It is very difficult to reconstruct the biography of the real Zarathustra on the basis of few and indistinct evidences. This is the most mysterious founder of religion, in whose biography there are the fewest precisely known facts. The legendary chronicle of his life is comparable to the curriculum vitae of any founding father of a religious teaching.
Modern historians do not doubt the existence of a real priest and prophet Zarathustra, or Zarathustra, or Zoroaster in Greek, despite the paucity of information about this person. It is not only about the mention of specific people and real events about him, but also about the sincerity with which his appeals to God are written - the sacred verses of the Avesta. It doesn't matter what the person was actually called, but 17 hymns called “Ghats” (“Chants”) were created. So someone wrote them!
The second part of the name Zarathushtra - ushtra - means "camel". The first part of the name turns out to be more ambiguous: "yellow", "old", "driving". In this case, Zarathushtra can be translated as “possessing an old camel” or “one who drives the camels”. A normal peasant name or? … In the name of the patron king Zarathustra Vishtasp or the father of the prophet Purushasp contains the word aspa - "horse". The Avesta lists names that have a derogatory connotation: "Not-fast-camel", "Lean-horse", "Lean-bull". According to the assumption of some scientists, such "name-charms" were given to children deliberately to protect them from evil spirits.
Fans of all sorts of delicacies will surely like the hypothesis of Anquetil Duperron, who replaced the word “yellow” with “gold”, and in the second half of the word he singled out not “camel - ushtra”, but the root - “Tishtriya”. This is how the Aryans called the star Sirius.
According to one Pahlavi chronicle, the great reformer of the religion of Ancient Iran lived "258 years before Iskandar", that is, Alexander the Great, which means that the time of the prophet of Zoroastrianism (Mazdeism) falls on the 7th-6th centuries BC. The Zoroastrians have been reckoning since the transfer of royal power from the Persian king Darius III to Alexander the Great, which happened in 330 BC. A simple operation of arithmetic is enough to get a seemingly more accurate date - 588 BC. Even the fact that the Buddha's lifetime was calculated in the same way is not comforting. True, the researchers started from the events that occurred a certain number of years before the reign of Ashoka.
“Will we accept the time of Zarathushtra's life on the basis of the testimony of Aristotle - 6000 years before the birth of Christ - or according to the more modern scientist Navroji Faridunji (1817-1885 - Indian educator and reformer - Ed.) From Bombay, who dates it to the 6th century BC Of the Nativity of Christ ("Tareekh-i-Zurtoshtee", or "Discussion about the era of Zoroaster"), - everything reveals darkness and contradictions, and each statement collides with insurmountable facts, - wrote the famous writer and theosophist Helena Blavatskaya. - The Rahnuman Mazdayasnan Sabha Society, founded in 1851 with the aim of returning the faith of Zoroaster to its original purity, was no more successful in its pursuits."
The linguistic analysis of the most ancient part of the Avesta - "Gata", traditionally attributed to Zarathustra, refers the time of his sermon to the period between the XII-X centuries. However, this also does not bring us closer to solving the issue of his date of birth. All these are assumptions, and there is no confirmation of this hypothesis. Many researchers date the addition of the "Ghats" to the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC. The French encyclopedia Les maîtres spirituels ("Spiritual teachers") names the dates of the reformer's life - about 660-583 BC, and northeastern Iran is named as the place of birth. According to another version (set forth in the Ghats), Zarathustra came from an Eastern Iranian poor family of Spitam. However, in another version it is said that the Spitama clan was very rich.
The localization of the place of the creator of "Avesta", as well as its origin, causes controversy among scientists. Russia is also considered its homeland, or rather, the territory that is now part of the Russian Federation. And this is not a curiosity - just an unprovable fact.
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Perhaps the future prophet was born into the family of a priest. According to one legend, Zarathustra was the son of Purushasta, the fourth man who squeezed out the sacred sap of the plant and at the same time a deity named Haoma, who also performs the function of the mythological tree of life. This juice, when mixed with milk, confers immortality. Researchers see hemp, ephedra, or ephedra, and even fly agaric in this legendary juice. In short, any plant capable of causing an altered state of consciousness. Zarathustra's mother was called Dugdova.
The fabulous version of the birth of Zarathustra says that after the creation of the world, Ahura Mazda created the spiritual essence of the prophet, which he placed in a tree trunk. After the fight between good and evil, Zarathustra incarnated in a man illuminated by the light of truth emanating from the trunk of this tree.
Zarathustra was the third of five children in the family. At the age of 15 he became a clergyman, having by this time acquired the reputation of a sage. At the age of 20, he left home and went to seek the truth. At the age of 30, on the banks of the Dait River, not far from the house where he lived, Zarathustra met Ahura Mazda. In this first vision, a figure "nine times taller than a man" arose before Zarathustra. This was the main deity of the supreme triad of the Iranian pantheon of gods - Vogu-Mano ("Good Thought").
The deity asked Zarathustra several questions, commanding him to separate from his own and ascend to Ahura Mazda. When the prophet appeared in heaven, he did not see his shadow "because of the bright light of the angels" that surrounded him. Then he endured three terrible tests, and the Truth was revealed to him. Ahura Mazda called Zoroaster to become his prophet.
At first the only follower of Zarathustra was his own brother. The ruler who liked the teachings of Zarathustra, under the pressure of his relatives, could not follow him. Zarathustra was not recognized as a prophet; he was persecuted by the ruler and sorcerer Durashwar, which forced him to leave his homeland. However, the local king (kawi) Vishtaspa stood up for Zaratutstra, who contributed to the spread of Zoroastrianism in Iran.
At 42, Zarathustra became a royal advisor. Vishtaspa ordered to write down his sayings on ox skins in golden letters, as a result of which a whole library was formed, consisting of 12 thousand large skins. According to legend, this was a complete recording of the Avesta. Under Alexander the Great, along with the poems of Zarathustra, of which, according to legend, there were two million, the library was destroyed. It is believed that three quarters of the "Avesta" is lost.
Zarathustra was married twice, once to a widow, the other to a virgin. Do you find similarities with Muhammad? From his first marriage he had two children, and from the second - four, including one boy.
Zarathustra lived for 77 years and 40 days. Knowing that he would die a violent death, the prophet spent the last 40 days in continuous prayer. According to legend, he was killed by a priest of an ancient religion, which was overthrown by the great reformer.
IGOR BOKKER