Zoroastrianism is the ancient, pre-Islamic religion of Persia (modern-day Iran).

It survives there in isolated areas but more prosperously in India, where the
descendants of Zoroastrian Persian immigrants are known as Parsis, or
Parsees. In India the religion is called Parsiism.
Founded by the Iranian prophet and reformer Zoroaster in the 6th century
BCE, Zoroastrianism contains both monotheistic and dualistic features. Its
concepts of one God, judgment, heaven and hell likely influenced the major
Western religons of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Texts
The Zoroastrian sacred text is the Avesta ("Book of the Law"), a fragmentary
collection of sacred writings. Compiled over many centuries, the Avesta was
not completed until Persia's Sassanid dynasty (226-641 AD).
It consists of: liturgical works with hymns ascribed to Zarathustra (the Gathas);
invocations and rituals to be used at festivals; hymns of praise; and spells
against demons and prescriptions for purification.

Beliefs
The Zoroastrian concept of God incorporates both monotheism and dualism.
In his visions, Zarathustra was taken up to heaven, where Ahura Mazda
revealed that he had an opponent, Aura Mainyu, the spirit and promoter of
evil. Ahura Mazda charged Zarathustra with the task of inviting all human
beings to choose between him (good) and Aura Mainyu (evil).
Though Zoroastrianism was never as aggressively monotheistic as Judaism
or Islam, it does represent an original attempt at unifying under the worship of

one supreme god a polytheistic religion comparable to those of the ancient

Greeks, Latins, Indians, and other early peoples. Its other salient feature,
namely dualism, was never understood in an absolute, rigorous fashion. Good
and Evil fight an unequal battle in which the former is assured of triumph.
God's omnipotence is thus only temporarily limited.
Zoroaster taught that man must enlist in this cosmic struggle because of his
capacity of free choice. Thus Zoroastrianism is a highly ethical religion in
which the choice of good over evil has almost cosmic importance. Zarathustra
taught that humans are free to choose between right and wrong, truth and lie,
and light and dark, and that their choices would affect their eternity destiny.
The Zoroastrian afterlife is determined by the balance of the good and evil
deeds, words, and thoughts of the whole life. For those whose good deeds
outweight the bad, heaven awaits. Those who did more evil than good go to
hell (which has several levels corresponding to degrees of wickedness). There
is an intermediate stage for those whose deeds weight out equally.
This general principle is not absolute, however, but allows for human
weakness. All faults do not have to be registered or weighed forever on the
scales. There are two means of effacing them: confession and the transfer of
supererogatory merits (similar to the Roman Catholic "Treasury of Merits").
The latter is the basis for Zoroastrian prayers and ceremonies for the
departed.
Zoroaster invoked saviors who, like the dawns of new days, would come to
the world. He hoped himself to be one of them. After his death, the belief in
coming saviors developed. He also incorporated belief in angels and demons.
Zoroaster's ideas of ethical monotheism, heaven, hell, angelology, the
resurrection of the body, and the messiah figure were influential on Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam, though to what extent is not known for certain.

Practices
Today's Zoroastrians (Parsis) practice an important coming of age ritual, in
which all young Parsis must be initiated when they reach the age of seven (in
India) or 10 (in Persia). They receive the shirt (sadre) and the girdle (kusti),
which they are to wear their whole life.
There are three types of purification, in order of increasing importance:
- padyab, or ablution
- nahn, or bath
- bareshnum, a complicated ritual performed at special places with the
participation of a dog (whose left ear is touched by the candidate and whose
gaze puts the evil spirits to flight) and lasting several days
The Zoroastrian system of penance entails reciting the patet, the firm resolve
not to sin again, and the confession of sins to a dastur or to an ordinary priest
if a dastur is not obtainable.
The chief ceremony, the Yasna, essentially a sacrifice of haoma (the sacred
liquor), is celebrated before the sacred fire with recitation of large parts of the
Avesta. There also are offerings of bread and milk and, formerly, of meat or
animal fat.
The sacred fire must be kept burning continually and has to be fed at least five
times a day. Prayers also are recited five times a day. The founding of a new
fire involves a very elaborate ceremony. There are also rites for purification
and for regeneration of a fire.
Zoroastrian burial rites center on exposure of the dead. After death, a dog is
brought before the corpse (preferably a "four-eyed" dog, i.e., with a spot
above each eye, believed to increase the efficacy of its gaze). The rite is
repeated five times a day. After the first one, fire is brought into the room

where it is kept burning until three days after the removal of the corpse to the
Tower of Silence. The removal must be done during the daytime.
The interior of the Tower of Silence is built in three concentric circles, one
each for men, women, and children. The corpses are exposed there naked.
The vultures do not take longan hour or two at the mostto strip the flesh
off the bones, and these, dried by the sun, are later swept into the central well.
Formerly the bones were kept in an ossuary, the astodan, to preserve them
from rain and animals. The morning of the fourth day is marked by the most
solemn observance in the death ritual, for it is then that the departed soul
reaches the next world and appears before the deities who are to pass
judgment over it.
Festivals, in which worship is an essential part, are characteristic aspects of
Zoroastrianism, a faith that enjoins on man the pleasant duty of being happy.
The principal festivals in the Parsi year are the six seasonal festivals,
Gahanbars, and the days in memory of the dead at year's end. Also, each day
of the month and each of the 12 months of the year is dedicated to a deity.
The day named after the month is the great feast day of that particular deity.
The New Year festival, Noruz, is the most joyous and beautiful of Zoroastrian
feasts, a spring festival in honour of Rapithwin, the personification of noonday
and summer. The festival to Mithra, or Mehragan, was traditionally an autumn
one, as honoured as the spring feast of Noruz.