Ancient Iranian religion
Beginning in the early 10th century BC, the ancient Iranian religion was gradually displaced by Zoroastrianism, which contains some aspects of its predecessor.
Summaries of its content reveal that it was a huge collection containing texts not only in Avestan, but also in Pahlavi, which was the language of Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian Empire.
Another Iranian source are royal inscriptions of the Achaemenid Empire made in the Old Persian (with Akkadian, Aramaic and Elamite translations).
Except from the Achaemenid inscriptions, there is no evidence that the Iranian religious compositions were written until the late Parthian or Sasanian period.
The earliest religious texts of the related Indo-Aryan peoples are indispensable for reconstructing the historical development of the ancient Iranian religion.
They provide a mass of evidence of imperial articulation of religious symbols and indicate a significant dependence on Middle Eastern precedents.
During the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, one group of Indo-Europeans migrated southwards from Central Asian Steppe into the Iranian plateau and the Indian Subcontinent.
The Iranian peoples were originally seminomadic pastoralists whose main economic base was cattle, chiefly bovines but also goats and sheep.
The fact that Zoroastrianism was heavily inspired by existing ideas and had adapted from previous Iranian religions makes the distinction difficult to discern.
He advises Yama to build a large three-story barn-like structure (vara) in order to hold seeds of plants and pairs of animals.
It seems that the vara were actually some sort of paradise or blessed island, even though the story at first developed as myth among pastoralists about the culture hero building a first winter cattle station.
Zoroaster appears to have been the first religious figure to develop an eschatological myth about a future saviour to rescue the world from evil.
In his inscriptions, Darius derives his source of authority from Ahura Mazda and makes it clear that political stability and order through law imitates the model set out by the Creator.
In the hymn of the goddess Rti (Reward), Ahura Mazda is identified as her father and Spenta Ariamati (Earth) as her mother.
This implies that he has assumed the role of the Indo-European Father Heaven (*Diēus Pater, Vedic Dyaus Pitar), who is paired with Mother Earth.
In the eastern Iranian traditions laid out in the Avesta, Mithra also appears to have a connection to the sun, especially with the first rays of sunrise as he drives forward in his chariot.
As an independent deity, Mithra carried the standing epithet varu-gavyuti, which means "one who (presides over) wide pasture lands".
One of the longest of the Avestan Yashts is devoted to a goddess whose name is given as Ardvi Sura Anahita, which means "the damp, strong, untainted".
The Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar is a likely candidate in this regard, although Anahiti's dress, in particular her beaver coat, shows major differences.
Anahiti is described as a patron of Iranian heroes and legendary rulers and her Yasht is strongly devoted to her martial traits.
Though the heliacal rising of Sirius is assumed to have occurred during the season of drought, his chief myth concerns a battle between him and the demonic star Apausha ("Nonprosperity") over rainfall and water.
In Zoroastrianism Tishrya was in late Achaemenid times identified with the western Astral deity Tiri (Mercury in Sassanid astronomy).
In sharp contrast to other people of the Middle East, but similar to their Vedic relatives in India, the Iranians neither made images of their deities or built temples to house them.
The seat provided for the gods invited to yazna originally consisted of special grasses spread on the ground in front of the altar.
This means that the ancient poetry of the Indo-Iranians was religious in nature and composed specifically for ritual occasions in which gods required songs of praise in order to make them well disposed towards those who worshipped them.
The obscure parts of many Vedic hymns and Zoroaster's Gathas can best be understood through realizing that the intended audience were the gods rather than humans.
Although is uncertain whether this is a pre-Zoroastrian concept, it shows in that in Iranian religion human nature was considered essentially good.
In addition to the body (tanu), an individual was believed to consist of a number of spiritual elements that basically fall under the category of souls.
Depending on how the person's deeds are weighed, the soul is either crossed safely across the Cinvat Bridge to the other world or descends into the abyss.
The magi were probably responsible with introducing dualist ideology and enforcing zealous preoccupation with ritual purity in Zoroastrianism.
