ZOROASTER

born c. 628 BC, probably Rhages, Iran died c. 551, site unknown Old Iranian Zarathushtra, or Zarathustra Iranian religious reformer and founder of Zoroastrianism, or Parsiism, as it is known in India. (See Zoroastrianism; Parsi.) Additional reading J. Duchesne-Guillemin, L'Iran antique et Zoroastre, in Histoire des religions 1, vol. 29 of Encyclopdie de la Pliade, pp. 625695 (1970), and La Religion de l'Iran ancien (1962), two works by a leading Iranist scholarthe first volume includes a selected bibliography, the second volume presents a very large bibliography and an excellent history of studies of Zoroastrianism; G. Dumzil, L'Idologie tripartie des Indo-Europens (1958), the work of a French scholar of comparative mythology concerning Indo-European culture; R.N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (1963), concentrates on Zoroaster and the respective religious sources, based on the findings of archaeological and epigraphic investigations; J. Gershevitsch, Zoroaster's Own Contribution, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 23:1238 (1964); E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947, reprinted 1974); M. Mol, Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans l'Iran ancien (1963), upholds certain connections between ritual texts and individual and cosmological eschatology; G. Widengren, Die Religionen Irans (1965), by a leading Iranist and Semitist; R.C. Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), describes the later evolution of Zurvanism and deals with a later stage in the Zoroastrian religion that became the official religion of the Sasanian period.