Philosophy of religion among Iranians (Part 11)
Bardaisanites and the philosophy of Bardaisan

Farid Shoulizadeh:  As you read in the last part of these series, the gradual oblivion of the ancient Yasna languages among the monotheist priests, due to ups and downs in history, especially the destructive invasions of Alexander of Masedonia, the religious and administrative system of Iranians caused errors in the correct understanding of the message of Gathas and its divine teachings.   These errors caused the dualistic ideology to penetrate into parts of Zoroastrian scripts.  We should know that in some periods of history the dualistic ideology reached its peak of power, to an extent that part of this philosophic interpretation was adopted by many Zoroastrian mobeds (the same mobeds that the pious Kartir has written about and was wanting to guide or punish them), Manichaeans, Bardaisanites, Marquinians, Kantiyunians, and…  In this part we shall analyze the philosophy of Bardaisan.
Followers of Bardaisan’s doctrine are called Bardaisanites.  Bardaisan, the founder of this ideology, is originally a Syriac name.  In the first component of this word, ‘Bar’ in Syriac language means ‘son’.  Therefore, Bardaisan means son of Daisan.  In the philosophic scripts in Arabic language, in addition to the name ‘Daisan’ and Bardaisan, ‘Bin Daisan’ which is translation of Bardaisan, is also used.
Bardaisan was born in AD 154, near the River Daisan, in an area in the north of the city of Al Raha. It is said that Bardaisan died in AD 222 in the same city of Al Raha.  The doctrine that he introduced was a combination of Syriac Gnosticism, Iranian existentialism and Greek philosophy.  Followers of Bardaisan were scattered in some areas of Iran and China.  Obvious signs of spiritual worldview are seen in the philosophy of Bardaisan.
One of the books available regarding the philosophic doctrine of Bardaisan is undoubtedly ‘Mellal-o-Nahl’ written by Allameh Shahrestani.  He described the worldview of followers of Bardaisan doctrine as follows:
“Followers of Daisan have proven the Zoroastrian principle of light and darkness.  Light does good with purpose and free will, and darkness does evil by nature and need.  Therefore, whatever is good, beneficial, sweet smelling and beautiful is light and whatever is evil, harmful, bad smelling and ugly is darkness.
They believe that light is alive, wise, able, sensitive and understanding and movement of life comes from light.  Darkness is dead, foolish, weak, solid and without spirit.  Darkness does nothing and knows nothing and they think that the evil born from darkness is due to stupidity and temper.


Translation by Rowshan Lohrasbpour