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Some Reflections on Zurvanism1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Mary Boyce
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Extract

From the studies of Zurvanism made in this century, a large measure of agreement has been reached. It is accepted that Zurvan ‘est en general le dieu du firmament lumineux et étoilé … avant tout le dieu du sort … en général regardé comme un dieu quadriforme’; and that his cult was ‘enraciné surtout dans l'lran occidental’. But a fundamental disagreement has developed over the origin of Zurvanism. H. S. Nyberg, although pointing out scrupulously that ‘le mythe zervanite n'st directement attesté que dans le mazdéisme’, and that ‘nous ne trouvons jamais un système zervanite où Ormuzd ne soit représenté’, has nevertheless maintained that Zurvan is an ancient Iranian god, whose cult, older than Zoroaster, has been partly adopted into, and partly obliterated by, orthodox Mazdeism. In this he has been followed by a number of scholars.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1957 , pp. 304 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1957

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References

page 304 note 2 Nyberg, H.S., ‘Questions de cosmogonie et de cosmologie mazdéennes’, JA, 1931, 2, 107–8.Google Scholar

page 304 note 3 ibid.

page 304 note 4 ibid., 81.

page 304 note 5 ibid., 113.

page 304 note 6 Henning, W.B., Zoroaster, politician or witch-doctor ?, London, 1951, 49.Google Scholar

page 304 note 7 This splendidly produced volume is admirably set out, with glossaries and full index, and I would criticize its form only for the absence of individual page-headings in part II, which would have made it easier to find references in the texts.

page 304 note 8 The book is clearly the work of years (Professor Zaehner's first work on the subject, incorporated here, was published in BSOS, IX, 2, 1938, 303–20;Google Scholar IX, 3, 1938, 573–85 ; IX, 4, 1939, 871–901 ; see also ibid., x, 2, 1940, 377–98 ; x, 3, 1940, 606–31). It is perhaps legitimate to distinguish in it, therefore, different stages of thought. Thus in chapters I-III Zurvanism is treated as a Zoroastrian heresy, influenced by Babylonian speculation, and coining into its own only with the Sasanian empire ; but in the later chapters the author inclines more and more to the belief that it is an old pre-Zoroastrian Iranian cult, existing in its own right. In the Introduction he treats it once more as a ‘major heresy ’, a reaction against Zoroastrian dualism ; and this is presumably his final judgment.

page 304 note 9 See op. cit., 70–1.

page 305 note 1 See A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, second edition, 150.

page 305 note 2 ibid., 437.

page 305 note 3 J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les Mages hellénisés, I, p. 63, n. 3.

page 305 note 4 von Wesendonk, O.G., Das Wesen der Lehre Zarathuštrōs, Leipzig, 1927, 19–20.Google Scholar

page 305 note 5 See Duchesne-Guillemin, J., ‘Notes on Zervanism in the light of Zaehner's Zurvān, with additional references’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, XV, 1956, 108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 306 note 1 This point has been emphasized by Nyberg, op. cit., 68–71.

page 307 note 1 For further discussion of this, see Zaehner, , ‘Postscript to Zurvān’, BSOAS, XVII, 2, 1955, 234–7.Google Scholar

page 307 note 2 DkM, 946.12 ; Zaehner, p. 12 and n. 3.

page 307 note 3 I find it slightly puzzling that Zaehner points in one place (p. 181) to the Zurvanite character of andarz literature, and in another (p. 12) takes it as a proof of orthodoxy that collections of andarz were attributed to Adurbad and Xusrau.

page 307 note 4 DkM, 412.17.

page 307 note 5 See O. Braun, Ausgewählte Akten persischer Märtyrer, 66–7 ; Zaehner, 432.

page 307 note 6 Zaehner, 437.

page 307 note 7 ibid., 241–6. Were it merely a question of a pervasively fatalistic outlook, one might be inclined to attribute this, with Zaehner, to Firdausi's own time, or even to regard it as expressive of the heroic attitude in general (see Ringgren, H., Fatalism in Persian Epics, Uppsala, 1952, 47).Google Scholar But Zaehner bases his argument on one particular passage, first cited in this connexion by Blue, I.F., in Indo-Iranian studies … in honour of … Peshotan Sanjana, London, 1925, 61–2,Google Scholar where Zal is questioned by the Mobads. Zurvanism is here a matter of content, not interpretation, and can therefore be safely attributed to the Sasanian period. Zaehner's suggestion (p. 241) that Firdausi‘must have been conversant with the more popular Pahlavl religious texts ’ seems to me hazardous. The evidence cited can readily be explained as-an example of traditionally expressed gnomic lore.

page 308 note 1 See the treatise by Mār bar Hadbešabbā, Zaehner, 439 ff.

page 308 note 2 op. cit., 117.

page 308 note 3 Zaehner (p. 29) cites in this connexion Eliše's account of the divisions of the Magi, which includes the palhavik and parskaden ; but according to Darmesteter, these terms refer to texts (zand and nirangistan), not to local schools (see his Zend-Avesta, III, p. xciv, n. 3). Despite the Manichaean evidence, G. Widengren has strongly urged that it was among the Parthians that Zurvanism flourished, and not among the Persians (see his ‘Stand und Aufgaben der iranischen Religions geschichte’, Numen, II, 1/2, 1955, 89 ff., 102 ff.).

page 309 note 1 Such sectarian regionalism can, of course, last for centuries in much smaller countries than Iran. In the United Kingdom, for example, we have Anglicanism dominant in the south, Presbyteriansm in the north, Methodism in Wales, and Roman Catholicism in the south of Ireland. For Iran there remains the fact of Zurvan's name being used to translate Brahma's in Sogdiana.

page 309 note 2 Kitābu't-Tanbīh, ed. de Goeje, 93, transl. Carra de Vaux, 134 ; Zaehner, 443.

page 310 note 1 Zātspram, 2.19, 34.35 ; Zaehner, pp. 247, n. D, 346.

page 310 note 2 Nyberg, op. cit., 90.

page 310 note 3 See Schaeder, H.H., Urform und Fortbildungen des manichäischen Systems, 141–2; Nyberg,Google Scholar op. cit., 84 ff.; Benveniste, E., ‘Le témoignage de Théodore bar Kônay sur le zoroastrisme’, MO, XXVI, 1932,Google Scholar 177 ff. ; Bailey, H.W., ‘Indo-Iranian studies‘, Trans. Phil. Soc, 1935, 27–8 ;Google Scholar Zaehner, 219 ff.

page 310 note 4 Nyberg, op. cit., 126. Nyberg has latterly come to believe that‘der Zervanismus ist die besondere Ausgestaltung der alten medischen Religion vor der Ankunft des Zoroastrismus’(see his Die Beligionen des alten Iran, transl. by Schaeder, H.H., Leipzig, 1938, 388)Google Scholar and that Zurvan became a deus otiosus only after his Median cult had come into contact with the Zoroastrian worship of Ahura Mazdah (ibid., 386).

page 310 note 5 Thus Nyberg attributes the cleavage of Vayu to the Zoroastrian period, whereas G. Dumézil would set it at an earlier stage (see his Tarpeia, Paris, 1947, 74 ff.; Les dieux des indo-européens, Paris, 1952, 84–9).Google Scholar

page 311 note 1 Links have frequently been sought between Zurvan and Vayu, largely because they are invoked together (although in company with other gods) in Ys. 72,10 ; Sīr. i, 21 ; ii, 21 ; Vd. 19, 13 ; but an obstacle to their close association is created by Zurvan's universally recognized position as deus otiosus. Nyberg has met this difficulty firmly by suggesting that, by the period of the younger Avesta at least, Vayu, and θwāša also, were both themselves dii otiosii (see his Die Beligionen, 80), and could therefore ‘ohne weiteres mit Zurvān gleichgesetzt und als Aspekte seines Wesens aufgefasst werden. Tatsächlich sind sie auch sehr nahe verwandte östliche Spielformen von ihm’(ibid., 391). Widengren has combated vigorously (and, as it seems to me, with justice) the idea that Vayu was ever a deus otiosus (see his Hochgottglaube im alten Iran, Uppsala, 1938,Google Scholar 207 ff.), but wishes nevertheless to regard Vayu and Zurvan as aspects of the same god (ibid., 234). In this he seems to me a little inconsequent, seeking as he does to link a remote god of Fate with an active god of war. Zaehner, like Nyberg, attempts to meet the problem squarely, but his solution is to postulate a gradual identification of Zurvan with the more active deity in the period after the incontestable Manichaean evidence of the third century. Wikander's, S. attempt (La Nouvelle Clio, 1950,Google Scholar 310 ff.) to interpret the story of Zal and Rugstam as a heroization of the myths of Zurvan and Vayu seems to me an unhappy one ; but see Barr, K., Avesta, oversat og forklaret, Copenhagen, 1954, 46–7 ;Google ScholarDuchesne-Guillemin, J., ‘La religion iranienne’, in É. Drioton and others, Les religions de l'Orient ancien, Paris, Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1956, 124.Google Scholar

page 311 note 2 It might be tempting to see a parallel to the standing epithet wēh in Parthian ardāw, applied as constantly, in Manichaean texts, to frawardīn ‘ether, air’, were it not that this usage represents presumably an inherited formula, Av. ašaonąm fravašinąm.

page 312 note 1 Nyberg has argued brilliantly (JA, 1931, 2, 121–5) for a connexion between the Iranian conception of the paθąm zrvō.dātanąm and the Indian pitryāna, the Činvat bridge representing the devayāna; but whatever the possibilities of a remote common origin for the conceptions, in the developed Iranian mythology as we possess it, all souls travel these paths, after standing at the judgment-seat. It seems perilous, then, to argue from a single occurrence of an epithet for them, in a late text, that ‘Zurvān … est le dieu primitif chthonien qui arrache la vie aux êtres humains, le maître du pitryāna‘.

page 312 note 2 Zaehner bases his argument largely on difficult textual evidence, in his interpretation of which he appears to me to press correspondences too far. A very similar position has already been claimed for Vayu, as ‘die Hauchseele des ganzen Kosmos. Der Kosmos selbst wird als der Körper der Gottheit aufgefasst … ’(Widengren, Numen, I, 1, 19), but this also appears to me of doubtful validity.

page 312 note 3 Nyberg himself brought his theory into connexion with Zurvan, in that he considered this four-fold division of the month to symbolize Zurvan as the ‘viergestaltigen Zeitgott’ (see Die Religionen, 380). Zaehner develops the connexion rather differently, however, by actually introducing Zurvan among the postulated four creators, thus forming a new tetrad.

page 313 note 1 The evidence proposed for some of the other tetrads in Ch. Ix also seems to me weak ; but on p. 214 the author expresses his readiness not to press these particular theories. As for the naming of the three judges as Mihr, Srōš, and Rašn (pp. 102–3), this can hardly be regarded as more than a possibility, owing to the lack of evidence. Their further identification with Gayōmard, Jamšīd, and Zoroaster (‘Postscript’, pp. 243–9), I find wholly unconvincing.

page 313 note 2 I cannot see that Zaehner has established his case (pp. 174–5) for translating waran ‘lust’ as ‘heresy and unbelief’. The facts that waran is opposed to reason, associated with self-love and ignorance (xvad-dōšagīh and duš-āgāhīh, here rendered as ‘self-will and wrong knowledge’), and that it leads astray, unsettles, and deceives, appear to me to accord admirably with the accepted translation.

page 313 note 3 MO, XXVI, 1932, 185–92.Google Scholar

page 313 note 4 ibid., 189.

page 313 note 5 Zaehner, transliteration and textual notes, BSOS, X, 2, 1940, 390;Google Scholar x, 3, 1940, 620–5 ; transcription, Zurvān, 345 ; translation, ibid., 350–1. The restorations for para. 30, given here in square brackets, are Professor Zaehner's, as is, with minor divergencies, the translation.

page 314 note 1 See his Ohrmazd et Ahriman, Paris, 1953, 128.Google Scholar

page 315 note 1 This fact I learnt as a student from Professor Henning, who pointed out at the time the many corruptions undergone by the word in Pahlavi and Persian. He has since cited in print the well-preserved Xwarezmian form karbun (see his Zoroaster, 45). Pahlavi natural history is notoriously imprecise, but the following passage (Gt.Bd., 43.4 ff.) serves as a slight counter balance to Professor Zaehner's citation, placing the lizard as it does in unexceptionable company: a'on astōmand aziš be ambōsīd h0113;nd xrafstar i gazāg i wišōmand, če'ōn až ud mār ud gazdum ud ; karbiš ud kašawa ud wazag ‘Thus there came into bodily existence through him the stinging and poisonous reptiles, such as dragon and snake and scorpion and lizard and tortoise and frog’, The Pahlavi gloss to Av. kahrpuna, cited by Zaehner, appears to suggest rather charmingly a lizard with lifted head.

page 315 note 2 Allberry, p. 57,1. 18.

page 315 note 3 See Polotsky, Abriss des manichäischen Systems, Pauly-Wissowa, Suppbd. VI, 250. It : was with the detailed description of the Manichaean demon that Duchesne-Guillemin (loc. cit.) first tentatively compared the Mithraic figure.

page 315 note 4 See Pettazzoni, R., Essays on the history of religions, transl. Rose, H.J., Leiden, 1954,180–92 ;Google Scholar the original paper was published in L'Antiquité Classique, XVIII, 1949, 265–77.Google Scholar

page 315 note 3 See, most recently, A. Alföldi, ‘Der iranische Weltriese auf archäologischen Denkmälern‘, Jahrbuch der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte, XL, 1949–1950, 17–34.Google Scholar

page 315 note 6 ‘Ahriman et le dieu suprême dans les mystéres de Mithra’, Numen, II, 1955, 190–5;Google Scholar see now further, by the same author, ‘Le Zervanisme et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte’, Indo-Iranian Journal, I, 1, 1957, 96–9.Google Scholar

page 316 note 1 Perhaps I may take this opportunity to express my personal gratitude to Professor Zaehner for his kindness, during the Vlllth Congress for the History of Religions, in taking me, despite pressure of time, to see the terrifying statues in the Vatican Museum. During this Congress we shared the privilege, with Professor Duchesne-Guillemin, of being shown the mithraeum of St. Prisca by its excavator, Dr. van Essen. The unique central statue here has been identified as Okeanos-Coelus, hence Ohrmazd (see Duchesne-Guillemin, Numen, II, 1955, 195).