Zoology
that portion of natural history which treats of the classification, structure, habits and habitations of animals. Closely related to zoölogy is the study of embryology, while comparative anatomy and physiology are the branches which dominate the study of the physical structure of man.
ZOROASTER ZORNDORF (tsorn'-), a village of Brandenburg, Prussia; 53 miles E. by N. of Berlin. Here a battle was fought Aug. 25, 1758, between the Prussian and Russian armies; the former, commanded by the King of Prussia, obtained a victory over the forces of the czarina, whose loss amounted to 21,529 men, while that of the Prussians was about 11,000.
ZOROASTER (so the Greeks pronounced the name of ZARATHUSHTRA), the founder or reformer of the ancient religion of the Parsees. He appears as a historical person only in the earliest portion of the Avesta, the Gâthic hymns, where the aspirations, hopes, and fears of an actual human agent are unmistakably present. His name means "Bay camels." His father was Pourusaspa, "Many horses"; his wife was Hvogvi (i. e., of the Hvogvas); his daughter was Pouru-chista, the Discreet. His family name was Spitama. This much we may accept from the statement of documents, but as soon as we leave the last Gâtha, which was the wedding song of his daughter, we have no reliable data.
Whether he was born in Ragha, the "Zarathushtrian" province (possibly later so called from its having become a political and ecclesiastical center), or nearer the scene represented in the Vendîdâd (chap. i.), where countries to the E. are mentioned (so more probably), or, again, whether Atropatene was his home, one thing seems certain, which is that all the persons named in the Gâthas belong beside him. Notwithstanding Yasna, xlvi. 1, with its "to what land (district) shall I turn?" which probably gave rise to the erroneous opinion, he was no immigrant or emigrant going prophetically from country to country; for such a career at such an age would have been soon cut short by his execution. He is thoroughly at home and among his relatives in the Gâthas.
As the center of a group of chieftains, one of whom was the king Vîshtâspa ("Horse-owner"?), he was carrying on with varying success a political military, and theological struggle for the defense or wider establishment of a holy agricultural state, whose laws and principles encouraged pastoral labor, tillage, and thrift, as against the freebooting tendencies of Turanian and Vedic aggressors. In the course of his career he composed religious-political hymns, the Gathas, of which we have now only fragments surviving in meters which appear (or reappear) in the Rik and in other parts of the Veda. The period in which he lived is even more uncertain than that of Homer, but cannot be placed later than ZOSIMUS 800 B. C., and may be greatly earlier. See PARSEES.