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A New Contribution to the Materials concerning the Life of Zoroaster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

The life of Zoroaster has been the subject of both comprehensive and exhaustive study since Hyde and Anquetil. The amount written on this difficult question and the discussions which have takenp lace among scholars are disproportionate to the insufficient and fragmentary materials which we possess. Even the available data are lacking in precision and are not very reliable. However, every old document available relating to Zoroaster has been carefully examined and most of them collected by students of Iranian history. The outstanding collection of these scattered fragments, so far, is the famous work of Professor A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran, to which some subsequent additions have been made by the author himself, his pupils, and others.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1937

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References

page 949 note 1 apparently.

page 949 note 2 A word or two seems to be missing from here, perhaps we must read

page 949 note 3 Read

page 951 note 1 The words in parentheses throughout the translation are added by myself.

page 951 note 2 The text has which is given in dictionaries as meaning a particoloured gown of wool with stripes of figures, but I presume is used here as meaning a veil.

page 951 note 3 The text has but I presume the correct reading is

page 951 note 4 Lit. the nearest of the relations.

page 951 note 5 The well-known author of Marzban Nameh. Biruni often mentioned his name as the source of his information about things relating to old Persia.

page 952 note 1 Lit. he did not legislate this.

page 952 note 2 Permitted.

page 952 note 3 This book, to which the Muhammadan authors on Astrology often refer, ascribing it to Zoroaster and sometimes quoting him without giving the title of the book, seems to be an apocryphal book attributed to him. The book, which must have contained old Persian Astrology, especially that part relating to nativity or horoscopes, might have been the work of some of the Persian Astrologers of the late Babylonian and Syrian schools in the Sassanian period who had the name of Zoroaster, which was not an uncommon name at that time. The materials derived from the book by Abu M‘ashar of Balkh and others show also some relation to Greek Astrology, perhaps coming through Harran. The oldest Arabian sources refer to this Zoroaster as Zaradusht the philosopher .

page 952 note 4 The well-known centre of a pagan community with the Hellenistic culture.

page 953 note 1 Possibly Ammonios Heremeias of Alexandria of the fifth century.

page 953 note 2 Possibly Philolaus, the famous Pythagorean and propagator of Pythagoreanism of the fifth century B.C.

page 953 note 3 I am unable to identify this person though it is a common Greek name.

page 953 note 4 Perhaps a miswriting of Zartush for Zaratushtra corresponding to Latin Zaratus and Greek Zaratos.

page 953 note 5 The text has but apparently it should be

page 953 note 6 Dhul-Aktāf, , the Sassanian King Shapūr II (310379).Google Scholar

page 953 note 7 This is the well-known Āturpat Mārspandan. As far as I know, this is the only place where the names of his grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather are mentioned.

page 954 note 1 The chapters of the Avesta.

page 954 note 2 The seven sections into which the Koran used to be divided for convenience.