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Achaemenid Religion
Prods Oktor Skjrv*
Harvard University

Abstract

Achaemenid religion was the religion of the rulers of Iran in the second half of the rst millennium
BCE and the local form of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of the Iranians. The earliest form of
Zoroastrianism is known from the Avesta, their sacred texts, which probably originated in the last half
of the second and rst half of the rst millennium BCE, but were transmitted only orally until priests
began writing them down in the seventh century. The Achaemenid religion is known from
cuneiform inscriptions in the local Iranian language, Old Persian, and from tablets in Elamite found
at Persepolis, as well as from other sources. It was a dualist religion, postulating the existence of good
and evil from the beginning, as well as a polytheistic religion, but with one god, Ahura-Mazd,
outranking the others. Scholarly discussion has centered on the question whether the Achaemenids
were real Zoroastrians, in the sense of following the reformed teachings of the historical Zarathustra.
As the assumed historicity of Zarathustra and his reform are increasingly being questioned, scholars are
now focusing on the interpretation of the inscriptions, notably from the point of view of the orality of
Iranian traditions and their relationship with the Avesta, but also increasingly on the editing of the
Elamite tablets and mining them for information.

The Iranians
The old Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism, was the religion of successive empires ruling the
Middle East and beyond for over a millennium, beginning with the Medes, who sacked
Ashur (614 BCE) and Niniveh (612 BCE) under Cyaxares, and the Achaemenid empire (ca.
550330 BCE), founded by Cyrus II the Great (ca. 558 BCE) and ruled by a succession of
kings from Persia (Wiesehfer 1996, pp. 153, 313), among them Darius (r. 522486 BCE)
and Xerxes (r. 486465 BCE). This became the largest empire in the Ancient Near East,
stretching from the Indus valley to Libya, from Ethiopia to north of the Black Sea and to
Central Asia, and including Anatolia and the Greek coastal colonies, but was conquered by
Alexander in 330 BCE.
The Iranians, of whom the Medes and Persians were individual tribes, originated in
Central Asia in the second millennium BCE. By the rst millennium, several tribes had
migrated south into the area of modern Afghanistan, as well as onto the western edges of
the Iranian Plateau, where we nd references in ninth-century and eighth-century Assyrian
annals to Persians (Parsuwash/Parsumash) and Medes (Waters 1999, Zadok 200128; on the
migrations, see also Lecoq 1997, pp. 3437, Witzel 2013).
Zoroastrianism developed among the earliest Iranians, who called themselves Aryans, and
we owe to them the individual texts that are now collectively referred to as the Avesta, of
which the older part was probably composed during the second half of the second
millennium BCE and the later part during the centuries preceding the Achaemenid empire,
then transmitted orally for over a millennium before they were written down about the time
of the Arab conquest in the seventh century CE (Kellens 1998). Here, we nd the rst
references to Aryan lands, including Sogdiana (appr. Uzbekistan), Bactria (northern Afghanistan),
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and the Helmand river and Arachosia, the area of modern Kandahar (Gnoli, 1980, 1987, Skjrv
1995, pp. 16365, texts in Malandra 1983, p. 60; Skjrv 2011a, pp. 5051, 159). Whether
Ragh mentioned in the Avesta is the Classical Rhags in Media, modern Ray, remains uncertain
(Gnoli 1980, pp. 2326, 6466, 1987, p. 44a, Boyce 1982a, pp. 89, 1992, pp. 68, 1819,
Ahn 1992, pp. 12324, Skjrv 1995, p. 165).
The Persians
While the Medes settled in the western central regions of modern Iran, the Persians moved
further south into Prsa, the area of modern Fars, to which they gave their name, where they
built their own capital cities Susa and Persepolis near the ancient Elamite capitals at Susa
in northwestern Iran (near modern Dezful) and Anshan in the south, near modern Shiraz
(see Hansman 1985a, 1985b, Waters 2011, cf. Vallat 2011, p. 276).
The Achaemenids called themselves Prsa Persian, but the ethnicity of the founders of
the dynasty is still unclear. Cyrus and his three predecessors names look non-Iranian (OPers.
Chishpish, Kurush, and Kambjiya), but Darius (Draya-vahush upholder of good things)
and his predecessors and successors all have Iranian names with Zoroastrian avor: Ershma
(Greek Arsames) with the force of males, Ariyramna (Ariaramnes) bringing the peace
of the Aryans(?), and Hakh-manish (Achaemenes) having his friends in mind(?); Xerxes
(Khshaya-rsha) ruler of males, Erta-khshassa (Artaxerxes) having command according to
the cosmic order). Supercially, at least, it would seem that the break between the two
branches of Dariuss family involved ethnicity and religion. See, most recently, Vallats
(2011) reconstruction of the royal line. Earlier discussions in Boyce 1982a, p. 41, 1992,
p. 28, Dandamayev 1983, Schmitt 1983, Briant 1996, pp. 12224, Kellens 2002, pp. 41734:
epic model for the dynasty; see also the bibliography in Vallat 2011).
Sources
There is a large corpus of source texts on the Achaemenids (see Kuhrt 2010). The most
important non-old-Persian ones are the innumerable Elamite cuneiform clay tablets
excavated by the Chicago Oriental Institute at Persepolis during excavations in 193334
and published as the Fortications tablets (years 509494 of the reign of Darius I; Cameron
1948) and the Treasury tablets (years 492458 of the reigns of Darius I, Xerxes, and
Artaxerxes I; Hallock 1969). Many found later are now kept in Iran. Recent work includes
Koch 1988, 1991, Razmjou 2001, 2004, Henkelman 2008, 2013; see also the bibliography
in Wiesehfer (1996, pp. 27273). Tablets in Aramaic were also found (not yet published,
see Azzoni 2008, Dusinberre 2008).
During the excavations, inscribed utensils for preparing the haoma were also found
(Bowman 1970, Hinz 1975, Boyce 1982a, p. 149).
Aramaic letters from Egypt, mostly from the fth century, provide important onomastic
evidence (see Porten 2011).

THE ACHAEMENID INSCRIPTIONS

In 1771, the French Orientalist A.-H. Anquetil-Duperron (Duchesne-Guillemin 1985)

published translations of the Avesta and the later Zoroastrian books in Middle Persian
(language of the Sasanian empire), the ancestor of modern Persian (=Farsi) and the descendant
of Old Persian (OPers.), the language of the Achaemenid inscriptions, which until then had
both remained undeciphered. By 1850, both the Middle and Old Persian inscriptions had been
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deciphered. See Schmitt (1989, 1993b), Huyse (2009), Tavernier (2013). Translations in
Kent (1953), Schmitt (1989, 1991a, 2000), Lecoq (1997, pp. 1930).
As the Achaemenid inscriptions were trilingual in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, the
decipherment of Old Persian also facilitated the decipherment of Elamite (a non-Iranian,
non-Semitic language) and Akkadian (a Semitic language). Among the earliest Akkadian
texts to be deciphered was the Cyrus cylinder (Dandamayev 1993b, Finkel ed. 2013, Curtis
2013); since the text was intended for local propaganda, it does not say much about Cyruss
own beliefs or his religious policies at home, which have been the subject of much debate
(Duchesne-Guillemin 1962, pp. 15254, Boyce 1988, pp. 2631, Dandamayev 1993a; see
also Faulkner 2013, Stolper 2013).
The Achaemenid inscriptions represent the rst attempts by Iranians, a fundamentally oral
society (Skjrv 20052006, 2012b, pp. 39), to write narratives. Here, Darius and Xerxes
had their deeds incised on rock to preserve their stories of how they came to the throne and
to present their beliefs and contrast them with those of the Elamites and other non-Iranian
neighbors (DB 72, XPh 5, Kent 1953, pp. 134, 151, Malandra 1983, pp. 49, 51, Schmitt
2009, pp. 89, 167, Skjrv 2011a, p. 236, Vallat 2011).
The inscriptions are not to be taken as exact records of true events, since, in the oral
tradition, history was quickly adapted to traditional narrative patterns (cf. Kellens 2002,
pp. 45859), as we see, for instance, in the story of the false Smerdis (Bardiya) in Dariuss
Bisotun inscription (see Shayegan 2012). See also Briant 1996, pp. 1418 and, on oral history
in general, Vansina 2006.
THE EVIDENCE OF THE GREEK HISTORIANS

The Greek historians are our earliest secondary sources for Median and Persian religion
(de Jong 1997, Brosius 2013, Vasunia 2007): Xanthus of Lydia (lived slightly before Herodotus,
known from quotations in later works); Herodotus (ca. 484425 BCE, under Artaxerxes I,
r. 465425, wrote about Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and a multitude of Iranian topics); Xenophon
(wrote during the reign of Artaxerxes II, r. 405359 BCE); and Ctesias of Cnidus (physician at
the court of Artaxerxes II; Schmitt 1993a). Their Iranian sources, too, must have been affected
by oral traditions.
Good and Evil
It was known from Antiquity that the Zoroastrians were dualists, that is, they believed
there were two creators, one who created good things and one who created evil things,
and that, correspondingly, there were good and evil deities (Herrenschmidt 1987, p. 217).
This image of Zoroastrianism was amply conrmed, rst by the texts translated by Anquetil
and then by the Old Persian and Middle Persian inscriptions.
The dualist division between good and evil is seen both in this and the other worlds,
where all things, notably gods and humans, must choose to side with one or the other.
On Iranian dualism, see Gnoli (1996), de Blois (2000), Stausberg (2002, pp. 1718), Skjrv
(2011b); on the denial of Zoroastrian dualism among early scholars, who advocated Zoroastrianism as a monotheistic faith, see Boyce (1982a, p. 232, bottom), for whom Zoroastrian
dualism was taught by Zarathustra (1975, pp. 19293), and Gnoli, who suggested that a
monotheistic tendency and a strong dualism coexisted in Zoroasters Zoroastrianism
(1996, p. 576b).
The Avesta and the Old Persian inscriptions share numerous basic concepts. According to
the Avesta, it was Ahura-Mazd (originally, the all-knowing Lord, but by Achaemenid
times simply a name), the greatest among gods (Av. yazata) and ruler of the cosmos, who
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(by his thought) produced the orderliness of the cosmos (Av. asha) by setting in place heaven
and earth and who maintains peace and happiness for mankind. He and his followers,
including numerous deities, among them Anhit, the goddess of the heavenly waters, and
Mithra, the god overseeing agreements made between gods and men and between men,
ght the forces of chaos embodied in the Lie (Av. drug/druj) the cosmic deception and
the evil counterpart of asha, which aims to mislead all things and whose main agent is
(Avestan) Ahra Manyu (later Ahrimen), the Evil Spirit. Among those permanently misled
were the old gods (Av. dawas), whom the worshippers of Ahura-Mazd must abjure.
In the Old Persian inscriptions, which are not religious texts, but royal proclamations, we
see the dualism from the kings cosmo-political point of view. He praises Ahura-Mazd as the
great (vazerka) god (OPers. baga) and the greatest of the gods (e.g., DPd 1, Kent 1953,
p. 136, Schmitt 2009, p. 115, Skjrv 2011a, p. 232), who set in place the earth and heaven
and who made him king; he worships Ahura-Mazd and the other gods; and he discards the
wrong gods, the daivas (Kellens 1994, pp. 8687, 12425, 13342, Herrenschmidt and
Kellens 1993, pp. 6002). It was by Ahura-Mazds greatness (vashn) that the king
achieved what he did. Here, vashn is the expected grammatical form from *vazar/n
greatness, which underlies vazer-ka great (Szemernyi 1975, pp. 32543, supported
by Skjrv 1999, p. 39, against the common by the will of or, even, by the grace of).
His greatness would refer to the fact that he was, according to Darius, the greatest of
the gods and the one who championed him.
Like Ahura-Mazd, upholder of the cosmic order, the king has to maintain order in his land
(DNa 4, XPh 4, Kent 1953, pp. 138, 151, Schmitt 2009, pp. 1023, 16667, Skjrv 2011a,
p. 236), and, like the Avestan worshippers, the king assures us that he was an active participant in
the battle against the Lie (OPers. drauga). He regards his opponents as bewildered and deceived
by the Lie (DB 10, 54, Kent 1953, pp. 119, 131, Schmitt 2009, pp. 41, 7879, Skjrv
2011a, pp. 22930) and prays to Ahura-Mazd to protect the land from the foulness (gasta),
that is, the evil stench of the Lie (DNa 5, XPh 5/7, A2Sa 3, Kent 1953, pp. 138, 154 harm,
Schmitt 2009, pp. 104, 169, 192 bel, Skjrv 2011a, pp. 231, 233). He also assures us that
he was not in the camp of the Evil one (ahrka, from Ahra Manyu, DB 63; Kent 1953, p. 170a,
against other interpretations), but would punish the one who was (DB 8, 10; Kent 1953, pp.
119 evil, Schmitt 2009, pp. 4041 treulos, Skjrv 2011a, pp. 22829).
By their sacrices, the Avestan worshipper and the king both ensure Ahura-Mazds
assistance in maintaining order in their domains and rooting out transgression against
Ahura-Mazds/the kings Law (dta). To the king, this implied bringing back to the straight
path those who had veered from it; to the subjects of the god and the king, it meant not leaving
the straight path (DNa 60, Kent 1953, p. 138, Schmitt 2009, p. 104, Skjrv 2011a, p. 231).
One should speak only what is true or real, behaving with rectitude, doing and speaking what is
straight, not falseness, and not mislead others, behaving crookedly or deviously (DB 63 DNa
6, Kent 1953, pp. 132, 138, Schmitt 2009, pp. 83, 104, Skjrv 2011a, p. 231).
The kings activity in the political sphere matches that of the priests in the religious sphere.
Like Zarathustra, Ahura-Mazds prophet and the rst to praise and sacrice to Ahura-Mazd,
the king is Ahura-Mazds chosen and functions as mediator between gods and men. In this
way, he becomes like Zarathustra, in the same way that the Avestan sacricer sacrices like
Zarathustra, the prototype of human sacricers (Yasna 8.7; cf. Herrenschmidt 19951996,
p. 230, 1996, pp. 11517, and, less directly, Herrenschmidt and Kellens 1994, p. 62, 2003,
pp. 1617; Skjrv 2011a, pp. 132, 21617). Darius thus reunites in one and the same person
the functions of supreme king and supreme sacricer (Skjrv 2005, pp. 7576).
The purpose of the Avestan sacricer was to help place Ahura-Mazd back in command of
the universe, so that he could, in return, make it frasha, the meaning of which has been much
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discussed, but which originally probably referred to the universe being relled with fecundity
after periods of lifelessness (Skjrv 1999, pp. 5557, 2005, pp. 7475, 79, 2011a, p. 30), a
meaning that had probably been lost by the time the king apparently interpreted it as a call
for him to produce matching work on earth: The great god is Ahura-Mazd, who set in
place this frasha that is seen, who set in place the happiness of man, who bestowed on
Drayavaush wisdom and agility (DNb 1); King Drayavaush announces: In Susa much
frasha was ordered to be made, (and) much frasha was made (DSf 4, Kent 1953, pp. 140,
144, Schmitt 2009, pp. 105, 134, Skjrv 2011a, pp. 176).
Polytheism
In the later parts of the Avesta, numerous male and female deities receive sacrices. The
situation in the older parts is less transparent, but several deities appear to be mentioned there,
as well (e.g., Boyce 1975, p. 195, Skjrv 2011c, pp. 34445). The king, although
Ahura-Mazd was the greatest among the gods, had his helpers in the other world, too:
Ahura-Mazd bore me aid as well as the other gods there are (DB 63, Kent 1953,
p. 132, Schmitt 2009, p. 83, Skjrv 2011a, p. 231; Boyce 1992, p. 126: divine helpers;
Kellens 1994, p. 124, who connects who are with Av. hant (those) being, which he
thinks includes all good and bad gods, p. 117). These expressions in particular caused
problems for the assumption of Dariuss monotheism. Boyce (1982a, p. 83 n. 16) dismissed
the latter expression as translation Akkadian, but it is a perfect t in the context, where
Darius contrasts his appurtenance with that of those in the other camp: For this reason
Ahura-Mazd bore me aid, as well as the other gods who are, because I did not side
with the Evil one, I was not a liar (draujana). On the discussions around Zarathustras
monotheistic reform, see Herrenschmidt (1987); also Skjrv (2011c, pp. 32128).
Only two other gods are mentioned in the inscriptions and only by the later kings: Anhit
and Mithra (Ahn 1992, pp. 22127, Briant 1996, pp. 26265, Stausberg 2002, pp. 17476).
Boyce also suggested that Dariuss six helpers were the earthly representations of the six
amesha spentas, the Life-giving Immortals, which play a prominent role in the Gths, thus
ensuring for Darius another condition for being Zoroastrian (1982a, pp. 9194; see below).
Further evidence is provided by the non-Old Persian sources. In the Aramaic letters,
beside Mazda-yazna who sacrices to (Ahura-)Mazd and Mithra-dta (child) given by
Mithra, Mithra-yazna who sacrices to Mithra, and Mithra-pta protected by Mithra,
we nd names such as Hauma-dta (child) given by Hauma, god of the sacred drink haoma,
as well as rma(n)ti-dta given by (Av. Spent) rmaiti, Ahura-Mazds daughter and divinity
of the earth and one of the six Life-giving Immortals (see, further, Schmitt 1991b).
In the Elamite tablets, we nd Spent rmaiti (Ispandramaiti; Razmjou 2001), beside
Mithra, Naryasanga (Av. Nairya Sangha) and Ertna Fraverti (Av. Ashunm Frawashi),
originally the (pre-existing) souls of the righteous. The tablets also mention offerings to
non-Iranian gods, such as the Elamite god Humban, and the Babylonian weather god Adad
and KI, the Earth. Whether these were actually worshiped as Elamite gods or whether the
names cover Iranian ones, we do not know. In addition, offerings were made to divinities
of rivers, mountains, places, and cities (Koch 1988, pp. 4012; cf. the Avestan Yasna
38.3-5, a hymn to the waters, see Skjrv 2011a, pp. 4445).
The Rituals
The kings sacrice to Ahura-Mazd is seen in the royal reliefs (survey in Garrison 2013; cf.
Briant 1996, pp. 25962). On the royal tomb reliefs, we see the king standing before a re
alter, raising his hand toward Ahura-Mazd in the winged disk hovering above between
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the king and the altar (e.g., Boucharlat 2013, p. 517). The omnipresent winged disk
(borrowed from Egypt via Assyria; Jacobs 1991) is likely to be the symbol of the sun and asha,
which, according to the Avesta, contains the sun (xwanwat, Yasna 32.2), and, in its middle,
Ahura-Mazd stands wielding a ring, probably symbolizing royal command (as under the later
Sasanians, e.g., Canepa 2013, p. 864 g. 453). Its symbolism has been much discussed: some
have interpreted the gure as the kings fravashi, the kings guardian spirit, an interpretation
contradicted by the fact that the fravashis are nowhere described as guardian spirits, but as female
warriors (Skjrv in Alram et al. 2007, pp. 2829, and 2011a, pp. 1819); others have
interpreted the symbol as representing the xwarnah, Fortune or Glory (but of uncertain
meaning and function) or even two different manifestations of it (Shahbazi 1974, 1980) but this
interpretation is ad hoc, as there are no descriptions in the literature to support it (see discussions
in Boyce 1982a, pp. 1005, Stausberg 2002, pp. 17780; on the xwarnah, see also Skjrv
2011a, p. 18, 2013a, pp. 16768).
The Elamite tablets provide further details about the rituals performed at Persepolis (Koch
1988). The principal ritual was the (Elamite) lan, which is the only ritual that seems to have
been celebrated on a grand scale judging from the large quantity of provisions recorded for it.
The lan is often listed together with names of deities, and, as Ahura Mazd himself is only
rarely mentioned in the tablets, it has usually been assumed that the lan was the ritual for
the supreme deity, who therefore was not mentioned by name himself, although, with more
evidence, this may prove not to be so. Also mentioned are the daussa libation ritual
(Av. zaothra) and (baga-)daussiya libation ritual (for the gods) (on which see Boyce 1982b).
Priests included the (Elamite) shaten priest (most common); the magush, chiey involved
with the lan, exceptionally also in rituals for other deities, a river, and a mountain; the yasht
(Av. yashta), sacricer; and the terwakhsha (Av. trewakhsha ertc), originally in charge
of the re.
We know from the Aramaic texts from Persepolis that the haoma ritual was performed, as
proved by the inscribed mortars (hwan, Av. hwana) and pestles (abishwan) found there. The
ritual is the well-known Zoroastrian yasna sacrice ritual, the central component of which
were the preparations and offering of the haoma juice (the Indic soma) and the sacrice of an
animal (see, e.g., Stausberg 2004, pp. 30635; short overview in Skjrv 2011a, pp. 3436).
It has long been thought that the reliefs along the great staircase in the Apadna at Persepolis,
where representatives from all the provinces of the empire are shown bearing gifts to the king,
refer to a New Years ceremony, but this is uncertain. They may also have depicted
traditional-epic events (cf. Briant 1996, p. 198), in this case perhaps derived from the epic narrative
of king Jamshid, with which the reliefs have often been compared (Skjrv 2008, p. 504a).
Pollution and Burials
The Greek historians provide the rst evidence for the Persians concern about pollution of
water and re by dead matter and the earth by dead bodies, which features prominently in
the Avesta in the Videvdad, which deals with pollution (cf. Skjrv 2007). The disposal of
the dead presented a special challenge, and the kings had themselves buried in rock-cut
tombs at Naqsh-e Rostam, except Cyrus the Great, who was buried in a stone monument
at Pasargadae (Zournatzi 1993), presumably to minimize the possibility of contaminating
the earth (see Russell 1989, Jacobs 2010).
Darius and Xerxes and Foreign Gods, the Daivas
Both Darius and Xerxes proscribed the worship of foreign gods (daivas) as a means of subduing
and punishing local rebellions, notably that of the Elamites, who sacriced to daivas (DB 72,
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Kent 1953, p. 134, Schmitt 2009, p. 89). In particular, Xerxes says he destroyed a daivadna (literally, receptacle for daivas; XPh 4b/5, Kent 1953, pp. 15152, Schmitt 2009, p. 167,
Skjrv 2011a, p. 129). Scholars have identied the sanctuary Xerxes destroyed variously,
ranging from the Parthenon in Athens to the more likely Marduk temple in Babylon, but it
is today usually not specied (Gnoli 1993).
In the same passage, Xerxes says that, where the daivadnas had been, he sacriced to
Ahura-Mazd, followed by the formula ertc berazmaniy, which has been variously
interpreted (e.g., Boyce 1982a, pp. 17476, Schwartz 1985, pp. 68990, Herrenschmidt in
Herrenschmidt and Kellens 1993, p. 61). In ertc, scholars have usually recognized the
old word *erta, whence Avestan asha, the cosmic-ritual order, and ertc as the equivalent of
Avestan asht hac in accordance with the order. The main alternative interpretation is by
Schmitt (latest 2000, p. 95), who suggested ert was a form of *ertu, which in Indic refers to
time, interpreting ertc as at the right (ritual) time (on which see Skjrv 2011d). The
second term, berazmaniy, was interpreted as ritual (behavior) and connected with Indic
brahman by Henning (1944), an interpretation commonly accepted. Skjrv (2011d),
however, attempts to show that Hennings arguments are faulty and has proposed to interpret
berazmaniy as in the height, that is, I sacriced to Ahura Mazd, according to the cosmicritual order, in the height, as represented in the reliefs (also Skjrv 1999, pp. 4143).
Were the Achaemenids Zoroastrians?Questions of Methodology
Doubt was expressed by Iranists in the 20th century whether the Achaemenids were real
Zoroastrians, based primarily on a certain number of omissions and discrepancies in the
Avestan and Old Persian texts (see Duchesne-Guillemin 1958, pp. 5269, 1962, pp. 16568,
and 1972: lucid summing up of evidence and opinions; Herrenschmidt 1980: survey of recent
studies; Boyce 1983, p. 428b, Ahn 1992, pp. 95101, Stausberg 2002, p. 157 with refs.). To
understand this situation, a few points need to be made.
By the end of the 19th century, at a time when Avestan was still poorly understood, it had
become common to regard Zarathustra as the author not of the entire Avesta, but only of its oldest
parts, the ve Gths. In these texts, the historical Zarathustra was supposed to have preached a
reformed religion, diverging from the current beliefs inherited from Indo-Iranian times. The belief
system in the younger Avesta, was commonly thought to represent a corruption of Zarathustras
teachings (cf. Gershevitch 1968, p. 12, Boyce 1992, p. 113: Zarathustra was transformed from
the recognizably real gure of the Gathas into a revered, semi-legendary one). It was also
commonly agreed that the Gths were extremely difcult to understand (e.g., Gershevitch
1968, pp. 13, 17), but they were nevertheless extensively interpreted according to the later
prophetic legend and on the basis of individual scholars opinions of what Zarathustra had stood
for. Only a few scholars refused to accept Zarathustras historicity, and only from the late 1950s
were the underlying assumptions questioned (Herrenschmidt 1987, Kellens 1991, pp. 8485,
Skjrv 1997, pp. 1047; 2011b, pp. 7689; 2011c, pp. 32137; 2013b, pp. 12327).
Real Zoroastrianism was thus understood as Zarathustras original teachings, and being a
real Zoroastrian meant following these teachings. As for the Achaemenids, it was argued that
the lack of any mention of the prophet himself and key terms of his doctrine, such as the six
amesha spentas, show that the Achaemenids were at least not orthodox Zoroastrians.
What was considered to be Zoroastrian orthodoxy, however, was a construct by Western
scholars since the end of the 19th century based on the assumption that Zoroastrianism was a
new, reformed, religion, founded by Zarathustra (thus, still Boyce 19751982a). As there is
no evidence that Zarathustra was a historical person, a prophet, or a reformer, the denition
of a Zoroastrian orthodoxy is also problematic.
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A special problem arose from the fact that about 490 BCE, the calendar known from postAvestan Zoroastrian texts had been adopted in Cappadocia and, presumably, in the entire empire (de Blois 1996, Panaino 1990, pp. 66566, 2010, 2013). In Dariuss Bisotun inscription
(520518 BCE; Schmitt 1989), dates are given according to a local Persian calendar, however,
in which the names of the months contain some overt references to Zoroastrian terminology,
but others to seasonal phenomena, as well as according to the Elamite and Babylonian calendars.
That the Cappadocian calendar was based on an Old Persian form of the Zoroastrian calendar is
made likely by the form of the rst month Artana, the only close match for which is the form
Ertna Fraverti in the Elamite tablets (Koch 1988, p. 401), and Panaino (2002, p. 229) has
suggested that we are witnessing a complex of inuences on the local Achaemenid calendar,
both from local calendars and from the Zoroastrian calendar. An entertaining history of the
calendar changes reconstructed from the scant evidence is found in Boyce (2005).
The Achaemenid royal burials, which appeared to contradict the rules laid down in the
Videvdad, also provided grist for the discussion of their Zoroastrianism (see, e.g., Widengren
1965, pp. 14445, 15455: as non-Zoroastrian as possible [p. 154 bottom]; Boyce, 1982a,
pp. 56, 11012: built so as to minimize danger to earth and water; Ahn 1992, pp. 12230).
This problem was often nessed by classifying the Videvdad as late or post-Achaemenid (see
Skjrv 2007, pp. 11216, on the unlikelihood of this dating).
At one end of the spectrum of opinions, Widengren (1965, p. 149, following his teacher
Nyberg 1937, p. 416, 1938, p. 373) concluded it was virtually certain that the Achaemenids
were not Zoroastrians; at the other end, Duchesne-Guillemin and Boyce concluded they
were Zoroastrians, Shaked (1991, p. 90) believes the assumption that they were Zoroastrians
is correct, while Schwartz (1985) and Schmitt (1983, p. 424) appear to have taken it for
granted that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians. De Blois (2000, p. 3) even suggested that
Zoroastrianism was adopted as the state religion of the Achaemenid empire (cf. Stausberg
2002, p. 157). Boyce (1982a, pp. 79 and p. 39) argued from the absence in our sources of any
kind of religious reform at the time in question that both the Medes and the Persians were
converted earlier (2005, p. 6b). Similarly, Duchesne-Guillemin (e.g., 1962, pp. 16667) had
argued that the fact that the introduction of the new calendar made so little noise implied that
Zoroastrianism was not a novelty at that time.
The major caveat lies in the nature of the Zoroastrian sources. We do not know precisely
what the Avestan corpus was in the Achaemenid period, hence also which were the practices
reected in the Achaemenid Avesta. As put by Kellens (1991, p. 84): Poser la question du
zoroastrisme des achmnides, cest proposer implicitement la confrontation entre une ralit
mal connue, la religion achmnide, et une ralite moins mal connue, le zoroastrisme
(echoing Duchesne-Guillemin 1972, p. 61: deux quantits disparates deux inconnus).
De Jong (2010) also criticizes the traditional approaches to the study of Achaemenid religion
using the Avesta as a normative source, whereby the kings are denied every kind of
agency in religious matters (p. 537); rather, he suggests that [i]nstead of being dened by
their religion they are the ones who gave it shape (p. 542).
This caveat is imperative because Achaemenid religion more often than not has been discussed
from the point of view of the development of Zoroastrianism as perceivedvariouslyby the
authors (e.g., Gnoli 1980, Boyce 1982a, etc.; cf. de Jong 2010, p. 534). Also, importantly,
the orality of the Avesta and the problem of the author in oral literature were not taken into
consideration (see Skjrv 20052006).
Those scholars who have dated Zarathustra according to the traditional date of 258 years
before Alexander, i.e., 588 BCE = 330 + 258 (Henning 1951, pp. 4041; Gnoli 2000,
p. 165: 618541 BCE) face the problem of the absence of any mention of him in the
contemporary sources, as well as a linguistic problem (Skjrv 20032004).
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If we take Achaemenid religion to refer to the religious beliefs expressed in the various primary
and secondary sources at our disposal and Zoroastrianism as the religion expressed in the entire
Avesta, it becomes clear that the Achaemenids were Zoroastrians and that the Achaemenid king
performed his Zoroastrian duties faithfully. When the Zoroastrian reform is removed from the
discussion, keeping in mind the geographic-historical background, the question can then be
posed differently, whether the Achaemenids had always been Zoroastrians or became Zoroastrian
at some point before recorded history. The fact that eastern Iran (see Genito 2013) is mentioned
in the Avesta certainly points to the population being Zoroastrian (Boyce 1982a, p. 42). So how
does Persian Zoroastrianism t with this, since the Persians apparently came to Persia along a
totally different route along the westernmost part of the Plateau? For references and sometimes
speculative answers to these questions, see Boyce 1982a, pp. 143; speculations also in Skjrv
2005, pp. 8081. Note also Kreyenbroek 2010, p. 108: a non-confrontational expansion of
Zoroastrianism through western Iran in the Achaemenid period.
Achaemenid religion is still very much a work in progress. The uncertainties about the
origins of the Persians make it difcult to form likely hypotheses about the geographical
spread of Zoroastrianism, but, as more tablets, both in Chicago and Iran are edited and
current archeological research progresses (see Briant et al. [eds.] 2008, Boucharlat 2013,
Henkelman 2013), our knowledge of all things Achaemenid is bound to be rened.
Short Biography
Prods Oktor Skjrvs research interests have covered pre-Islamic Iranian languages, literatures,
and religions, as well as modern Iranian dialectology. He has authored and co-authored books
on Middle Persian inscriptions and Khotanese texts and philology and written numerous articles
in journals and collective volumes, among them Encyclopdia Iranica, The Cambridge History
of Religions in the Ancient World, The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History, The Oxford
Handbook of Ancient Iran, and The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (forthcoming),
Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, and New Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible. His
recent book of translations from Avestan and Old and Middle Persian, The Spirit of Zoroastrianism, was aimed at making Zoroastrian literature accessible to a wider audience. He also has two
volumes of translations of Zoroastrian and Iranian Manichean texts into his native language,
Norwegian. Much of his recent work has focused on the importance of studying old Iranian literature as oral literature, and he is currently also working with Talmudists on old Iranian legal
texts. After graduating from the University of Oslo in 1974, he spent ve years there as Research
Fellow, before becoming Scientic Assistant to Prof H. Humbach at the Johannes Gutenberg
University, Mainz. In 1985, he took up the position as Assistant Editor (then Senior Assistant
Editor) of the Encyclopdia Iranica at Columbia University, New York, which he left in 1991
to become Aga Khan Professor of Iranian at Harvard. He has held fellowships from the University
of Oslo, the Norwegian Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and
has guest lectured at La Sapienza, Rome, the Sorbonne and Collge de France, Paris, and Etvs
Lornd Tudomny University, Budapest. He holds a PhD from the University of Oslo 1981 and
a Dr habil from the Johannes Gutenberg University 1984.
Note
* Correspondence: Harvard University, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.
Email: skjaervo@fas.harvard.edu

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. (2011). Parsuma, Anan, and Cyrus. In: lvarez-Mon & Garrison (eds.), Elam and Persia, pp. 28596. Winona
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Widengren, G. (1965). Die Religionen Irans. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Wiesehfer, J. (1996). Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD. A. Azodi (trans.). London: I. B. Tauris.
Witzel, M. (2013). Iranian migration. In: Potts (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran, pp. 42341. Oxford, etc.: Oxford
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Further Readings
On Zoroastrianism, see the comprehensive descriptions by Boyce (1975, 1982a) and Stausberg (20022004); shorter
overviews in Gnoli (1980, pp. 199225), Boyce (1984), Stausberg (2008), Rose (2011), Skjrv (2013b), and, with
translations of texts, Malandra (1983), Lecoq (1997), Skjrv (2011a). Older works: Lommel (1930), Nyberg (1937,
1938), Duchesne-Guillemin (1962), Widengren (1965).
On Zoroastrian literature, see Hintze (2009); on the Avesta, see Kellens (1987), Skjrv (2011a, 2012a).
On things Achaemenid: The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 2 (1985), Potts (ed.).
On Achaemenid religion, see Duchesne-Guillemin (1962, pp. 16568), Widengren (1965, pp. 11755), Boyce (1982a,
1983, 1984, pp. 4877, 1992, pp. 12532), Schwartz (1985), Ahn (1992, pp. 95130), Wiesehfer (1996, pp. 94101),
Stausberg (2002, pp. 15786). See also the brief overview in Skjrv 2013c, pp. 54754.
Comparison of Zoroastrianism and Achaemenid religion in Knpper 2011.
Comparisons between Zoroastrian and Achaemenid texts in Skjrv (1999, 2005, 2012b, pp. 1215).
On the Medes, see Diakonoff (1985), Dandamayev and Medvedskaya (2006)
On Achaemenid history, see The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 2 (1985), Dandamaev (1989) Briant (1996; Eng. tr. 2002),
Wiesehfer (1996), Huyse (2005).
On Achaemenid imperial discourse, see Lincoln, B. (1996). Old Persian fraa and vana: Two terms at the intersection of
religious and imperial discourse, Indogermanische Forschungen, 101, pp. 14767; Lincoln, B. (2012). Happiness for
mankind: Achaemenian religion and the imperial project. Leuven: Peeters.
Photographs from Persepolis and surroundings in Schmidt (1970) and online at Google images and elsewhere.Websites:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/, http://www.achemenet.com/, http://www.iranchamber.com/history/achaemenids/achaemenids.php, http://www.livius.org/aa-ac/achaemenians/achaemenians.html, http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/persia.html.
See also Encyclopdia Iranica, E. Yarshater (gen. ed.), Various publishers, 1982-. Also online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/.
2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Religion Compass 8/6 (2014): 175187, 10.1111/rec3.12110