Antiquity, Transmission, and Resonance: Zarathustra and the China Question
A standalone piece A claim circulates in some quarters that an entirely separate civilization — China — independently dated Zarathustra's birth to around 1767 BCE, and that this closes the dating question for good. It is an appealing argument, because the conclusion it points toward — that Zarathustra is genuinely ancient — is true. But the argument as usually stated fuses three different things into one, and only by keeping them apart can the real, defensible case be told.
What this resource contributes
A standalone piece A claim circulates in some quarters that an entirely separate civilization — China — independently dated Zarathustra's birth to around 1767 BCE, and that this closes the dating question for good. It is an appealing argument, because the conclusion it points toward — that Zarathustra is genuinely ancient — is true. But the argument as usually stated fuses three different things into one, and only by keeping them apart can the real, defensible case be told. There is the question of when Zarathustra lived ; there is the history of how Zoroastrianism reached China ; and there is the matter of the philosophical resonance between Zoroastrian and Chinese thought. All three are genuinely interesting. None of them is an independent Chinese birthdate — and the honest version turns out to be stronger than the inflated one, because every piece of it holds.
Topics and source signals
Primary sources detected
Gathas · Avesta · Bundahishn
Scholars detected
Mary Boyce