Part 4
CONSOLIDATION
With the aid of Kavi
Vishtaspa and the sages, the Good Religion advanced well.
Zarathushtra began giving practical shape to the new order.
He formed a society of his companions, calling it Maz Maga,
literally "Great Magnanimity," the origin of the term Magus/Magi.
The promoters were Zarathushtra, Vishtaspa, Ferashaoshtra, Jamaspa, and
Maidyoimaha. The aims and
objectives were to serve and be attuned to the Creator and the created.
To be a member, one had to know God, to be honest, to be a thinker, to be
industrious, to be peaceful, to enjoy a married life, and to pray in earnest.
The society was simple.
It promoted brotherly bonds and was sparing of rituals.
It had no professional priests. The
members gathered in an enclosure or open ground, perhaps three times a day, to
face the light-the sun in the sky or fire in a holder-now cleansed of all
organic offerings to blaze better with dry wood and certain sweet-smelling
plants. They sang a few devotional
songs, and then the teacher spoke to them encouraging them to lead a good mental
and physical life. They did not
waste their time on superstitious rites, ceremonies, or worship of the dead.
They looked at nature with clear minds, not awe.
They held in esteem the sun, moon, stars, winds, clouds, rains, earth,
waters, plants, and animals in such a way as to use them the best they could,
but never to abuse them. Nature was
to be benefited from in a natural way that would not defile, diminish, or
destroy it. Man was here to cooperate with nature in his own interest,
not to conquer it ruthlessly, otherwise he would bring ruthless consequences on
himself.
Zarathushtra
disapproved of nomadism. He viewed
nomads as consumers without being producers.
Their search for fresh land, after overgrazing their own, resulted in
waste and feuds. Their poverty
induced them to rob the better off. Zarathushtra
was the first to start a movement to settle the landless people.
He is, therefore, called V�st�r, "settler" of the
people on v�stras, self-sufficient "settlements."
He established these settlements, and the people became V�strya-fshuyant,
industrious settlers. He gave the
world a new class of working people. On
the priority list of the people to be settled were drigu, persons who had
suffered persecution at the hands of the antagonist zealots and had lost all
they had except their firm faith in universal truth.
Zarathushtra wanted to
do everything in the proper way, at the proper time and place, and with proper
means-all with wisdom and consideration. This
would give positive results, with no harm to anyone else and therefore with no
dispute. But if someone coveted
others belongings, home, village, or country, he had to be "corrected"
through the proper means. He was, therefore, the first to establish what could be
termed as a "defense" department, meant only to defend one's rights
and freedom. There was no war, no
aggression, in the religion of Good Conscience.
Even defenses were not aimed at repelling the aggressor, but at
correcting him and making him a useful person in the promotion of peace,
prosperity, and liberty. Freedom was for all.
Good Conscience
overthrew the yoke of slavery, eradicated war, and trained free and honest men
and women. Men and women enjoyed
perfect equality. Everyone got the
fair rewards of his or her efforts. If,
however, some were in an advantageous position, it was understood they would
lend a helping hand to those less fortunate and make them also strong in body
and mind. Zarathushtra was the
first to acknowledge freedom of belief, thought, word, and deed.
He left it to each individual to choose the right path.
But everyone was not able to develop his or her own cohesive world view.
Only the wise could. As soon
as Zarathushtra realized this, he left the weak-minded and approached the sages.
It was then that his success was soon and sure.
The wise were not born, however, they were raised.
Therefore Zarathushtra thought of training people in wisdom.
Zarathushtra started
yet another movement -- a literacy campaign.
He called in Jamaspa: �Sage
Jamaspa Hvogva, I teach you my message in a poetic and not in an unpoetic
language, so that it shall always stay with you as prayers of glorification with
the divine inspirations. Whoever
distinguishes between law and lawlessness ... is, through righteousness, a
wonderful counselor.�
Jamaspa did retain
Zarathushtra's message, because later tradition says that he collected the
Avesta in the fortieth year of the founding of the religion.
Thus Zarathushtra founded the first regular school for training
disciples. Classes were held daily.
He and certain senior companions attended.
His message, now arranged in meter and stanzas, was taken up.
The teacher first sang a stanza to music, also composed by Zarathushtra.
He then explained it and opened it to questions and answers.
He sang again, because now it could be understood better.
The disciples sang it next and the class closed until the following day.
Zarathushtra's
teachings were easier to memorize in the form he gave them, because they were
poems, songs, prayers, and a message, all in one.
They were �m�nthra,� thought-provoking recitations.
Moreover, their poetic form helped to keep Zarathushtra's message pure
and pristine with little room for adulteration.
The high sanctity accorded to the songs has preserved them so perfectly
well that they constitute the only believable miracle of Zarathushtra.
Thus his message was
kept alive. His disciples were
trained and the religion was promoted as their education progressed.
Zarathushtra's disciples called his message
G�th�, sublime songs.
Meanwhile, Zarathushtra
had become a kind husband and a loving father, because he had married a woman
named Hvovi (meaning �Self-going�).
They had six children in all: Son Isat V�star (Strong Settler),
daughter Freni (Loving), daughter Thriti (Third), son Urvatatnara
(Befriending People), son Hvare-chithra (Sun Bright) and daughter Pouruchist�
(Full Intellect). We are not
certain as to when he got married. The
Avesta tells us only the name of his prospective wife, but later tradition says
he turned down his first proposal because the girl was not willing to discuss
the union face to face. Perhaps he
married late when he was at the court of Kavi Vishtaspa.
The Avesta says that Hvovi was a disciple.
Her name heads the list of female workers of the religion.
Thus she is the first prominent woman Zarathushtrian.
The names of their children also reflect the spirit of Good Conscience --
none of them had been named in the agricultural tradition -- and therefore
indicate that he married late. If
so, he was over forty when he married and would have been in his seventies when
his youngest daughter Pouruchista got married at the age of fifteen.
First Missionaries
Zarathushtra blessed
his companions for spreading his thought-provoking message.
He wanted the wise to propagate Good Conscience throughout the world -- a
world of friendship and fellowship, caring and thoughtfulness, peace and
prosperity, and perfection and eternity. His
message was not for a chosen people. It
was for all. It was universal. This
is why Zarathushtra, who continuously emphasized that one should promote one's
home, village, town, and country, never mentioned his own birth, race,
birthplace, or country. Until his message had spread, however, the movement
toward peace and prosperity could not start.
Zarathushtra became, therefore, the first teacher to train disciples �
missionaries -- to teach and propagate the religion without boundaries of cast,
creed, color, race, or nation.
Soon Zarathushtra's
missionaries went to far-flung places, never to return home but to live abroad
and preach. Thus a missionary
tradition was established which was later vigorously pursued by the followers of
Buddha, Mani, Jesus, Muhammad, and others. Zarathushtra's school flourished
long.
It appears he was
followed by Jamaspa and then Saena, son of Ahum Stuta, as heads of the school.
Saena was the eighth person to join the fellowship and therefore was one
of the earliest of Zarathushtra's companions.
The Avesta says that Saena trained one hundred disciples.
Later tradition adds that the school served for three centuries and a
disaster, perhaps the end of the Kavi dynasty or the fall of the succeeding
patrons, brought an end to it. Zarathushtra
loved and revered his companions.
He immortalized the
names of several of them in his Gathas. It appears that it was upon his bidding
that the names of some two hundred fifty people, twenty-seven of them women, are
revered in the Farvardin Yasht in the chronological order of their choosing Good
Conscience and joining the Great Fellowship. In that list, Zarathushtra is the first among men,
Maidyoimaha the second, Vishtaspa the twenty-first, his heroic son Spento-data
the fiftieth, Ferashaoshtra the fifty-third, and Jamaspa the fifty-fourth.
Zarathushtra's wife Hvovi is the first among the women.
His three daughters follow next, and Hutaos� and Hum�y�, wife and
daughter of Vishtaspa, are the fifth and the sixth.
Most of the married women have their husbands' names mentioned as well.
The maidens are remembered with �kainy�,� maiden or Miss, preceding
their names.
Meanwhile, the great
emphasis placed by Zarathushtra on founding a home was manifested when his
youngest child Pouruchista married. The
bridegroom, according to later tradition, was Jamaspa.
Zarathushtra took the opportunity to immortalize his advice to all
uniting couples: "The reward of this Fellowship shall be yours as long as
you remain united in weal and woe with all your heart in wedlock ... May each of
you win other through righteousness."
Newer than New
A look at the new
society founded by Zarathushtra reveals that everything was fresh, even the
names. The Farvardin Yasht shows
that Zarathushtra had retained his and all those names that depicted the
agricultural aspect of the society. Yet among the two hundred fifty names
mentioned in the yasht, there is not a single one that yielded the
faintest trace of the faded religious precedents -- no single or compound names
with Mithra, Verethraghna, Vayu, or any other Aryan deity. We see Saena (Eagle), one of the earliest to join, retain his
name, but his father bears the name Ahum Stuta (Life-praising).
Did the father have this name before the advent of Good Conscience?
This is hardly possible. Did
he have a name that praised a "daeva?"
It is most probable that he did. He
and others in his category must have changed their names to suit the new spirit.
An array of meaningful
names -- Strong, Settler, Loving, Befriending People, Full Intellect, Sun
Bright, Promoter of Goodness, Progressive Law, Refresher, Good Mind, Good Deed,
Good Life, Guardian of Good, Accumulator of Good, Promoter of the Highest Good,
Worshiper of the Wise, Devoted, and many many more never heard before in the
Indo-Iranian lore -- all short compound nouns -- are testimony to the new life
of the companions and their kindred.
During the forty-odd
years of his teaching, Zarathushtra had spoken much good -- of God and creation,
man and woman, mind and body, good and evil, home and society, freedom and
equality, science and culture, peace and stability, promotion and progress, and
universal fellowship and general development.
All had heard him speak on all these subjects, but no companion has
reported him to have advised what to eat, what to wear, what to build, when to
work, when to retire, what to celebrate, or how to mourn.
Was Zarathushtra not
concerned with daily life? He was
concerned and he could easily have instituted taboos like many other founders of
doctrines have done, for he lived a life of his age -- the bronze age of about
four thousand years ago. But he was
well aware of his changing world. Any
instructions on daily life would grow old and out-of-date, and if it became a
tradition to be zealously adhered to, it would prove an obstruction to progress.
Zarathushtra believed
in a constant and continuous renovation of the world. So he said: �May
we be among those who make life fresh. You,
lords of wisdom, and you who bring happiness through truth and precision, be
single-minded in the realm of inner intellect.� He petitioned the lords of wisdom of every age to unite in
mind through truth and inner intelligence and continue refreshing and renovating
life on earth. Time does not stop.
Why should the world stop and stagnate!
Zarathushtra did not
treat his followers as children who should be directed with �do's and
don'ts.� He treated them as
mature and understanding, strong enough to discriminate between good and bad.
Mankind holds a high position in the religion of Good Conscience.
Men and women are neither children nor servants of God, but friends,
lovers, and beloveds who can, if they choose, progress to become �godlike.�
Zarathushtra was happy.
He had delivered his message, won the wise to the religion, established
life on new principles, rendered the country prosperous, trained disciples who
were busy in expounding and expanding the message abroad, gotten his youngest
daughter married, and had in every act contributed to the growth of Daen�
Vanguhi, the religion of �Good Conscience� for the world.
He had succeeded in his mission. Many years had passed between the day of
introduction and the day of fulfillment of the religion.
Later tradition puts it at forty-seven years. One could see all these years in Zarathushtra's rich
wrinkles. He had advanced in years,
advanced in wisdom, advanced in work, and advanced in mission.
He was a successful messenger, a successful founder, and a successful
promoter -- a sweeping success.
Late one evening, he
bade his companions good-bye and retired. The
next day they found him in his eternal sleep, with a smile on his face. He had
been granted �the good life forever.� He had become immortal.
Zarathushtra had come laughing, he made the world laugh and smile, and
went smiling -- the giver of serenity sublime. Tradition says that Zarathushtra
passed away on 10 Ardibehesht, on about 30 April in the forty-eighth year of the
establishment of the religion (48 ZRE) at the ripe age of seventy-seven years
and forty days -- circa l690 BCE.
* * * * * *
Click:
Salient Points of the Good Religion (with Zarathushtra's Life Sketch)
Zarathushtra, A Unique Personality (Part 1) Zarathushtra, Early Life (Part 2)
Relatives First (Part 3) Consolidation (Part 4) The Gathas (Part 5)
God in the Gathas (Part 6) Divine Emanations (Part 7) Good and Evil (Part 8)
Death in the Gathas (Part 9) Rituals in the Gathas (Part 10)
Gahanbars
and the Gathas (Part 11) Religion
and Tradition (Part 12)