Zarathustra
Zoroastrian · mortal · legendary · Recorded classification
The registry held Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu, all six Amesha Spentas, nine yazatas and fifteen figures of the Iranian legendary cycle, and not the man the religion is named after. No dates are given on this record, and that is deliberate: the date of Zarathustra is one of the longest-running unresolved questions in Iranian studies, with serious proposals ranging across roughly a thousand years, and any date written here would be picking a side in an argument this programme has no business settling. The era is 'legendary' because that is one of the two eras this tradition has registered, and it is the correct one of the two — but it should not be read as a claim that he did not exist.
Children
Domains
- prophecy and revelation
- priesthood
Relations
- ally: VishtaspaReciprocated in-batch. The relation is the founding fact of the religion's institutional history: a prophet with a patron is a religion, and a prophet without one is a poet.Reference treatment: the Gathas celebrate Kavi Vishtaspa as the prince patron of Zoroaster and the establisher of the first Zoroastrian community. (secondary)
Sources
- Zarathustra Spitama is the prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism, composer of the Gathas, patronised by Kavi Vishtaspa, and celebrant at the marriage of his daughter Pouruchista in Yasna 53.: Reference treatments of Zarathustra, of the Gathas, of Vishtaspa's patronage and of Yasna 53. (secondary)