The death of Socrates

Once upon a time and an extraordinary time it was, there lived in Athens a man famous for his wisdom. His name was Socrates. If stories are to be believed, he was ugly and unkempt. He wore shabby clothes and much like Indian rishis, went about barefoot. He had a shrew of a wife who henpecked him and made his life a living hell. Partly because of this domestic angst, he learnt to bear and forbear and to face life with fortitude. So great was his capacity to bear adversity that he went about in ordinary clothes and bare feet even when all the strong and healthy people around him were shivering with cold. He was absent minded and erratic (as a philosopher should be). The highest ‘good’ for Socrates was a transparent, unsullied mind that could see with absolute clarity into truth. He was unperturbed by the vagaries of life. In short, he was a sage, a rishi. Socrates was known for his ‘odd’ ways. Often he would be lost in thought trying to untie the intricacies of a philosophic problem that vexed him. On one such occasion, He stood rooted to a spot for such a long time that word spread through the streets of Athens. a People poured into the streets to look at Socrates frozen into a statue. Some of them brought out their mats and camped around him just to see when he would move. Socrates stood all night and the next morning he shook himself up and left the place as if nothing unusual had happened. It’s hard to say whether Socrates had experienced the super conscious state or Samadhi.

Having learnt the mysteries of life the hard way, Socrates took to teaching the young. He was too other worldly to take a tuition fee. Plato was his most famous pupil. If Plato’s oeuvre is anything to go by, Socrates must have been a man of extraordinary genius and character.  A thinker of Plato’s caliber couldn't have felt such reverence for an ordinary man. At about the age of seventy, Socrates was tried and condemned to death for ‘corrupting the young’ among other things.  He was probably tried by men who were far inferior to him in intelligence and moral integrity. Socrates chose to represent himself at the trial and when sentenced, suggested such a paltry penalty that he infuriated the judges. It’s been said that death meant nothing to him. It was a case of mind or soul over matter.
He didn't care if the body stayed or fell. Further, he went on to assert that it wasn't in the power of the judges to punish or kill him. His soul was immortal:
‘…if you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you injure me…for a bad man is not permitted to injure a (man) better than himself…the evil of unjustly taking away the life of another- is greater far (than being put to death)...those of us who think death is an evil are in error. For either death is a dreamless sleep- which is plainly good- or the soul migrates to another world. And ‘what would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die and die again.’(1)

The reference to reincarnation is interesting. Socrates calmly drank the cup of hemlock brought to him and died consoling his distraught disciples. He brings to life the ideal of right living and dying regardless of consequences.

Pic: www.biography.com

1.Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy

Nietzsche contra Vivekananda: The Will to Power

In Part II of Thus Spake Zarathushtra[1] Nietzsche introduces the concept for which he is most famous: the will to power (‘der Willie zur Macht’). There is no ‘being’, only ‘becoming’. Aristotle had postulated mutually exclusive categories:  a thing is either black or white. It cannot be both. Dualistic thinking is based on Aristotelian logic. Plato introduced the concept of ‘becoming’ in The Republic but the concept was fully conceived by Hegel: between black and white, there are many shades of grey, between ‘being’ and ‘nothingness’ there is ‘becoming.’ In his analysis of Nietzsche’s thought, Copleston remarks that reality in Nietzsche implies ‘becoming:

“Reality is becoming; it is we who turn it into being, imposing stable patterns on the flux of Becoming. And this activity is an expression of   the will to power. “[2]

We try to find order and meaning in a world which is devoid of both.  Nietzsche’s   ‘reality’ is phenomenal and empirical. It consists of change, flux, development or ‘becoming ‘.  This idea raises problems.  Being is existence. Change implies a background which is constant and stable. If you deny the constant, your reality is chaos, not a rational transition from one entity to another, e.g. animal to man or man to superman.  Nietzsche’s starting point is Schopenhauer’s concept of will. Schopenhauer had established the will as the primary datum of experience. He conceptualized the will as unintelligent; a blind striving that motivates everything in nature. It is never satisfied, forever disenchanted, so it brings suffering.   Nietzsche transforms the will into a life affirming will to power:

‘Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.’[3]

Our primal instinct is not the will to survive, to live, but the will to power:

‘Yea, something invulnerable, unburiable is with me, something that would rend rocks asunder: It is called my Will.’[4]

 The weak serve the strong. Those who cannot be a law unto themselves will be forced to obey others. Nietzsche’s idea of redemption is unique:  The past is redeemed and transformed when the expression ‘it was’ changes to “thus would I have it... thus do I will it! Thus shall I will it!”[5]   The will to power has a cluster of attributes: It is centred in egoism, not altruism. This is ‘the wholesome, healthy selfishness that springeth from the powerful soul.’[6] It is rooted in independence and ambition. It is the celebration and assertion of self.  It is the ability and willingness to dominate others, to fight to get to the top of the heap, to be sovereign over others.  Zarathustra commands because he has ‘unlearnt’ how to obey.  The will to power is beyond good and evil.  If imposing our will on others causes them pain, it is justified.   This obviously implies a situation where competing wills try to dominate each other in a Hobbesian world. An equilibrium is reached where persons of approximately equal value come to a power sharing arrangement, a ‘union with others who are similar’ and conspire to gain mastery over the herd. They form a new oligarchy.  The will emancipates us from the prison house of the past and creates happiness for us because it spells personal growth, an overcoming of self, and the determination to achieve perfection.   It is not necessarily an attempt to gain power over others. It is a state of consciousness.  It has divergent manifestations. It is the ascetic’s struggle to master physicality, the artist’s mastery over his work.  The scientist who ‘feeds on acorns and the grass of knowledge for the sake of truth,’ and is willing to ‘suffer hunger of the soul’ is motivated by the will to power. He wants to control nature. Even the will to peace is just the will to self-preservation. To sum up, Nietzsche’s superman is a bit like Gulliver in Lilliput towering over the little people, crushing them like ants if that is necessary as he sculpts victory to the cadence of Wagner’s music.

It is difficult to discuss the will to power in the context of Vivekananda’s life and ideas. He was, even by utilitarian standards, the most successful of men, a force that shook the world.  Swami Nikhilananda has written a beautiful biography of  Vivekananda. The story of his journey to North America to attend the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago has been told many times, many ways.  I want to retell a few aspects based on Swami Nikhilananda’s biography because nothing illustrates the shallow limits of Nietzsche’s logic better than  Vivekananda’s journey to Chicago. The tale begins at the end of  Vivekananda’s pilgrimage across India. He swims through the shark infested sea, unafraid, to what is now called Vivekananda rock at Cape Comoran. As he sits on the rock, he thinks of his travels:

‘I traveled all over India. But alas, it was agony to me, my brothers, to see with my own eyes the terrible poverty of the masses, and I could not restrain my tears!  It is now my firm conviction that to preach religion amongst them, without first trying to remove their poverty and suffering is futile. It is for this reason – to find means for the salvation of the poor of India – That I am going to the America.’[7]

Vivekananda comes to Madras. His disciples support his plan to go to North America and raise funds. The Raja of Khetri anoints him with the name of Swami Vivekananda and gifts him a turban and ocher raiment of fine silk.   Vivekananda arrives in Chicago and is told that the Parliament of Religions which was to be held on July 31, 1893 has been postponed to September.  Apart from the date, he has another problem; He needs credentials certified by a recognized organization. He has none. As luck would have it, it is too late to register. He approaches the Theosophical Society for help. They refuse.  His meager purse is getting thinner.  An American he meets advises him to go to Boston as it is cheaper. In the train to Boston, the affluent Kate Sanborn is intrigued by this regal, picturesque man in fancy dress.[8] She invites him to her home. Vivekananda meets many people at her house including Professor Wright of Harvard.  Wright is impressed by Vivekananda’s extraordinary intellect and erudition. He writes to several influential people asking them to help him get the necessary credentials: ‘Here is a man more learned than all our learned professors put together.’ He says to  Vivekananda: ‘To ask you, Swami, for your credentials, is like asking the sun about its right to shine.’[9]

 Vivekananda  goes to Chicago but he has mislaid the address of the organizing committee responsible for delegates. Basically, he is stranded again.  He  spends the night in an empty wagon, hungry. Forgetting that he is in a strange country, he goes begging for food in the time honored tradition of Hindu monks and has doors slammed in his face.  His clothes are dirty. His unshaven face gives him the look of a tramp up to no good. Finally he sinks into a side wall utterly spent. Mrs Hale, an influential lady living in the house opposite, notices him. She guesses that he must be a delegate to the Parliament.  Vivekananda,  childlike as always pours out all his troubles. Mrs Hale sees to it that he gets a hot breakfast, bath and fresh clothes. She then takes him to the offices of the Parliament of Religions. Vivekananda is introduced to Dr. Barrows, the president of the Parliament. Thereafter he is accepted as a delegate representing Hinduism. 

 Vivekananda  attended the Parliament in the clothes the Raja of Khetri had gifted him: A red turban, ocher robe and scarlet sash. It had not occurred to anyone that these clothes might look a bit odd amidst the suits in Chicago. Vivekananda carried them off with grace and dignity. At the Parliament, he kept postponing his speech. He had never addressed a public gathering before. It had not occurred to him to prepare a speech.  His opening words ‘Sisters and brothers of America’ got a two minute ovation from the seven thousand people assembled. The rest is history.  Vivekananda spoke on behalf of the oldest religion and order of monks in the world and in the name of millions of Hindu peoples. The applause after his speech was thunderous. A delegate was amazed by ‘the scores of women walking over the benches to get near him.’ She remarked that if the thirty year old Vivekananda ‘can resist that onslaught, (he is) indeed a God.’[10]  Christopher Isherwood talks of ‘a strange kind of subconscious telepathy that spread through the assembly.[11]   Romain Rolland captures the impact  Vivekananda  had:

‘His strength and beauty, the grace and dignity of his bearing, the dark light of his eyes, his imposing appearance and from the moment he began to speak, the splendid music of his rich, deep voice enthralled the wide audience...The thought of this warrior prophet of India left a deep mark on the U.S.’[12]

  Harvard and Columbia, both schools most people would kill to get into, offered to set up new departments with Vivekananda as head. He refused.  The greatest American intellectual of the time, William James listened intently to every word he spoke and called him ‘Master.’ James refers to Vivekananda  as ‘the paragon of Vedantists’ in his Varieties of Religious Experience.[13]  His work owes much to  Vivekananda’s  Raja Yoga.[14]   James organized a lecture for  Vivekananda  at Harvard. Apart from an extraordinary intellect,  Vivekananda  showed his sense of fun: Someone asked him: ‘Swami, what do you think about food and breathing?’  Vivekananda could hardly resist such a question. His reply is an absolute gem: ‘I am for both!’ [15]One of the greatest novelists of all time; Leo Tolstoy had this to say:

‘He is the most brilliant wise man, it is doubtful in this age that another man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation.’[16]

J. D.  Salinger, the author of The Catcher in the Rye, was mesmerized much like Gertrude Stein, John D. Rockefeller and Robert Ingersoll. The scientist Nikola Tesla met  Vivekananda  and was impressed by the similarity between the Sankhya philosophy of matter and the concept of energy in modern Physics.[17]   Vivekananda  had an emotional meeting with ‘the white haired sage’ Max Muller at Oxford. [18]How did this sudden adulation and luxury affect  Vivekananda? It made him even more intensely aware of the terrible poverty in India:

‘…what do I care for name and fame when my motherland remains sunk in utmost poverty? To what a sad pass have we poor Indians come when millions of us die for want of a handful of rice, and here they spend millions of rupees upon their personal comfort! Who will raise the masses of India? Who will give them bread? Show me, O Mother, how I can help them.’[19]

 In one incident, he was mistaken for a black and someone asked him why he didn’t tell them that he was not a Negro but a Hindu.  Vivekananda  was indignant; ‘What! Rise at the expense of another? I did not come to earth for that.’[20] There were lighthearted moments too because  Vivekananda never  lost his sense of mischief.  A student in Minneapolis asked him if Hindu mothers fed their children to crocodiles in the river. Vivekananda shot back: ‘Yes Madam! They threw me in, but like your fabled Jonah, I got out again. [21]

Life wasn’t easy for Vivekananda even after the Parliament of Religions. Jealousy prompted representatives of other religions and even Hindu sects to spread malicious gossip about him. The new movement he represented consisted only of half a dozen bedraggled young men with hardly enough clothes to cover their backs.  He was entirely dependent on donations and charity in the U.S. For this he needed his Indian followers to acknowledge him publicly as a genuine representative of Hinduism. It took Vivekananda almost a year to get this recognition. He asked his disciple Alasingha to organize a public meeting with prominent people, move a vote of thanks for his service to his religion and country. [22]It came, but it took months.  Many of Vivekananda’s admirers withdrew their support thinking him to be a cheat and an  upstart. Funds available to him dried up  which caused him a lot of hardship.  

His love for his people did not suffer because of this neglect. In London someone asked him; ’‘Swami, how do you like now your motherland after three years’ experience of the luxurious and powerful west?’  Vivekananda said: ‘India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now to me holy, it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha!’[23]  If anything, he was intensely aware of his identity as a monk; ‘I long, Oh, I long for my rags, my shaven head, my sleep under the trees, and my food from begging.’[24]

The sweep of Vivekananda’s vision was extraordinary.  He foresaw  the  consequences of the crisis of faith in the west. ‘The religions of the world have become lifeless mockeries.’ He conceptualized a vibrant ethical system grounded in reason. He went back to the roots of Vedantic thought and came up with ideas which were not only revolutionary but scientific. He was conscious of the magnitude of what he was doing: ‘I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.’  Margaret Noble, later Sister Nivedita, had this to say about her initial reaction to his talks:

‘Belief in the dogmas of Christianity has become impossible for us, and we had no tool, such as we now hold, by which to cut away the doctrinal shell from the kernel of Reality, in our faith. To these, the Vedanta has given intellectual confirmation and philosophical expression of their own mistrusted intuition. The ‘people that walked in darkness have seen a great light’…it was the Swami’s 'I am God' that came as something always known; only never said before.[25]

  Vivekananda went to North America with pennies in his pocket, a man no one had heard of and inspired the awe reserved for kings. He returned to India with name, fame and enough funds to buy the land on which  the Ramakrishna Math and Mission at Belur was built.  He put India on the world map as the mother of all religion and spirituality.  He was recognized and revered across the globe as the spiritual and intellectual giant he was.  How did he feel when he got home? When his boat landed in Aden en route to Sri Lanka, he saw a ‘pan wallah’ smoking a hookah as he went on shore.  This is something that he had missed when he was in North America.  Vivekananda went up to the vendor and said; ‘Brother, do give me your pipe.’ Mr Sevier was watching. He said: “Now we see! It was this that made you run away from us so abruptly!’[26]  The welcome he got when he reached home was tumultuous.  Did  Vivekananda puff up with pride? No. He was totally detached. He had been entrusted with a task and he had accomplished it. He offered all his work and achievements at the feet of  his guru,Sri Ramakrishna:

‘My teacher, my master, my hero, my ideal, my God in life, If there has been anything achieved by me, by thoughts or words or deeds, if from my lips has ever fallen one word that has ever helped anyone in the world, I lay no claim to it, it was his. But if there have been curses falling from my lips, if there has been hatred coming out of me, it is all mine, and not his. All that has been weak has been mine, all that has been life-giving, strengthening, pure and holy has been his inspiration, his words, and he himself. [27]

 His tribute is all ‘Thou’ and no ‘I.’ The heart and soul of his leadership ethic – if we can call it that, was ‘thou,’ not ‘I.’ His life is a living testament to his remark that ‘he who is the servant of all has the world at his feet.’ There are many paths to glory.  Vivekananda’s  trip to North America was not an expression of a will to power, unless it was a will to power for India and the whole, wide world.  His task was to make even the weakest living being realize that it was not the scum of the earth, it was God. There are no impregnable hedges around his words, ideas or life. Everything that he was, everything that he had, became the birth right of every soul that approached him.  I have highlighted the externals, the least important of  Vivekananda’s  attributes and achievements to emphasize that a life that is a blazing fire of renunciation can conquer the world in a way that Nietzsche can only dream of.  Vivekananda was no proselytizing monk. Every spiritual path, every religion is true. Ultimately, his ideas  boil down o verifiable intellectual  and ethical truth .

We live in a rational, scientific age. Reason demands that we recognize truth wherever we find it. An odyssey does not cease to be true because the ‘Mein Kempf’ comes from a monk committed to serve the scum of the earth, among other things.

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[1] Nietzsche, Friedrich (2009), Thus Spake Zarathushtra,(Mumbai, Wilco Press)

[2] Copleston, Fredrick, S.J. (1985), A History of Philosophy ,Fichte to Nietzsche ,Book III, Volume VII, (New York: Doubleday), p.408

[3] Nietzsche, op.cit, p.139

[4]Ibid.,p.137

[5] Nietzsche, op. cit., p. 174

[6] Ibid., p. 227

[7] Swami Nikhilananda, (2010), Vivekananda: A  Biography,(Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama),p.58

[8] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p. 62

[9]ibid

[10] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p.66

[11] Bardach, L, “What did J.D.Salinger, Leo Tolstoy and Sarah Bernhardt have in common?” The Wall Street Journal, WST Magazine, March 30, 2012

[12] Swami Adiswarananda, Swami Vivekananda in America,  www.Ramakrishna.org/sv-sa.htm

[13]London: Collier, 1961

[14]Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit. p. 104

[15] Bardach, op. cit

[16] Bardach, L, op. cit.

[17] Swami Nikhilananda, op. cit., p. 93

[18] Ibid, p. 105

[19] Ibid, p.68

[20] Ibid., p. 94

[21] Ibid.

[22] Swami Vivekananda, Letters of Swami Vivekananda,(2006), (Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama).

[23] Ibid, p. 117

[24] Ibid., p.85

[25] Ibid, p. 113

[26] Ibid., p. 122

[27] Ibid, p.129

Nietzsche Contra Vivekananda:The Concept of Eternal Recurrence

Nietzsche’s view that the soul will be dead even before the body is not consistent with his concept of ‘eternal recurrence’:

“Look at this gateway...”it hath two faces. Two roads come together here: these hath no one gone to the end of. This long lane backwards: it continueth for an eternity. And that long lane forward – that is another eternity. They are antithetical to one another... and it is here, at this gateway, that they come together. The name of the gateway is....’This Moment.’ ...there runneth a long eternal lane backwards; behind us lieth an eternity .Must not whatever can run its course...have already run along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?

...For whatever can run its course of all things, also in this long lane outward – must it once more run! - And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight and this moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway...must we not all have already existed?”[1] (Nietzsche, p. 189-90)

The concept of two eternities defies logic. Eternity is by definition, one continuum, a single, indivisible entity. The idea of two antithetical eternities meeting in a moment is patently absurd.Perhaps one could say that the past and future connect in the present. According to Nietzsche, the law of conservation of energy implies that everything in the universe will repeat itself in exactly the same way. Time is eternal. The universe with everything in it is finite. From this it follows that it will repeat itself ad infinitum. Is Nietzsche reintroducing the concept of immortality through artistic eternal recurrence? The only difference is that matter is eternal, not soul. In a sense, Swami Vivekananda comes to Nietzsche’s rescue:

‘The effect is the cause manifested. There is no essential difference between the effect and the cause...When the cause is changed and limited for a time, it becomes the effect...Applying it to our idea of life, the whole of the manifestation of this one series, from the protoplasm up to the most perfect man, must be the very same thing as cosmic life...everything in this universe is indestructible. There is nothing new; there will be nothing new...Each manifestation of life is coming up and then going back again. What goes down? The form. The form breaks to pieces, but it comes up again. In one sense bodies and forms even are eternal...there must come a time when exactly the same combination comes again, when you will be here, and this form will be here, this subject will be talked...An infinite number of times this has been, and an infinite number of times this will be repeated. Thus far with the physical forms...even the combination of physical forms is eternally repeated.’ [2]

‘...Nature is like the chain of the Ferris Wheel, endless and infinite, and these little carriages are the bodies or forms in which fresh batches of souls are riding, going up higher ... until they become perfect and come out of the wheel. But the wheel goes on. And so long as the bodies are in the wheel, it can be absolutely and mathematically foretold where they will go, but not so of the souls...there is recurrence of the same material phenomenon at certain periods, and that the same combinations have been taking place through eternity.’ (2.230-231)

‘...No force can die, no matter can be annihilated...It goes on changing, backwards and forwards, until it returns to the source from which it came. There is no motion in a straight line. Everything moves in a circle; a straight line, infinitely produced, becomes a circle...you and I must be part of the cosmic consciousness, cosmic life, cosmic mind, which got involved and we must complete the circle and go back to this cosmic intelligence which is God (2.231). ..There is only One Being, One Existence, the ever-blessed, the omnipresent, the omniscient, the birth less, the deathless...You are all God. See you not God and call Him man? Therefore, if you dare, stand on that –‘(2.236-237)

Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence is a tiny part of Swamiji’s conceptualization. Nietzsche does not give a rationale for his idea. Since he rejects the idea of God, one eternal existence, the oneness of all beings and the idea of a soul evolving through rebirth, his idea of eternal recurrence is not consistent with reason.

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[1] Nietzsche, Friedrich, (2009), Thus Spake Zarathushtra, (Mumbai, Wilco Press)

[2] The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda,9 vols. (Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama, 1-8, 1989: 9, 1997). For a fuller description of Vivekananda's views on reincarnation, please see; Davidson,Pramila;"Carl Jung:"Deconstructing the Reincarnation Myth," Prabuddha Bharata, vol.116,No.3,March 2011www.google.com

Zarathushtra's life: the genealogy of western morality

Zarathushtra or Zoroaster was probably born in Bactria, near Lake Urmi in Iran, around 1400-1600 B.C. The original scriptures of Zoroastrianism were destroyed by the Arabs. The seventeen remaining Gathas form the core of the creed preached by Zarathushtra. There are several translations of the name 'Zarathushtra.' One translation from Wikipedia is "golden shining star.' The name derives possibly from 'zara'/'zarat' meaning gold and 'ustra' from 'ush' (shining) and 'str' (star), i.e. 'golden shining star.' Mary Boyce translates the name as ‘one who can manage camels: (‘ustra’=camel) and ‘zara’ means ‘to drag.’ Zarathushtra is ‘one who cherishes/nurtures camels.’[1] There are verses in the Zend Avesta which support this view:

‘This I ask thee, tell me truly Ahura – whether I shall indeed, O Right, earn the reward, even ten mares with a stallion and a camel which was promised me, O Mazda, as well as through these, the future gift of Welfare and Immortality.’[2]

Zarathushtra was a priest, prophet and lawgiver. The facts about his life are thin. There is a myth surrounding his birth. Legend has it that Zarathushtra laughed instead of crying when he was born. The baby was suffused with a divine aura. When hostile locals in the area heard of this unusual baby, they felt threatened. The baby was abducted and left out in a path frequented by wild animals. Miraculously, he was unharmed and the distraught parents were able to take him back home. At the age of twenty, Zarathushtra left his home and went to Aria. In the oral tradition, he left home when he was ten. This is consistent with the practice of sending future priests like Zarathushtra for study as early as age seven.


Zarathushtra refers to himself as the 'zaotar,' i.e. an invoker, a man dedicated to priesthood or 'vaedamna, ' (one who knows) in the Gathas[3]. One glorious day, the recluse Zarathushtra went to the Daiti River to fetch water for a hoama ceremony and was drenched in light: He had a vision of 'Vohu Mano,' (good mind/divine love). Vohu Mano took him to Ahura Mazda: The light (Ahura) of wisdom (Mazda). Zarathushtra describes Ahura Mazda:


“When I conceived of Thee, O Mazda, as the First and the Last, as the Most Adorable One,
As the Father of Good Thought, as the creator of Truth and Right,
As the Lord Judge of our 'actions in' life, then I made a place for thee in my very eyes."[4]


Zarathustra's vision of Ahura Mazda is the central fact of his life. When Zarathustra came down from the mountains after his vision, he faced a great deal of opposition from the priests and the aristocracy even in his mother's village. Zarathustra is forced to flee the country:


‘To what land shall I go to flee? From nobles and from my peers they sever me, nor are the people pleased with me...not the Liar rulers of the land.
I know wherefore O Mazda, I have been unable (to achieve) anything.
Only a few herds are mine (and thus it is so) and because I have got but a few people.
I cry unto Thee, see Thou to it, O Ahura, granting me support.’[5]


Zarathushtra's life changes when he meets King Vistaspa. Like all prophets, he is credited with supernatural powers and a cluster of myths have grown around him, though these are later additions. Zarathushtra specifically denied a belief in the supernatural. There is a fable that the king was terribly distressed because his favorite horse was critically ill and had actually drawn its legs under its belly. Zarathushtra freed the first leg and said to the king: "You must convert to Zoroastrianism." The king agreed. The second and third legs were freed when the queen and crown prince agreed to convert, the fourth when the king promised to protect Zarathushtra from persecution. King Vistaspa promised to propagate Zarathustra's religion if he married his daughter or in some accounts, the daughter of his vazir Frashoshtra. And so Zarathushtra was married. Of his children, at least two were daughters. In other accounts, Queen Hutaosa was the first to convert. Thereafter the king accepted Zarathushtra.


Mary Boyce tells an interesting story about Zarathustra's meeting with the king. According to the thirteenth century Persian poem,' Zaratust Name', King Vistaspa accepted Zoroastrianism but asked for four boons:


1. I will behold in spirit the place which I will occupy after my death.
2. My body shall be invulnerable.
3. I shall have clairvoyance, the wisdom to look into the future.
4. My soul will leave my body only on the Day of Judgment.


Zarathustra told the king that such great boons cannot be given to one person. He consecrated four things: wine, milk, incense and a pomegranate. He offered the wine to the king. As the king drank the wine, he had a vision of God. His soul was alight with the desire to worship God. The other boons were gifted to the king’s two sons and his minister.[6]
Zoroastrianism spread and became a major religion in Persia. Zarathustra had offered his life to Ahura Mazda during the early days of his ministry [7] At the age of seventy seven, Zarathushtra was murdered by the invading Turanian tribes while he was praying at the altar in the fire temple. He may have been hacked to death and burnt alive.

Pic: www.hinduwebsite.com

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[1] Boyce, Mary (1996),A History of Zoroastrianism, The Early Period, Volume II, (Hansdbuch der Orientalistk series, Leiden, Brill)p. 182

[2] Yasna:44.18, 51.14, Taraporevala,I.J.S.,(1951) The Divine Songs of Zarathushtra,  trans. Bortholomae,(Bombay : Taraporevala & Sons),www.avesta.org

[3] Yasna:33.5,6

[4] Tagore, Rabindra Nath, forward, D.J.Irani, The Divine Songs of Zarathushtra,(Kessinger), reprinted (Newton: Centre for Iranian Studies, 2004), Yasna:31.8

[5] Yasna:46.1,2

[6] Boyce, Mary (1984),”On the Antiquity of Zoroastrian Apocalyptic, ‘Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London:SOAS,p.60

[7] Yasna:33.7,14