History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 45

Those who further the work of the final restoration. The work of regenerating the world, which was commenced by Gayomard, the first man, and was looked forward to from the time of the Gathas, will be brought to completion and perfection by Soshyos, the last saviour.^[1] With Gayomard the curtain rose on the human drama. It will fall with the advent of Soshyos. Gayomard, Jamshid, Zaratusht, and all pious men who have worked for the betterment of the universe are among those that help in bringing about the final renovation.^[2] The great work proceeds with greater or lesser success according as mankind are stronger or weaker in the practice of righteousness at various periods. In two of his visions the prophet sees a tree with four and seven branches respectively. The branches are made of different metals and represent the various periods of the religious history of Zoroastrianism. The first and the golden branch represents the golden age of the faith under King Gushtasp, the silver and steel boughs symbolize a decadence, while the last, depicted by the iron branch, or age of the great catastrophe, is the period of the final overthrow of the empire, the overwhelming cataclysm that threatened to submerge the world except for the triumph of virtue and right.^[3] When the mighty work of reclaiming mankind from evil is accomplished, there will follow the Renovation of the universe.^[4] Those who work to bring this period nearer are said to be holding communion with Ormazd.^[5]

Saviours born immaculately. Ormazd sends his special messengers at various periods of chaos and confusion to save humanity from the clutches of Ahriman.^[6] This is clear in the Gathas as in the Younger Avesta. These Messianic heralds of the real truth to be embodied in the final Soshyos exemplify righteousness, complete and translate the abstract teachings of ​religion into concrete actions that thus make the seemingly incomprehensible intelligible and tangible to the masses. The most prominent among these leaders in the last three millenniums, as noted before, are the three sons that are to be born miraculously to Zaratusht, from his seed through a supernatural conception by a maid, bathing in the waters of Lake Kans (an idea as old as Yt. 19), and the names of these three ideal promoters of mankind, as perpetuated in the forms current during the Pahlavi period, are Hoshedar, Hoshedar-mah, and Soshyos, who will appear at an interval of a millennium each.^[7] It is said that Zaratusht went three times near unto his wife Hvov, and that each time the seed went to the ground. On each of these three occasions, important for mankind, the spiritual seeds were caught up by the angel Neryosangh and intrusted to the keeping of Ardvisur, the divinity of waters, and from these sanctified waters they will be born in time to come, as miraculously conceived at different periods by three virgins.^[8] The advent of the all-beneficent renovators of the faith for the regeneration of the world will, as we shall see below, be attended with portents and miraculous signs.

The millennium of Hoshedar. A child is born to a virgin named Shemik-abu of the age of fifteen, who miraculously conceives Zaratusht's seed when she drinks the waters from a pool. The seed was emitted during the lifetime of Zaratusht and lay concealed in the waters until the maiden kindled the germs and became pregnant.^[9] The child thus immaculately born in the first of the three final millenniums of the world is named Hoshedar, a later modified corrupt transcript of the Avestan Ukhshyatereta. In the first of the last three thousand years of the world, before the final renovation and the resurrection, he holds, at the age of thirty, a conference with Ormazd and receives a revelation.^[10] When he returns from this divine conference, Hoshedar makes the sun stand still for ten days and nights to convince the people of the world about the authenticity of his mission.^[11] During his millennium, righteousness, liberality, and all the virtues ​supreme will be practised by mankind more and more as the world slowly moves towards perfection during this aeon. Twothirds of the people of Iran, according to the Pahlavi texts, will turn out righteous.^[12] The wisdom of the religion will constantly increase,^[13] the poverty of the people and the slaughter of cattle will decrease,^[14] as he is the benefactor that will help to remove the wickedness of the wolfish nature in mankind.^[15]

The millennium of Hoshedar-mah. A maiden named Shapir-abu is destined to approach the waters and conceive thereby, again through the second seed of Zaratusht. The virgin who has never approached man gives birth to a child who is named Hoshedar-mah, an imperfect rendering of the Avestan Ukhshyat-nemangh,^[16] who confers with Ormazd.^[17] At the age of thirty years he announces his advent by making the sun to stand still for twenty days and twenty nights.^[18] His benign presence and Messianic power, it is destined, will destroy the wicked product of every serpentine and monster engendure.^[19] Mankind greatly advances toward the realization of the final goal of perfection during this millennium. Cattle give milk in great quantities. In connection with this millennial view, it may be added, from the Pahlavi texts of this later period, that the small cattle which give milk will give milk then in redoubled quantity, and a cow will give as much milk as could be used by a thousand men. Hunger and thirst decrease, as the world reaches nearer to its perfection. A single meal will be sufficient to satisfy a man for three days.^[20] Mankind will furthermore become so versed in the art of healing, and in the science of physical culture, that they will be able to withstand disease and death more successfully.^[21] Humility, peace, and liberality will be now and forever more zealously practised by men.^[22]

The millennium of Soshyos. The world, according to the Pahlavi texts, which carry onward the ideal teachings of Zara​tusht in the Gathas as developed further in the Younger Avesta, is ever striving and tending toward final betterment, and will reach perfection in the millennium of Soshyos. It needs only the final touch of this greatest of the renovators to bring about this result for the eternal welfare of the universe. Men by this time, when these millennial conditions have been reached, have ceased eating meat, and subsist on milk and vegetables.^[23] Even milk, according to the Pahlavi works, is gradually given up, and water and vegetables form the only food of mankind.^[24] The Bundahishn, moreover, adds that, before the Resurrection and the Renovation of the universe occur, men will give up milk, vegetables, and even water, and they will ultimately subsist without food of any kind, and yet not die.^[25] Still another Pahlavi text states that during the period of the fifty-seven years of the activity of this last apostle mankind will be able to subsist for seventeen years simply on vegetables, then thirty on water alone, and for the last ten years on spiritual food.^[26]

At this time, according to the texts, when the world is ripe to welcome the last of the prophets, a virgin named Gobak-abu conceives immaculately the third seed of Zaratusht in the same manner as her two forerunners had done. At the age of fifteen she becomes pregnant and gives birth to the most illustrious Soshyos in the realm of Khvaniras.^[27] When the final saviour is thirty years of age, the sun stands still in the zenith of the sky for thirty days and nights;^[28] through his supernal power the demoniac nature among men will be broken.^[29] He will then cause the Resurrection and the future existence.^[30] His body, which is as radiant as the sun, partakes only of spiritual food and he is clad with kingly glory. Around him he looks with the power of six eyes and he it is that foresees the end of the Evil Spirit.^[31] He is the greatest renovator of the world.^[32]He comes to restore the dead to life,^[33] and to bring final perfection to the world.^[34] ​Any kind of wickedness that may still be lingering, in spite of his supreme beneficence, will perish through his presence.^[35] The angels will enable mankind to co-operate with the great apostle Soshyos to rout Druj.^[36] In advance of his divine mission to the world he has met Ormazd in conference and has received the supreme sanction for his task.^[37] During the fifty-seven years of his work, he will drive out the drujes from the world,^[38] and will make the world eternally happy.^[39]

The collaborators of Soshyos. Ormazd has ordained that Soshyos will be helped by certain great persons who have departed from the world, but who remain immortal and are still living in the body, and are yet to exert sway. The chief among these personages, potent for the eternal welfare of mankind, are Peshyotan, Aghrerat, Parsadga, Urvatadnar, Narsih, Tus, Giv, Ibairaz, Ashavazd,^[40] with a thousand others.^[41] Kaikhusru will arise to help Soshyos in the raising of the dead;^[42] Peshyotan, or Chitra-mahan, will lend help with his hundred and fifty disciples.^[43] Still another Pahlavi passage speaks of fifteen men and fifteen women among the living that are to come to the help of Soshyos.^[44] They will all leaven the rest of mankind. Zohak, who is put in chains on Mount Demavand, shall even at the last break loose from the bonds in which he has been confined,^[45] and as a monster-man will return to the world and disturb the righteous creation.^[46] At the command of Ormazd, his ministers Srosh and Neryosangh approach the body of Kersasp and raise it from the dead. The hero then rises up and slays Zohak.^[47] Soshyos and six of his companions, Roshn-chashm, Khur-chashm, Fradat-gadman, Varedat-gadman, Kamak-Vakhshishn, and Kamak-sud, all of which names have a spiritual significance, ​will divide the work between them, and each of them will act in one of the seven zones.^[48] Every one will miraculously communicate with the other of his six colleagues in the other zones. They will read each other's thoughts from a distance and will thus converse just as two men sitting close together would do.^[49] The work of the renovation of the world will last for fifty-seven years, the number already referred to.^[50] Full fifty years of this beneficent activity will be devoted to the seventh zone Khvaniras, where Zaratusht himself was the spiritual chief,^[51] and where Soshyos himself is working.^[52] All evil will perish during these fifty-seven years, and goodness prevail among mankind, and men will embrace righteousness and zealously practise religion before the final raising of the dead.^[53] Disease and death, apostasy and vice, depravity and every fiendish influence, will perish during this period.^[54] The world will be restored to its primal state.

Resurrection of the dead. The preliminary work of the renovators is to raise again to life all those who have died from the time of Gayomard, the primeval man, down to the last man Soshyos, and then give them their respective bodies.^[55] It is natural that the world could not at this period be quite empty of men. Those who happen to be living at the time when the period of renovation approaches near shall abstain from eating, live without food, and live so virtuously that even the offspring that are born unto them at this period will be of spirtual nature. All these, therefore, will be ready to enter the ranks of the dead who will now receive new bodies.^[56]

The dead will be made to rise from the place where they had yielded up their lives in the world.^[57] Zaratusht questions Ormazd in this connection, according to the Pahlavi texts, regarding the questions of forming again the bodies of the dead, inasmuch as the material frames of the dead have perished and been reduced to dust.^[58] Ormazd, thereupon, tells the prophet that even as it was possible for him to have created something from nothing, ​when nothing at all existed, and as he was able to create the sky and the earth, the sun and the moon, and the stars, fire and water, clouds and wind, grain and mankind, in fact everything that formerly had no existence, it would not be difficult for him at the Resurrection to form anew something that had already existed.^[59] Mohammed likewise tells those that doubt, that if God could create them out of nothing, it was certainly possible for him to bring them back to life after death. The spirit of the earth, the water, the plants, and the fire will at that time restore the bones, blood, hair, life, and other materials which had been committed to them by God in the beginning, and in this manner the bodies will be formed anew.^[60] And in another Pahlavi work it is said that Just as it is easier to teach what once was learnt but was forgotten than it is to teach that which had never been learnt, and as it is easier to repair a house than to build a new one, even so is it easier to bring to pass the restoration of the creation than in the beginning the original creation out of nothing.^[61]

All those resurrected will be furnished with their bodily frames by the command of Ormazd.^[62] The first body thus raised up will be that of Gayomaid, the father of mankind. Then will follow the first couple, Mashya and Mashyoi, and then the rest of mankind, whether righteous or wicked.^[63] Exceptions to this general statement are found in other Pahlavi texts, but the tone is in general the same. Men of demoniac nature, sodomites, apostates, and the hateful Afrasiab will not be given their bodies, for these arch-enemies of religion are no longer men, but have converted themselves into fiends and must consequently share the fate of their class.^[64]

Universal judgment. A further arraignment at the judgment seat now takes place. The righteous and the wicked souls are now gathered together in one place and are subjected to the collective, or universal judgment. Every soul at this judicial session sees its good and its evil deeds, and the wicked man becomes as conspicuous as a white sheep among the black.^[65] Ormazd ​himself takes a final and decisive account of the souls, and pronounces definitely upon them, for he remembers in each detail the several individual judgments passed in connection with every one of the myriads of the wicked souls after their death, as well as the just.^[66] From his judgment there is no appeal. The souls called together in this great and last judicial assembly recognize each other after the long separation.^[67] The father sees his son, and the brother meets his sister, the husband greets his wife, the relative welcomes his kinsman, and the friend inquires after the experience of his friend. Everyone eagerly narrates his or her account of the joys or sorrows during the long period of separation from their comrades of the material world.^[68] The wicked ones taunt their righteous friends or relatives with the bitter reproach that it had not been good on their part to have practised righteousness themselves, and yet to have left them unwarned in the indulgence of vice.^[69] The righteous weep for the wicked, and the wicked weep for themselves in the midst of this universal mourning, while the righteous are being separated from the wicked and sent back to heaven.^[70] So far they had enjoyed bliss and felicity in their spiritual condition, they now enter heaven in body, and have the satisfaction of seeing even the bodily grievances of their earthly life adjusted.

Bodily punishment. The wicked are now cast back to hell, where they suffer bodily punishment for three days.^[71] Hitherto their life in hell was torment of the spirit, now in the very body that on earth was instrumental in bringing the spiritual fall of the soul suffers materially. It is said that the wicked soul suffers three kinds of punishment at three different periods. Firstly, in this world during the earthly life; secondly, in hell from the night after the individual's death up to the period of the Renovation in spiritual form; and thirdly, now for three days in hell in the bodily form.^[72]

Ordeal of molten metal. The final punishment of being tortured in hell and burnt in a river of molten metal for three nights, after Ormazd's judgment is given, is in store for the wicked souls. A comet, named Gochihar will fall from heaven and melt all the metals and minerals in the earth, and will burn ​up the world in a general conflagration. A boiling flood of the metals of Shatravar will then flow over the earth,^[73] and the righteous as well as the wicked souls will be made to pass into it.^[74] In this glowing flood the wicked souls will be purged of their sins, so that they become wholly purified,^[75] while the righteous will feel as if they were walking in warm milk.^[76] The torture of the worst sinners, such as Zohak, Afrasiab, and the rest, during these three nights is more intense than that of all others.^[77] This final conflagration brings freedom of the sinners from the prison of hell.^[78]

The righteous and the wicked shall no longer remain as divided, but unite into one. Then, following the great conflagration, there will be the final renovation of the world. The sinners who have been thus purified and purged of their sins by the fiery metal become worthy of eternal bliss;^[79] and that final punishment will absolve them of their sins.^[80] The entire creation of Ormazd now becomes virtuous.^[81] The wicked no longer remain wicked,^[82] but become righteous.^[83] The angels under whose influence they had done good deeds in the world approach them and give joy to them in the proportion of these good deeds.^[84] The happiness of the souls that were already righteous is far greater than that of the wicked who had been cleansed through torture and punishment.^[85] The erring children are now restored to the bosom of the Heavenly Father, and Ormazd now takes back the entire creation to himself.^[86]

The removal of the imperfection of the material bodies of men. The completion of heavenly bliss requires that it be everlasting The human soul is immortal, but the body is not so. Therefore Soshyos and his companions prepare through an Izishna ceremony a nectar from the fat of the ox Hadhayosh ​and the white Hom juice, through a draught of which all beings become immortal forever and everlasting.^[87] Every one is given an immortal body and becomes as innocent in nature as cattle.^[88] The entire good creation is henceforth immortal.^[89] Any one who was a full grown man when he had died is given the appearance of a man of forty years of age; and those who died at an early age are given the stature of a youth of fifteen years.^[90] Husbands and wives united with their children live together, even as they lived and acted in this world, but there is no begetting of children.^[91] Their existence in paradise is accompanied by the full enjoyment of their reward for ever and ever.^[92] Those that had not given clothes as a righteous gift in the world and were now consequently without clothes themselves are provided with garments by the angels.^[93] They are hungerless and thirstless, undecaying and undying, undistressed and ever-beneficial.^[94] Neither a blow, nor a knife, nor a sword, nor a club, nor a stone, nor an arrow hurts the body, for it is now perfected and is immune from pain of any sort.^[95] Bodily ailments have vanished.^[96] The portals of eternal bliss are now flung open to the whole humanity.^[97]

The last decisive battle between the forces of good and evil. Then will follow the last and decisive battle of the eternal war between the rival armies of Ormazd and Ahriman. Every one of the good spirits will combat with his adversary, and in every case the success will be on the side of the good. Ormazd assails Ahriman, Vohuman seizes on Akoman, Artavahisht on Indar, Shatravar on Sovar, Spandarmad on Taromat or Naonghas, Khurdad and Amardad on Tairev and Zairich, Truth on Falsehood and Srosh on Eshm.^[98] Druj will perish.^[99] Hell itself is burnt out. Ormazd comes down to the world and acts as the ​Zota, sacrificial priest, together with Srosh as his Raspi, and holds the sacred thread-girdle in his hands. The holy formulas confound the Evil Spirit, who, now impotent, rushes back to darkness by the same passage through which he had come out at the beginning of creation.^[100]

Demon and fiend, deceit and falsehood, strife and anger, hatred and ill-temper, pain and disease, want and greediness, shame and fear, all perish.^[101] Evil of every kind disappears, and good of every kind is perfected.^[102] Ormazd at last becomes completely predominant,^[103] and his Kingdom of Righteousness is built upon the earth.

Humanity attunes its will to the will of Ormazd. All men now become of one will^[104] and remain of one accord in the faith of Ormazd,^[105] giving voice in song to the Glory of their Lord.^[106] On no account will their will be in conflict with the divine will, but will ever coincide with it.^[107] They now live in the blessed company of Ormazd,^[108] and work to exalt his glory.