The direction faced by Zoroastrians during meditations/prayers is narrated in the 53rdchapter of DĀDESTÁN Í MĒNÖG Í ḴRAD(Judgments or Decisions of the Spirit of Wisdom.) The book itself consists of 63 chapters and correspond closely to the ancient commentaries of the gathas/ poetic god songs, the most sacred poetry of Zoroastrianism. The numerical arrangement of 63 chapters highlights the importance of numbers 3, 6 and 9 in ancient Zoroastrianism.
The chapters of DĀDESTÁN Í MĒNÖG Í ḴRAD(Judgments or Decisions of the Spirit of Wisdom) deal with a summary of ancient Zoroastrian beliefs and commentaries on sacred songs/gathic poetry. The work is based on questions posed by Dánág (literally “Wise Man,”) to the personified Spirit of Wisdom (Ménög í ḵrad), who is extolled and identified in two places (2.95, 57.4) with intuitiveness and/or innate mental abilities (ásnö ḵrad.)
Middle Iranian and Persian ḵrad derive from Avestan ḵratü. Vedic kratú, and Greek krátos are cognates. Avestan ḵratü and/or later ḵrad refer originally to “mental abilities and the power of imagination to manifest and create.”
MĒNÖG Í ḴRAD is the intuitive spirit of wisdom, the “Geisteskraft” of the sacred god-songs/gathas who represent a gateway/portal to the wondrous wisdom of the Immortals and the Supreme God/Titan, Ahûrá Mazdá, the Lord of Mental Abilities/Powers who responds to the inquiries of the Wise.
In chapter 53, the wise man asks the spirit of wisdom thus: How are the homage and glorifying of the God Powers is to be performed?
The question refers to the following poem in the sacred songs/gathas:
nəmaŋhö á//yathá. nəmə̄ ḵšmávatö.
The spirit of wisdom answered thus:
‘Every day three times, standing opposite the Sun and Mithrö (our contract with heavens, manifested in illumination at dawn) and other times, facing moon, stars, and the Victorious Fire (Vahrám,) homage and glorifying are to be performed (5 times,) and one must show gratitude and thankfulness (sepásômand!)
Addressing invocations to the sun, moon, and stars is an ancient Indo-European Practice. In Zoroastrianism, a worshipper faces heavens/sky, a celestial light, an eternal or sacred flame during prayers. It is so because Godhood is viewed as “seeking new horizons, light and illumination” in the Zoroastrian religion.
The Avestan phrase stréuš ča máŋhhem ča hvare ča raôčáw, anaghra raôčáw, refers to stars, moon, light of the sun and boundless lights of heaven in daily prayers. Fire as prodigy of Ahûrá Mazdá, the Celestial Lord of the Sky is alluded to as átarem ča Ahûrahæ Mazdáw puthrem in our daily prayers.
Didier Calin in page 52 of his Dictionary of Ind0-European Poetic and Religious themes cites the following Avestan passage: Yašt 13.2c+3ab asmanəm… yim Mazdáw vaŋhanəm, “the sky/heavens which Titan of Wisdom, Mazdá wears as a star-spangled, thought- fashioned garment.”
In Yasna 30.5 of the poetic gathas/songs “the most auspicious spirit/mind power, clothes himself in the hardest/most precious stones of the sky/heavens (asə̄nö vastæ.)
The reverence for heavenly stones can also be seen in the cornerstone of Kabbah where Muslims face everyday in their prayers.
In Indo-European Poetry and Myth by Martin L. West we are told that the Bavarian farmers in the Oberpfalz were observed in the nineteenth century to raise their hats to the rising sun. Accordingly, Greetings and prayers to the rising and setting sun are attested also from the Baltic lands, Belarus, the Ukraine, and southern Poland. Remarkable survivals of the custom, including some actual chants in Scots Gaelic, are recorded from the Western Isles. Martin West also cites the Nordic Sólarlióð practice from the medieval times: “I saw the Sun; it seemed to me as if I saw the magnificent God. To her I bowed for the last time in this mortal world.”
ardeshir