Зандик: Зороастриялық діннен тайып кеткендер туралы термин

Zoroastrian term conventionally interpreted as heretic

Zandik (Middle Persian: 𐭦𐭭𐭣𐭩𐭪) is a Zoroastrian term conventionally interpreted as heretic in a narrow sense, or, in a wider sense, for a person with any belief or practice that ran contrary to Sassanid mediated Zoroastrian orthodoxy. The Middle Persian term engendered the better attested Arabic زنديق zindiq, with the same semantic field but related to Islam rather than Zoroastrianism. In the Islamic world, including Islamic era Iran, the term was also variously assigned to Manichaeans, Mandaeans, Mazdakites, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, Christians, and free thinkers in general, including Muslims. Whether zandik was also used in any of these ways in Zoroastrian times is unknown; in that context, the term is only attested in three texts (two from the same author), and in all three appears as a hapax legomenon used in a pejorative way, but with no additional hints from which to infer a meaning. In several now obsolete studies related to Zoroastrianism, the word was also speculated to be the proper name of a particular (but hypothetical) priestly tradition that embraced Zurvanite doctrine.

The conventional translation as 'heretic' was already common in the 19th century when Christian Bartholomae (1885), derived zandik from Avestan zanda, which he treated as a name of certain heretics. By the time of the 8th century Abbasid Caliphate, however, the meaning of the word zindīq and the adjectival zandaqa had broadened and could loosely denote many things: Gnostic Dualists as well as followers of Manichaeism, Agnostics & Atheists. Early examples of Arabic zindiq denoting Manichaeans, and this possibly being the meaning of the term in the early attested use in Middle Persian (see below), led A. A. Bevanapud The Denkard, a 9th 11th century work of Zoroastrian tradition, attributes this systemization of doctrine—in which certain beliefs and traditions were seen as definite while others were considered unacceptable—to an initiative by Tansar, high priest under Ardashir I, the founder of the dynasty. The development of a particular orthodoxy is also indicated by other sources, such as the Letter of Tansar, which additionally suggests that the systemization of the Zoroastrian church was part of a greater state sponsored "revival" of Iranian values, apparently as a Sassanian reaction to the perceived cultural "corruptions" of the preceding (likewise Iranian, but Hellenistic) Arsacid Parthian dynasts. The Arsacids were probably not as culturally "un Iranian" as Tansar's/Ardashir's propagandistic justification to overthrow them indicates, However, literary and epigraphic evidence from the third century onwards indicates that Sassanid era priests in positions of authority persecuted individuals who held beliefs that were in not in accord with their (Sassanid mediated) brand of Zoroastrianism. Among this epigraphic evidence are the 3rd/4th century inscriptions of Kartir, Tansar's successor and high priest under three of Ardashir I's successors. In his own inscription on the Ka'ba ye Zartosht, Kartir states (KKZ 8–9) that he persecuted "Jews, Buddhists, Brahmins, Nasoreans (Judeo Christians), Christians, 'Maktaks' (Mandaeans, Manichaeans?) and zandiks." Kartir's inscription is the earliest epigraphic evidence of the word zandik. Although the precise meaning of zandik is not evident from Kartir's use of the term, it is commonly assumed to mean 'heretic', or 'unorthodox' in relation to Kartir's ideology. cf. There are three suggested reasons to explain this anomaly: a) The conventional view is that Kartir includes them under the term 'Maktak'; b) an alternate position is that Kartir's text dates from the early period of Bahram I's rule when Mani still had Shapur I's and Hormizd I's protection; c) the third view is that Manichaeans are included in 'zandik'.

The term zandik appears once in the 9th/10th century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (the so called Pahlavi books). In this one instance, in Daedestan i Menog i Khrad 36.16, the term appears as an abstract noun ('zandikih') and is explained to be the thirteenth most heinous crime.