Which
religion has kept a sacred fire burning for over 1,000 years?
(the 3-minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U. at Interfaith Paths to Peace)
Hint:
this religion’s followers might be (mistakenly) thought to worship a type of
Japanese car.
The
correct answer is Zoroastrianism, a monotheistic religion that began in the 6th
Century BCE in what is now Iran. Its followers use fire as a key symbol of
ritual purity and they have kept a flame burning at the Fire Temple in the Iranian
city of Yazd for 10 centuries. Mazdans are required to feed their eternal flame
five times a day, and (in a way similar to Islamic practice) they also pray
five times a day.
In
respect for their beliefs, we should actually call the followers of this
religion “Mazdans,” in recognition that their name for the deity is Ahura
Mazda. To call them “Zoroastrians,” is equivalent to calling Muslims,
“Mohammadans,” something that the followers of Islam find offensive because it
implies that they worship the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims don’t worship the
Prophet; and Mazdans don’t worship Zoroaster who was the founding prophet of
their religion.
Mazdaism
rivals Judaism as the oldest monotheistic religion. Its theology is built
around an on-going struggle between good (represented by Ahrua Mazda) and evil (represented
by a being called Ahura Mainyu). The good news is that in this struggle it is
understood that good will ultimately triumph. This struggle between good and
evil results in a strong emphasis on ethical behavior among Mazdans, who
believe that the balance between their ethical and unethical behavior will
determine whether they go to what people in the West would call heaven or hell.
Today, Mazdans are well known and even revered for their highly ethical conduct.
The
source of beliefs and practices for Mazdans is a set of scriptures called the
“Avesta” that contains hymns, prescriptions for ethical behavior, and
descriptions of ritual practices. The symbol used to represent Mazdaism is a
male figure emerging from a disk embedded in the spread wings and tail of a
bird.
One
of the most unusual practices of this religion is its way of dealing with the
dead. Soon after an individual expires, that person’s body is taken to a sacred
building called The Tower of Silence. In this Tower the body—devoid of
clothing—is left in the open air where its flesh is devoured by vultures. The
remaining bones are allowed to dry and are later placed in a central well inside
the Tower.
Although
Mazdaism became the official religion of the Persian Empire soon after its
birth, the number of its followers shrank remarkably after the coming of Islam
in the 7th Century CE. Today there are fewer than 200,000
Zoroastrians on the planet, most of them in Iran or India.
