It makes sense on my mental path to South and East Asia to stop and register my appreciation for the first faith to formulate as an ethical monotheism, as well as the state religion of the world’s first cosmopolitan empire. “Zoroastrianism” can be a misleading term on various grounds. As Jenny Rose notes, “Many introductions to Zoroastrianism begin with a leading statement to the effect that it is one of the world’s oldest religions, which it is. There is, however, no consensus as to the interpretation of the designation ‘Zoroastrianism,’ whether applied at the inception of the religion or at subsequent stages.”1 Zoroastrians themselves call their religion Daēna māzdayasni, “the Vision(-soul) of those who sacrifice to Ahura Mazdā,” and regard it as the “cosmic Girdle (kusti), who is also among the battling gods[.]”2 “Zoroastrian” can suggest, for one thing, that this is what Achaemenid Persians and their historical successors, from the people who composed the Avesta onwards, called themselves, which is not the case; it can suggest that our sources for Zoroastrian beliefs, rituals, and traditions exist in a “pure” state untouched by contact with other religious cultures, which they do not. Here, I find an immediate kinship with Zoroastrians: just as their tradition continues to subsist after the loss of innumerable texts and traditional lifeways that helped contextualize and inform what their faith is about, so, too, Jews and Christians live in the aftermath of the disaster of the destruction of the Second Temple and irreparable losses in our mutual and individual catalogues. And Zoroastrians generally welcome us to do so.
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