Ancient Iranian religion

rdf:langString Ancient Iranian religion

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rdf:langString Description of Vrthraghna as a wild boar

rdf:langString [Vrthraghna is a] ferocious wild boar with sharp teeth and tusks, a boar that kills at one blow…who, overtaking his opponent…strikes down with a toss of his head…until he smashes the vertebrae, the pillars of life… mixes on the ground the bones, hair, brains, and blood.

rdf:langString [Ahura Mazda was] the great god... who created this earth, who created yonder heaven, who created man, who created happiness for man, who made Darius king.

rdf:langString Who is the original father of arta? Who established the paths of the sun and the stars? Who is it through whom the moon now waxes now wanes? Who supports the earth below and the heavens from falling down? Who yokes the two steeds to the wind and the clouds?... Who fashioned honoured Devotion together with Dominion? Who made... a son respectful of his father?

rdf:langString Inscription at Naqsh-e Rustam

rdf:langString Ancient Iranian religion or Iranian paganism, refers to the ancient beliefs and practices of the Iranian peoples before the rise of Zoroastrianism. The religion closest to it was the Historical Vedic religion (ancient Hinduism) that was practiced in the ancient Indian subcontinent. The major deities worshipped were Varuna and Mithra from Iran to Rome, but Agni was also worshipped, as names of kings and common public showing devotion to these three exist in most cases. But some sects, the precursors of the Magi, also worshipped Ahura Mazda, the chief of the Asuras. With the rise of Zoroaster and his new, reformatory religion; Assura Medha or Ahuramazda became the principle deities and Devas were relegated to the background. A lot of the attributes and commandments of Varuna, called Fahrana in Medean times, were later attributed to Ashura Medha by Zoroaster. The Iranian peoples emerged as a separate branch of the Indo-Iranians in the 2nd-millennium BC, during which they came to dominate the Eurasian Steppe and the Iranian Plateau. Their religion is derived from Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and therefore shares many similarities with the Vedic religion (archaic Hinduism) of India. Although the Iranian peoples left little written or material evidence of their religious practices, their religion is possible to reconstruct from scant Iranian, Babylonian and Greek accounts, similarities with Vedic and other Indo-European religions, and material evidence. Prior to the Achaemenid period, the daivas were also commonly worshipped. The Achaemenid kings made it a state policy to destroy their shrines and vilify them. Old Persian daiva occurs twice in Xerxes I's daiva inscription (XPh, early 5th century BCE). This trilingual text also includes one reference to a daivadana ("house of the daivas"), generally interpreted to be a reference to a shrine or sanctuary. In his inscription, Xerxes I records that "by the favor of Ahura Mazda I destroyed that establishment of the daivas and I proclaimed, 'The daivas thou shalt not worship!'" This statement has been interpreted either one of two ways. Either the statement is an ideological one and daivas were gods that were to be rejected, or the statement was politically motivated and daivas were gods that were followed by (potential) enemies of the state. Under the Achaemenids, Ahura Mazda received state patronage as the chief deity and the emperors became his representatives. Ahura Mazda was thus recognized as the creator of the world. Dualism was strongly emphasized and human nature was considered essentially good. The chief ritual of the ancient Iranians was the yasna, in which the deities were praised and the mind-altering drug hauma was consumed. This ritual was performed by a highly trained priestly class. Politics and religion under the Persian empires were strongly connected. Beginning in the early 10th century BC, the ancient Iranian religion was gradually displaced by Zoroastrianism, which contains some aspects of its predecessor.