The Ecological Recognition of Avesta’s Mythological Propositions based on Gilbert Durand’s Point of View

Transition to environmental crises is impossible without changing human attitudes and lifestyles. Accordingly, ecologists have tried to tap into the different sciences to investigate their potential to improve the environment. Theology and religious texts are capable of making such a change. Avesta's text can be examined from this perspective because of its religious and mythical value and the frequency of issues related to ecology. The present study, with an ecological and comparative approach, seeks to examine how Avesta's statements influence individuals’ lifestyles and attitudes.

Theoretical Framework:

The most serious challenge for human beings today is to find a way to protect the environment, which has been severely damaged by human development. Accordingly, finding the potential of religious texts based on an ecological approach to influence human attitudes and lifestyles is the most important task that should be on the agenda of religious scholars. Among them, the Avesta text, on the one hand, due to its late age, has had an impact on later works, especially the works of Indo-European languages ​​that have been written after it in an intertextual manner. The influential aspect of Avesta can be used to change people's lifestyles and improve the environment.

This research is based on the method of collecting library information. The method of data analysis is qualitative and inductive reasoning (from the whole the detail).

Avesta, in addition to its religious value, has a mythical value; therefore, it can be examined with mythological perspectives. One view that can help to understand the place of these propositions in the human mind is Gilbert Durand's view of myths, the application of which, along with Carl Gustav Jung's theory of archetypes, can lead to an understanding of how they work in the human mind.

From an ecological point of view, Avesta can be important in changing human attitudes toward the environment for the following reasons: Avesta is a religious text that also has mythological value. Because of its religious nature, it influences the view of Zoroastrian believers, and on the other hand, because of the mythological value of some propositions, it impacts a wider group of people, especially speakers of Indian languages. The function of mythical propositions, including Avestan mythological propositions, is such that it can affect the human subconscious and psyche due to being archetypal while being influenced by the collective subconscious mind.