Gathas & Translation
Gathas - a Glance
Song 1
Song 2
Song 3
Song 4
Song 5
Song 6
Song 7
Song 8
Song 9
Song 10
Song 11
Song 12
Song 13
Song 14
Song 15
Song 16
Song 17
Supplements I
Supplements II

Ushtavaiti Gatha

NOTE: This song is a master-piece in telling us of the two phases of Zarathushtra's life: (1) The early frustrating opposition by the priests and princes of the old cult in eleven stanzas, and (2) the later turn to success with the help of the Turanians, the conversion of the king Kavi Vishtaspa, and the joining of others - both relatives and friends - in seven stanza. Only nineteen stanzas to give us a glimpse in his life, from suffering to success, to stimulate us to ponder how a what seems to be an utter failure can well be surmounted to become a moving, motivating success through good thinking and precise planning -- VOHU MANAH and ASHA. This is what every Zarathushtrian should bear in mind in learning, practicing, teaching and preaching the Divine Message. Zarathushtra is the best example to follow.

Summary Substance: The opposition to Zarathushtra's mission mounts. He is isolated from folks and friends. The community is hostile and so are the rulers of the land. The person who had prayed and asked "for support through progressive mentality [so that] I may perform all my actions, based as they are on the wisdom of good mind, precisely according to the laws of righteousness so that I please You and the soul of the Living World" (Song 1.1), now does not know what to do next. A frustrated Zarathushtra seeks guidance from God as where to go and how to go.

Pondering Points: Frustrated, seek divine guidance. And see how it helps!

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra realizes that he does not wield any physical power, that he is not rich, and that he does not have many companions. He appeals to God to help him, a help only a friend gives a friend [note the word "frya" rendered "friend" means both "lover" and "beloved".] But the help Zarathushtra wants is a rich good mind that works with precision -- deeper good thoughts through righteousness - two gifts that would give him what he wants to accomplish for his "beloved' - spread the divine message to have a lively life of love for all the living.

Pondering Points: Love gives true help - a bright mind with a precise plan.

Summary Substance: Prayer works. Frustration turns into hope. Zarathushtra is looking forward to the days when blessed with wisdom through good mind, beneficent persons will teach people how to promote and maintain the world. It is that Divine Teaching which Zarathushtra chooses in order to carry out his mission.

Pondering Points: Good mind gives advanced teaching to maintain the world.

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra weighs his opponents. They prevent the righteous from promoting our living world, whether it is on the smaller scale of a district or a larger one covering the entire country. It is hard to confront them through peaceful means. They are violent in action. One has, therefore, to show powerful resistance, even stake one's life to promote the Cause. Such a person becomes the pioneer in implementing the good plan of spreading the Message.

Pondering Points: Aggression retreats when opposed with power and determination.

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra relates an experience. A person of principle, who enjoys enough power, is approached by some one. He is received as a guest, and hospitality is extended to him. It turns out that the guest is a wrongful person. That creates an awkward situation with a possibility of violence. The best way to solve the awkward situation is to share the matter with family members and to arrive at a peaceful solution.

Pondering Points: When at crossroads, consult companions.

Summary Substance: If one is in trouble because of a wrongful person, he who is able to help, should hasten to do so. If not, he too will eventually fall into the trap laid by the wrongful. One cannot turn a blind eye when another righteous is wronged by someone. In fact, it means helping the wrongful. He who sides the wrongful, is wrongful himself and he who is a friend and companion of the righteous is righteous too. One cannot have double standards. Simple rules one can realize by one's own conscience - so simple and so divine.

Pondering Points: If good, be on the good side. If not, one is not good.

NOTE: When a person is faced with a any adversity, he or she, often in desperation, turns to God or a favorite divinity for help. This is quite natural. But a desperate move makes one lose one's balance of mind and allow the adversity to have its own way.

Zarathushtra gives a mânthra, a thought-provoking advice: Turn to God but remember that God has already granted us two acquisitions -- Divine Fire which gives light, warmth, and strength to our spirit, and Good Mind which makes us think clearly. One lights the way and the other leads us to safety.

The two make us feel cool, calm, conscious, considerate, and confident. The Mânthran gives a further lasting touch to his advice: One should not turn to Fire and Faculty only at difficult times but at all times. Let us understand this point -- rather a doctrine -- that it is these two favors, two enlightenments, that help us in performing good acts that serve God and the creation.

*Kem-na Mazda* is the name of this Gathic stanza. It is one of the very few stanzas of the Gathas placed in the Khordeh Avesta, the popular daily prayer book which has practically supplanted the Gathas. It teaches us to believe in God, have faith, keep cool, stay warm, think bright, feel light, and steer clear.

Pondering Points: "God helps those who help themselves."

ýê vâ môi ýå gaêthå dazdê aênanghê
nôit ahyâ mâ âthrish shyaothanâish frôsyât
paityaoget tâ ahmâi jasôit dvaêshanghâ
tanvêm â ýâ îm hujyâtôish pâyât
nôit duzhjyâtôish kâcît mazdâ dvaêshanghâ.

Summary Substance: With the Divine Fire which gives light, warmth, and strength to our spirit, and Good Mind which makes us think clearly, one can be sure that those who come to harm the righteous, fail in their attempts. Their hatred recoils and they suffer from it. Those filled with hatred simply cannot enjoy a good life.

Pondering Points: Hatred does not save. It drowns.

Summary Substance: With antagonists at bay, now Zarathushtra wants to know the result of his teaching. He wants a devotee who would come forward to retell what he/she has learned. To come and say how to regard God the most worthy of invocation, and how Ahura is progressive, righteous and master of actions. All this to spread the word, because people are now paying attention. They want to know how every thing is regulated by the Universal Law of Asha, righteousness, and how God, the Creator, has created this very law and good mind which help one to belong to God.

Pondering Points: Teach a devotee and see the message spread.

Summary Substance: Praying to Mazda with increasing confidence, Zarathushtra watches as men and women come over to him and offer the very best of their life, a help which strengthens the mission in its righteous plans and good consultation. It is with such companions that Zarathushtra wants to truly glorify God and cross over the "sorting bridge" that separates the righteous from the wrongful.

Pondering Points: Men and women joining the righteous mission create their own identity and entity.

Summary Substance: Priests and princes, in their greed for exploitation put pressure on people, an evil act that destroys their life. When these exploiters come at the "sorting bridge" of the righteous and the wrongful, they stand rebuked by their own conscience. It recounts their evil deeds, deeds they have been committing all through their life, a life lived in wrong and with wrong.

Pondering Points: One can pose righteous to all but never to one's own conscience.

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra has his first major breakthrough. The Turanian - non-Aryan -- tribe of Frayana join the Zarathushtrian Fellowship. They, a warrior people, become ardent followers of promoting the world through peace and stability. Using their good mind, they learn how to help the mission.

Pondering Points: The Good Religion turns warriors into peaceful missionaries.

NOTE: Yoisht Frayana, a member of the tribe, is noted for his profound knowledge of the Religion and his victory in debate with an Old Cult High Priest has grown into a legend.

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra blesses the people pleasing him by joining the Fellowship. He/she becomes noted for his/her earnest. Mazda Ahura grants him/her a new life that promotes his/her world and that too through his/her good mind - good thoughts that translate into good words and deeds. He/she becomes a good associate of righteousness, a good ally of what is proper and right. That is the recognition Zarathushtra and Zarathushtrians accord to such a worthy person.

Pondering Points: The Good Religion gives new sight, new life, new recognition - - a new identity.

Summary Substance: It is a great event, the turning point since the Good Religion was founded 12 years ago. After two years of deliberation, King Vishtaspa decides to convert to the Good Religion. Zarathushtra is officiating at the Initiation. In his opening words, he calls Vishtaspa as his righteous companion, a person who wishes the Religion to be known and spread far and wide. Zarathushtra blesses all those who join the Fellowship, the Divine Abode, where good mind guides.

The following is the eulogy in honor of King Vishtaspa, the only one in honor of a celebrity other than Zarathushtra who has two:

"We venerate the Choice of Religion by Kavi Vishtaspa, the righteous,

The hero, thought-provocation personified,

The sharp-sighted, divine,

Who sought, for the first time, glory for Righteousness,

Who gave, for the first time, glory to Righteousness,

Who was the arm and protection
Of the Divine and Zarathushtrian Religion,
Which had stood stagnant until then.
He freed it and helped it progress,
Made it central and ruling high;
The resolute, righteous Religion,
Which rejoices with life and prosperity,
Which delights in life and prosperity.

(Farvardin Yasht.99)

Pondering Points: Good mind, good merits, good means win over frantic fanaticism, and pave the path to progress and prosperity.

(Gathas: 11-15)

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra is now addressing his own family members, the Haechataspa Spitamas. He teaches them how to distinguish between those who are just and those who are not. He says, once one knows how to draw a line between the two, one knows how to act according to the Divine Primal Principles to lead a righteous life.

Pondering Points: Distinguish between good and evil and turn good.

Summary Substance: In a master piece of poetry, Zarathushtra speaks to Ferashaoshtra, a prominent companion and a great teacher, to usher the companions in the world that the Good Religion presents. A place where Ushta, radiant happiness makes all happy and healthy, where serenity and tranquility provide a righteous life, where it is only and only good mind that guides, and where one feels the presence of Mazda Ahura, who is the most progressive. It is the ideal world created by the thought-provoking Message of Zarathushtra through well-thought, well-said, and well-done thoughts, words and actions.

Ferashaoshtra is reported by Pahlavi writers to have become, along with his brother Jamaspa, ministers of King Vishtaspa. The two truly deserved that counseling assignments.

Pondering Points: God is progressive and so should we. That will create our ideal world.

Summary Substance: Zarathushtra now instructs his prime pupil - - Jamaspa Hvogva, a sage of youth, younger brother of Ferashaoshtra. He is being taught the Gathas - - the Divine Message in poetry so that it stays unadulterated. Song lasts unaltered. It is prose pieces that are paraphrased every time they are repeated. The Gathas have, because of the insight and foresight of the Master Poet, the Divine Thought-provoker, has remained untouched - - fresh to sing, glorify God, and be inspired to think, understand, practice, and preach. The Gathas guide people to distinguish between the just and the unjust. And whoever succeeds, he/she becomes a wonderful counselor, a genius adviser, a leading guide.

Pondering Points: Sing the Songs, save the Message, praise Mazda, and gain wisdom to promote the world.

Summary Substance: Joining Zarathushtra in the Fellowship brings one the best in life by being guided by one's enlightened good mind. This is the only reward he can promise mankind. But those who oppose the Fellowship, are opposed by Zarathushtra. No compromise. It only encourages the wrongful.

Zarathushtra wants to please Mazda, that is what his wisdom leads him to. And pleasing God, as stated in the first stanza of the Gathas - Song 1.1 - is to please and promote the living world.

Pondering Points: Join the Fellowship, reap the riches of good mind. Oppose it, expect opposition.

Summary Substance: The mission, earlier endangered by priests and princes, is satisfactorily successful. The number of Zarathushtra's companions is swelling. He wants them to undergo a complete change. Leave superstitions. Leave prescriptive bonds that check progress. Renovate life. Keep righteously modern. That is what Mazda, the most-knowing Being, wishes them to accomplish. It means the ideal life one desires. It is a reward in a world which is laden with fruit of good deeds. It is this God-willing renovation that Zarathushtra has learned through his divine inspiration.

Pondering Points: Renovate life, and ensure a fine future.