In Search Of Zarathustra (Hardcover)

This is the highly readable story of Paul Kriwaczek's search for the origins of Zoroastrianism and the influence that Zarathustra has had, not only on religions that followed him, but also on the world in general. I particularly enjoyed the format - part history and part travelogue, subtly and deftly written with wit and good humour.

I read In Search of Zarathustra from cover to cover in one sitting, such is the quality of Kriwaczek's storytelling. Perhaps it's because of his background in television documentary that I never once felt lectured. Instead, the history and concepts came across through the experience and practices of the people that he meets. The journeys through Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and even northern England are peppered with the kind of interesting facts that I found myself quoting in the pub the next day. I hadn't realised that so much of our understanding of the dual nature of the world, of good and evil, can be traced back to Zarathustra and that the world's religions as practiced today have been greatly influenced by him. Nor had I realised how the Bulgars had given their name to a great British swear-word, what the origin of Christmas might really be, or even the origin of the word 'Amazon'. (A-mazon - without a breast - female warriors would cut one off, the better to bend their bows). I loved the characters we meet on the way - the Frenchman Antoine Hyacinth for example. He was a latter-day walking disaster-area who set out to be the first translator of key Zoroastrian documents. His trip round India was a scream.

If you've ever wondered about characters like Ahura Mazda, Cyrus the Great, Mithras, the Manichaeans and the Cathars, you will not find a more delightful or accessible way to learn about them. As for Strauss and Stanley Kubrick's 2001, in case you're wondering, you'll find them here as well.

This book has enabled me to see all sorts of religious practices and human behaviours in a new light, though I did feel slightly envious of Kriwaczek's ability to be simultaneously erudite and compelling. Great stuff.

The other feature is that Kriwaczek is so entertainingly knowledgeable about so much that he devotes pages on matters which have only the thinnest link with Zoroastrianism. Zarathustra himself had only one god, Ahura Mazda, and described all the other deities of his time as not deserving of the name. A very long time after his death, as Zoroastrianism departed from the original view of the prophet, it produced another god called Mithra, who seems to have borne a very similar relationship to Ahura Mazda as Jesus would bear to God the Father. Now the Romans also worshipped a god called Mithra, but, although Kriwaczek tells us that some modern scholars think that it was a mere coincidence that the same name was given to two gods who had nothing to do with each other, he devotes 2/3 of that chapter to telling us everything he knows about this Roman Mithras. Truth to tell, in the course of the book we really learn far more about Nietzsche, the Cathars, the Bogomils, the Sarmatians, the Romans, the Manichaeans and the Jews than we do about Zarathustra. Kriwaczek knows so much history that the slightest link he can establish with Zarathustra's teaching (or its later perversions) is enough to get him to unpack it all. The penultimate chapter ends, "Having mapped the Persian seer's influence back through the two and a half millennia that separate our own era from the dawn of Persian civilization, what remains in to seek out the traces of a time before ... recorded Iranian history began - the days of the First Prophet himself."

It was therefore with some eagerness that I looked forward to the last chapter for a comprehensive account of what Zarathustra stood for, but I found it a rather thin harvest. Yes, very likely Zarathustra was the first monotheist, the first who spoke of the End of Time, the first who saw life as a battle between Good and Evil, the first who taught that mankind has a choice between them, the first who summed up the duties of man as "Good Words, Good Thoughts, and Good Deeds". Yes, if we dig down through Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we can find a Zoroastrian substratum. And yes, I do understand that Kriwaczek would not call that a thin harvest; and I can see his point.
In any case, this is a rattling good read. There is a wealth of information here - some of it quite startling (for instance, that much of what we call Gothic is actually Sarmatian); the patches of history he tells us about are exciting and little known to the general reader; his enthusiasm is infectious; and his word painting is superb. The book was not what I expected from the title or what I think it ought to have been, but I enjoyed every page of it and am very glad I read it.