Kushti

The kushti[a] (/ˈkuːʃtiː/) also known as kosti, kusti and kustig is the sacred girdle worn by invested Zoroastrians around their waists.

[3] The use of the kushti may have existed among the prophet Zarathushtra's earliest followers due to their prior familiarity with practices of the proto-Indo-Iranian-speaking peoples, and its Vedic analogue, the yajñopavita.

Contrarily, the Dādestān ī dēnīg (39.18–19) claims that it was first used by the legendary Pishdadian ruler Jamshid (Yima xšaēta), centuries before Zarathustra was born.

The kushti is made of 72 fine, white and woolen threads, which represent the 72 chapters of the Yasna, the primary liturgical collection of texts of the Avesta.

Since the 1920s, non-priestly (behdin) Zoroastrian women in Yazd province in Iran, were trained in the procedure of weaving the kushti.

[6] In keeping with Zoroastrian philosophy exalting happiness, the process of weaving the kushti is a joyous activity during which the women sing songs, laugh and share stories, both religious and secular.

sudra, sudre), and ties a kustig over it, which symbolises both the transition to adulthood and acceptance of responsibility for religious deed thereafter.

The failure to wear the cord and undershirt is then considered a tanāpuhl (sin), because it leaves the wearer exposed to evil.

Ākā Adhyāru in the third of his sixteen slogans, considers it to be a "coat of mail armour" and writing for Hindu audience he compares the act of tying the kusti to "ablution in the [holy river] Ganges.

[4] The devotee should look to the east from dawn to midday and west until sunset, (toward the sun) whilst untying and tying the kushti.

The second section is known as the Nīrang ī kustīg bastan/abzūdan, or "rite for tying the holy cord," and it is recited as the kushti is retied.

A brief Avestan stanza that praises Ahura Mazda and scorns Angra Mainyu concludes this prayer, followed by a line taken from Y.

The third section, which starts with the declaration Jasa mē avaŋhe Mazdā, is the Zoroastrian confession of faith (MPers.

[4] There is some evidence to suggest that such girdles were worn by non-Muslims in general, including Christians, as a symbol to mark them out from Muslims.

[10] An exception to this would be the Muslim Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great, who was invested with a kusti and sedreh by the Zoroastrian Parsi community of Gujarat.