Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:09:44.409Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Divine procreation of the world in Zoroastrian Pahlavi texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2021

Amir Ahmadi
Amir Ahmadi*
Affiliation:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There are two schemes of creation in Zoroastrianism. According to one, Ohrmazd fashions the world in the manner of a skilful craftsman. According to the second, Ohrmazd gestates and gives birth to the world. This article is about the latter. The relevant Pahlavi texts are presented and discussed. The article argues that Pahlavi authors used macrocosm-microcosm correspondence theory to elaborate the doctrine from Avestan rudiments.

Keywords

Zoroastrian Pahlavi literatureCosmologyCreation mythMacrocosm-microcosm theoryTheogony
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , October 2021 , pp. 443 - 467
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agostini, D. and Thrope, S.. 2020. The Bundahišn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahmadi, A. 2020. “Zoroastrian doctrine of formation of heavenly bodies in Pahlavi texts”, Iranian Studies.Google Scholar
Ahmadi, A. 2021. “The standard doctrine of creation in Zoroastrian Pahlavi texts”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.10.1017/S1356186321000298CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Assmann, J. 1998. “Mono-, pan-, and cosmotheism: thinking the ‘One’ in Egyptian theology”, Orient 33, 130–49.10.5356/orient1960.33.130CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Assmann, J. 2001. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, H.W. 1971. Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bernabé, A. 2002. “La théogonie orphique du papyrus de Derveni”, Kernos 15, 91–129.Google Scholar
Bernabé, A. 2007. “The Derveni theogony: many questions and some answers”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 103, 99–133.Google Scholar
Bernabé, A. 2019. “The commentary of the Derveni Papyrus: pre-Socratic cosmogonies at work”, in Santamaría, M.A. (ed.), The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries. Leiden: Brill, 108–25.Google Scholar
Bickel, S. 1994. La cosmogonie égyptienne. Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires.Google Scholar
Bremmer, J. 2008a. “Canonical and alternative creation myths”, in Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East. Leiden: Brill, 1–18.10.1163/ej.9789004164734.i-426CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, J. 2008b. “Genesis 1.1: a Jewish response to a Persian challenge?”, in Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East. Leiden: Brill, 339–45.10.1163/ej.9789004164734.i-426.76CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brisson, L. 2003. “Sky, sex and sun. The meanings of αιδοιος / αιδοιον in the Derveni Papyrus”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 144, 19–29.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. 1999. “The logic of cosmogony”, in Buxton, R.G.A. (ed.), From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 87–106.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. 2004. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge Ma.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cereti, C.G. and MacKenzie, D.N.. 2003. “Except by battle: Zoroastrian cosmogony in the 1st Chapter of the Greater Bundahišn”, in Cereti, C.G., Maggi, M. and Provasi, E. (eds), Religious Themes and Texts of Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia in Honour of G. Gnoli. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 31–59.Google Scholar
Cross, F.M. 1997. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Bible: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge Ma.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, P.R. 1992. In Search of Ancient Israel, Sheffield: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Detienne, M. 2003. The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Fazilat, F. 2004. Dinkard. Book III (113–194). Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Mehrāyīn.Google Scholar
Geldner, F. 1885–96. Avesta: The Sacred Books of the Parsis. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.Google Scholar
George, A.R. 2016. “Cosmogony in ancient Mesopotamia”, in Gindhart, M. and Pommerening, T. (eds), Anfang & Ende: vormoderne Szenarien von Weltenstehung und Weltuntergang. Darmstadt: von Zabern, 7–25.Google Scholar
Gignoux, P. 1994. “La doctrine du macrocosme-microcosme et ses origines gréco-gnostiques”, in Vavroušek, P. (ed.), Iranian and Indo-European Studies: Memorial Volume of Otakar Klíma. Prague: Enigma Corporation, 27–52.Google Scholar
Gignoux, P. 2001. Man and Cosmos in Ancient Iran. Rome: Istituto Italiano per L'Africa e L'Oriente.Google Scholar
Gignoux, P. and Tafazzoli, A.. 1993. Anthologie de Zādspram. Leuven-Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar
Gonda, J. 1975. Vedic Literature (Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Grabbe, L.L. 2007. Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? New York: T&T Clark.Google Scholar
Hintze, A. 2007. “The fire Wāzišt and the demon”, in Macuch, M., Maggi, M. and Sundermann, W. (eds), Iranian Languages and Texts from Iran and Turan. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 119–34.Google Scholar
Hintze, A. 2014. “Monotheism the Zoroastrian way”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24, 225–49.Google Scholar
Hornung, E. 1996. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, trans. Baines, J.. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Jamison, S.W. and Brereton, J.P.. 2014. The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kellens, J. 2008. “Les cosmogonies iraniennes : entre héritage et innovation”, in Huber, B., Volkart, M. and Widmer, P. (eds), Chomolangma, Demawend und Kasbek. Halle: IITBS, 505–12.Google Scholar
Kellens, J. 2014. “Sur l'origine des Aməṣ̌as Spəṇtas”, Studia Iranica 43, 163–75.Google Scholar
Kellens, J. 2016. Cinq cours sur les Yašts de l'Avesta. Paris: Association pour l'avancement des études iraniennes.Google Scholar
Kirk, G.S., Raven, J.E. and Schofield, M., eds, 2007. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kouremenos, T., Parássoglou, G.M. and Tsantsanoglou, K.. 2006. The Derveni Papyrus. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore.Google Scholar
Lambert, W.G. 2013. Babylonian Creation Myths. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar
Larrington, C. 2001. “Vafþrúðnismál and Grímnismál: Cosmic history, cosmic geography”, in Acker, P. and Larrington, C. (eds), The Poetic Edda: Essays on Old Norse Mythology. London: Routledge, 59–78.Google Scholar
Lévi, S. 1898. La doctrine du sacrifice dans les Brâhmaṇas. Paris: Ernest Leroux.Google Scholar
Lincoln, B. 1986. Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction. Cambridge Ma.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, G.E.R. 1975. “The Hippocratic Question”, The Classical Quarterly 25, 171–92.10.1017/S0009838800030032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malamoud, C. 2002. Le jumeau solaire. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
de Menasce, P.J. 1945. Škand-gumānīk Vičār. La solution décisive des doutes: une apologétique mazdéenne du XIe siècle. Fribourg: Librairie de l'université.Google Scholar
Michalowski, P. 1990. “Presence at the Creation”, in Abusch, T., Huehnergard, J. and Steinkeller, P. (eds), Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran. Leiden: Brill, 381–96.Google Scholar
Morenz, S. 2004. Egyptian Religion. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Narten, J. 1982. Die Aməṣ̌a Spəṇtas im Avesta. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Nazari-Fārsāni, M. 2018. Ketāb-e Hashtom-e Dēnkard: Āvānevisi, Tarjomeh, Yāddāsht, va Vāzheh-nāmeh. Tehran: Enteshārāt-e Fravahr.Google Scholar
Pakzad, F. 2005. Bundahišn: Zoroastrische Kosmogonie und Kosmologie. Tehran: Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia.Google Scholar
Panaino, A. 2020. “The conceptual image of the planets in ancient Iran and the process of their demonization”, NTM Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Technik und Medizin 28, 359–89.10.1007/s00048-020-00244-wCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pender, E.E. 2010. “Chaos corrected: Hesiod in Plato's creation myth”, in Boys-Stones, G.R. and Haubold, J.H. (eds), Plato and Hesiod. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 219–45.Google Scholar
Plato. 2008. Timaeus and Critias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rochberg, F. 2020. “Mesopotamian cosmology”, in Snell, D.C. (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient Near East. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 305–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubio, G. 2013. “Time before time: primeval narratives in early Mesopotamian literature”, in Feliu, L., Llop, J., Albà, A. Millet and Sanmartín, J. (eds), Time and History in the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 3–18.Google Scholar
Santamaría, M.A. 2016. “A phallus hard to swallow: the meaning of ΑΙΔΟΙΣ/-ΟΝ in the Derveni Papyrus”, Classical Philology 111, 139–64.Google Scholar
Santamaría, M.A. 2019. “The Orphic poem of the Derveni Papyrus and Hesiod's theogony”, in Santamaría, M.A. (ed.), The Derveni Papyrus: Unearthing Ancient Mysteries. Leiden: Brill, 47–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schluderer, L.R. 2018. “Imitating the cosmos: the role of microcosm-macrocosm relationships in the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen”, The Classical Quarterly 68, 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedley, D. 2009. “Hesiod's theogony and Plato's Timaeus”, in Boys-Stones, G.R. and Haubold, J.H. (eds), Plato and Hesiod. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 246–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J.Z. 1982. “A pearl of great price and a cargo of yams: a study in situational incongruity”, in Imagining Religion. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 90–101.Google Scholar
Smith, M.S. 2001. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starý, J. 2012. “Veni, vidi, mori: the Eddic poem Grímnismál as a dramatic and mythological unity”, AUC Philologica 1, 7–35.Google Scholar
Tardieu, M. 1984. Écrits gnostiques: Codex de Berlin. Paris: Éditions de Cerf.Google Scholar
Traunecker, C. 2001. The Gods of Egypt. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Traunecker, C. 2004. “L'anticipation dans la pensée de l’Égypt antique : à propos du texte de la Théologie memphite”, in L'Anticipation. À l'horizon du Présent. Sprimont: HAL Archive ouverte en Science de l'Homme et de la Société, 253–69.Google Scholar
West, M. 1984. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, A. 1990. The Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān ī Dēnig. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.Google Scholar
Witzel, M. 2012. The Origins of the World's Mythologies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wyatt, N. 1996. Myths of Power: A Study of Royal Myth and Ideology in Ugaritic and Biblical Tradition. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag.Google Scholar