Chapter 6
The Karapans and the Kavis
Apart from the necromancers Zarathustra had two other groups of enemies: the karapans and the kavis and he waged a similar irreconcilable war against them. The karapans were the rulers of men’s beliefs and thoughts whilst the kavis were their social and political leaders. The karapans were Mithraic priests—they held Mithra to be the lord of creation. They believed that the sun and all other natural elements of the universe had a separate divinity.
In practice these karapans worshipped Mithra and the divinities by lauding them in their incantations. In order to use men to their own advantage they instilled such fear within the human heart as to rob men of their will power. Thus, did they conjure these dreaded gods: Mithra, the supreme god with a thousand eyes and a thousand ears rose at sunrise from beyond Mount Alborz in a carriage drawn by four resplendent steeds. In one hand he held a cudgel of a hundred knots and a hundred golden blades to fight the monster of the earth. Mithra, garbed in golden armor, carried on his arm a silver shield as he whipped his horses across the horizon. Mithra’s chariot bore a thousand of the finest swift tipped arrows, a thousand arrows of vulture feathers with golden tips and with notches of excellent bone, a thousand double steel bladed axes, a thousand two sided daggers, a thousand iron cudgels and innumerable shining stone slings all of which he used to strike down his foes.
The Mithra worshipping karapans incessantly raised their odious voices in the adoration of their god:
When wilt thou, our beloved Mithra of a thousand plains, return our herds unto us when one is stolen ?
The karapans believed Mithra to be all powerful:
Mithra of the plains will destroy the abode, the village, the country and the kingdom of the offender. T’is to him that the warriors pray from the saddle of their raging steeds to strengthen their horses and to keep them hale that they might know and destroy their adversary from afar—that they might defeat their vengeful foe.
He is the one to destroy the fiends.
He is the one to limit the power of the angels!
He is the one to lay waste to the kingdom of the foe and to take away its spirit.
He is the one with ten thousand guardsmen.
He is omniscient and unbeguiled!
He is the upholder of the pillars of palaces, the shelter of the cloister, the populator of the herds and of men.
He is the destroyer of the home of the offenders.
Mithra is he who populates blessed families with chaste woman, fine chariots, wide cushions and luxurious beds. May we come to achieve our aim through courage, joy and bliss!
May we defeat the evil wisher!
May we destroy our foe whether he be of the demons, the people, the sorcerers or the angels!
He is the one who can fill the adversary with dread and fear.
He cuts off the heads of those who will not abide in truth with him.
He is the one who will mislead the fine sharp flying falcon feathered arrow that it may miss its mark.
He is the one who will stop the powerfully thrown rock from destroying its aim.
He is the one who waylays keen bladed daggers from entering the hearts of men.
He is the one who will not allow the well-flung cudgel to beat upon the heads of men.
Woe to he who angers Mithra of the wide plaines !
This was the lord of the karapans! This was the god whose terror-ridden worship they carved into the hearts of men! This was the divinity who ruled all minds in dread until Zarathustra rose to denounce him. Armed with divine speech, Zarathustra waged war on this false god. He did not blindly follow this ancient haggard divinity but rather strove, through the power of his wisdom, to ban this fabricated god in favor of another which he tried to make known to men.
Zarathustra’s God had rejected arrows, bows, daggers, spears and cudgels. He needed no fiery chariot to draw His deeds, neither did he cut off heads, nor burn men in the blaze of His wrath. This God was the omnipotent harmonizing wisdom of creation. He was the most brilliant of all illumination, the eternal splendor of heavenly and terrestrial light. He was the knowledge of the harmony of being.
Zarathustra had no heavenly ensconced deity neither did he have one whipping beasts across the bosom of the universe for his God was creation and existence was another aspect of His form. The Teacher opposed the Mithraists and Sol worshippers who knew God through the mouth of the karapans and through decrepit creeds. He compelled men to look to creation, listen to the song of existence and to contemplate for then would men truly know Him in the light of their intellect and through the core of their being.
God, said Zarathustra, was at peace within your intelligence. He was the force of creation—the radiance of creation—and could be perceived in all the elements of existence.
In the beginning ‘twas He who illuminated the world in His thoughts.
And with His wisdom did He create the harmony of being.
For He would support the noblest thoughts.
O Thou unchanging Mazda Ahura,
Illuminate and raise us in Thy heavenly kingdom!
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 7)
O Mazda,
At that moment when I perceived Thee through mine
Intellect did I know Thee as the beginning and the end of being.
Thou art the fount of blessed thoughts.
In the hour when I beheld Thee in my subliminal self
did I know Thee as the true Creator of truth.
Thou art the Judge of all men’s deeds!
(Gathas, chapter 31, verse 8)
Who is that sage who will try me?
Thou art the One most fitting to worship!
Thou art the Lord of Truth!
Thou art the Judge of the good!
We endlessly strive to know Thy creed of Truth through
our divine thoughts!
Illuminate us with Thy blessed creed!
(Gathas, chapter 46, verse 9)
Beside the karapans stood the kavis—the ruler and the sovereigns.
They ruled in utter suppression with tyranny and infamy.
Zarathustra rose against the kavis and said of them:
They lead men away from the finest deeds through their false teachings.
They destroy lives through their cunning speech.
They uphold the karapans and the wicked grehmas.
They raise them above the righteous.
They seek sovereignty for the false.
Mazda will deal them severe retributions.
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 12)
From the beginning did the grehmas, with the aid of the
karapans, join forces to destroy the Messenger.
They sought the aid of the evil ones.
They said the world must be destroyed that the immortal
Haoma might come to them.
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 13)
Zarathustra said of the great kavi Jamshid:
We know Jamshid Vivanghan from amongst these sinners.
T’was he who humbled the Lord of Creation for his own
Amusement and that he might give pleasure to men.
O Mazda,
I doubt not Thy judgment of these sinners!
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 8)
O Mazda,
Those who laud the evil ones prevent the righteous men
and women from attaining divine forgiveness as they
harry the true and the benevolent from achieving divine
thought.
They destroy life.
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 11)
Whichever power the grahma seeks in light of evil thought
will eventually destroy his life.
At the moment will he beseechingly seek the message
of Thy holy Messenger—the Messenger who upholds
Truth before his adversaries, O Mazda.
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 13)
Thus were the karapans and the kavis destroyed by those
whom they denied the freedom they sought.
T’ was these people who arrived at the kingdom of virtue
through immortality and fulfillment.
(Gathas, chapter 32, verse 15)