Arts and Culture Week: The Farohar

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To kick off our Zarathushti Arts and Culture Week, I thought I’d start off with the most recognizable symbol of the religion: the Farohar.

Also known as a fravahar or fravashi, this Zarathushti symbol adorns many fire temples, homes, and worn as jewelry by the faithful. This winged man first appeared during the Achaemenian period of Persian history and was associated with kings and nobility. The symbol gradually faded from view in later years, but resurfaced in the twentieth century as many Parsis in Indian tried to reconnect with their Persian ancestry.

Like most religious symbols, the fravashi carries many different meanings. The original intention of the Achaemenians isn’t clear, however later scholarship identifies the winged figure as the farr, a divine light granted to good kings and prophets. Many foreign to the Zarathushti faith mistakenly view the fravashi as a symbol of Ahura Mazda himself, lest they forget that Ahura Mazda is imagined as an abstract, a “pure light”, only known to mankind through his attributes called Amesha Spentas.
In modern times (and some interpretations of old), the fravashi is associated with the “divine spark” of God himself which exists in all of creation. Because Zarathushtis believe in time as linear and progressive as Creation and mankind marching toward a state of perfection (frashokereti), the fravashi becomes a sort of spiritual guide who assists its human counterpart in reaching this purified state. Some call this a guardian angel, the Holy Spirit, or from a Hindu perspective (these two faiths have a common ancestor), the eternal soul called the atman.

Each part of the fravashi itself also bears meaning. The human figure can represent man himself or wisdom. His right hand is pointed up toward the one God. The other hand holds a ring that represents truth. Each of the three layers of the fravashi’s wings stand for the path of Asha, being Good Thoughts, Words, and Deeds. The tail shows us the balance between good and evil. Keep in mind that this is only one interpretation for the various symbols. If you aren’t afraid to get your hands a little dirty, you can dig up much more.
So, what does all of this mean to you? If you wanted, you could have found this information anywhere, but I’m living life according to these faiths, so there needs to be some practical application. No matter what your spiritual disposition, what we need to understand is that symbols are used to represent abstract ideas. My month with Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) taught me a great deal about symbology and that creating a visual of what we cannot understand in the abstract isn’t something to be feared, but when used properly, a tool that connects us with the divine.

And the parallels are everywhere…if you’ll only take the time to look. What about the dove in Christianity? To many, it represents the Holy Spirit from its appearance during the baptism of Jesus.

Winged figures called angels (from the Greek, angelos, meaning “messenger”) are also central to the Abrahamic faiths and regarded as helpers to God and man–a bridge to the divine. Sounds familiar. These representations exist in many, if not all, faiths.

For me, at their core, these symbols represent the outstretched hand of man’s heart, mind, and soul for the divine. We long to touch the essence of God–to know and fellowship with the Creator. But because we perceive him as impossibly large and inconceivably complex, we perceive these seemingly infinitesimal specks of God’s divine presence at the center of Being itself. This gives us a clue, a hope, a guide, a glimpse at what it is to be one and to pursue that goal of union with God. No matter what your philosophy or religion, in some shape or fashion, whether in this lifetime or the next, isn’t that the common goal that unites us all? From the Zarathushti perspective, we as a species are called to accomplish this mission together. In fact, the only way to reach this state of “making wonderful” is via partnership with God and fellow man.

I encourage you today to look beyond the static symbols of your religion and immerse yourself in their meanings. What is it calling you to do? Go beyond the ritual. How is it calling you to live? Like any spark or ember, it cannot ignite into a flame unless breathed upon, fed and nurtured into a great flame (another universal symbol especially potent to Zarathushtis) that burns our ignorance and causes passion to rise for God and man.