Zurvanism is a now-extinct branch of Zoroastrianism that had the divinity Zurvan as its First Principle (primordial creator deity). Zurvanism is also known as Zurvanite Zoroastrianism.

In Zurvanism, Zurvan is the hypostasis of Time (and Space). Zurvan is a normalized rendition of the word, which in Middle Persian appears as either Zurvān, Zruvān or Zarvān. The Middle Persian name derives from Avestan zruvan-, "time" or "old age".

Unlike Mazdean Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism considered Ahura Mazda not the transcendental Creator, but one of two equal-but-opposite divinities under the supremacy of Zurvan. The central Zurvanite belief made Ahura Mazda (Middle Persian: Ohrmuzd) and Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) twin brothers.

Origins and background


Zurvanism enjoyed royal sanction during the Sassanid era (226-651 CE) but no traces of it remain beyond the tenth century. Although Sassanid era Zurvanism was certainly influenced by Hellenic philosophy, whether Zoroastrian Zurvan was an adaptation of an antecedent or alien divinity of Time (Greek Chronos) has not been conclusively established.


Evidence of the cult


Most of what is known of Zurvanism during the Sassanid period is from contemporaneous Christian Armenian and Syriac sources. The Kartir inscription at Ka'ba-i Zartosht and the edict of Mihr-Narse are the only contemporaneous native sources that reveal anything about Zurvanism, the latter being the only native evidence from that period that is frankly Zurvanite. The few other Persian language commentaries on the religion of the Sassanid period were all composed after the fall of the empire.

While the Armenian and Syriac sources depict the religion of the Sassanids as having been distinctly Zurvanite, the later native commentaries are primarily Mazdean and with only one exception (10th c. Denkard 9.30) do not mention Zurvan at all. Of the remaining so-called Pahlavi texts only two, the Mēnōg-i Khrad and the "Selections of Zatspram" (both 9th c.) reveal a Zurvanite tendency. The latter is considered to be the latest Zoroastrian text that provides any evidence of the cult of Zurvan. The foreign accounts of the Zurvanite father-of-twins doctrine is substantiated by only a single Persian language source, the Ulema-i Islam ("Doctors of Islam", 13th c.), that, notwithstanding the title, is evidently by a Zoroastrian.


History and development

Ascent and acceptance

The origins of the cult of Zurvan remain debated. One view (Zaehner, 1939; Duchesne-Guillemin, 1956; Zaehner 1955, intro) considers Zurvanism to have developed out of Zoroastrianism as a reaction to the liberalization of the late Achaemenid era form of the faith. Another opinion (Nyberg, 1931; Zaehner 1955, conclusion) proposes that Zurvan existed as a pre-Zoroastrian divinity that was incorporated into Zoroastrianism. The third view (Cumont and Schaeder; reiterated by Henning, 1951; Boyce 1957) is that Zurvanism is the product of the contact between Zoroastrianism and Babylonian/Byzantine religions (for a summary of opposing views see Boyce, 1957:304).

Certain however is that by the Sassanid era (226–651 CE), the divinity "Infinite Time" was well established and enjoyed royal patronage. It was during the reign of Sassanid Emperor Shapur I (241-272) that Zurvanism appears to have developed as a cult and it was presumably in this period that Greek and Indic concepts were introduced to Zurvanite Zoroastrianism.


Decline and disappearance

Sassanid Empire 620

The Sassanid Empire at its greatest extent. (ca. 610 CE)

Following the fall of the Sassanid Empire in the 7th century, Zoroastrianism was gradually supplanted by Islam. The former continued to exist but in an increasingly decimated state and the remaining Zoroastrians appear to have gradually returned to the Mazdean doctrine prescribed by Zoroaster in the Gathas (see also legacy, below). By the 10th century, Zurvanism had ceased to exist, leaving Mazdaism the sole remaining form of Zoroastrianism.



The "twin brother" doctrine






Types of Zurvanism


Aesthetic Zurvanism



Materialist Zurvanism




Fatalistic Zurvanism


Mistaken Identity

In his first manuscript of his book 'Zurvan', R C Zaehner incorrectly identified the Mithraic lion-headed deity with the representation of Zurvan. He later admits at the proof stage that this was a "positive mistake"; the lion-headed deity being a representation of the evil being deus Ahreimanius or Ahriman (Zaehner, 1972). However, this has not stopped the fallacy, which Zaehner attributes to Franz Cumont, proliferating on various websites.

The legacy of Zurvanism

No evidence of typically Zurvanite rituals or practices have been discovered and followers of the cult are widely believed to have had the same rituals and practices as Mazdean Zoroastrians did. This would have been acceptable to both factions since the fundamental Zurvanite doctrine of the twins did not preclude the worship of Ohrmuzd as the Creator (of all but Zurvan and Ahriman). Inversely, no obviously Zurvanite elements appear to have survived in modern Zoroastrianism.

From the point of view of modern Zoroastrianism (which is today synonymous with Mazdaism), the cult of Zurvan is a dilemma that many would wish didn't exist. While the cult of Zurvan has no legacy that could not have reached modern Zoroastrianism by other means, the sheer force of Zurvanism's overt dualism still finds an echo in western scholarship. The incompatibility of Zurvanite dualism with the strongly monotheistic modern Zoroastrianism has left present-day Zoroastrians with the option of either ignoring that Zurvanism ever existed or that its precepts were downright heretical.

One such sacrilege is considered to be the Zurvanite interpretation of Yasna 30.3-5, which gives Zurvanism its "twin brother" (born of Zurvan) doctrine. It revokes Zoroaster's own characterization of Ahura Mazda as the one uncreated God (Yasna 45.2) and the omniscient Creator of all (Yasna 44.7). Zoroaster's doctrine of an uncreated God is also evident in Yasna 30.3, in the same passage that is the exogenesis of the "twin brother" principle.

The pessimism evident in Zurvanite fatalism is a stark contradiction of essentially optimistic Mazdaism and is a direct violation of what is perhaps Zoroaster's greatest contribution to religious philosophy: the concept of a free will. In Yasna 45.9, Ahura Mazda "has left to men's wills" to choose between doing good and doing evil. By leaving destiny in the hands of fate, the cult of Zurvan distanced itself from the most sacred of Zoroastrian tenets: that of the efficacy of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.

That the Zurvanite view of creation was an apostasy even for medieval Zoroastrians is apparent from the 10th century Denkard, which in a commentary on Yasna 30.3-5 turns what the Zurvanites considered the words of the prophet into Zoroaster recalling "a proclamation of the Demon of Envy to mankind that Ohrmuzd and Ahriman were two in one womb." (Denkard 9.30.4). Zaehner considers this passage of the Denkard to be an ingenious misinterpretation of Yasna 30.

That Zurvanism is altogether considered the heresy is however remarkable since the strict dualism that was implicit to the cult was more in line with the dualism alluded to in Zoroaster's own Gathas than with the polytheistic rationalizations of natural phenomena that Zoroastrianism had almost become by the end of the Achaemenid period. The fundamental goal of "classical Zurvanism" to bring the doctrine of the "twin spirits" in accord with what was otherwise understood of Zoroaster's teaching may have been excessive, but (according to Zaehner) it was not altogether misguided. In noting the emergence of an overtly dualistic doctrine during the Sassanid period, Zaehner (1961) asserted that






  • Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques (1956). "Notes on Zurvanism". Journal of Near Eastern Studies (Chicago: UCP) 15/2: 108–112. doi:10.1086/371319. 
  • Zaehner, Richard Charles (1955). Zurvan, a Zoroastrian dilemma. Oxford: Clarendon. ISBN 0-8196-0280-9 (1972 Biblo-Moser ed). 
  • Zaehner, Richard Charles (1961). The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. New York: Putnam. ISBN 1-84212-165-0 (2003 Phoenix ed).  A section of the book is available online. Several other websites have duplicated this text, but include an "Introduction" that is very obviously not by Zaehner.

Further reading

Some or all of this article is forked from Wikipedia. The original article was at Zurvanism. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.