The Gathas (Zoroastrian Sacred Songs)

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The Gathas (Avestan: gāθās, "songs") are the 17 hymns composed by the prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster), preserved within the Yasna — the primary liturgical text of the Avesta, the sacred scripture of Zoroastrianism. They are the oldest and most theologically complex part of the Avestan corpus. The Gathas are composed in a difficult, archaic form of Avestan closely related to the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, confirming their composition within the same ancient Indo-Iranian cultural sphere (c. 1500–1000 BCE, though some scholars date them earlier or later). Their content is not narrative but prophetic and didactic — Zarathustra addresses Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord) directly, asking about cosmic order and requesting divine aid in his mission. The central theological innovation of the Gathas is ethical monotheism: Ahura Mazda is the supreme creator and the source of all good, in cosmic opposition to Angra Mainyu (the Hostile Spirit) who chooses evil. This dualism is not absolute — it is ethical rather than ontological — and Mazda ultimately prevails. The concept of Asha (Truth, Cosmic Order) versus Druj (Lie, Disorder) organises all moral and cosmic reality. Zoroastrianism influenced later religious traditions profoundly: the concepts of a cosmic struggle between good and evil, a final judgement, resurrection of the dead, and the messianic saviour figure all appear in the Gathas centuries before their full development in Judaism and Christianity. Translation after L.H. Mills, Sacred Books of the East Vol. 31 (1887). Public domain.