Zarathushtra: References & Edit History

J. Duchesne-Guillemin, “L’Iran antique et Zoroastre,” in vol. 1 of Histoire des religions, vol. 29 of Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, pp. 625–695 (1970), and La Religion de l’Iran ancien (1962), are two works by a leading Iranist scholar, of which the first volume includes a selected bibliography and the second volume presents a very large bibliography and an excellent history of studies of Zoroastrianism. G. Dumézil, L’Idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens (1958), the work of a French scholar of comparative mythology, concerns Indo-European culture. R.N. Frye, The Heritage of Persia (1963), concentrates on Zoroaster and the respective religious sources, based on the findings of archaeological and epigraphic investigations. J. Gershevitsch, “Zoroaster’s Own Contribution,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 23:12–38 (1964), is useful; as is E. Herzfeld, Zoroaster and His World (1947, reprinted 1974). M. Molé, Culte, mythe et cosmologie dans l’Iran ancien (1963), upholds certain connections between ritual texts and individual and cosmological eschatology. G. Widengren, Die Religionen Irans (1965), was written by a leading Iranist and Semitist. R.C. Zaehner, Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism (1961), describes the later evolution of Zurvanism and deals with a later stage in the Zoroastrian religion that became the official religion of the Sasanian period.