A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

we saw (§ 104), the final Renovation, already prefigured in the liturgy performed by Zarathustra, is anticipated in the rituals of the New Year (Nawrōz). The tradition ends by placing close to the New Year the three decisive events of the cosmic and human drama: the Creation, the revelation of the “Religion,” and the eschatological Renovation.66 But since the year is, figuratively, the totality of cosmic time, the last ten days of each year in a way anticipate the eschatological drama. It is the fabulous interval during which souls return to earth: one Yašt (13. 49–52) invokes the Fravashis,67 who move about freely during the last ten days of the year. This belief is universally disseminated, but the Zoroastrians, like other theologians before and after them, place it in a much larger system: according to the Pahlavi tradition, Ohrmazd completed the creation of man during these last ten days of the year; consequently, the Fravashis arrive on earth at the moment of the creation of man and return at the end of time, that is, at the resurrection of bodies.68