ReligionHistoryNonfictionPhilosophySpiritualityTheology 303 pages, Paperback First published JanuBook details & editions Loading interface. The standing priest holds bellows or tongs to keep the fire going, while the other priest holds short barsom bundles or sticks as he kneels to recite the Gathas, short verses believed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself Fig. Jenny Rose shows why Zoroastrianism remains one of the world's most inspiring and perennially fascinating systems of ethics and belief. They face a stepped fire altar from which leaves appear to sprout. On the long sides, two priests officiate at the Afrinagan ceremony, performed on the morning of the fourth day after death. This is the sacred belt worn to remind all Mazdeans of the ethical imperative to have “good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.” The lower part of each priest’s face is protected by a mouth covering ( padam), so his breath will not pollute the sacred fire.
Beneath each arch is a Mazdean priest, his robe fastened around his waist by three encirclings of the kusti. Similar to the series of ossuaries from Durman Tepe in Uzbekistan, an arcade beneath a parapet with stepped crenels encompasses the container’s rectangular base. Like many Sogdian ossuaries, this one, found by farmers at Mulla Kurgan, was decorated using molds stamped onto wet clay.
In accordance with Mazdean belief that held in-ground burial to be polluting the earth, Sogdians exposed their dead to carrion-eating dogs and birds and then gathered the bones in ossuaries (“bone boxes”).
0 kommentar(er)
