Zoroaster: Encyclopedia II - Zoroaster - Date of Zoroaster

Zoroaster - Date of Zoroaster

One of the most important, and dividing, of all issues regarding the Persian history is “the date of Zoroaster”, that is the date when he lived and composed his Gathas. Different sources ranging from linguistic evidence to textual sources and traditional dates have been used by various scholars to determine the date of Zoroaster. Accordingly, any date from the 6th century BC to 6000 BC has been suggested, although some with more merit than others. Here we shall look at the most prominent of these arguments.

A point of view held by many 19th century scholars, among them Taghizadeh and W. B. Henning and continued by Gnoli among others, is what is known as “the Traditional Date of Zoroaster”. This date, which was suggested in the Sassanian commentaries on the Avesta (Bundahišn), gives the date of Zoroaster's life as “258 years before Alexander the Great”.

However, from an early time, scholars such as Bartholomea and Christensen noticed the problems with the “Traditional Date”, namely the linguistic difficulties that it presents. As we know, Zoroaster himself composed the eighteen poems that make up the oldest parts of the Avesta, known as “the Gathas”. The language of the Gathas, as well as the text known as “Yasna Haptanghaiti” (the Seven Chapter Sermon), is called “Old Avestan” and is significantly different and more archaic than the language of the other parts of the Avesta, “Young Avestan”. On the other hand, Old Avestan is very close to the language of the Rig Veda (known as Vedic Sanskrit). The closeness in composition of Old Avestan and Vedic is so much that some parts of the Gathas can be transliterated to Vedic only by following the rules of sound change (such as the development of Indo-Iranian “s” to Avestan “h”). These similarities suggest that Old Avestan and Vedic were very close in time, probably putting Old Avestan at about one century after Vedic. Since the date of the composition of the Rig Veda has been put at somewhere between the 15th century BC to the 12th century BC, we can also assume that the Gathas were composed close to that time, at sometime before 1000 BC.

Furthermore, a look at the Gathas and their composition shows us that the society in which they were composed was a nomadic society that lived at a time prior to settlement in large urban areas and depended greatly on pastoralism. This would stand sharply apart from the view of a Zoroaster living in the court of an Achaemenid satrap such as Wištaspa. Also, the absence of any mention of Achaemenids or even any West Iranian tribes such as Medes and Persians, or even Parthians, in the Gathas makes it unlikely that historical Zoroaster ever lived in the court of a 6th century satrap. It is possible that Zoroaster lived sometime in the 13th century BC to the 11th century BC, prior to the settlement of Iranian tribes in the central and west of the Iranian Plateau.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Date of Zoroaster", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki