Purification Rituals in Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrian’s purification rituals are one of the most visible aspects of Zoroastrianism that root in the Avesta’s texts. But it seems that these customs which were considered as a preservative of human communities from harm and evil diseases in the pre-Zoroastrian period, have been changed after that period of time and their joining to the religious teachings of Zoroasterian. In this paper, at first we tried to bring up the historical background of these ceremonies and then by the study of Avestan scriptures, all rituals which were relevant to this project, were accurately described and explained. According to the them, origins and philosophy of these ceremonies and opposing ideas have also been studied. The findings of this study suggest that all the inserted texts about these in Avesta especially in Vandidad - which its’ large part deals with the issue of purification- show that the purity and the relevant orders made a broad range of human and natural elements life. These customs are identified by terms like: Barašnom, Pādyāb, Sagdid, etc and in some cases they have been expressed without any special terms. Existence of customs like usage of Gomez (urine) in the ancient time is common. Although emphasis on purification shows Zoroastrian ideology of duality, but severe indulgence in Vandidad is discordant with the nature of Zoroaster’s massage.