ZITACUARO

[s. 828] : A town in Mexico, situated 70 miles W. of Mexico City. Station of the PN (1893), with (1901) 1 mi ionary and his wife, 7 native workers, 5 day schools, 6 schools and 464 profe ed Christians. Sunday ZOROASTRIANISM: The form of religion supposed to have been inculcated by Zoroaster (Persian, Zardusht), long the state religion of Persia, but now profe ed by a mere handful of followers in two districts in Persia (Kirman and Yezd), and by the Parsees of India, whose name bears witne to their Persian origin. If Zoroaster was a historical character, as seems to have been the case, he probably lived in the east of Iran, in the region known as Bactria, now sometimes called Balkh. His date cannot be ascertained; some Greek writers put him 5,000 years before the siege of Troy! Modern scholars place him, some 1,000 years before Christ, and some 1,500; at the best all is conjecture, but he certainly lived before Cyrus. Monier Williams thinks that he was nearly contemporary with Confucius. That he was the leader of schism in the old Aryan race seems to rnany probable. As the result of this the religion of one branch of the race developed into Vedism and Hinduism in India, and that of the other, which settled in Persia, into the dualistic system which still bears the name of Zoroaster. According to this system, the world is the battle-field of two contending spirits, eternal in their origin and po e ing the power of creation. The one is Ahuro-mazda (the wise god), who is the source and author of all that is good; the other is Angro-mainyash (the spirit enemy), who, evil in his nature, ever strives to neutralize the beneficent activities of the first. These two names have become corrupted by long use the shorter forms now common, Ormuzd and Ahriman. But the conflict between these two powers, tho now conducted on terms which are apparently pretty nearly equal, is not hopele , and is not destined to be perpetual. In due time Ormuzd is to summon all his power, and enter upon the last and decisive phase of the struggle. The might of Ahriman is to be into — Zlnzendorf Zulus 811 broken forever, and the supremacy of the good established; Ahriman with his defeated followers is to be cast into hell, and to remain there, destitute of power to disturb the progre and enjoyment of the good, who are to be rewarded and to prosper, unvexed by evil, as citizens of the good kingdom. iVIodern Zoroastrianism recognizes the existence of vast hierarchies of good and evil spirits, doing the will and fulfilling the purposes respectively of Ormuzd and of Ahriman. To what extent these elaborate systems of angelology and demonology influenced Jewish thought, and through them Christian thought, is a question still undetermined. The sacred books of Zoroastrianism are spoken of collectively as the Zend-Avesta. The term is not wholly accurate: the proper designation is Avesta, the word Zend signifying “interpretation,” with reference to the commentaries on the original books. The Avesta itself is written in an ancient form of Aryan speech, allied to the Sanskrit, known popularly as the Zend, and po e ing no other extant literature. The “interpretation” is in Pahlavi, a more modern (tho ancient and now dead) language, which prevailed formerly in Persia. The Avesta, as at present known, is but a fragment, and not a large fragment, of the original sacred literature of Zoroastrianism. Like the Old Testament, it is not a book, but a collection of books a literature developing in and with the life of the people. Parts of it may date back to Zoroaster, but much of it consists of the accretions of later years. A collection of hymns or “Gathas” is the oldest part of it, and may be said to form the kernel of the whole; these alone claim to be the ipsi ima verb a of — Zoroaster. The remainder consists of liturgical matter, and, what is called by some (borrowing a phrase from Old Testament scholarship), the “priestly code” of Zoroastrianism. The light, the sun, the fire, are considered by the Zoroastrians the symbols of Ormuzd. Therefore in their temples the sacred fire is continually burning, night and day, year after year. For this reason at evening, when they recite the prayers of the Avesta, the faces of Zoroastrian worshipers are turned westward, toward the setting sun. Hence they are often spoken of as “sun-worshipers” and “fire-worshipers,” tho they themselves reject the imputation which is thus involved; they do not pray to the sun or to the fire, they say, but to that good and shining one whose presence and character are symbolized by the light, and the sources of it. The Zoroastrian religion developed and flourished in Persia, through the vici itudes of declension and revival incident to all religious history, from the time of its origin to the Mohammedan invasion. During that time it saw and survived the political changes and dynastic revolutions to which Persia was subject, but which need not be recounted here. Mohammed died in 632. It was but a few years after his death that Persia was invaded by armies of his followers, who, under the fierce lead of the early caliphs, were just beginning that astonishing career of conquest which within a century carried the crescent over Western Asia, Northern Africa into Spain, acro the Pyrenees, and almost to the shores of the British Channel. The Persian army was ignominiously defeated, the king dethroned, and his realms taken posThe se ion of in the name of the Prophet. embraced the new religion. The fire went out on the Zoroastrian altars, and the Avesta was dropped for the Koran. A hand people merely of tlie Persians refused to be converted and sought refuge among the mountains. There for a time they were suffered to remain, but soon after the year 700 they were subjected to such a violence of Muslim persecution that many of them were constrained to abandon Persia and look for a refuge beyond the sea. The story of the wanderings and sufferings of this company of Zoroastrians forms a pathetic episode in the religious history of the race. ful wanderings and ship their sacred fire was studiously kept alive. About the year 720 of the Christian era they landed on the western coast of India near the city of Surat, some 150 miles north of where Bombay now stands, and craved permi ion from the Hindu prince then ruling in that region to settle among his people, and to practise the religion of their fathers. The permi ion was granted, so tradition says, with a few easily observed conditions, among which was this, that they should adopt the dre and language of the country where they were to make their home. These conditions were accepted, and ever since the language of this Indian branch of the race has been the Gujarati, the vernacular of the district where they landed, with such dialectic variations aa would naturally arise in the use of a new Through wrecks all the — tongue by foreigners whose customs and religion differed so greatly from those of the land where The Parsees the language had developed. as these Persian dwellers in India came in course of time to be called do not appear prominently in Indian history until the English era. They faithfully maintained the practise of their religion, jealously guarded the sacred — fire, and preserved inviolate the purity of their When, under English the city of fishermen’s huts into a great commercial mart, the Parsees appear as keen-eyed men of busine , and founded great commercial houses. There are said to be about 8,500 Zoroastrians still race. Bombay grew from a rule, cluster of remaining in Persia. Darmesteter (J.), In Sacred Books of the East, Vols. 4 and 23, The Zend Avesta, London, 1879; ditto, Ormazd et Ahriman, Paris, 1877 Murray (J. M.), The Zend Avesta and the Religion of the Parsis, London, 1884.; 829