The Concept of Amordad (Transcendence) Part 2

Dear Bahman

We have to understand that the whole division between "materia" and "spirit" as two distinctively DIFERENT substances did NOt exist in Zarathushtra's Iran. So why would he even comment on something that just did not exist as a concept to him or his culture??? Dualism was born in Egypt, far from Iran, and was imported by the Greeks who then spread it to the rest of the world as "Platonism" (with Christianity and later Islam as the ultimate dualist religions). So when Zarathushtra speaks of "soul" or "body" he does not even discuss OPPOSITES the way we have been trained to see them. To him and his culture, these are just ATTRIBUTES of one and the same thing, Ahura! To understand the ancient Iranians, we must FIRST understand HOW they VIEWED the world. Their worldview was radically different from ours. Only THEN we can begin to understand what they mean.

Ushta
Alexander

2009/10/6 Bahman Noruziaan




I beleive that "Farvardin Yasht" contains the remnants of pre-Gathic Iranian beliefs in the non-material part of Human exitence. Am I missing something here?


To: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
From: bardissimo@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 19:31:34 +0200
Subject: [Ushta] The Concept of Amordad (Transcendence)


No, Mehran, here I must offer friendly disagreement.
There is no evidence whatsoever that any belief in the "immortality of the soul" existed anywhere in Indo-Iranian culture. This is a much later belief - as Dino has correctly pointed out - developed in Egypt and not in Iran. Otherwise, Iran would have been full of ancient pyramids but it is not. The pyramids are in Egypt and NOT in Iran.
Amordad should frankly be translated as "transcendence" to modern English and not as "immortality". We need to get rid of Abrahamic interpretations of our faith, not recycle or endorse them. We have had enough of them already.
Ushta
Alexander