Zoroastrianism
node · earth · Iranian plateau, Central Asia, western India
An Iranian tradition attributed by its adherents to the teacher Zarathushtra, whose dating is one of the most unsettled questions in the field — proposals range across more than a millennium. It was the tradition of the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian courts and travelled the same Silk Road corridor as Buddhism, with Sogdian merchant communities carrying it eastward. Its trajectory is the clearest counter-example in this Journey to the assumption that trade diffusion is irreversible: after the fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate in 651 CE, Zoroastrian populations in Iran declined over centuries under a mix of taxation, disadvantage, social pressure and conversion whose relative weights scholars continue to debate. Some communities migrated to Gujarat, becoming the Parsis.
Read in · 1
Evidence · 2
Timeline
No dated observations are stored for this object. Atlas shows what was observed and when — it does not infer a history.
Connections · 2
- Limits of religious diffusioninstance_of
- Indian Ocean maritime trade networkpasses_through
Assembled narrative · 1
Assembled from 31 blocks · 2 evidence · 31 related
- Story
- An Iranian tradition attributed by its adherents to the teacher Zarathushtra, whose dating is one of the most unsettled questions in the field — proposals range across more than a millennium. It was the tradition of the Achaemenid, Parthian and Sasanian courts and travelled the same Silk Road corridor as Buddhism, with Sogdian merchant communities carrying it eastward. Its trajectory is the clearest counter-example in this Journey to the assumption that trade diffusion is irreversible: after the fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate in 651 CE, Zoroastrian populations in Iran declined over centuries under a mix of taxation, disadvantage, social pressure and conversion whose relative weights scholars continue to debate. Some communities migrated to Gujarat, becoming the Parsis.
- Knowledge
- Indian Ocean maritime trade network
- Zoroastrianism
- Limits of religious diffusion
- Connections
- Limits of religious diffusion
- Indian Ocean maritime trade network
- Fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate
- Zoroastrian migrants reach Gujarat — the Parsi settlement
- Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
- Zoroastrianism
- Measured global religious composition, 2010-2020
- Fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate
- Zoroastrian migrants reach Gujarat — the Parsi settlement
- Islam
- Silk Road religious corridor
- Aksum
- Kilwa Kisiwani
- Hinduism
- Zoroastrianism
- Aksum adopts Christianity under King Ezana
- Zoroastrian migrants reach Gujarat — the Parsi settlement
- Construction of Borobudur under Shailendra patronage
- Construction phases of the Great Mosque at Kilwa Kisiwani
- The ruling house of Malacca adopts Islam
- Measured global religious composition, 2010-2020
- Evidence
- Following the fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate in 651 CE, Zoroastrian communities in Iran declined over centuries under a combination of fiscal disadvantage, social pressure, episodes of persecution and conversion, and some groups migrated eastward and by sea to India.
- The sole narrative account of the Parsi migration records Zoroastrians leaving Khorasan and reaching Gujarat by sea via Hormuz and Diu in a year readable as either 716 or 936 CE; estimates in the literature span the 8th to 10th centuries, with some archaeological argument favouring the earlier range.
Observed changes · 0
No public Signals are attached to this object. Signals show what changed and when it was observed — never a direction or a rank.
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/atlas?object=BELIEF_ZOROASTRIANISM&experience=BELIEF_ZOROASTRIANISM