Bundahishn

The Bundahishn (meaning 'Original Creation' or 'Primal Creation') is a Zoroastrian text compiled in the 9th-10th century CE in Middle Persian (Pahlavi), but drawing on traditions going back to the Avestan period and the Sasanian empire (3rd-7th century CE). It is one of the most important sources for understanding Zoroastrian cosmology, mythology, and eschatology — presenting a systematic account of the creation of the world, the nature of the divine and evil spirits, the history of cosmic conflict, and the ultimate renovation of all existence at the end of time known as the Frashokereti.

The Bundahishn's cosmogony begins before creation with an eternal spiritual existence. Ahura Mazda (Ohrmazd in the Pahlavi texts) created the spiritual world first, then the material world, and both were perfect before Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) attacked them. Time itself was created as a limited period within which the cosmic conflict would play out: Ahriman invaded the material world and introduced death, disease, drought, sin, and all evils. The cosmic history is thus a battle between the two fundamental forces of good and evil, with humanity as the crucial battleground where individual choices determine the ultimate outcome.

The text provides elaborate details about the geography of the world, the nature of the spiritual beings (yazatas, equivalent to angels), the structure of time and its cosmic ages, the bodily resurrection of the dead at the end of time, the purging of the world by molten metal, and the final renovation when evil is eliminated and all existence is made perfect. This eschatological vision — remarkably detailed and comprehensive — is one of the most complete ancient accounts of the end of the world in any religious tradition.

For students of comparative religion and biblical studies, the Bundahishn is indispensable: its cosmological dualism, its doctrine of bodily resurrection, its vision of a purified new creation, and its understanding of evil as an external intrusion into a fundamentally good world have all been proposed by scholars as formative influences on Jewish and Christian eschatology during the Persian period and beyond.

• Genesis 1 (good creation)
• Genesis 3 (external evil attacking good creation)
• 2 Peter 3:10-13 (purification by fire)
• Revelation 21-22 (new creation without evil)
• 1 Corinthians 15 (bodily resurrection)
• Daniel 12:2-3 (resurrection and judgment)

The Bundahishn's description of the world's end includes a purification by molten metal through which all souls must pass: the righteous experience it as warm milk, while the wicked experience it as burning fire. This image influenced medieval Christian descriptions of purgatory, and scholars believe it may have entered Christian theology through Zoroastrian-Jewish contact during the Persian period.