LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Zoroastrian: Central Iran
built 635 days ago
Zoroastrian doctrine holds that earth, fire, and water are polluted if a corpse is buried, cremated, or placed in water. Consequently, corpses are washed, then placed in a dakhma (funerary tower), which is open to the sky and accessible to birds of prey. Thereafter, the bones are collected and disposed of. Exposure of corpses has been phased out in Iran since the 1940s, replaced with interment (burial), but many Parsis in India and Pakistan continue the tradition of exposing bodies in funerary towers, particularly at Bombay and Karachi. Most Zoroastrians elsewhere follow their Iranian coreligionists' adaptation. Certain Zoroastrian communities, particularly those in North America, now perform cremation.
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All in all, it would seem that amongst the fringe groups in Judaism the Jesus sect was the one that was most exposed to Zoroastrian influence. There is nothing mysterious about that. The Iranian culture is now known to have been long and firmly established in areas into which early Christians moved. There was, for instance, a strong Zoroastrian influence in Anatolia - and Anatolia had great importance in the early development of Christianity. The author of the Book of Revelation knew the region well.
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There is some interest among Iranians, as well as people in various Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in their ancient Zoroastrian heritage; some people in these countries take notice of their Zoroastrian past. At the instigation of the government of Tajikistan, UNESCO declared 2003 a year to celebrate the "3000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture", with special events throughout the world.
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There are three Zoroastrian calendars namely, SHEHENSHAHI, KADMI and FASLI. Zoroastrians emigrated from Iran in groups. Depending on the time of arrival of a certain group from Iran, a certain calendar is followed. The
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Some of these documents, such as Vandidad, which is one of the 5 sections of Avesta and other Zoroastrian documents of later centuries, such as Dinkard, Ardaviraf Nameh, Bundehesh, etc. were composed under often harsh and cruel economical, social and political conditions of their times imposed upon Zoroastrians in their homeland of Iran.
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A rare pro-democracy demonstration took place in Tehran on Sunday, sparked by foreign TV channels and the promise of a Zoroastrian mystic to return to Iran on October 1st and solve the country's problems. -VOA - 9/28/04
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