The Wisdom of The Gathas

Varza's translation seems to have caught the true SPIRIT of The Gathas precisely without pumping any Islamic or Christian perspective into the text. He has kept the text as it is, without adding any dualist thinking afterwards, something which was not there from the very beginning. The Gathas is a poetic and a philosophical text which is much more concerned with nurturing a correct PATHOS towards the world instead of preaching a perfect LOGOS to follow blindly. This is why it is a WISE and CREATIVE text and not a DIVINE or SACRED text, big difference!!!
Ushta
Alexander

2009/11/27 Special Kain

Dear Bahman,

Frankly, I don't have any problem whatsoever with your response to that journalist's remarks. And I also agree with Alexander that Zoroastrianism deserves a much better treatment in the American media. But that wasn't a case that would get me upset, simply because she's a journalist and therefore a professional sensationalist. And it seemed to have been a fun interview where she was supposed to make such «controversial» remarks. I'm a media sociologist and media economist, so perhaps I am a bit over-tolerant when it comes to professional journalism, since there are far worse cases. On the other hand, if we were to stop such media treatment, why not start right here and respond to Ana Marie Cox? So perhaps you were right to do so.

What really pisses me off is to have to explain that Zoroastrianism is not that primitive proto-Christian faith that everybody sees in it. In the past few days I've read the German translation of the Gathas by Dr. Bahram Varza and it's so profoundly different from Jafarey's that I don't see any reason anymore why anyone would promote such a gross misunderstanding of Zoroastrian philosophy. In Varza's translation, for example, there's no talk about any other worlds than our natural world - this one and only world where we're breathing air right now, logging in to our e-mail accounts and typing postings on Ushta. He even refused to translate such words as Ahura, Asha, Mazda, Khashatra or Armaity to German, but only noted what these words mean at the end of every song. The only unfortunate thing about his translation is that he would translate Ahura to «creator» («Schöpfer» in German).

Ushta, Dino

--- Bahman Noruziaan schrieb am Fr, 27.11.2009:


Von: Bahman Noruziaan
Betreff: RE: AW: [Ushta] a response to defamatory remarks by Ana Marie Cox-Political journalist
An: "Ushta Ushta"
Datum: Freitag, 27. November 2009, 1:47


Hello Dino,

Well I read her comments a couple of times and I did not see it the way that you have. However, I wonder what part of my message was extreme in your opinion?
What would be an apporopriate comment to this? Any comments or none at all from your point of view?

Bahman