Zoroastrian in the context of Good and evil

Frashokereti (Avestan: 𐬟𐬭𐬀𐬴𐬋⸱𐬐𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬙𐬌 frašō.kərəti) is the Avestan language term (corresponding to Middle Persian 𐭯𐭫𐭱(𐭠)𐭪𐭥𐭲 fraš(a)gird <plškrt>) for the Zoroastrian doctrine of a final renovation of the universe, when evil will be destroyed, and everything else will be then in perfect unity with God (Ahura Mazda).

The doctrinal premises are (1) good will eventually prevail over evil; (2) creation was initially perfectly good, but was subsequently corrupted by evil; (3) the world will ultimately be restored to the perfection it had at the time of creation; (4) the "salvation for the individual depended on the sum of [that person's] thoughts, words and deeds, and there could be no intervention, whether compassionate or capricious, by any divine being to alter this." Thus, each human bears the responsibility for the fate of his own soul, and simultaneously shares in the responsibility for the fate of the world.

Sky burial (Tibetan: བྱ་གཏོར་, Wylie: bya gtor, lit. "bird-scattered") is a funeral practice in which a corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements, or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially crows, vultures, bears and jackals. Comparable excarnation practices are part of Zoroastrian burial rites where deceased are exposed to the elements and scavenger birds on stone structures called Dakhma. Sky burials are endemic to Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Inner Mongolia, as well as in Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan, and parts of India such as Sikkim and Zanskar. The locations of preparation and sky burial are understood in the Vajrayana Buddhist traditions as charnel grounds. Few such places remain operational today, as the practice was completely banned during the Cultural Revolution as a superstitious practice; in modern times, the practice is regulated by the Chinese Communist Party due to the ongoing decline of vulture populations.

The majority of Tibetan people and many Mongols adhere to Vajrayana Buddhism, which teaches the transmigration of spirits. In this tradition there is no need to preserve the body, as it becomes an empty vessel upon death. Birds may eat it or nature may cause it to decompose. The function of the sky burial is simply to dispose of the remains in as generous a way as possible (the origin of the practice's Tibetan name). In much of Tibet and Qinghai, the ground is too hard and rocky to dig a grave, and due to the scarcity of fuel and timber, sky burials were typically more practical than the traditional Buddhist practice of cremation, which has been limited to high lamas and some other dignitaries.

Georgian mythology (Georgian: ქართული მითოლოგია, romanized: kartuli mitologia) refers to the mythology of pre-Christian Georgians (/kʌrtˈvɛliənz/; Georgian: ქართველები, romanized: kartvelebi, pronounced [ˈkʰaɾtʰvelebi]), an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. The mythology of the Kartvelian peoples is believed by many scholars to have formed part of the religions of the kingdoms of Diauehi, Colchis and Iberia.

Later influences include the mythologies of the Ancient Greeks, the Vainakh peoples and Iranians – the last-named comprising both the belief systems of the Northern Iranian nomad Scythians and Sarmatians (still preserved to some extent in the mythology of their descendants the Ossetians) and that of the Zoroastrian religion of the Ancient Persian empire, which has left an enduring legacy among the nations of the Caucasus. (See also Iranian religions)

Yazd (Persian: یزد; [jæzd] ) is a city in the Central District of Yazd County, Yazd province, Iran, serving as capital of the province, the county, and the district. At the 2016 census, its population was 529,673. Since 2017, the historical city of Yazd is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Because of generations of adaptations to its desert surroundings, Yazd is known for its Persian architecture. It is nicknamed the "City of Windcatchers" (شهر بادگیرها Shahr-e Badgirha) from its many examples. It is also very well known for its Zoroastrian fire temples, ab anbars (cisterns), qanats (underground channels), yakhchals (coolers), Persian handicrafts, handwoven cloth (Persian termeh), silk weaving, Persian cotton candy, and its time-honored confectioneries. Yazd is also known as City of Bicycles, because of its early adoption of cycling, and its boasting the highest number of bicycles per capita in Iran. It is reported that bicycle culture in Iran originated in Yazd as a result of contact with European visitors and tourists in the nineteenth century.

Peroz I (Middle Persian: 𐭯𐭩𐭫𐭥𐭰, romanized: Pērōz) was the Sasanian King of Kings (shahanshah) of Iran from 459 to 484. A son of Yazdegerd II (r. 438–457), he rejected the rule of his elder brother and incumbent king Hormizd III (r. 457–459), eventually seizing the throne after a two-year struggle. His reign was marked by war and famine. Early in his reign, he successfully quelled a rebellion in Caucasian Albania in the west, and put an end to the Kidarites in the east, briefly expanding Sasanian rule into Tokharistan, where he issued gold coins with his likeness in Balkh. At the same time Iran was suffering from a seven-year famine. He soon clashed with the former subjects of the Kidarites: the Hephthalites, who possibly would have helped him gain the throne initially. He was defeated and captured twice by the Hephthalites and as a result lost his recently acquired gains.

In 482, revolts broke out in the western provinces of Armenia and Iberia, led by Vahan Mamikonian and Vakhtang I respectively. Before Peroz could quell the unrest there, he was defeated and killed in his third war with the Hephthalites in 484, who seized the main Sasanian cities of the eastern region of Khorasan−Nishapur, Herat and Marw. Taking advantage of the weakened Sasanian position in the east, the Nezak Huns subsequently seized the region of Zabulistan. Peroz was the last shahanshah to mint unique gold coins in the Indian region of Sindh, which indicates that the region was lost around the same period. Albeit a devout Zoroastrian, Peroz supported the newly established Christian sect of Nestorianism, and just before his death, it was declared the official doctrine of the Iranian church.

Atropatene (Old Persian: Ātṛpātakāna; Middle Persian: Ādurbādagān; Ancient Greek: Ἀτροπατηνή), also known as Atropatia or Atropatian Media (Ancient Greek: Ἀτροπάτιος Μηδία, romanized: Atropátios Mēdía; Latin: Media Atropatene), was an ancient Iranian kingdom established in c. 323 BC by the Persian satrap Atropates (Old Persian: *Ātṛpāta). The kingdom, centered in present-day Azerbaijan region in northwestern Iran, was ruled by Atropates' descendants until the early 1st-century AD, when the Parthian Arsacid dynasty supplanted them. It was conquered by the Sasanians in 226, and turned into a province governed by a marzban ("margrave"). Atropatene was the only Iranian region to remain under Zoroastrian authority from the Achaemenids to the Arab conquest without interruption, aside from being briefly ruled by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 BC).

The Old Persian name Ātṛpātakāna is the direct ancestor of the name of the historic Azerbaijan region in Iran.

Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An example of the different developments is provided by the words for "hundred" found in the early attested Indo-European languages (which is where the two branches get their names). In centum languages, they typically began with a /k/ sound (Latin centum was pronounced with initial /k/), but in satem languages, they often began with /s/ (the example satem comes from the Avestan language of Zoroastrian scripture).

The table below shows the traditional reconstruction of the PIE dorsal consonants, with three series, but according to some more recent theories there may actually have been only two series or three series with different pronunciations from those traditionally ascribed. In centum languages, the palatovelars, which included the initial consonant of the "hundred" root, merged with the plain velars. In satem languages, they remained distinct, and the labiovelars merged with the plain velars.

Middle Persian literature is the corpus of written works composed in Middle Persian, that is, the Middle Iranian dialect of Persia proper, the region in the south-western corner of the Iranian plateau. Middle Persian was the prestige dialect during the Sasanian era. It is the largest source of Zoroastrian literature.

The Sasanian dynasty (224–654 CE) were natives of that south-western region, and through their political and cultural influence, Middle Persian became a prestige dialect and thus also came to be used by non-Persian Iranians. Following the Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in the 7th century, shortly after which Middle Persian began to evolve into New Persian, Middle Persian continued to be used by the Zoroastrian priesthood for religious and secular compositions. These compositions, in the Aramaic-derived Book Pahlavi script, are traditionally known as "Pahlavi literature". The earliest texts in Zoroastrian Middle Persian were probably written down in the late Sasanian era (6th–7th centuries), although they represent the codification of earlier oral tradition. However, most texts, including the Zend commentaries and translations of the Zoroastrian canon, date from the 9th to the 11th century, when Middle Persian had long ceased to be a spoken language, so they reflect the state of affairs in living Middle Persian only indirectly. The surviving manuscripts are usually 14th-century copies.

Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries or the Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion focused on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the degree of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice remains debatable.The mysteries were popular among the Imperial Roman army from the 1st to the 4th century AD.

Worshippers of Mithras had a complex system of seven grades of initiation and communal ritual meals. Initiates called themselves syndexioi, those "united by the handshake". They met in dedicated mithraea (singular mithraeum), underground temples that survive in large numbers. The cult appears to have had its centre in Rome, and was popular throughout the western half of the empire, as far south as Roman Africa and Numidia, as far east as Roman Dacia, as far north as Roman Britain, and to a lesser extent in Roman Syria in the east.

Sasan (Middle Persian 𐭮𐭠𐭮𐭠𐭭 Sāsān > Persian ساسان), considered the eponymous ancestor of the Sasanian (or Sassanid) Dynasty (ruled 224–651) in Persia, was "a great warrior and hunter" and a Zoroastrian high priest in Pars. He lived sometime near the fall of the Arsacid (Parthian) Empire in the early 3rd century.

The Kār-Nāmag ī Ardašīr ī Pāpagān (Book of the Deeds of Ardashir, Son of Papag) is a short Middle Persian prose tale written in the Sasanian period (226–651). It tells the story of Ardashir I, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, including his rise to the throne, battle against the Parthian king Artabanus IV, and conquest of the Parthian Empire. It also contains sections about his successor Shapur and the latter’s son, Hormizd.

According to the Kar-Namag, after Ardashir was born to Sasan and the daughter of Pabag, he spent his childhood in the court of Artabanus IV of Parthia and then ran away with a maidservant of the king. After several wars with Artabanus, Ardashir I defeated and killed the king, after which he founded the new empire. The Kar-Namag is permeated with Zoroastrian doctrine.

The Ministry of Minority Affairs is the ministry in the Government of India which was carved out of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and created on 29 January 2006. It is the apex body for the central government's regulatory and developmental programmes for the minority religious communities and minority linguistic communities in India, which include Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains notified as minority religious communities in The Gazette of India under Section 2(c) of the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.

The current minister is Kiren Rijiju who has been in office since 10 June 2024, and the Minister of State is George Kurian (since June 2024).

The Dabuyid dynasty, or Gaubarid dynasty, was a Zoroastrian Iranian dynasty that started in the first half of the 7th century as an independent group of rulers who ruled over Tabaristan and parts of western Khorasan. Dabuyid rule over Tabaristan and Khorasan lasted from around 642 to the Abbasid conquest in 760.

Hormizd IV (also spelled Hormozd IV or Ohrmazd IV; Middle Persian: 𐭠𐭥𐭧𐭥𐭬𐭦𐭣) was the King of Kings of Sasanian Iran from 579 to 590. He was the son and successor of Khosrow I (r. 531–579) and his mother was a Khazar princess.

During his reign, Hormizd IV had the high aristocracy and Zoroastrian priesthood slaughtered while supporting the landed gentry (the dehqans). His reign was marked by constant warfare: to the west, he fought a long and indecisive war with the Byzantine Empire, which had been ongoing since the reign of his father; and to the east, the Iranian general Bahram Chobin successfully contained and defeated the Western Turkic Khaganate during the First Perso-Turkic War. It was also during Hormizd IV's reign that the Chosroid dynasty of Iberia was abolished. After negotiating with the Iberian aristocracy and winning their support, Hormizd successfully incorporated Iberia into the Sasanian Empire.