Zoroaster

Zarathushtra (Zara?u?tra), usually known in English as Zoroaster after the Greek version of the name, ??????????, was a Persian (Iranian) prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism, which was the national religion of Persia from the time of the Achaemenidae to the close of the Sassanid period. Zoroaster was probably born in the northeastern part of Persia (Iran), though there is also a tradition that he came from Balkh in modern day Afghanistan. In Modern Persian the name takes the form of Zarto?t or Zardo?t (?????).

Zoroaster in History

Estimates for the lifetime of Zoroaster vary widely depending on the sources used.

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• Persian mythology, mainly the ?ahn?ma of Ferdowsi, and oral tradition place Zoroaster quite early. Manly Palmer Hall in his book, Twelve World Teachers, arrives at a rough estimate ranging from 10000 BC to 1000 BC.
• Zoroaster was famous in classical antiquity as the founder of the religion of the Magi. His name is cited by Xanthus, and in the Alcibiades of Plato as well as by Plutarch, Pliny the Elder and Diogenes Laertius. Ancient Greek estimates are dependent on Persian mythology and give dates as early as the 7th millennium BC. These are the dates to which Parsis subscribe.^{http://home.btconnect.com/CAIS/first_prophet.htm, http://web.utk.edu/~persian/monotheism.htm}
• Archaeological evidence is usually inconclusive for questions of religion. However, a Russian archaeologist links Zoroaster to ca. 2000 BC based on excavations in Uzbekistan (Asgarov, 1984). Indo-Iranian religion is generally accepted to have its roots in the 3rd millennium BC, but Zoroaster himself did already look back on a long religious tradition.
• Linguistic analysis of the G?th?s, the only texts directly connected with Zoroaster, and comparison with other known Indo-Iranian languages, especially Sanskrit, can only give rough estimates, generally dating Zoroaster to around or after 1000 BC.
• 1400 BC–1000 BC is cited by Mary Boyce in her A History of Zoroastrianism (1989).
• The historical approach compares social customs described in the G?th?s to what is known of the time and region through other historical studies. Since the Gathas are very cryptic, and open to much interpretation, such a method can also only yield very rough estimates. Gherardo Gnoli gives a date near ca. 1000 BC.
• The B?ndahi?n or Creation, an important text within the religion, cites the time of Zoroaster as 258 years before Alexander's conquest of Persia, i.e., 588 BC.
• Other scholars have been arguing even later dates, now widely rejected. Darmesteter reports 100 BC; before 458 BC is cited by H.S. Nyberg in Die Religionen des Alten Iran (1938).