Ancient Iranian folk religion

Overview

Ancient Iranian folk religion is the religious life of ordinary Iranians before, and alongside, the reform Zoroaster preached. It is known only indirectly: no text survives from before his own hymns, so scholars reconstruct it by comparing Vedic material and by reading later royal inscriptions. What emerges is a religion his teaching tried, and partly failed, to replace. Ordinary Iranians, and even some who accepted the reform, kept worshipping a class of older gods, the daivas, that Zoroaster rejected outright. Inscriptions centuries later record the state suppressing daiva worship in particular places, and later still naming the old popular gods Mithra and Anahita beside Ahura Mazda. The priesthood behind much of this religious life, the Magi, were remembered by outsiders mainly as diviners and dream-interpreters.^[1–9]

History

A rejected pantheon lives on c. 1st millennium BCE

Zoroaster's reform exalted the ahuras and condemned the daivas, an older class of gods, as demons. But the rejection was not instantly or universally accepted: other Iranian peoples kept venerating the daivas, and it appears some who had adopted Zoroaster's own teaching had once worshipped them as well, showing how gradual and incomplete the break with the older, popular religion was.^{[5, 9]}

The daiva inscription mid-5th century BCE

An inscription of the Achaemenid king Xerxes I records that he put down the worship of "the daivas" at an unnamed place and had the worship of Ahura Mazda established there instead. Rather than a campaign against the daiva cult everywhere, this is usually read as the suppression of one local shrine to gods outside the ahura-centred state religion, evidence that daiva worship still had a real following somewhere in the empire two centuries after Zoroaster.^[3]

Old gods, new recognition 4th century BCE onward

From the reign of Artaxerxes II, Achaemenid royal inscriptions begin naming Mithra and the goddess Anahita beside Ahura Mazda. Neither deity was new: both trace back, independently of Zoroaster, to the shared Indo-Iranian pantheon, and their appearance in state inscriptions looks like official recognition of cults the wider population had never stopped keeping.^{[6, 8]}

People

Art & objects

Public-domain objects from museum collections. Select one to see it at the museum.

Votive PinIran, Luristan, early 1000s BCEMaster of Animals CheekpieceIran, Luristan, c. 700 BCELion Hunting Cup Iran, Amlash, 1100–1000 BCE"Bear-Woman" VesselIran, Marlik, c. 1200–1000 BCEHorse Bit with Winged Ibex CheekpiecesIran, Luristan, 800–600 BCEFragments of plaque with fantastic creaturesIran, Iron Age III, ca. 8th–7th century BCEHead of a pin: seated figure with capIran, Iron Age II, ca. 8th–7th century BCESeal ring: bird above a horned animalIran, Iron Age II, ca. 10th–8th century BCECup with a frieze of gazellesIran, Iron Age II, ca. early 1st millennium BCEVessel with six animal friezesIran, Iron Age II, ca. 10th–8th century BCEHorse bit cheekpiece in form of a horse and riderIran, Iron Age II-III, ca. 900–750 BCE

How we know

How we know

No scripture or first-hand account of ordinary Iranian religious life survives from this period. What is known comes from indirect comparison with Vedic India, from royal inscriptions that mention popular cults only when a king wanted to suppress or co-opt them, and from administrative archives, such as the Persepolis Fortification tablets, that record religious practice only incidentally, as a byproduct of tracking rations and supplies.^{[1–3, 6–7]}

Common misconceptions

Glossary

daiva · daēuua

A class of gods that Zoroaster's teaching rejected and progressively demonized, though they continued to be worshipped by other Iranians and, it seems, by some early followers of the reform.^{[5, 9]}

Magi · magu-

A Median priestly clan who served as the official priesthood under the Achaemenid kings and were remembered by Greek writers chiefly as dream-interpreters and diviners.^{[4, 7]}