Arcs of Time

Zoroastrian Philosophical Anthropology

The “Arcs of Time: Zoroastrian Philosophical Anthropology” (AOT) project investigates a new topic in Zoroastrian thought: the theory of humanity, and it does this with an expanded methodological approach. It combines traditional philological methods with philosophical analysis in order to integrate the textual and conceptual elements of the topic. Using this twofold method, AOT targets 40 chapters from Dēnkard III for edition, translation, and analysis. One overall aim of the project is to describe the philosophical views of the Zoroastrian philosophers behind the Dēnkard as well as to show their embeddedness in the early Islamic world.

The Dēnkard was composed over hundreds of year, and it was completed in the ‘Abbāsid period (c. 9th or 10th CE). This multigenerational book both examines the early Zoroastrian tradition and expands its worldview. The most important section for philosophy is Dēnkard book three. Dēnkard III comprises 420 heterogenous chapters, which present a robust philosophical system in an incredibly technical language.

The AOT project targets philosophical anthropology in Dēnkard III, which has two aspects: the compositional aspect and the historical aspect. The compositional aspect analyzes the physical and spiritual parts of each person, and thereby producing theoretical discussions of human free will, the psychology of belief, and theories of embodied emotions. The historical aspect analyzes human history from its origins through the rise and fall of dynasties and religions. Human history began with the first human, Gayōmard, and it diversified with the first couple, Mashya and Mashyānē, whose offspring populate all nations. As humanity fanned out, there appeared historical cycles, during which rises and falls of empires and religions.