''Frashokereti'' ( ') is the

Avestan Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family and was First language, originally spoken during the Avestan period, Old ...

language term (corresponding to

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

''fraš(a)gird'' ) for the

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

doctrine of a final renovation of the universe, when evil will be destroyed, and everything else will be then in perfect unity with God (

Ahura Mazda Ahura Mazda (; ; or , ),The former is the New Persian rendering of the Avestan form, while the latter derives from Middle Persian. also known as Horomazes (),, is the only creator deity and Sky deity, god of the sky in the ancient Iranian ...

). The doctrinal premises are (1) good will eventually prevail over evil; (2) creation was initially perfectly good, but was subsequently corrupted by evil; (3) the world will ultimately be restored to the perfection it had at the time of creation; (4) the "salvation for the individual depended on the sum of

hat person's A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

thoughts, words and deeds, and there could be no intervention, whether compassionate or capricious, by any divine being to alter this." Thus, each human bears the responsibility for the fate of his own soul, and simultaneously shares in the responsibility for the fate of the world..

Etymology and meaning

The name suggests "making wonderful, excellent".The second part ''kərəti'' in Avestan means "making" (''kardan'' in New Persian), but the meaning of the adjective ''fraša-'' is not certain; it probably indicates, and is usually translated as, "wonderful, excellent". D. N. MacKenzie in ''A Concise Dictionary of Pahlavi'' gives the meaning as "the Restoration (at the end of time)".. Considering this meaning, the first part could indicate "early, first, initial", related to ''fra'' prefix, cognate with ''pro'' in Greek and Latin. Then the overall meaning being "making into initial state", hence "restoration".

Eschatology

The eschatological ideas are only alluded to in the surviving texts of the

Avesta The Avesta (, Book Pahlavi: (), Persian language, Persian: ()) is the text corpus of Zoroastrian literature, religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. Mod ...

, and are known of in detail only from the texts of Zoroastrian tradition, in particular in the ca. 9th-century ''

Bundahishn The ''Bundahishn'' (Middle Persian: , "Primal Creation") is an encyclopedic collection of beliefs about Zoroastrian cosmology written in the Book Pahlavi script. The original name of the work is not known. It is one of the most important extant ...

''. The accompanying story, as it appears in the ''Bundahishn'' (''GBd'' 30.1ff), runs as follows: At the end of the "third time" (the first being the age of creation, the second of mixture, and the third of separation), there will be a great battle between the forces of good (the ''yazata''s) and those of evil (the ''daeva''s) in which the good will triumph. On earth, the Saoshyant will bring about a

resurrection of the dead General resurrection or universal resurrection is the belief in a resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead ( Koine: , ''anastasis onnekron''; literally: "standing up again of the dead") by which most or all people who have died ...

in the bodies they had before they died. This is followed by a

last judgment The Last Judgment is a concept found across the Abrahamic religions and the '' Frashokereti'' of Zoroastrianism. Christianity considers the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to entail the final judgment by God of all people who have ever lived, res ...

through ordeal. The ''yazata''s Airyaman and Atar will melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and the molten metal will then flow across the earth like a river. All mankind—both the living and the resurrected dead—will be required to wade through that river, but for the righteous ('' ashavan'') it will seem to be a river of warm milk, while the wicked will be burned. The river will then flow down to hell, where it will annihilate Angra Mainyu and the last vestiges of wickedness in the universe. In later Zoroastrian texts, it is written that the molten metal will purify the wicked. The narrative continues with a projection of

and the six

Amesha Spenta In Zoroastrianism, the Amesha Spenta (—literally "Immortal (which is) holy/bounteous/furthering") are a class of seven divine entities emanating from Ahura Mazda, the highest divinity of the religion. Later Middle Persian variations of the ter ...

s solemnizing a final act of worship (''yasna''), and the preparation of ''parahaoma'' from "white

haoma (; Avestan: ) is a divine plant in Zoroastrianism and in later Persian culture and Persian mythology, mythology. has its origins in Indo-Iranian religion and is the cognate of Vedas, Vedic . Etymology Both Avestan and Sanskrit derived from Pr ...

". The righteous will partake of the ''parahaoma'', which will confer immortality upon them. Thereafter, humankind will become like the Amesha Spentas, living without food, without hunger or thirst, and without weapons (or possibility of bodily injury). The material substance of the bodies will be so light as to cast no shadow. All humanity will speak a single language and belong to a single nation without borders. All will share a single purpose and goal, joining with the divine for a perpetual exaltation of God's glory.. Although ''frashokereti'' is a restoration of the time of creation, there is no return to the uniqueness of the primordial plant, animal and human; while in the beginning there was one plant, one animal and one human, the variety that had since issued would remain forever. Similarly, the host of divinities brought into existence by Mazda continue to have distinct existences, "and there is no prophecy of their re-absorption into the Godhead."

Etymology and meaning

Eschatology

See also

Notes

References

Further reading