Zoroastrian cosmology, as the Bundahishn sets it out, divides the whole of cosmic history into four ages of three thousand years each: an age of purely spiritual creation, an age of untouched material creation, an age of mixture in which Ahriman's assault brings evil into the material world and ordinary history unfolds, and a final age of separation ending in Frashokereti, the world's renovation, when good is restored whole and death itself ends.
Facts
Disputed
Proposed DatingThe scheme totals twelve thousand years across its four three thousand year periods. 1 Surviving Pahlavi sources agree on the four periods of three thousand years each but differ on how the final period, the age of mixture, is itself subdivided among the tradition's promised saviors, the Saoshyants, and on exactly when within that period the historical prophet Zoroaster is placed, so the scheme's internal chronology is not read identically across every text that transmits it. Identity
SymbolNo single traditional glyph stands for the whole scheme; the Zoroastrian fire altar, representing Ahura Mazda's ongoing order, is the closest recurring visual shorthand for the cosmic history the scheme charts across its four ages, from Ahriman's assault to Frashokereti. 1 Connections
Belongs to Tradition
The Bundahishn's division of cosmic history into four three thousand year ages, ending in Frashokereti, the world's renovation.
Source The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of CreationDomenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope
Derived From
Source The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of CreationDomenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope
Promulgated By
Source The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of CreationDomenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope
Held Differently
Eternal return, Doctrines The Zoroastrian scheme is a bounded, one directional sequence of four three thousand year ages ending in Frashokereti, the world's final renovation, not an infinitely repeating cycle, so it stands apart from the strict eternal-return pattern even though it shares the same wheel-of-cosmic-ages shape.
Source The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of CreationDomenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope
Related To
Frashokereti is this schemes own culminating final renovation, reached at the close of the twelfth millennium; Saoshyant and The Two Principles and the Three Moments already link to Frashokereti individually, the scheme itself did not.
Sources
1. The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation
Domenico Agostini and Samuel Thrope, Oxford University Press, 2020
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