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The importance of praying in a fire temple, the first usage of sudreh-kusti, menstrual taboos, the historical role of priests... were but some of the issues raised at the session "Zoroastrianism 101” at the 8th World Zoroastrian Youth Congress in London last year. To clarify these concerns in the minds of youngsters were Dastur Khurshed Dastoor (KD) of Udvada and Prof (Dr) Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina (YV), Bahari Associate Professor of Sasanian Studies at The University of Oxford. 

To indicate that the session deals with the most essential questions, it was titled "Zoroastrianism 101” to provide a rudimentary understanding of the religion. The questions raised by the youngsters were voiced by the moderators for this session Ervad Sheherazad Pavri of Bombay and Mahzarin Katrak of UAE. The transcript of this dynamic session shared by Shiruy Billimoria of London has been edited and abridged by Parsiana with the consent of the two veterans.

What was the role of priests historically, and has this changed in the modern world?

KD: The first and basic role of the priest was to spread the religion across the seven regions of the world, to show people the path of humata, hukhta and hvarashta and to encourage them to follow the good faith. After we came to India, it has been marginalized to prayers and rituals only. 

YV: In the pre-modern world, the Zoroastrian priests had a much bigger role than we see now. They were also government administrators, involved in taxation, excise duties and law. 

When did Zoroastrians start using the sudreh and kusti and how has this practice evolved over time?

YV: We have an Avestan word for the kusti, aiwyaongana, and it’s very old.  The evidence for the sudreh shows up later. But that does not mean that it was not old. It’s very important to understand that we do not always have every stage of Zoroastrianism well documented. So, there may be indirect evidence like a wonderful Pahlavi text, which is available in translation, the Čīm ī kustīg, (meaning of the kusti). This is a phenomenal text. There’s so much interesting material connected with the symbolism of what it stands for in a more deeply philosophical and spiritual sense, not just how to use it or why.

In the British Museum, we have the gold Oxus treasures from Central Asia. And there we have what looks like one of the earliest figural representations of the Zoroastrian priest with something that looks very much like what we would call a kusti. That may be sixth or fifth century BC, so we know it’s very, very old. 

KD: It is said that the practice of wearing the kusti started during Jamshed’s time, during the reign of the Pishdādian dynasty. But because aiwyaong also represents the leaves of the palm trees which were originally tweaked and kept in the armpits we do not have a proper record of when we started wearing the sudreh kusti.  

What is the importance of praying in a fire temple instead of at home?

KD: We have only one God, Ahura Mazda, who we worship. Zarathushtra is our prophet. Fire, water, sun, moon are the natural creations we revere. We always revere fire as the son of Ahura Mazda. When you are in a fire temple or in an area of worship, wherever it is, the energy, the thoughts, the surroundings are so positive, that you yourself feel charged. When you are praying in front of the fire, water, sun or moon, it is through these creations that we are trying to attune ourselves with the Creator.  I do not think there is anything wrong in praying at home. 

YV: The consecrated fires are much newer in the broad history of Zoroastrianism. If we take 1500 BCE, as a start date for Zoroastrianism, we don’t see the archeological evidence for major fire temple structures until much later.  In the Sasanian period, from 224 to 651 AD is when you see the first major giant fire temple complexes being built. The Adur Gushnasp fire temple near Azerbaijan was attacked and destroyed by Heraclius, the Roman emperor, to avenge the Sasanians for attacking and destroying Jerusalem and taking away the True Cross. When we talk about major fire temples, like the ones we have in India today, that particular aspect of our  religiosity probably shows up halfway through the history of Zoroastrianism. 

Why did it take until the Sasanian times for the Avesta to be written? Was the oral tradition not enough?

YV: I deal with this subject in my forthcoming book. From linguistic evidence, we can see that the earliest Zoroastrian texts, the Gathas, probably go back to around 1500 BC. But we do not actually have the Avestan script produced until the Sasanian period. So, what happened in the meanwhile?  In the modern world, we sometimes see orality as being a sort of a second order thing, something that is a proto version of writing and literacy. But what orality lets you do is it allows the priest to decide who they will teach. And in that sense, it’s a control system. It’s a system that lets you maintain authority. And it continues through the generations. 

The written material probably developed in the Sasanian period in this massive multicultural empire when the Christians, the Manichaeans, the Jews started writing, and believing that their book has authority with its own unique power in the world, social power. At that time, in the Sasanian period, lots of people converted to Christianity making Zoroastrian scholars feel that they had to compete. This was, in a sense, part of the competitive political economy of religion. That’s when they decided to put into writing the old Avestan scriptures and the Pahlavi translations of that, the Zand. Some priests were experts in Avestan, but did not know Zand, and some knew the Zand but not the Avestan. So, you had scholastic priests, and you had ritual priests. In the post-Sasanian period they noticed they didn’t have enough clientele to be so sub-specialized, and started doing everything.  

KD: It was during the Sasanian times that Ādurbād-ī Mahraspand conceived and brought all the prayers together in a written form. 

YV: To prove that he was spiritually superior, he poured molten brass on his chest and survived which according to one text was proof that he was the right man for the job. 

Who is considered to be a Zoroastrian? In the inscriptions of Cyrus there is no mention of Zarathushtra but more of the Babylonian god Marduk.

KD: On his cuneiform inscription in Old Persian Darius has written "Arya putra (son of an Aryan/Iranian and Ariya Ariya cisa (Aryan, of Aryan seed/stock).” 

YV: Bel Marduk was the apex deity of the Babylonians. And when Cyrus conquers the Babylonians, he creates the cylinder where he says the Babylonian ruler who ruled before him was corrupt and he was the right person chosen to take over Babylon. I do not see the Cyrus Cylinder as being a declaration of human rights at all. I think it’s a purely modern fantasy. I am much more cynical about this. Most of us who work on the ancient Near East see it as just a typical example of Near Eastern propaganda where a conqueror declares the people who ruled before him were corrupt and he having been chosen to replace them. 

Cyrus does however liberate certain minority communities and allow them to return to their homelands. For example, he does this famously with the Jews and therefore in Second Isaiah, he is called the "anointed one,” and is seen as being the great savior. Yet, relocating people in the ancient world was extremely common. So, when Darius was unhappy with the Libyans, he relocated them to Bactria which is modern day Afghanistan.

The question was not about human rights but more about Cyrus being a Zoroastrian.  

YV: There is no evidence of any kind of Cyrus making any such claims about being Persian or Elamite. Whatever the claims of his religiosity, he just does not say it. That’s not to say that he did not have religious views, only that we have no evidence for it. Zarathushtra does not show up in any of the inscriptions, not in the Old Persian inscriptions, nor in the Sasanian inscriptions.  All that is said about Ahura Mazda consistently and all over the place is by Darius for an imperial religious project. Darius does it and then Xerxes follows. The way Darius upsells Ahura Mazda, saying ‘by the greatness of Ahura Mazda I did this,’ looks very much like after conquering new areas he didn’t impose his own religious system; just made claims to be the new heir of the territory.

What is the significance of number seven that we keep seeing in Zoroastrianism?

YV: Zoroastrianism has numerology built into it since a very early period; it’s seen in Avestan. So, for example, when they talk about the Yatha Ahu Vairyo prayer, it’s 21 words with seven words in each of the three lines. They interpreted three as representing good thoughts, good words, good deeds, and seven as representing the Amesha Spentas. Twenty-one was eventually encoded as the 21 Nasks or the larger books of the grand Avesta, of which today, we only have one complete text, the Videvdad (or Vendidad). We either have nothing of the other texts or we have a few paragraphs here and there that have survived. 

Zoroastrians operated with what I call "correlative thought” where all the things that you do in your religiosity are, in a sense, all connected to each other. It’s not one thing separate from something else, and that’s why learning about Zoroastrianism in a cohesive way allows you to maximize its spiritual or even intellectual potential.

As there is no written rule book as such, how can Zoroastrians today living in a secular society ensure that their actions and lifestyles are in accordance with the religion? Is it enough to solely follow good thoughts, good words and good deeds?

KD: We are taught that the basic thing is to be a good human being irrespective of which society in which you live. I think we in India live in the most secular society. In a population of 1.4 billion we Zarthoshtis numbering a few thousands stood out because our morals, our thoughts, our teachings were so rooted. Across the world, Zarthoshtis have emerged as champions including some like Sir Ron Kalifa sitting in the audience today. And it is for you all to carry on this tradition and to pass on this legacy to others. 

YV: Everyone knows good thoughts, words and deeds. But what is good? How do you determine that? Zoroastrian texts try to answer that and to recommend how to manage this dualistic universe you live in, where you’re not always sure what is good. It’s sometimes very clear cut, but sometimes it’s not. And in the text, it says that what makes evil powerful is that evil mimics being good. So, it’s like coming to a fork in the road. When you ask the two people there which is the right path, they both tell you two different things. Zoroastrianism is designed to help you work out how to answer that question. The texts that were produced by priests may explain how a system would have operated in that particular age. Obviously in secular society, in modern days, it will only be relevant up to a limited point. 

Why am I considered dirty if I am menstruating?

YV: As per Zoroastrian purity laws in their broad sense, any bodily excreta — even sweat, tears, hair, fingernails — are considered dead matter once they leave your body and are essentially impure. So, not only menstrual blood, but blood of any kind, should a priest cut himself while shaving, would be considered impure and the priest ideally should not be performing any rituals. Now, that obviously is something that we may look at very differently today for we may not feel a tear is something that is impure. 

KD: In the past if a mobed was undergoing surgery and required some body organ to be extracted, he was told to leave the priesthood. Our religion is almost 3,500 years old. The circumstances prevailing at that time were quite different. Times have changed.

YV: Two years ago, I wrote an article on Islamic polemics against Zoroastrian notions of menstrual purity, that is Muslim critiques, in the early Islamic period, about these Zoroastrian practices. You realize that many of these bodily practices, how people live, how they choose to inhabit the world, really helped define their identity markers. That is what separates you from the other person. Whether one likes it or not, whether one views it as being a positive or not, these are some of the historically defining characteristics of how other people viewed us as well.

What message do you have for the next generation to carry forward our traditions and religion?

KD: What we have got from our forefathers, we would like to pass on to our children. Not only good thoughts, words and deeds, but also virtues like truth, philanthropy, charity, helping the poor. In the Yatha Ahu Vairyo prayer we say that one who helps the needy and the poor is the closest to Ahura Mazda. All these values, ethics, morals have to be transmitted to the future generation to keep us together.

YV: Born in Bombay, I lived in India till I was 12. Then we moved to Massachusetts, in the US. I’ve worked in the US and Canada. Now I live and work here at Oxford. One of the things that I realized when I was a young kid growing up in the diaspora is how little I actually knew about the history that I hadn’t heard from my grandparents or my parents. One of the greatest privileges I got from going into this discipline for myself was that the more I learned, and the more I read, the richer I felt about my own lived experience. So, one thing I would say to you is get your hands on everything you can and read and learn about your history, your culture. You do not have to like it; you do not have to agree with it. But the more you explore, and the more you learn, the more enriched you will feel as a person. I’ve never met any Zoroastrian who on becoming a parent did not suddenly feel this insane sense of anxiety that they did not know as much as they would like to teach their kids. More so if you live outside of the Indian context, where you may not have a lot of family or communal infrastructure support. I’ll be more than happy to send PDFs to anyone who wants to get some information (email: yuhan.vevaina@ames.ox.ac.uk).