Allegation
No. 1:
"The Global Protest" alleges that Jafarey
<<has held our priesthood in contempt.>>
Truth:
THE ZOROASTRIAN PRIEST IN THE AVESTA
[Here is a digest what I wrote in my essay "The
Zoroastrian Priest in the Avesta," read at "The Conference on
Zoroastrian Doctrine, Culture & History" under auspices the World
Zoroastrian Organization, London, hosted by the Zoroastrian Association of
Metropolitan Chicago, on November 26, 1987, and publish in the Assembly Bulleton
Spenta in three parts in its three
issues -- March, April/May, June/July 1993]:
The Gathic texts, particularly the Gathas and the Haptanghaiti, show that there was no profession as priesthood under any name during the Gathic period. In fact, Zarathushtra overthrew the professional priests who had plagued the society. Zarathushtra himself was chosen as the "Ahu" (Leading Lord), "Ratu," (Righteous Guide). He was the Divine Mâńthran (Thought-provoker). Later others were chosen as "ratus" of house, settlement, district, and land, strictly according to their qualifications. Those engaged in teaching, preaching, and spreading the Message were "mâńthrans."
The priestly profession and those of warriors, agriculturists, and artisans is a later introduction or a reformed re-introduction into the Zoroastrian order.
According to Aerpatistan (Sacerdotal Code), which presents an older stage of Zoroastrianism, a priest was generally not a priest by occupation. He or she only officiated when called upon to do so. The Vendidad, a later composition, states that an ordinary professional priest led a simple life. He was easily satisfied, even with a piece of bread and was a contended person. (V 13.45) A few wandered teaching and preaching. Others fed themselves at the laity houses. (V 13.22) Some rich homes had their own domestic priests. (V 3.1) Members of a royal house were told to treat the priests as their own children and give them good food, a sign that some were not treated well. (Yt 24.9) His usual implements for rituals were ashtra (whip), milk-bowl, paitidana (mouth-veil), khrafastraghna (for killing noxious animals), sraosho-charana (flogging instrument), strainer, standard mortar, haoma cups, and baresman twigs. (V 14.8) One may take a careful note of the absence of some of the implements used in modern rituals and vice versa, and how the Avestan priest went armed to punish the faulty and kill the noxious.
The Vendidad cautions that one should not recognize as an âthravan a person who pretends to wear paitidâna, girdle a koshti ceremoniously, take a flog, hold baresman twigs, and carry a whip, and who sleeps throughout the night without venerating and chanting and does not learn or teach anything. "He is a liar."(18.1) Fakes, frauds and priests-in-name-only were busy too!
Teaching and Learning
The Gathas show that Zarathushtra was the first teacher who established a system to teach, preach, maintain, and promote his divine doctrine. The foremost persons he chose to train to teach at his school were Kavi Vishtaspa, brothers Ferashaoshtra and Jamaspa, and his cousin Maidhyoimaha. (Song 14.14-17 -- Yasna 48) He composed his message in five metric patterns and perhaps in as many or more tunes, and gave special training to Jamaspa in mastering the message and passing it on to others. Jamaspa, who according to a tradition, later became his son-in-law and still later his successor.
The purpose of condensing the Message in measured meters was to keep them compact and intact, free from any possible interpolation; render them easy to be memorized; maintain their original pronunciations within the meters and tunes; present and preserve them in melodies which would encourage people to chant and sing them repeatedly-a very effective method of teaching the thought-provoking words. Time has proven that no one, until the invention of modern recording appliances, could devise a better way than that of the Indo-Iranians to "human-tape-record" the very words of the composer for a remote future. The Gathas are intact in Zarathushtra's own words and dialect. They were preserved, one must say, by the âthravans who spoke a slightly different dialect and later by the Parthian and Sassanian priests who did not know both-the Gathic dialect and the later Avestan variety. They spoke and wrote in Middle Persian.
Aethrapaiti, the Teacher
During the later part of the Gathic period, we see the "ratu" (Righteous Guide) hold a new title-"aethrapaiti." It means the master of an "aethra," and therefore teacher. No satisfactory etymology has been found, but most likely, it is derived from "a+i," to approach, to come near, with the agentive suffix of "thra." Whatever the derivation, it means a school, a place of instruction. The term for the pupil is "aethrya," belonging to school. The first person to carry this title is Saena son of Ahumstuta, the sixth celebrity mentioned after Zarathushtra in the Farvardin Yasht list. It depicts his close association with the Prime Master Zarathushtra. "Aethrapaiti" literally means "school-master, teacher, preceptor." It is "herbad" in Pahlavi, "hirbad" and "hirbod" in Persian, and "ervad" in Gujarati. Saena is said to have trained "one hundred disciples who taught on this earth," a proof of the universal missionary work of the early Gathic period after the passing away of Zarathushtra. (Yasht 13.97) It is, compared to today's religious teachers, a fairly large number for a small growing community of the thinly populated world of those days.
In the Avesta, an "aethrapaiti" is the teacher who teaches the Gathas and its philosophy only. The disciple took at least three years to finish his or her education. He or she worked hard from before dawn till late morning and again in the afternoon till late in night, to learn the lesson.
Any Zarathushtrian could become a religious teacher. All it required was that the candidate should be the "most aspirant" member of the family, that he or she did not deprive the family of its income, that he or she was unanimously chosen to become an "aethrapaiti." Age did not matter. He or she could be the oldest or the youngest in the family. If he was a partner in a property with another person, he had to be chosen by the people concerned to take up the task. He could accept the new profession only if he did not harm the economics of the partnership. Both man and woman could assume the office of "zoatar" or any of the assistants. When called upon to perform a ritual, a husband and wife engaged in earning their livelihood from their regular occupation, had to decide which one of the two could economically be spared to attend to the task. A wife, if required, could help another male officiant even without the consent of her husband. One could even take a competent child to assist one in the performance. A rare example of equality of sexes, a high regard for competency, and a great sense of priorities, indeed. (Aerpatistan & Nirangistan 1-37; Vendidad 4.45)
The Aerpatistan calls the person thief, even a robber, who takes a woman to assist him in a ritual but with an ultimate intention of seducing her. Sexual harassment is nothing new. It also gives details on how far one can take a child without the consent of the parent, but it has no words on barring a woman from officiating during menses, pregnancy, or immediately after birth, or of a male becoming polluted through wet dream. In fact, with the exception of the Vendidad, no other text speaks of such "pollutions," not even the Yashts that prohibit specific persons from partaking their oblations. Evidently, the non-Vendidad school did not consider these natural occurrences to be polluting.
When did the education start? The Aerpatistan and the Vendidad would welcome it at any age. However, the assistance of a competent child in a ritual shows that there were people who started early with their education. Greek sources on the education of the royal young say that it began at the age of seven and continued until the age of seventeen. (Zoroastrian Civilization p.225) This could also be a clue for an early start. The teacher (aethrapaiti)) or the pupil (aethrya) could be a male or female. (Aerpatistan and Y 26.7-8, 68.12) The teacher was loved and respected. (FrD.4)
A person had to study for three years under the guidance of a competent teacher in order to acquire the proper knowledge and understanding of the texts. The pupil had to study hard during the first and last parts of the day, and again during the first and last parts of the night. He could only rest during the middle parts of the day and the night. He followed the routine "until he can say all the words which former teachers (aethrapaitis) have said. "(V 4.5) The texts to learn thoroughly were the Gathas and the Haptanghaiti. They comprise only.069 (1/14th) of the bulk of the extant Avestan texts and .024 (1/41st) of the estimated bulk of the twenty-one nasks of the Sassanian canon.
It shows how long it took to master a short but very valuable volume. The teaching consisted of understanding, memorizing, reciting, chanting, singing, discussing, deliberating, and practicing the Gathic Message. The three-year time shows how deep one had to learn the thought-provoking Message of Zarathushtra. That is why the Aban Yasht describes a competent priest as "a person of debate and discussion, thoughtful, artful, indeed the thought-provoking message personified." (Yt. 5.91)
It may be kept in view that in those days, the Avestan language was the mother tongue of the teacher and the taught. The pupil fully understood what was taught and discussed. Furthermore, there was a question and answer period to encourage a pupil to be a debater.
The Avesta or the relevant Pahlavi commentaries have no data on the initiation of a pupil into a priest. But such an important task could not be completed without an initiation. There was definitely one, most probably a simple and solemn one performed between the teacher and the initiate/initiates. Unless one accepts the traditional initiation to be an elaborated form of a simpler ceremony, one should come down a number of centuries to turn to Greek sources to give us a description of the initiation of a west Iranian Magi in the year 160 CE
It commenced, according to Lucian (Greek "Lukianos") in Necymantia, on a new moon day and continued for full twenty-nine days. Each day, the initiate took a morning bath while the teacher, facing the rising sun, recited holy texts. He looked into the face of the pupil thrice during his recitation. The two ate nothing but fruit and drank nothing but milk, honey, and water. They slept outside in open. The last bath was by the master in a running stream. The initiate was perfumed, and then given the priestly robes. (Aerpatastan and Nirangastan, Introduction page xxxi)
Ritual Prayers
The Gathas and their supplements in the same dialect have hardly any elaborate rituals. They show that the faithful, individually or collectively, faced a fire-altar and chanted from the Gathas and the Haptanghaiti in a devotional posture. As far as the Later Avesta is concerned, the only ritual mentioned in the Nirangistan and alluded to in other parts, is a prototype of the present "Yasna" ceremony of preparing the haoma drink along with its sacrificial meat and baresman twigs. The only difference is that then the prayer texts were the Gathas and Haptanghaiti and now we have the entire 72-sections of the Yasna and much more. .
Although the Vendidad speaks in details on purification baths and rites for pollution through dead matter and the disposal of the dead, neither it, nor any other text, defines any ceremonies or the functions of a priest at birth, initiation, marriage, or death. Relevant Pahlavi commentaries also do not elaborate. Tradition is the only guide, and it surely has changed and changes with the passage of time.
The reason may be as simple as this: Other parts of prayers were either still not composed, or if composed (which is much more probable), were not incorporated into a formalized form of rituals. In fact, the Sassanian division of the nasks places the Vendidad and the Yashts, some forming a part of daily prayers at present, in the Dâtik category of the administrative wing of the state. The Vispered and non-Gathic parts of the Yasna were evidently parts of the Hadhamâńthrik category which contained supplements to the Gathic and Datik categories. This gives us a clue as to where other texts stood vis-a-vis the Gathic texts placed together in one volume under the name of Stot Yasn, the Doctrinal category.
A Hereditary Office?
There are no indications in the Avesta that show the office was hereditary and that people of other professions could not join this particular profession. Had it been so, there would have been a prohibition to accept a warrior or an agriculturist in the rigid circle. To draw a parallel, Hinduism is very explicit on this point. The very absence of a commandment making priesthood a closed circuit is proof enough to make the profession an open one.
There are a number of Avestan passages, which show that
one was free to choose to become a priest.
The Vendidad says: Should a person of the same faith, friend or brother,
approach another for goods, wife or knowledge, he should be given what he
requests for. "Let him who
wants knowledge, be taught the holy word ... (during regular parts of day and
night) ... until he learns all the words taught by former teachers (aethrapaitis)."
(Vd 4.44-45). As already cited from
the Aerpatistan, the office was not confined to any sex or age.
The only recommendation made was that the most aspiring person of a house
becomes a priest and that too without jeopardizing the economic position of the
house. Zarathushtra is shown in two late Yashts as praying for King
Vishtaspa, a warrior by profession, to have ten sons-three to become âthravans,
three warriors, three prospering settlers, and only one to succeed the father as
a king (Afarin-e Peighambar Zartosht.5 and Vishtasp Yasht.3).
Haoma's curse on a fraudulent woman not to bear an âthravan child
makes the profession a general one. The
Vendidad says that a person, who chants certain Gathic stanzas early in the
morning, would eventually advance to know "the Gathas, the Haptanghaiti,
and the discussions about them," and grow into a thoughtful and artful
personification of the thought-provoking message (Vd 18.51), the very
qualifications of a good teacher. The priest is called "dahma,"
meaning "wondrous, genius," a title that warranted one to be a real
scholar of the lore. Rote and parrot-wise recitation is unknown in the Avesta.
Was
Asho Zarathushtra a Priest?
The
traditional life story, as told by the two Pahlavi writings, Denkard (Book VII)
and the Selections of Zadsparam, and the Persian Zartosht-nameh by the Zoroastrian poet-mobed Bahram Pazhdu, do not
state that he was from a priestly lineage.
On the contrary, his father took the doubting child Zarathushtra to
priests to have him convinced of the truth of the old Aryan cult, a task in
which they miserably failed. If he
were a priest, he would have handled his child himself. His mother, who, when still a maiden, was excommunicated and
banished by the priests for her unorthodox views, sent her son outside to a
teacher to learn the sciences of the day, a statement which may also supply the
clue as to where Asho Zarathushtra developed his poetic talents, talents which
some think could only be developed by a priestly boy.
The
Avesta shows that Zarathushtra's father raised horses. (Yt 23.4; 24.2).
The eulogy stating that Zarathushtra is the "foremost" âthravan,
warrior, and prospering settler only shows his complete reformation of the three
professions. The famous stanza of
"Ushtâ nô zâthô âthrava yô Spitâmô
Zarathushtrô--Hail to us, for an âthravan, Spitama Zarathushtra, has been
born," (Yt 13.94) only indicates that the composer of the eulogy was an âthravan
who obviously preferred to hail Zarathushtra as the foremost
"reformer" of his particular profession.
Had it been composed by a warrior or an agriculturalist poet,
Zarathushtra would have been hailed as the "foremost" warrior or
settler. It may be noted that the
second eulogy in Farvardin Yasht calls him ahu,
ratu and paoiryô-tkaesha (lord, leader, and foremost-in-doctrine) and uses
several superlatives to praise him and yet does not make an âthravan of
him. The solitary use of zaotar
in the Gathas (Song 6.6) in which Zarathushtra, who repeatedly condemns the
cultic rituals performed by karapan
priests and kavi princes, calls himself the "straight" invoker who
does not indulge in any of them, proves otherwise that he was not a ritualistic
priest by profession and that he was only an invoker, a true invoker indeed.
His Gathas stand the best testimony to his being non-ritualistic.
Above
all, had Zarathushtra been of a priestly class, he would have definitely
mentioned it in his Gathas. He did
take enough care to give his full family name, Spitâma
Haechataspa on several occasions. He
could have added the term âthravan, at
least once. The three professions
or classes of society--priests, warriors, and the prospering settlers--are
absent in the Gathas and other Gathic texts.
This does not mean that they did not exist in his days.
The truth is that he did not believe in them as boundaries dividing human
society into three water-tight compartments.
The only profession he encouraged was the settlement of people in fields
of agriculture, animal husbandry and crafts.
He is the person who coined the term vâstrya-fshuyant,
"prospering settler." We
have no trace of it in pre-Zarathushtrian Avestan texts and the Vedas. That is why he is called the Vâstâr,
meaning "settler, rehabilitator" of the oppressed in the Ahunavar
formula, the opening stanza of the Gathas.
Conclusion
Keeping
in view all the above points, I come to the conclusion that:
1.
Asho Zarathushtra was not a priest, karapan,
âthravan, or one known by any other Indo-Iranian term.
2.
Asho Zarathushtra and his dedicated companions went spreading the message
as mâńthrans, thought-provokers.
3.
They were also known as Magavans, belonging to Maza
Maga, the Great Magnonimity, the Great World Fellowship founded by
Zarathushtra. This term gave rise much later to Magu
priests of a Median tribe.
4.
The âthravans, professional priests of the Indo-Iranian cult,
embraced the Good Religion of Zarathushtra and managed to maintain their
leadership. It is they who put the mâńthrans
into oblivion.
5.
There was no institutionalized priestly profession during the Gathic
period.
6.
Even after its establishment as an institution, it was not necessarily a
full-time profession. There were
many part-time priests who attended to it only if their main occupation
permitted them.
7.
It was an acquired occupation and not a hereditary profession.
The other two professions of warriors and prospering settlers were of
equal importance.
8.
Any aspiring person, young or old, male or female, could learn the
knowledge to become a priest.
9.
The candidate for priesthood had to go through a rigorous course of at
least three years to attain the desired standard in Gathic studies alone.
10.
The training school was established by Zarathushtra and promoted by his companions and their successors on a specific system.
11.
The extent Avesta and Pahlavi books have no description of the initiation of
candidate to priesthood, perhaps because of its simplicity or its usual
synchronization with the initiation into adulthood.
12.
The priest, far above being a "mumbler" of Avestan texts, was an
expounder of the religion of Good Conscience, an interpreter of the Divine
Doctrine, and a scholar of the sciences of his or her days.
The Zarathushtrian Assembly's Position
The Zarathushtrian Assembly recognizes that every profession, which promotes human society and which does not monopolize the office and/or does not exploit the people, is good and noble. It respects all scholars, priests or not, of other orders, Zoroastrians and non-Zoroastrians, for their mature knowledge of their respective and other faiths. What it does NOT recognize is the murmuring priest who goes by ROTE alone and does not know and understand what he recites and performs, and yet demands obedience and blind following from the simple, kept-in-the-dark laity.
And true to the Gathic tradition, the Assembly does not entertain a priestly class or division. It has proficient persons who officiate at religious ceremonies from birth through initiation to memorial; act as chief witnesses at, for instance, wedding solemnization; lead congregational prayers; and convey the Divine Message by practicing it for their own selves, teaching it to those who want to learn, and spreading it around the world. Any able person, male or female, may qualify on the concrete basis of his/her knowledge to be chosen and recognized as a "ratu", a leader, "aethrapaiti," a teacher, or "hamidhpaiti," an assembly head.
(See "The Zoroastrian Priest in the Avesta" by Ali A. Jafarey, SPENTA periodical - Vol. 2, Nos. 5-6, Vol. 3, Nos. 1 and 2 - August 1992-May 1993, published by the Zarathushtrian Assembly, for full details)
* * * * * *
LINKS:
TO Return to the Relevant Original
Allegation, CLICK
Introduction
& the Gist of "The Plain Reality Behind The Intricate Falsity"
(Allegation No. 1)
TABLE OF CONTENTS and Their Links
Introduction & the Gist of "The Plain Reality Behind The Intricate Falsity"
Analysis of the 26-page "Global Protest"