抄録
Gikyo ITO, On the name “Zoroaster” An Eastern Access to “Zaraθustra”: In the Ahunawar Confession, the earliest Zoroastrians confess their belief thus: ‘Your Reverence are (more lit. Thy Reverence is) the instructor (dazdar-) whom the Sacred Beings have appointed pastor (vastar-) for us the poor’.
By the Prophet Zoroaster, the followers called asavan- were divided into two groups: one was called aredra- ‘rich, blessed’ and the other drigu- ‘poor’. The former are those qualified for the heavenly property (isti-) already in their life-time whereas the latter not yet qualified for it. The Sacred Beings that are possessed of it are also called aredra-. For Zoroaster, the appropriate to be instructed and cultivated are no other than ‘the poor’, because ‘the blessed’ are fit for future salvation.
By his self-styled 1st person humble name or title Zaraθustra ‘keeper of old, decrepit camels’, Zoroaster shows himself as a poor one (drigu-) appropriate for salvation. We can see why the earliest followers avoided to call him by the name Zaraθustra, his proper and personal name given by his father being Spitdma.
Readers will find my latest interpretation of the Ahunawar Confession (pp. 21-24 and n. 16) as well as my argument to show Zaraθustra as his self-styled title, rejecting its interpretation as ‘camel-driver’ or as ‘of golden radiance’.
