Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative TheologyClarke, James Freeman
Islamic
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
Clarke, James Freeman
Christianity and other religions; Religions
Diodorus Siculus says that at Persepolis, on the face of the mountain,
were the tombs of the kings of Persia, and that the coffins had to be
lifted up to them along the wall of rock by cords. And Ctesias tells us
that "Darius, the son of Hystaspes, had a tomb prepared for himself in the
double mountain during his lifetime, and that his parents were drawn up
with cords to see it, but fell and were killed." These very tombs are
still to be seen on the face of the mountain behind the ruins. The figures
of the kings are carved over them. One stands before an altar on which a
fire is burning. A ball representing the sun is above the altar. Over the
effigy of the king hangs in the air a winged half-length figure in fainter
lines, and resembling him. In other places he is seen contending with a
winged animal like a griffin.
All this points at the great Iranic religion, the religion of Persia and
its monarchs for many centuries, the religion of which Zoroaster was the
great prophet, and the Avesta the sacred book. The king, as servant of
Ormazd, is worshipping the fire and the sun,--symbols of the god; he
resists the impure griffin, the creature of Ahriman; and the half-length
figure over his head is the surest evidence of the religion of Zoroaster.
For, according to the Avesta, every created being has its archetype or
Fereuer (Ferver, Fravashis), which is its ideal essence, first created by
the thought of Ormazd. Even Ormazd himself has his Fravashis,[109] and
these angelic essences are everywhere objects of worship to the disciple
of Zoroaster. We have thus found in Persepolis, not only the palace of the
great kings of Persia, but the home of that most ancient system of
Dualism, the system of Zoroaster.
§ 2. Greek Accounts of Zoroaster. Plutarch's Description of his Religion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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