[en] Both Vedic and Avestan sacrifices show us how a sacrificer tries to make contact with his gods in the context of complex liturgical ceremonies implying the presence of priests who offer several kinds of gifts, for instance poems, libations or slaughtered cattle. In both cases the religious doctrine justifying the liturgical process explains that the sacrificial ground and space correspond to the beginning of Time, but the definitions given to these beginnings are extremely divergent. This is surprising, because Indo-Iranian linguistics strongly suggests that both religious systems should be genetically very close. In Vedic India, the sacrificer represents an embryo, which should have been a god, but begets the human race. In Iran, he renews the first perfect ceremony achieved by Zarathushtra, the so-called prophet who chose to revere Ahura Mazda. How did one similar doctrine produce two so different products?
Research Center/Unit :
Unité de Recherche en Histoire et Anthropologie des Religions (URHAR)
Disciplines :
Classical & oriental studies
Author, co-author :
Swennen, Philippe ; Université de Liège > Département des sciences de l'antiquité > Langues et religions du monde indo-iranien ancien
Language :
English
Title :
How can an embryo become a prophet?
Publication date :
24 August 2015
Event name :
XXI Quinquennial World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions
Event organizer :
International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR)