Relational Readings of Myth as Ontology: 6 — Zoroastrianism (Avestan + Middle Persian Traditions)

Dualism, Ethical Cosmology & the Relational Cut

Zoroastrianism is one of the earliest fully elaborated moral-cosmological systems, and historically decisive for later Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and even secular eschatological schemas. Although typically framed as an ontological dualism (good vs evil / light vs darkness), the tradition is rich enough to be re-read through a relational ontology, where what appears as metaphysical dualism can be reinterpreted as epistemic-perspectival distinction: the difference between patterns of construal that sustain coherence vs patterns that dis-integrate coherence.

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Part I — Diagnostic (Relational Ontology Audit)

1. Dominant ontological grammar

• Cosmos as moral order: Existence is intelligible insofar as it aligns with Asha (truth, right-order, coherence) and is corrupted, degraded, or obscured by Druj (deception, distortion, dis-order).

• Existence as contested field: Reality is not assumed stable; it is a site of ongoing struggle between ordering and dis-ordering tendencies.

• Human participation is decisive: Ethical choice, ritual purity, truth-speaking, and right action are not symbolic signals of allegiance but causal contributions to the maintenance of Asha.

2. Conceptual cores

• Asha ≈ cosmic rightness, coherence, truthful alignment, proper unfolding — not merely moral correctness but world-ordering intelligibility.

• Druj ≈ distortion, dis-integration, untruth, confusion — not “substance of evil” but mis-construal and mis-actualisation.

• Ahura Mazda ≈ highest ordering intelligence/wisdom; Angra Mainyu ≈ contrary disposition/impulse toward dis-integration.

3. Ontological category clarification

Contrary to popular retellings, Zoroastrian dualism does not require two co-equal substances. It can instead be interpreted as two orientations of becoming within one field of potential:

• Asha as coherent instantiation;

• Druj as mis-regulated instantiation (patterning that collapses intelligibility).

4. Temporality, history, eschatology

Time is teleologically charged: existence is a finite-duration arena in which alignment or misalignment with Asha has real ontic effects. Final restoration (Frashokereti) is not annihilation but complete repair — a fully coherent enactment of potential.

5. Praxis

Zoroastrian ritual purity, ethical truth-telling, tending of sacred fire, and communal obligations should be read performatively, not symbolically: actions instantiate alignment, not merely signify it.

6. Common representational misreadings

• Dualism as metaphysical substance theory (two “things” fighting)

• Moralism as reward/punishment mechanism (rather than world-coherence engineering)

• Purity as superstition (rather than semiotic-ecological hygiene of intelligibility)

• Eschatology as future prediction (rather than systemic closure actualised by convergent patterns of construal)

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Part II — Metamorphic Reinterpretation (Relational Ontology Lens)

1. Asha and Druj as relational modalities

Reinterpreted:

• Asha = systemic alignment actualised into coherent, intelligible phenomena.

• Druj = distortion resulting from representational or affective mis-cuts that disrupt intelligibility.

Thus, they are not substances but qualities of instantiation — how potential is cut, not what exists.

2. Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu re-read as orientational operators

Relationally, these are:

• Ahura Mazda → the epistemic-ethical attractor toward coherent construal, ordered readiness, and intelligible unfolding.

• Angra Mainyu → the counter-attractor that promotes fragmentation of construal, breakdown of readiness, and ontic confusion.

3. Ritual and ethics as semiotic stabilisation

Speaking truth (asha-vani), maintaining purity, and ritual flame-keeping become:

• Technologies of construal hygiene

• Practices that maintain signal-to-noise ratio in lived meaning

• Collective stabilisation protocols for world coherence

4. Eschatology as fixpoint of convergence

Final restoration is not future magic but:

The theoretical limit state at which all instantiations converge on coherent construal, eliminating systemic noise.

5. Evil de-dramatised, responsibility intensified

Once “evil” is reconceptualised as mis-instantiation, the drama shifts:

• Evil is not a metaphysical force

• It is a pattern of mis-cutting

• Responsibility becomes semiotic-ethical skill, not obedience

In short:

Zoroastrianism becomes an early theory of epistemic ecology.

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Liora Micro-Vignette

Liora stepped into a quiet desert shrine where a small fire trembled like a held breath. A priest was neither praying nor commanding — only tending the flame, trimming smoke, adjusting air. He whispered: “The fire is not the god. The tending is the world.”

Outside, the wind carried voices from travellers: half-truths, rumours, frightened hopes. Liora realised the shrine was not built to keep the world pure but to keep it intelligible. When she stood beside the flame, she felt how a single careless construal could warp a whole village’s sense of what is possible — and how a single careful tending could bring coherence back into the field.

The fire did not symbolise order.

It was order — whenever one tended it.

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Three-Line Takeaway

• Zoroastrian dualism can be reinterpreted as two modes of instantiation, not two substances: coherent alignment (Asha) vs distortive mis-cutting (Druj).

• Ritual, ethics, and truth-speaking are performative technologies of semiotic coherence, not symbolic gestures.

• Eschatology reflects the limit condition where all construals converge upon intelligibility.