The Avesta

The Avesta is the scripture of Zoroastrianism, ascribed to the prophet Zarathustra, also called Zoroaster, and his successors. Its dating is among the most contested in the history of religion; linguistic analysis of the archaic Gathas leads many scholars to place the prophet between roughly 1500 and 1000 BCE, while later tradition gives much later dates, and the question remains genuinely open.

The teaching reframes existence as a cosmic struggle between truth, asha, and the lie, druj, under the Wise Lord, Ahura Mazda, with each person's choices bearing real weight in the contest. Central to a study of the mind is Vohu Manah, the Good Mind, one of the beneficent immortals and, in the tradition's account, the very faculty through which Zarathustra was conducted into the divine presence. The cultivated quality of one's mind thus becomes the means of approach to the divine.

Its contribution is to make moral choice world-shaping and mental orientation spiritually decisive: good thoughts, words and deeds help determine the outcome of the cosmic order, seeding a long lineage of teaching on the inner choice between a higher and lower mind and the hope of ultimate renewal.