It is hard to know whether these prescriptions were ever followed by a majority. Nearly all the activities of daily life involving the body such as meals, bowel movements, and sex are more or less strictly ruled by rituals. A recent empirical study has shown that 95% of Zoroastrians in Mumbai pray every day, many of them apparently for more than an hour. Prayer is still part of everyday life for most Zoroastrians. At least five times a day, prayers and short purification rites have to be performed. The day begins with a prayer and a purification ritual, and it ends as it began: with a prayer. The moral and ritual action has direct consequences for the soul’s journey to the other world.Īccording to the religious ideal the daily routine of a pious Zoroastrian is permeated by ritual duties. For example, while one can escape with 200 whip lashes and 200 scourge lashes for starving a sheep dog, the killing of a sheep dog cannot be atoned for: When the soul of the sinner goes to the hereafter, it will moan like a wolf caught in a pit, but despite its moaning no other soul will come to its help even the dogs guarding the bridge to the hereafter will not come to help (V.

Some misdeeds, however, are seen to be so serious that they cannot be atoned for. The sins committed will be paid for through these punishments. Moreover, the text discusses the severity of the respective transgressions against this code of behaviour and prescribes rather detailed and sometimes seemingly quite draconian punishments. As we have seen, the Avestan Vidēvdāt contains several abstract and numerous actual instructions for acting-for example, one has to be generous and not pee too far when urinating (as in Sraosha’s conversation with the Lie). The divine legitimation is accompanied by the description of Mithra’s actions in guarding, punishing and rewarding the desired form of action.

Thus, for example, in the Mithra-hymn Ahura Mazdā calls upon Zarathustra never to break contracts (not even those with “bad” people). The cited sources present the desired forms of “good” behaviour as divine revelations or orders by Ahura Mazdā, in which Zarathustra emerges as the prototypical recipient of these instructions. We have already encountered moral precepts several times.

Nietzsche zoroaster