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Parchment painting of the Zoroastrian religion (or Mazdean) representing the duality between the good (god Ahura Mazda) and evil (Ahriman), here in the version Paradise and Hell; the souls of humans being devoured and tortured by demons, snakes and scorpions on one side; on the other, welcomed in the light with the sun, anterior to the sixteenth century.
This painting is in good condition, in its own juice. Fencing recently, lets see the back of the parchment with inscriptions and drawings.
A note: small old tears on the edges, wear of time, look at the photos.
is the first monotheistic religion of which Ahura Mazda is the god, only responsible for the order of the chaos of origin, the creator of the sky and the Earth. Zoroastrianism is a reform of Mazdeism, a reform prophesied by Zarathustra, whose name was transcribed Zoroaster by the Greeks. This reform, founded in the 1st millennium BC. in present-day Iranian Kurdistan (Western Iran), became the official religion of the Persians under the Sassanid dynasty (224-651), until Islam arrived. Zoroastrians respect fire as a divine symbol. Zoroaster preached a dualism based on the battle between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, a dualism present in Twelver Shiite Islam. The principle of Zoroaster is that there is a holy spirit (Spenta Mainyu), son of Ahura Mazda, and an evil spirit (Angra Mainyu) (pehlevi Ahriman), uncreated spirit, opposing because representing the day and the night, the life and the death. These two spirits coexist in each living being. Amulets have been found with representations of wrestling between snakes and dragons with a decidedly aggressive attitude, with huge eyes and a wide open mouth. It was a primitive representation of the struggle between light and darkness, between life and death, which characterized the Indo-Iranian religion and which Zoroastrianism would preserve. In the doctrine of Zoroaster, each person is answerable for his actions by virtue of the nature of his "Fravahr", the equivalent of Hindu karma. The doctrine is summed up in a maxim: Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta ("Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Actions"). Zoroastrians admit a life after death and a judgment of souls; every human being being judged according to his merits. The fravahr is one of the symbols of the doctrine of Zoroaster: it is the spirit of the man pre-existing at his birth and will continue after his death and he can not take the place of this God. If the good deeds outweigh the bad, the soul ascends to heaven by a bridge beyond which the Lord of Light awaits him. In the opposite case, it is a descent into Hell. But when finally hell itself is purified, the kingdom of God will settle on Earth. There is therefore always a possibility of real redemption of the most "bad guys". Another important theme of Zoroastrianism is therefore its promise of an eternal life after death, where souls will be separated when crossing the "Chinvat Bridge", and end either in heaven, or in hell, or in Purgatory. The notion of resurrection exists, it will occur at the end of time with the advent of the "Saoshyant" that will restore justice through a regeneration of the world. Zoroastrianism thus prefigures the advent of Christianity.
