responsible for moral evils; of course the evil spirit of Ahriman, and his demons seduce them. Zoroastrian beliefs can best be summed up by the maxim: Good thoughts, Good words, Good deeds.
Worship
Zoroastrian worship mainly consists of offering prayers to Ahura Mazda requesting him to guide the life of righteousness. The traditional Zoroastrian places of worship are fire temples in which sacred flame burns eternally in a consecrated chamber are called agiyari. The Fire is a symbol of divine purity, where sandalwood is offered to create the good attributes in life (fragrance of sandalwood symbolises good attributes). Priests tend these fires. The people visit these temples with sandalwood as offering to the sacred flames and receive cold ashes to apply their foreheads as sign of humility. Zoroastrians worship Ahura Mazda and venerate Amesha Spentas and Yazatas (venerable ones or mythical gods and goddesses) and not the fire.
Holy texts
The Zoroastrian book of the Scriptures is called The Avesta.; has two sections:
✦ The Avesta is the oldest and core part of the scriptures, which contains the Gathas. The Gathas are seventeen hymns thought to be composed by Zoroaster himself.
✦ The Younger Avesta - commentaries to the older Avesta written in later years. It also contains myths, stories and details of ritual observances.
Life Style
At the age of seven, Zoroastrians are given a sudreh (shirt) and kusti (cord) as part of an
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