MARTIN WEST

DARIUS ASCENT TO PARADISE

The rock tombs of Darius I and his successors at Naq-e Rustam andPersepolis are each surmounted by a relief of a unique and unchangingdesign (Figure 1). The Great King appears on a platform supported by therepresentatives of thirty nations. But he is not portrayed triumphing overhis enemies or receiving tribute from his subjects. He stands alone before afire altar, holding a bow in his left hand and raising his right in salutation,while above hovers the winged figure of Ahuramazda. In the upper rightarea of the field hangs the moon, depicted as an upturned crescent inscribedin a complete disc.1

The most enigmatic feature is the presence of the moon at the side.It is clearly more than a mere decorative motif or space-filler; indeedit conspicuously upsets the symmetry of the composition. I quote E. F.Schmidts comment (omitting a couple of his bibliographical footnotes):The symbol on Darius tomb has been described as the crescent on the full moon. Webelieve with others that it may indicate the crescent, before it reached the first quarter, andthe faintly visible rest of the lunar orb. The significance of the moon in our tomb scene isproblematical.2

It must have had some religious significance in the context.What is the meaning of the scene as a whole? At one level it seems to

convey an obvious message: it portrays the late king as a pious Mazda-worshipper. Thus Mary Boyce: by this carving Darius was making astrong visual affirmation of his faith. She argues that the fire is the kingsown hearth fire, and that the winged figure is not Ahuramazda but Dariusown khwarenah, at the same time retaining something of its primarysignificance of a solar symbol. As to the presence of the moon, she notesthat:

Three of the major Zoroastrian prayers, the Khored, Mah and Adur Niyaye, are devotedto sun, moon and fire; and in a Pahlavi text, in answer to the question how prayerand praise of the yazatas is to be performed, it is enjoined that prayers should be saidfacing the sun, moon or fire; and that, moreover, if a sin is committed, it should berepented of and renounced before the sun, moon or fire.3 At one level of meaning, there-fore, the tomb-relief simply shows the king at prayer according to orthodox Zoroastrianprescription.

Indo-Iranian Journal 45: 5157, 2002. 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

52 MARTIN WEST

Figure 1. The upper part of the relief over Darius tomb.

She then cites from other Achaemenian art examples of personalized lunarfigures modelled on the same pattern as the solar winged disc figure, andcombines this with texts that speak of the moon as a source of khwarenah:

The underlying thought was perhaps that the radiant sun and moon divided between themthe task of sending down the divine glory to earth by day and night; and the use of theelaborated sun- and moon-symbols together in Achaemenian art was perhaps to suggestthat the kings glory too shone throughout the twenty-four hours. Further, it is conceivablethat the moon-symbol was used alone in honour of a dead king, whose glory would havebeen accessible to his descendants, through prayer and veneration, by the action of hisfravai, necessarily most powerful in the night.4

This is an ingenious but frail construction, tacked together fromdisparate pieces of data and achieving no strong effect of organic coher-ence. It is certainly relevant to note that sun, moon, and fire were conceivedas being of kindred nature; hence prayers might be said facing any one ofthem. But the texts refer to sun, moon, or fire, and there was no need toshow all three to illustrate Darius piety. Nor is it easy to understand how atthe same time the scene could be a representation of the kings khwarenah.If that had been the artists idea, he could surely have found clearer waysof expressing it.

What is most important in Boyces discussion is the recognition thatthe fire, the moon, and the sun somehow belong together. In endeavouringto interpret the scene we should consider them as some kind of trinity.The question is, what is the role of this trinity in a funerary context? Andgranted that the kings immediate relationship is to one of the three, theholy fire, why is this relationship, rather than his achievements as ruler andwarrior, singled out as the most appropriate subject for his tomb relief?

DARIUS ASCENT TO PARADISE 53

Figure 2. The Qizqapan relief (from Iraq 1 [1934], Figure 2).

Before going further, let us note that although the scene is not exactlyparalleled elsewhere, the same elements, more or less, are found in therelief over the doorway of the Median rock tomb Qizqapan near Surdashin north-eastern Iraq (Figure 2). In its central panel we see two menstanding on either side of a fire altar, gazing into the fire, each with hisright hand raised and his left hand holding a bow. In a smaller panel abovethere appears the lunar crescent-in-disc; sitting enthroned in the crescentis a male figure who holds what looks like a flask, as if for oil or perfume.A side-panel on the left shows something like the usual Ahuramazda, butconsisting of little more than a head, two hands, and four wings, while onthe other side, level with the lunar symbol, is a round medallion with acentral boss from which radiate eleven wedge-shaped spokes, each with asmall (lunar?) crescent impaled on it. This might be seen as a symbol ofthe months of the year, despite the shortfall in the number of the moons (ifthat is what they are).5

I suggest that the explanation of these tomb reliefs may be found in aneschatological theory that can be traced in the Upanishads, the Avesta, andlater in the Pahlavi books.

Let us begin with the Iranian texts. In a lost portion of the Avesta, theDamdat Nask, it was written thatwhen they sever the consciousness of men it goes out to the nearest fire, then out to thestars, then out to the moon, and then out to the sun.6

54 MARTIN WEST

In the Pahlavi books it is a recurrent doctrine that the righteous soul afterdeath journeys to the stars (the nearest of the celestial luminaries to theearth), from there on to the moon, from there to the sun, and finally beyondthe sun to the Beginningless Light, which is the abode of Ohrmazd.

(The good mans soul ascends to Paradise) in three stages, that of Good Thought, that ofGood Speech, and that of Good Action. The first stage reaches to the stars, the second tothe moon, the third to the sun, where the bright Paradise lies.7

The righteous souls pass over the Cinvad bridge . . . they step forth up to the star, or themoon, or to the sun station, or to the endless light.8

One step reaches to the star station, the second step reaches to the moon station, the thirdstep reaches to the sun station, and with the fourth step it reaches to the Cinvad bridge.9

Heaven is, first, from the star station unto the moon station; second, from the moonstation unto the sun; and third, from the sun station unto Garodman, whereon Aurarmazdis seated.10

I submit that the Qizqapan and Achaemenid tomb reliefs reflect anearly form of this doctrine in which the stars had not yet been definitelyincorporated. It will be seen below that there is evidence for the existenceof such a variant before Darius time.

On this interpretation the fire altar is at once the focus of the kings pietyand the fire to which his soul goes directly on his death. Form there it willtravel to the moon and the sun. The moon is a prominent and otherwiseinexplicable feature of the compositions. (In the Qizqapan relief it actuallyoccupies the central position above the altar fire.) The sun is surely tobe regarded as contained in the figure of Ahuramazda, whose symbol isderived from the Egyptian-Assyrian-Urartian winged solar disc, and whosevisible form is identified as the sun and the daylight in the Gatha of theSeven Chapters (Yasna 36.6). If the souls final destination is the realmof Ahuramazda, this may be considered either as associated with the sunitself, as in the passage quoted above from the Bundahin, or as beyond thesun, as in the other passages. In either case it may be symbolized by thefigure of the god that hovers on high in the reliefs.

The texts I have quoted are Zoroastrian, but it does not necessarilyfollow that Darius Mazdaism was Zoroastrian. The eschatology neednot be Zoroastrian in origin. In fact we find something akin to it in some ofthe Upanishads, works composed earlier than Darius and currently taught,we may suppose, in one corner of his empire. Here the heavenly ascent isbound up with a theory of metempsychosis, according to which most soulsfail to rise beyond the moon, return to the earth as rain, pass into food, andso re-enter the cycle of animal life. We need not go further into this sideof the theory, as it was not taken up in Iran. But it is relevant to note whatbecomes of the favoured ones who by knowledge escape from this world.First they merge with the flames of the funeral pyre. Then:

DARIUS ASCENT TO PARADISE 55

From the flame (they pass) into the day, from the day into the half-month of the full moon,from the half-month of the full moon into the six months during which the sun movesnorthwards, from (those) months to the world of the gods, from the world of the gods tothe sun, from the sun to the realm of lightning. A Person who is mind draws near to theserealms of lightning and leads them on to the Brahman-worlds. In those Brahman-worldsthey live for long ages. For them there is no return.11

Everyone who departs from this world, comes to the moon. In the first fortnight (themoon) waxes on their breath-souls, while in the latter half it prepares them to be born(again). . . . (He who succeeds in passing the moon) reaching that path (called) the way ofthe gods comes to the worlds of Agni, of Vayu, of Varun

.a, of the sun, of Indra, of Prajapati

and of Brahman.12

It will be observed that in these texts the stars do not yet appear as anintervening stage on the souls journey between the earthly fire and themoon. Their absence from the Achaemenid reliefs, then, is not a strongargument against the eschatological interpretation that I am advocating.The reliefs may reflect a form of the doctrine that is in this respect closerto the earlier Indian texts than to the later Zoroastrian ones.

There is another point that suggests derivation of the later Zoroastriantheory from the Indian. In the Upanishads the earthly fire into which thedeceaseds soul passes, and which sends it on to the heavenly fires, is thefuneral pyre. This is more natural and original than the idea of the soulmaking its way to the nearest altar fire. The Zoroastrians, as they abhorredcremation, were driven to modify the doctrine in this way.

The role of the moon in the Indian theory may be relevant to the way inwhich it is depicted in the tomb reliefs. According to the passage quotedfrom the Kaus

.taki Upanis

.ad, the moon waxes in the first half of the month

because it is receiving the breath-souls (pran.a) of those who depart this

earth. According to a number of texts it is filling up with soma, the divinejuice that gives the gods their immortality. In the second half of the monththey are drinking it from the bowl of the moon, and so we see it waning.13It is those souls which reach the moon during its waxing, and during thesix months between the winter and summer solstices, that are able to passbeyond it to immortality.

Both the phase of the moon and the season of the year are thereforeof potential significance in an artistic representation relating to a soulsascent to heaven. If the old moon in the new moons arms as shown onthe reliefs is assumed to be an evening rather than a pre-dawn apparition,it is necessarily a waxing moon; and the orientation of the crescent, withthe horns pointing straight up, indicates springtime, when the part of thezodiac in which the new moon is situated rises at the steepest angle fromthe horizon.14 To anyone familiar with the Indian theory, its appearancemight well suggest the bowl with the soma in it.15 The theory also enables

56 MARTIN WEST

us to guess the significance of the figure with the flask who sits in the moonon the Qizqapan relief. It is a flask of the divine juice of which the godspartake.

To sum up, I do not dispute the obvious conclusion that Darius is shownin private performance of a holy ritual. That is the initial impression thatanyone beholding the relief must have received. But I submit that the scenehas a further meaning in relation to the kings death and his translation to ahigher realm. His devotional link with the altar fire is, as it were, extendedinto a projection of the route his soul will take in its ascent to Paradise:from the altar fire to the moon the waxing moon of spring, the bowlfilling up with the elixir of immortality16 and from there on to the sunand to the abode of Ahuramazda his god.

NOTES

1 For detailed descriptions cf. F. Sarre-E. Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs (Berlin, 1910),pp. 14 ff.; E. F. Schmidt, Persepolis III. The Royal Tombs and other Monuments (Chicago,1970), pp. 84 f.; M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism II (Handbuch der OrientalistikI. 8(1). 2. 2A, Leiden-Kln, 1982), pp. 112114. For illustrations cf. Sarre-Herzfeld, op.cit., p. 15 (Abb. 5) and plates IIIII; Schmidt, op. cit., frontispiece and plates 1, 1819, 22,4042, 4850, 5658, 6364, 70, 78; G. Walser, Persepolis, die Knigspfalz des Darius(Tbingen, 1980), plates 81, 118119.2 Schmidt, op. cit., p. 85. He is certainly correct in understanding the representation asbeing not a combination of two lunar phases, crescent and full, but as the phenomenonknown as the old moon in the new moons arms, often seen when the dark portion of thenew moon is made visible by light reflected from the earth. For this manner of depicting themoon in ancient oriental art see P. R. S. Moorey, Iran 16 (1978), pp. 146 f. with references;for a curious example on an Attic hydria from Nola (Paris, Cabinet des Mdailles 449; c.425 BC) see the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae VII, Pegasos no. 37. Itis on the later of the Achaemenid tomb reliefs that the moon is best preserved (Schmidtsplates 49, 57, 63, and 70).3 Menok-i-Xrat 53.4 Boyce, op. cit., pp. 113116.5 C. J. Edmonds, Iraq 1 (1934), pp. 184189 with figures 14 and plates XXIIIXXVI;E. E. Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East (London-New York, 1941), pp. 204 f.; Schmidt,Persepolis III, p. 79.6 ayast na-ayast 12.5, trans. E. W. West, Sacred Books of the East, V, pp. 341 f.7 Bundahin 30. 11, p. 199 Anklesaria; translation after G. Widengren, IranischeGeisteswelt (Baden-Baden, 1961), pp. 179 f. This and the following texts are quoted,together with others illustrating the same ordering of the heavenly bodies, by W. Burkert,Iranisches bei Anaximandros, Rheinisches Museum 106 (1963), pp. 107 ff.8 Datastan-i-Denk 34. 3, trans. E. W. West, Sacred Books of the East XVIII, p. 76.9 Sad dar 87. 11, trans. E. W. West, Sacred Books of the East XXIV, p. 352.10 Menok-i-Xrat 7. 1 ff., trans E. W. West, Sacred Books of the East XXIV, pp. 29 f.11 Br

.hadaran

.yaka Upanis

.ad 6. 2. 14, trans. R. C. Zaehner, Hindu Scriptures (London,

1966), p. 81.

DARIUS ASCENT TO PARADISE 57

12 Kaus.taki Upanis

.ad 1. 23, trans. Zaehner, op. cit., pp. 149 f.

13 Br.hadaran

.yaka Upanis

.ad 6. 2. 15, trans. Zaehner, op. cit., pp. 81 f., and other texts; A.

Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie I (Breslau, 1891), pp. 290319; A. A. Macdonell, VedicMythology (Strassburg, 1898), pp. 112 f.14 By chance I saw the old moon in the new moons arms very clearly for two or threeevenings in succession in early April 2000 at Shiraz and Kerman, just after visitingPersepolis. It looked just as on the reliefs.15 In Iranian terms it would be haoma.16 Darius in fact died in the autumn of 486; but the relief had no doubt already beendesigned and carved.

All Souls CollegeOxford