Zoroaster biography summary of winston

Zoroaster and the magi did not compose it, but their names sanctioned it. Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise On Nature Peri physeos , which appears to have originally constituted four volumes i. The framework is a retelling of Plato's Myth of Er , with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While Porphyry imagined Pythagoras listening to Zoroaster's discourse, On Nature has the Sun in middle position, which was how it was understood in the 3rd century.

Colotes accused Plato of plagiarizing Zoroaster, [ ] [ ] and Heraclides Ponticus wrote a text titled Zoroaster based on his perception of "Zoroastrian" philosophy, in order to express his disagreement with Plato on natural philosophy. Pliny the Elder names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic Natural History Association with astrology according to Roger Beck, were based on his Babylonian origin, and Zoroaster's Greek name was identified at first with star-worshiping astrothytes , 'star sacrificer" and, with the Zo- , even as the 'living' star.

Almost all Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha is now lost, and of the attested texts—with only one exception—only fragments have survived. Pliny's 2nd- or 3rd-century attribution of "two million lines" to Zoroaster suggest that even if exaggeration and duplicates are taken into consideration a formidable pseudepigraphic corpus once existed at the Library of Alexandria.

This corpus can safely be assumed to be pseudepigrapha because no one before Pliny refers to literature by "Zoroaster", [ ] and on the authority of the 2nd-century Galen of Pergamon and from a 6th-century commentator on Aristotle it is known that the acquisition policies of well-endowed royal libraries created a market for fabricating manuscripts of famous and ancient authors.

The exception to the fragmentary evidence i. A three-line cryptogram in the colophones following the page treatise identify the work as "words of truth of Zostrianos. God of Truth [ logos ]. Words of Zoroaster. Another work circulating under the name of "Zoroaster" was the Asteroskopita or Apotelesmatika , and which ran to five volumes i.

The title and fragments suggest that it was an astrological handbook, "albeit a very varied one, for the making of predictions. Numerous other fragments preserved in the works of other authors are attributed to "Zoroaster", but the titles of those books are not mentioned. These pseudepigraphic texts aside, some authors did draw on a few genuinely Zoroastrian ideas.

The Oracles of Hystaspes , by " Hystaspes ", another prominent magian pseudo-author, is a set of prophecies distinguished from other Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha in that it draws on real Zoroastrian sources. He used to call the one Horomazes and the other Areimanius ". An early reference to Zoroaster in English literature occur in the writings of the physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne who asserted in his Religio Medici :.

I believe, besides Zoroaster, there were divers [ n ] that writ before Moses, who notwithstanding have suffered the common fate of time. In his seminal work Thus Spoke Zarathustra , the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche uses the native Iranian name Zarathustra, which has a significant meaning as he had used the familiar Greek-Latin name in his earlier works.

The original Zoroastrian world view interprets being essentially on a moralistic basis and depicts the world as an arena for the struggle of the two fundamentals of being, Good and Evil, represented in two antagonistic divine figures. The German composer Richard Strauss 's large-scale tone-poem Also sprach Zarathustra was inspired by Nietzsche's book.

It features figures from Abraham to the Reformation, illustrating a historical continuum of religious thought that includes the likes of Zoroaster, Moses , Plato and others. The Australian visionary Glenn Phelan created the Manaian Way to protect mankind and the planet at this time of Recorded in the book "The Business of Tomorrow - A world without cost-of-living issues - A world based on needs.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. Iranian prophet and spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism. For other uses, see Zoroaster disambiguation. For other uses, see Zarathustra disambiguation.

Modern depiction of Zoroaster featured at the Fire Temple of Yazd. Greater Iran. Primary topics. Divine entities. Scripture and worship. Accounts and legends. History and culture. Zurvanism Mazdakism Khurramites. Related topics. Criticism of Zoroastrianism Zoroastrian cosmology. Name and etymology [ edit ]. Date [ edit ]. Classical scholarship [ edit ].

Zoroastrian and Muslim scholarship [ edit ]. Modern scholarship [ edit ]. Late date [ edit ]. Early date [ edit ]. Place [ edit ].

Zoroaster biography summary of winston

See also: Airyanem Vaejah. Life [ edit ]. Cypress of Kashmar [ edit ]. Main article: Cypress of Kashmar. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so.

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Zoroaster Last updated This page provides information about the Prophet Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism. The vision of Zoroaster When Zoroaster was thirty years old he had a divine vision of God and his Amesha Spentas during a ritual purification rite.

Zoroaster's later life The later life of Zoroaster Zoroaster's ideas did not take off quickly and at first he only had one convert: his cousin Maidhyoimanha. Zoroaster died in his late 70s. The unrecorded centuries Very little is known of the time between Zoroaster and the Archaemenian period except that during this period Zoroastrianism spread to Western Iran.

Zoroaster also rejected the use of drugs and animal sacrifice. Zoroaster also wanted to break down caste barriers and reduce the power of the priestly caste over the common people. Zoroaster believed that religious practices had become too formalised and were more about an outer show than inner significance. Zoroaster taught his followers to follow quiet spiritual introspection.

Zoroaster believed everyone was equal before God. However, his radical philosophy and challenge to the existing social and religious system made him unpopular and he found that he had to leave his place of home and so moved to the land of Bactria, where King Vishtaspa ruled. King Vishtaspa and his queen, Hutosa admire the philosophy of Zoroaster and decided to accept his ideas, making it the official religion of their kingdom.

There will be a day of reckoning when those who have resisted the temptations of Angra Mainyu and have followed the dictates of the "Good Religion" will be blessed. In assigning this choice to man, Zoroaster raises him to an exalted rank in the scheme of creation. Man's noble position and his positive contribution to the triumph of righteousness is the second important characteristic of Zoroaster's message.

His religion is not affected by a notion of original sin or by ascetic tendencies. The raising of children and the planting of trees are stressed as meritorious deeds. Zoroaster's kingdom of God is not necessarily a vision to be realized only in the hereafter. Zoroaster, who seems to have reacted against a form of monotheism, reveals a striking and original way of thinking.

From the Gathas we gain the impression of an impassioned preacher who strives for the material and spiritual well-being of his people. The success of his faith bears witness to the pertinence of his message for his people. For a discussion and critique of various opinions on Zoroaster's time and place, the best source is W. Henning, Zoroaster A general discussion of Zoroastrianism is Robert C.

Zaehner, The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism , which contains useful bibliographies. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia.

Zoroaster gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. Zoroaster oxford. The name by which the ancient Iranian prophet Zarathustra has been known in the West. Parsis often date him around 6, BCE, following Greek texts which misinterpret ancient Iranian sources. The significance for them is that he is the first of the world's religious prophets.

There has been much W. Until the s the date most commonly given was the 6th cent. Zoroaster was a practising priest the only one of the great religious prophets known to have been such , and these hymns were meditations on the liturgy Yasna cast into rather esoteric mantic poetry. They are, therefore, extremely difficult to translate and interpret, so that accounts of them differ considerably.

Fundamental is the prophet's conviction that he had seen God , the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda , in a vision. He believed that he personally had been set apart for his mission from the beginning, a conviction which resulted in a stress on personal responsibility in religion. There are, he taught, two opposing forces, the Bounteous Spirit of Mazda and the destructive power of Angra Mainyu who created respectively life and non-life.