Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

stony desert. The polluted body was not in any way
allowed to come in contact with the good earth, water, or
plants. After the flesh was destructed, then the bones
were gathered together and buried. This funerary
purpose seems to solve the problem of the highly
contaminated and polluted flesh and set the spirit free to
go to heaven (Boyce 1979:44-45).
Persians and ancient funeral practices
The ancient Indo-Iranian tribes developed a complex
system of religious purity avoiding pollution in which
ritual purity was a safeguard against evil. Ritual purity
was in service of the gods, and the good creations were
protected. It seems that “proto-Indo-Iranians” were one
group among the “pit-grave” people of the steppes who
buried their members; the leading members at the
bottom of deep shafts covered by earthen barrows, and
ordinary people were presumably laid in simple graves
in the earth of which no traces remain. The Indians seem
to have changed their funerary practice into cremation
whereas the Iranians seemed to have too great respect for
the purity of the fire to use it for polluted purposes, and
it might be that in prehistoric times the practice of
exposure which later became known as Zoroastrianism
became common (Boyce 1979:14). The Zoroastrians
lived at the steppe lands to the East of the Caspian sea
probably around 1500 BCE, but very little is known of
the first thousand years of the Zoroastrian history due to
the lack of written sources. Zoroaster came from a
pastoral people who cared for and relied upon their
animals as a way of life, and “it is likely that
Zarathushtra came from a polytheistic back-ground with
an inherent cosmic dualism, which he proceeded to
refine into a doctrine of moral imperatives” (Russel
2002:36).
Zoroastrianism as a religion gained popularity and
became a state religion in Iran. There were three main
Iranian dynasties: the Achaemenian, the Arsacid or the
Parthian, and the Sasanian. It is by Cyrus the Great that
the Achaemenian Empire was established, and he
extended his little kingdom and conquered all of Asia
Minor and even the mighty Babylon. There is written a
script on a barrel shaped clay cylinder with the edict of
Cyrus the Great declaring the rights to the Jewish people
Fig. 16.2. The Achaemenians 550-331 BCE.
Cyrus the Great (550-530 BCE)
Cambyses (530-522 BCE)
Smerdis (522 BCE)
Darius the Great (522-486 BCE)
Xerxes I (486-465 BCE)
Artaxerxes I (465-424 BCE)
Xerxes II (424 BCE)
to whom he allowed to return to Jerusalem after being
released from captivity in Babylon. The cylinder is
known as the “Bill of Rights”, which proclaims Cyrus’
kingship and his triumph over the city of Babylon. Cyrus
was seen as a Messiah. The biblical Esther was the
Jewish wife of the Achaemenian king Artaxerxes.
Xerxes burnt Athens in 480 BCE and the Achaemenian
Empire lasted until Alexander invaded Iran in 331 BCE
and conquered Persepolis in 330 BCE.
Alexander described Persepolis as “the most hateful of
the cities in Asia” (Wheeler 1968:20). The royal palace
of Persepolis was the richest under the sun and the
Macedonians plundered it without satisfying their greed
for more. With the fall of the Persian empire through the
conquest of Alexander the Great, Palestine was no
longer under Persian domination and influence but
became a part of the Hellenistic Seleucid Kingdom and
later the Romans (Shaked 2002). In the West Alexander
is known as “The Great” but in Iranian texts he is known
as “Alexander the Accursed” because of his destruction
of Persepolis and the persecution of the priesthood.
When he died in 323 BCE his empire was divided
between his generals, and the Greek general Seleucus
took control over Iran and the successors became the
Seleucids. In areas controlled by the Iranian Parthian
dynasty, they expelled foreigners, who basically were
Greeks. The Parthians were faithful to their religious
heritage, and during their rule the first moves took place
to collect the rituals and the doctrinal traditions and put
them together into a holy book: the Avesta (Hinnells
1981:18-21). Alexander’s conquest of the Achaemenian
Empire robbed the Zoroastrians of the power and wealth,
and according to tradition it caused the loss of the sacred
texts, which then were transmitted orally. The Avestan
texts were re-written during the Sasanias, and
Zoroastrianism underwent a religious development
(Boyce 2002b:57-59).
For the moment I will only focus on the Achaemenians
since the next chapter on Taxila will lay emphasis on
Alexander’s conquest and the subsequent dynasties,
conflicts, and cooperation between the Zoroastrian,
Buddhist, and Greek empires. The rule of the
Achaemenians started with Cyrus the Great and lasted
until Darius III’s defeat (fig. 16.2).
Sogdianus (424 BCE)
Darius II (423-404 BCE)
Artaxerxes II (404-358 BCE)
Artaxerxes III (358-338 BCE)
Arses (338-336 BCE)
Darius III (336-331 BCE)
242