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Interior view of dakhma Early 20th century drawing of the dakhma on Malabar Hill, Mumbai. A dakhma (Persian: دخمه), otherwise referred to as Tower of Silence (Persian: برجِ خاموشان), is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation (that is, the exposure of human corpses to the elements with the purpose to enable their decomposition), in order to avoid ...
Iran's figures of Zoroastrians have ranged widely; the last census (1974) before the revolution of 1979 revealed 21,400 Zoroastrians. [171] Some 10,000 adherents remain in the Central Asian regions that were once considered the traditional stronghold of Zoroastrianism, i.e., Bactria (see also Balkh ), which is in Northern Afghanistan; Sogdiana ...
It consists of 72 sections called the Ha-iti or Ha. The 72 threads of lamb's wool in the Kushti, the sacred thread worn by Zoroastrians, represent these sections. The central portion of the Yasna is the Gathas, the oldest and most sacred portion of the Avesta, believed to have been composed by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself.
Zoroastrian or Iranian cosmology refers to the origins and structure (cosmography) of the cosmos in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrian literature describing cosmographical beliefs include the Avesta (especially in its description of Avestan geography) and, in later Middle Persian literature, texts including the Bundahishn, Denkard, and the Wizidagiha-i Zadspram.
Zarathushtra Spitama, [c] more commonly known as Zoroaster [d] or Zarathustra, [e] was an Iranian religious reformer who challenged the tenets of the contemporary Ancient Iranian religion, becoming the spiritual founder of Zoroastrianism.
The "three Persian religions" include: Zoroastrianism (xiān-jiào 祆教); The Christian Church of the East (jǐng-jiào 景教); Manichaeism (míng-jiào 明教); Zoroastrianism was first introduced to China during the early Northern and Southern dynasties period, while Christianity and Manichaeism were both introduced to the Central Plains during the Tang dynasty.
Six of these regions are placed in a concentric manner around the central one called xvaniraθa. This central continent is the home of the Avestan people. This is for instance expressed in the Mihr Yasht , which describes how Mithra is crossing Mount Hara and surveys the Airyoshayana, i.e., the lands inhabited by the Airiia, and the seven ...
The Bundahishn furthermore states that Eranwez is located near Adarbaygan (Bd. 29.12) and that it is connected by the river Daitya to a country called Gobadestan (Bd. 11A.7). The identity of Gobadestan is not known, but its name has been interpreted as a distortion of Sugdestan . [ 22 ]