BETA ZEN
Mazdaism
Texto da Wikipédia (en), licença CC BY-SA. O BETARUBI mostra o verbete inteiro nesta página — a leitura não continua fora do site.
Mazdaism (Armenian: Մազդէականութիւն, romanized: Mazdēakanut'iwn;[1] Persian: آیین مزدایی, romanized: Āyīn-e Mazdāyī, lit. 'Doctrine of Mazda') is a pre-Zoroastrian Iranian religion believed to be the ancestor of Zoroastrianism from which later religions would derive. Unlike in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is but one of the gods in Mazdaism and considered to be equal to Mithra.[2]
Definition of Mazdaism
Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin argued that Mazdaism was an ancient Iranian religion predating Zoroastrianism, centered on the worship of Ahura Mazda but lacking the ethical dualism that Zarathustra would later introduce.[3] While Ilya Gershevitch argues that Mazdaism is not a religion but rather a syncretic set of religious beliefs that magi helped to establish.[4]
Ahura Mazda
The worship of Ahura Mazda, as some Zoroastrian historians believe, did not originate with Zoroaster but existed before the prophet's message. According to Robert Zahner, the pre-Zoroastrian Ahura was undoubtedly also associated with truth, a kind of "universal order," and with water, light, or the sun.[5]
Émile Benveniste points out that Ahura Mazda is a very ancient deity and that the Zoroastrians used this name to refer to the Zoroastrian god. Even the central role assigned to this god in Mazdaism is not a Zoroastrian innovation; the term for Mazdaism (i.e., worship of Mazda) found in Aramaic papyri from the Achaemenid period cannot be evidence that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrian,[according to whom?] and the mention of the name "Ahura Mazda" in stone inscriptions is not evidence of this either, in the Achaemenid inscriptions, not only is Zoroastrianism not mentioned, but nothing else is mentioned that could give these inscriptions a Zoroastrian signal.[6][needs translation]
Long before Zoroaster, the early Iranians held defined religious beliefs and worshipped Ahura Mazda as a great god.[7] In the Behistun Inscription, Darius the Great mentions Ahura Mazda as "the greatest of the gods." Ahura Mazda's name appears 69 times in the Behistun, and Darius claims to be under Ahura Mazda's protection 34 times. Darius neither claimed that Ahura Mazda was the only existing god, nor did great rival Angremenu.[8]
Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin wrote: "It seems easier to believe that the Achaemenids had never heard of Zoroaster, nor of his religious reforms".[8] Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob wrote: "In the Achaemenid era, the Magis did not have a Zoroastrian religion, nor did they have a royal family, considering the role that the Magis played in performing Persian religious ceremonies, and considering that the Achaemenid and dynastic religion could not conflict with the beliefs of the common classes of the Persian clans. It is clear that the Zoroastrian religion had not yet had an influence among the Persians during these periods."[9]
Trends
Turya religion
The northern branch of Mazdaism is known in modern historical studies as Turanism.[10] Turanism is an ethnic name for a group mentioned in the Avesta and named after the region of Turan but the Turanians are not mentioned in historical records of the first millennium BC.[11] Achaemenid sources consistently use the term "Saka" to refer to the nomads of the northern steppes, while Greek authors often refer to them as "Scythians." However, scholars like Mary Boyce agree that the Turanians were Iranian steppe nomads living in the Eurasian steppes north of the ancient Iranians.[12][13][14]
Medes religion
Some researchers like Muhammad A. Dandamayev and Inna N. Medvedskaya believe that the people of Median kingdom practiced a Mazdaism religion[15] in the two centuries preceding the Achaemenid period,[16]and this is the opinion of Henrik Samuel Nyberg[17] The practice of Mazdaism in Media during the Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Parthian periods is, however, attested by Greek accounts. Thus, a temple dedicated to the great Iranian goddess Anahita at Ecbatana, mentioned by Polybius, who reports its construction by the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes II, is still mentioned in the Parthian period by Polybius and Isidore of Carax. The latter mentions another great temple to this goddess (whom he likens to the Greek Artemis) in Media, at Kangavar, the ruins of which have been excavated .[18]
See also
References
- ↑ Kiwlēsērean, Babgēn (1909). Եղիշէ: քննական ուսումնասիրութիւն (in Armenian). Mkhitʻarean Tparan.
- ↑ Бойс, Мэри. Зороастрийцы. Верования и обычаи. — СПб.: Петербургское востоковедение, 2003. — 352 с. — ISBN 5-352-00486-4, 5-85803-234-6.
- ↑ Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de l’Iran ancien, PUF, 1962, translated in The Religion of Ancient Iran, 1973, pp. 45–47.
- ↑ "MAGI". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 2026-07-26.
- ↑ Robert Charles Zaehner. The dawn and twilight of Zoroastrianism 1961. — 371 p.
- ↑ بنونیست، امیل. دین ایرانی 36-31. بر پایهٔ متنهای مهم یونانی. ترجمهٔ بهمن سرکاراتی. تهران: انتشارات بنیاد فرهنگ ایران.
- ↑ کاشانی. مجموعهٔ سخنرانیهای دومین کنگرهٔ تحقیقات ایرانی [Collection of Lectures of the Second Iranian Research Congress]. p. 224.
- 1 2 Yamauchi, Edwin Masao. ایران و ادیان باستانی [Iran and Ancient Religions]. Translated by Pezez, Manouchehr. Tehran: Atharan Qoqnoos.
- ↑ Zarrinkoob, Abdolhossein. تاریخ مردم ایران، ایران قبل از اسلام. pp. 195–196.
- ↑ Кузнецов Б. И. История религии бон // Митра владыка рассвета. — Минск: АСТРА, 2000. — 512 с.
- ↑ Great Britain Naval Intelligence Division 1920, p. 12: "[T]he term Turan is found neither in the inscriptions of Darius I (521-435 B.C.) nor in Greek writers"
- ↑ Boyce 1996, p. 104: "In the Farvadin Yasht, 143-4, five divisions are recognized among the Iranians, namely the Airya (a term which the Avestan people appear to use of themselves), Tuirya, Sairima, Sainu and Dahi".
- ↑ Diakonoff 1999, p. 100: "Turan was one of the nomadic Iranian tribes mentioned in the Avesta. However, in Firdousi's poem, and in the later Iranian tradition generally, the term Turan is perceived as denoting 'lands inhabited by Turkic speaking tribes".
- ↑ Daniel 2012, p. 52: "They also included tales of the Kayanian kings, culminating in the reign of Kavi Vishtaspa (Goshtasp) and the warfare between the Iranians and their natural enemies, the Turanians (probably nomadic peoples to the north of Iran, later identified with the Turks)".
- ↑ "MEDIA". Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Retrieved 2026-07-23.
- ↑ (en) W. W. Malandra, « Zoroastrianism i. Historical Review », dans Encyclopædia Iranica Online, 2005 (accessible http://www.iranicaonline.org/ [archive]).
- ↑ Nyberg, H. S. (1938). Die Religionen des alten Iran (Trans. H. H. Schaeder). Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs Verlag, p. 342.
- ↑ (en) M. L. Chaumont, « Anāhīd, iii. The Cult and Its Diffusion », dans Encyclopædia Iranica Online, 2002 (accessible http://www.iranicaonline.org/ [archive]).
Further reading
- Bashiri, Iraj. "Mazdian Cosmology". Academia.edu. Retrieved 2025-03-27.
