zoroaster

Indeed, Zoroaster has really been dropping the ball in matters regarding sorghum.

I have an old sampler religious text and inside the cover is The Golden Rule in every major religion--I want to say there are ten or a dozen of them, from Zoroaster to the Bhagavad Gita.

There is the pure Zoroastrianism of the early Hakhamanish Empire and in particular Dariush the Great who was single-mindedly devoted to Ahura-Mazda [1], the name by which the prophet Zoroaster knew God.

I really thought Nietzsche had taken the real Zoroaster as basis, but you're right (as well as the other sibling commentator), it seems to be just the name.

It is important to note that during this empire the original Zoroastrianism seems to have been a trace memory - many of the secondary scriptures attributed to Zoroaster - the name means Golden Star or the Sun btw - were in fact written in this era.

> Joseph Campbell, writing in the journal Daedalus in 1959, says it was the Persian philosopher Zoroaster (circa 600 BC) who put the seal on the concept of darkness being evil.

While I recommend Nietzsche's book, too (I think it's one of the most beautiful works written in German just from the perspective of language), I doubt his character has much in common with the original Zoroaster beyond the name.

Zoroaster was very simply framed as one of the prophets that the Muslim scripture asserts has been sent to "every nation" by God.

Owing to the reform of the Prophet Zoroaster, no ahura was any longer allowed to exist in his own right, and Ahura Mazdah, the "Wise Lord", was raised to the position of the one true God, maker of heaven and earth and all that in them is.

Zoroaster (also Zarathustra) is also the character at the center of the famous book by Nietzsche "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (I recommend it), which itself inspired the symphonic poem (with the same name -- I recommend to listen to it entirely too) from Richard Strauss, that everyone knows as the opening theme of Kubric's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (that I recommend too).

"Ficino saw his thought as part of a long development of philosophical truth, of ancient pre-Platonic philosophers (including Zoroaster, Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Aglaophemus and Pythagoras) who reached their peak in Plato." So now the peak is supposedly Plato, not Osirus, Christ, Mohammed, or a Hindu diety.

Funny, just a couple weeks ago a friend recommended Gore Vidal's historical novel Creation, where the author is a grandson of Zoroaster.

The religion of Zoroaster, in the context of Eran Shahr (Land of Iran/Arya), has 3 distinct phases.

Nowruz is celebrated by many Iranian-speaking peoples, even ones who had little historical connection to Zoroaster's reforms.