Recently, I was in a discussion with a friend who felt we have so many factions within our miniscule community – there’s Shehenshahi, Kadmi and Fasli Zoroastrians. These mainly differ in terms of the Zoroastrian calendar and in some matters of religious rituals. Besides these three groups, there are observers of the Ilm-e-kshnoom way of Zoroastrian life and the Pundole group – both professing to be followers of the true religion of Zarathushtra. Both, the Kshnoomist and Pundole group, also believe in the theory of karma, chakra and rebirth. The purpose of today’s writeup is not to discuss the philosophy or ritual practices of these groups, but to celebrate diversity of religious thought within our community.

Interestingly, even when Zoroastrianism was the State religion of Iran, various schools of thought prevailed and some of these, even under Royal Patronage for a while. There was Zurvanism, Manicheism and Mazdakism.

Zurvanism

Zurvan (meaning time) was purported to be the father of Ormazd (the good spirit) and Ahriman (the evil spirit). According to scholars, this theory or heresy, if you please, arose from the argument that if, at the beginning, there were primal twins (one entirely good and one entirely evil), then there must also have been a creator or father of these twin spirits, and possibly Zurvan or Time, was the father.

Noted scholar of Zoroastrianism, Prof. Dr. Mary Boyce, shares, “Zurvanism was a deeply entrenched heresy which was to later weaken Zoroastrianism in its struggles with Christianity and Islam. It is also accepted that the heresy enjoyed Sasanian royal patronage, a fact which would help to explain its influence on many Gnostic faiths. The Zurvanite heresy disappeared some centuries after the invasion of Iran by Arab forces and arrival of Islam in Iran in the mid-seventh century CE.”

The cult of Zurvan had few rituals since Zurvan was believed to be a remote being, who had entrusted power in the world to Ohrmazd. The Zurvanite belief system produced no change in existing Zoroastrian worship. Zurvan is depicted as a winged, lion-headed deity, encircled by a serpent, representing the motion of the Sun.

The earliest mention of Zurvan appears in tablets dated around the thirteenth and twelfth century BC in the ancient city of Nuzi in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), where Zurvan was known as the god of growth, maturity, and decay.

Zurvanism, as a modified form of Zoroastrianism, appeared in Iran during the Sasanian dynasty (third to the mid seventh century A.D.). According to Zurvanism, time alone, being limitless, eternal, and uncreated, is the source of all things. This theory meant that Zurvan or Time created Ohrmazd and Ahriman, and the source of all evil is Ahriman and not Ohrmazd. In fact, Ohrmazd is seen to be in battle with Ahriman since the beginning.

Also, according to the Bundahishn (the Zoroastrian book of Genesis or Creation) finite time was created from infinite time to trap evil in this material world and ultimately render evil impotent by making this perfecting world perfect. In other words, the light of Ohrmazd dispelling the darkness of Ahriman.

Manichaeism

This was a dualistic movement founded in Iran around the beginning of the Sasanian dynasty in the third century AD, by ‘Mani’, a man reckoned by his followers as the ‘Apostle of Light’ and supreme ‘Illuminator.’ Born in southern Babylonia (now Iraq), at age twenty-four, he proclaimed he had a Divine Revelation and was obeying a divine order to manifest himself publicly and to proclaim his doctrine.

Mani viewed himself as the final successor in a long line of prophets and holy personages, including Zarathushtra, Buddha and Jesus. He viewed earlier revelations of the true religion as being limited in effectiveness because they were local, taught in one language and only to one people and later, adherents lost sight of the original truth. Mani regarded himself as the carrier of a universal message destined to replace all other religions. Hoping to avoid corruption and to ensure doctrinal unity, he recorded his teachings in writing and gave those writings canonical status during his lifetime.

At its core, Manichaeism was a type of Gnosticism which theorises that human beings are divine souls trapped in the ordinary physical (or material) world. To get free from the material world, a person must get gnosis or special secret knowledge given only to a special few.

Manichaeism offered salvation through special knowledge (gnosis) of spiritual truths. Like all forms of Gnosticism, Manichaeism taught that life in this world is unbearably painful and radically evil. In Manichaeism inner illumination reveals that the soul, which shares the nature of God, has fallen into the evil world of matter and must be saved by means of the spirit or intelligence. To know one’s self is to recover one’s true self, which is clouded by ignorance and lack of self-consciousness because of its mingling with the body and with matter.

According to Manichaeism, to know one’s self is to see one’s soul as sharing the very Nature of God as coming from a transcendental world. Knowing one’s true self and knowledge (usually occult or hidden knowledge) is the only way to salvation.

Mazdakism

Mazdak, the son of Bamdad, emerged during the reign of the Sasanian Monarch, Kawad I (498-531 AD). Scholars consider his theory regarding matters of property and ownership as proto-socialist/communist. Mazdakism was a socio-economic and religious reform movement that sought an optimistic interpretation of Manichaean dualism. According to Mazdakism, there exist two Original Principles, Good (or Light) and Evil (or Darkness). Light acts by free will and design, whereas Darkness acts blindly and by chance. By accident, the two got mixed, producing the world.

There are three Light elements: water, fire, and earth. The God of Light, who is to be worshiped, is enthroned in paradise, having four powers – perception, intelligence, memory, and joy. These rule over seven viziers and twelve spiritual beings, identical with the seven planets of antiquity and the twelve signs of the zodiac. The four powers (perception, intelligence, memory, and joy) are united in human beings, while the seven planets and twelve signs of the zodiac control the world. He preached that through right action human beings should seek to release Light in the world and this can be accomplished through moral conduct and leading an ascetic life.

Mazdak propagated vegetarianism and non-violence towards all. He urged his followers to be kind, hospitable and lenient even towards their foes. He promoted the concept of socio-economic ‘brotherhood’ to strike at the root of greed and strife. He went to the extreme of suggesting all property, wealth and women, should be made common or shared.

He converted to his clan the Sasanian king Kawad (Kobad) who introduced social reforms inspired by its tenets. These included liberalizing of marriage laws and of measures concerning property. These actions aroused the hostility of the aristocratic class and the orthodox Zoroastrian clergy. Ultimately, Kawad’s successor, Khosrow I also known as Anushirvan or Noshirwan, had Mazdak and some of his followers put to death. The cult however, secretly survived even after the fall of the Sasanian empire, up to the eighth century AD.