Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
Thou teachest men the true religion that of Ahura-Mazda. These five gathas include yasnas 28-34, 43-46, 47-50, and 51-53. In metre, vocabulary, and matter, the gathas prove themselves to be the oldest part of the Avesta. The doctrines taught are likewise purer and more rational. To the supreme good spirit are ascribed six attributes which are often personified.
They emigrated from that dreary and inhospitable country after Zoroaster had proclaimed his doctrines, after the sacred hymns called the Gathas were sung, perhaps even after the Zend-Avesta or sacred writings of the Zoroastrian priests had been begun, conquering or driving away Turanian tribes, and migrating to the southwest in search of more fruitful fields and fertile valleys, they found a region which has ever since borne a name Iran that evidently commemorated the proud title of the Aryan race.
O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! Which are those words in the Gâthas that are to be said four times? Ahura Mazda answered:
"These are the words in the Gâthas that are to be said four times, and thou shalt four times say them aloud: 'I drive away Aêshma, the fiend of the murderous spear, I drive away the Deva Akatasha, from this house, from this borough, from this town, from this land; from the very body of the man defiled by the dead, from the very body of the woman defiled by the dead; from the master of the house, from the lord of the borough, from the lord of the town, from the lord of the land; from the whole of the world of Righteousness.
In the community here, moreover, he got the Samyuktâbhi-dharma-hridaya-sâstra, containing about six or seven thousand gâthas; he also got a Sûtra of two thousand five hundred gâthas; one chapter of the Pari-nirvâna-vaipulya Sûtra, of about five thousand gâthas; and the Mahâsânghikâ Abhidharma.
What we know about the religion of Persia is chiefly derived from the Zend-Avesta. Zend is the interpretation of the Avesta. The oldest part of these poems is called the Gâthâs, supposed to have been composed by Zoroaster about the time of Moses.
It is argued that even in the Gathas there is an expression used which shows the doctrine to have been already held when they were composed; but the phrase adduced is so obscure that its true meaning must be pronounced in the highest degree uncertain.
There is general agreement that the one author to whom at least the great bulk of the Gathas is due is Zarathustra himself. Roth, L.H. Mills, and other scholars date the Gathas as they would the Vedas, somewhere between B.C. 1200 and 1500, and they therefore fix upon the same date for the work of Zarathustra himself. GATHA I, Yasnas 28-34, 29, which is earlier than 28.
E. Meyer in his Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. i., and Mr. Weighty authorities may, however, be quoted for the historical reality of Zoroaster, and what appears to us most important of all, the editor of the Gathas, in the S. B. E. vol. xxxi., departing from his collaborateur, Mr.
They seem to have been resorted to from a feeling of profound disgust at the worship of some class of people. Unfortunately we have not the historical data that might make the situation clear. In the Gathas the people of Ahura Mazda are suffering from the incursions of predatory tribes, and the greater part of the appeals to the deity are for protection for the herds against their enemies.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking