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The ‘Traditional date of Zoroaster’ explained1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. Shapur Shahbazi
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Despite countless discussions, the date of Zoroaster remains a controversial problem. This is due to the fact that the testimony of the available sources is meagre, conflicting, and often ambiguous, for these are based on traditions which were put into writing long after the prophet is supposed to have lived, and contain both fictitious elements and the rationalizations of ancient savants. Of these traditions, the one now most widely accepted in the West is that which counts ‘258 years from Zoroaster till Alexander’. Formerly a number of distinguished scholars—among them Windischmann, Tiele, Geiger, Oldenberg, Bartholomae, Meyer, and Christensen—questioned the credibility of this tradition, arguing with cogent reasons that Zoroaster must be placed much earlier, probably at about 1000 b.c. In the second quarter of the present century, however, the late date gained credence, mainly on the ground that a precise figure transmitted by a people well known for their veracity must be based on historical facts. For a time this view almost came to prevail, primarily because outstanding authorities—such as Herzfeld, Taqizadeh, and Henning—gave it their support. But more recently, arguments in favour of an earlier date have again been advanced by a number of scholars. Yet the main difficulty remains, which is to explain, in the words of T. Burrow, ‘how this precise figure (i.e. 258) came to be adopted’. The purpose of the present article is to offer a solution to that problem, and to trace an older Iranian tradition that Zoroaster lived before 1000 b.c.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , February 1977 , pp. 25 - 35
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1977

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References

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The desire to accept the Zoroastrian tradition, despite the evident unsoundness of the late late it affords, has sometimes given rise to remarkable interpretations. O. Klima, for example, dentified Dārā, the son of Humāy, whose accession is put by the Bundahišn at (90 + 112 + 30 = )232 years after the coming of the Religion, with Darius the Great, who ascended the hrone in 522 b.c., thereby obtaining (522 + 232 + 30 = )784 b.c. for the date of the birth of Loroaster; see Archiv Orientální, XXVII, 4, 1959, 564.Google Scholar

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8 An explanation of this second figure is offered below, p. 30.

9 A ninth-century Zoroastrian scholar, Bahrām son of Mardānšāh, the mōbad of Šāpūr in Fārs, whose ‘History of the Sasanian kings’ (now lost) was based on over 20 recensions and translations of the official Sasanian chronicle, the Xwadāy nāmag (see Ḥamza, , Kitāb al-tārīkh-i ṣini mulūk al arḍ wa 'l anbiyā, Berlin, 1923, 19)Google Scholar, assigned to the Sasanians a period of 456 years plus 1 month and 22 days (i.e. 457 official years); see Ḥamza, , op. cit., 21, 22Google Scholar. This makes it likely that the ‘460’ of the Bundahišn is merely a round figure replacing a precise one. Now, the Sasanians' rule lasted for 427 years, but the tradition which extended it to 457 counted as a part of Ardašir's reign the 30-year period which he spent campaigning against local rulers (mulūk al ṭawā'if) before the overthrow of the Arsacids (so Bahrām, apud Ḥamza, , op. cit., 21Google Scholar; Bal'amī, , Tārīkh, ed. Zotenberg, H., Paris, 1867–1874, II, 74Google Scholar; al-Balkhī, Ibn, Fārsnāma, ed. Strange, Le and Nicolson, , 1921, 19Google Scholar; Mustawfī, Ḥamd-al Allāh, Tārīkh-i Guzīda, ed. Navā'ī, A., Tehran, 1336/1957, 105).Google Scholar

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