Zoroastrianism | World History | Khan Academy

So in any discussion of ancient Persia, we quickly talk about the faith of the Achaemenid Empire, and that's Zoroastrianism. It's popularized by Cyrus the Great when he establishes the Achaemenid Empire, takes over the Median Empire, the Babylonian Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Lydians. His son, Cambyses, takes over the Egyptians. Their faith is based on the teaching of Zoroaster, and Zoroaster is the Greek name for Zaratustra. Sometimes the religion is referred to as Zaratrastrianism, and it's one of the oldest religions we have. It's an existing religion; people still practice Zoroastrianism.

In terms of when it started, there's some debate. A lot of accounts have it starting as early or even earlier than 3,500 years ago, so around 1500 BCE. Some accounts put it a little bit closer to Cyrus the Great, maybe 700 or 600 BC. The accounts or the beginning of the religion is really around the teachings of Zaratustra, and his teachings really establish one of the first, often viewed as monotheistic religions of the world. This idea that there is one God, and that God in the Zoroastrian faith is Ahura Mazda.

Ahura Mazda is viewed as not taking a human form, and you cannot even fully conceive of Ahura Mazda; the human mind can't fully conceive of Ahura Mazda. But Ahura Mazda is the One and Only God. In conjunction with the idea of Ahura Mazda, a lot of people refer to Zoroastrianism as a dualistic faith. A dualistic faith means that there's this kind of interest in counterbalancing forces, for example, light versus dark and, of course, good versus evil.

One of the main ideas or words here are the concepts of Asha and Duj. Asha represents being principled, honest, and ordered, while Duj is the opposite; Duj is the idea of being unprincipled, dishonest, and chaotic. There's a lot of talk and insight trying to gain a better understanding of these dualistic natures in the world, and striving for humanity to be on the side of the good, the light, the ordered, the principled, the honest.

Now, right over here is a key symbol of Zoroastrianism that you might see; it's called the Faravahar. I'm probably mispronouncing it, Faravahar. There's a lot of symbolism here; it shows the connection of the universe to humanity. You see the depiction of a human being here, and the three layers of the wings depict these three very important ideas in Zoroastrianism. The first layer is good thoughts; the second layer, right over here on the wings, are good words; and the third layer here is good actions.

It makes sense; you can imagine this idea that good thoughts lead to good words, and that combined, they can lead to good actions. On the tail here are the things you should avoid; these are the bad thoughts, the bad actions, or the bad thoughts, the bad words, and the bad actions. Along these lines, this idea of dualism, especially the fascination with the ideas of light and fire, is a very important element of the Zoroastrian faith.

In fact, if you visit a Zoroastrian temple, you will see an eternal fire, and they feed that fire five times a day. Another very important element of the faith is water, and the sacred text for the Zoroastrians is called the Avesta. The Avesta is written in a language called Avestan, and it's called Avestan because it's the language that the Avesta was written in.

But it's written in a language that is closely related to ancient Sanskrit. So there are probably some connections or, for sure, there are some connections between ancient Hinduism and the progenitor or some of the pre-existing ideas that Zaratustra developed or might have built on top of. Now, one of the really interesting things about Zoroastrianism is that even though today it's a relatively small faith, on the order of less than 200,000 people around the world practice it, and most of them are in India and the United States.

At one time, you could view it as the state religion of ancient Persia, but then eventually, in the 7th century CE, when Persia or Iran became Islamic, you have a Zoroastrian diaspora, especially moving to India and eventually places like the United States. Although they're still practicing Zoroastrians in Iran, above and beyond the continuing legacy of the Zoroastrians, they've had a lot of influence on some of the major religions of the world.

What you have on this timeline here, I've marked some of the major religions. You see up here in blue, you have Judaism. The reason why I draw the dotted line is these are periods, and it's not exact; these religions are evolving, forming, and getting more and more of a tradition over time. So you hear Judaism, and of course, Christianity is in a lot of ways built on top of Judaism. Jesus was Jewish. You have Islam right over here, which is one of the major world religions and one of the newest, in a lot of ways built or related to Christianity and Judaism.

Even though Zoroastrianism is related and it kind of comes out of a similar early Aryan people type of religion, it has a lot of influence on some of these other traditional or mainstream religions that we have in the world today. As mentioned, it's viewed as a monotheistic religion, and it's also had direct influence on, for example, Christianity. This is from John Dominian, who's a famous Christian theologian. He wrote in his book "World Religions" that angels, the end of the world, a final judgment, the resurrection, and heaven and hell received form and substance from Zoroastrian beliefs in Christian tradition.

The three wise men, the three kings, the three Magi that visit the baby Jesus, this refers to Zoroastrian priests visiting the baby Jesus. The word "magic" comes from the word "Magi," because the Zoroastrian priests were very well-capable in the sciences of astronomy, and they were also very well known for their astrology. Some people associated them with magical capabilities. It also has close ties to Islam. The sacred fire in Zoroastrianism is fed five times a day; Zoroastrians pray five times a day, and before prayer they go through a ritual of washing themselves to cleanse themselves, where they wash themselves three times before each prayer. That is something that we see in Islam.

So Zoroastrianism is the faith of ancient Persia, popularized by Cyrus the Great, and it's a living religion even today. Although it's a much smaller population that practices it, as we've seen, it's had a lot of influence on many of the major world religions.