Zoroaster — "To thee, Ahura Mazda, and to Asha (Truth) and Vohu Manah (Good Mind), I dedicate…"
To thee, Ahura Mazda, and to Asha (Truth) and Vohu Manah (Good Mind), I dedicate my life, my body, and my soul.
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More from Zoroaster
"The wise man chooses good. The very wise man chooses good and then immediately finds a comfortable rock to sit on."
"I who have set my heart on watching over the soul, in union with Good Thought, as I praise and proclaim you, O Wise Lord."
"He who brings forth life for the cattle and cultivates the earth with righteousness, he is the one who serves Mazda."
"The reward of the righteous is the radiant existence, the punishment of the wicked is the long darkness."
"Whoso causes affliction to the righteous, him shall the evil spirit hold captive."
About Zoroaster (c. 1500-1000 BCE (debated))
Iranian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism, the first major religion of cosmic dualism between good (Ahura Mazda) and evil (Angra Mainyu). Closely associated with The Buddha (near-contemporary Eastern moral-cosmological revolutionary). For an intellectual contrast, see Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher of 'beyond good and evil' — Nietzsche appropriated Zarathustra's name for Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) precisely to invert the original's moral cosmology — the historical Zoroaster founded the good-versus-evil framework Nietzsche's character announces the end of.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
This is a personal vow of total commitment. The speaker gives everything they are—their life, their physical self, and their inner spirit—to three things: the supreme god, the principle of truth and cosmic order, and the practice of thinking good thoughts. It's a declaration that ethical living, honest action, and devotion to the divine are not occasional duties but the entire purpose of one's existence.
Relevance to Zoroaster
Zoroaster founded the religion that centers on exactly these three concepts. Ahura Mazda was his revealed supreme deity, and Asha and Vohu Manah are two of the Amesha Spentas, divine attributes he taught followers to internalize. As a priest-prophet who reformed older Iranian polytheism into an ethical monotheism, his own hymns in the Gathas repeatedly pledge body, mind, and breath to truth over deception, making this line a summary of his vocation.
The era
Zoroaster lived in ancient eastern Iran, likely between 1500 and 1000 BCE, among tribal herding societies that worshipped many nature gods through animal sacrifice and ritual intoxication. Raids, cattle theft, and cycles of vengeance defined daily life. His teaching of one wise creator, a cosmic battle between truth and lie, and personal moral choice was radical, offering ordinary people an ethical framework in an era when religion mostly served warriors and priests, not individual conscience.
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