Yalda and Christmas- are they connected?
Personally, i am not familiar with a lot of the stuff we have in our culture. it is probably because of my ignorance. when i was younger i was never really interested in our history or culture despite living in iran till i was 16! but i am trying to catch up, and from time to time come across articles which are very interesting.
the other day i cam across this article about Shabe Yalda, and its conncetion to Christmas. i dont really know if its true or not, but it makes a great reading, and its something i thought to share with you all....
happy Yalda to you all.
By Ash Farhang
December 23, 2003
The Iranian
A chance meeting some years ago with an Iranian scholar who, as fate has it, now lives in Helsinki, Finland, introduced me to an aspect of Iranian history, which to this date is nothing short of a love affair with my ancestors. Though long forgotten, they deserve to be remembered for what they truly were. For this enlightenment, I am forever indebted to this friend.
At this particular time of year, I would like to share something with you that I think speaks volumes of plagiarisms and outright thefts of many Iranian thoughts and customs. I feel sure that many of you are aware of this, but circumstances have made it difficult to assert the facts or to remind your colleagues and compatriots of them.
When my children were growing up and were still at home, as parents, Christmas was a difficult time for us. Like all other Iranian children, ours could not quite understand the lack of enthusiasm during this particular holiday.
I am inclined to think that this, among many others, may have been the main contributing factor for their feeling that their parents were "different". They wished we would make the same efforts at Christmas as other parents, but because our hearts were not in it, everything we did seemed either artificial or pretentious, which made us in their eyes even more "different".
However, the chance meeting changed all that with the result that a small amount of research produced many sweet historical facts. Had I known this when my children were small, I would have happily, gladly, and most proudly celebrated this particular holiday season as one of our very own. And I would not have had all those uncomfortable feelings at Christmas with or without a tree.
Yalda (winter solstice) is an ancient Iranian word and appears in many of Prophet Mani's writings. The word refers to a new Beginning from which the Arabic words milaad, tavalod etc. were derived. Mitra (or Mithra) the early Iranian Prophet, considering Light as the essence of existence and life, believed in its sanctity. The Sun as its most obvious manifestation was revered and some out of pure ignorance concluded that Mitra worshiped the Sun.
Whether she did or not she was believed to have been born by divine gesture on December 21st, the longest night of the year, specifically to begin the struggle and triumph of "Light" over "Dark" by having longer and longer days following the longest night of the year.
Mitra's birthday was celebrated for a total of 10 days up to and including the First of January. It is not an accident that half way through the celebrations, namely December 25th, was chosen as Jesus' birthday and January 1st as the first day of New Year.
Remember that Romans, prior to Christianity, practiced Mitraism and only out of political considerations, in the year 376, they converted to the new religion that had started within their own territory. They were not too happy about their main philosophy and religion having been imported from their main and only competitor, namely, the Persian Empire, they converted expeditiously.
According to one source, the Iranians celebrated this day as early as 2,000 BC. Zoroastrians after refining and discarding some of the mythical and "heretical" aspects of Mithraism, retained Yalda (The Birth), and additionally encouraged celebrations of Noruz and Mehregan among many others.
Ancient Iranians celebrated Yalda by decorating an evergreen tree, the Sarve. The Sarve, Rocket Juniper (what a name!), also known as the cypress tree, being straight, upright, resilient and resistant to the cold weather (all signs of strength and upright of character) was thought appropriate to represent Mitra, the omnipotent and ubiquitous deity.
The younger girls had their "wishes" symbolically wrapped in colorful silk cloth and hung them on the tree as offerings to Mitra with an expectation, no doubt, that their prayers would be rewarded (remnants of this traditions can still be seen in Iran at remote villages where some young girls tie colorful bundles to trees to answer to their "wishes") . Thus the tradition of decorations of the tree with lights and gifts on or beside the tree was born.
As you may know, Pope Leo, in the fourth century (A.D.376), after almost destroying the last temple of Mitra (Mitraeum) in his campaign against Mitraism and in the good old Christian tradition, "If you can't claim it, imitate it and call it your own," proclaimed the 25th of December as Christ's birthday and January 1st (not March 21st as was the norm) as the first day of New Year.
Again in the same Euro-Christian tradition of not identifying the source, Luther, the famous German reformer, in the 18th century (1756, I believe), having learned of the Yalda Tree tradition, introduced the Christmas tree to the Germans. However, as Sarves were not much known in Germany, nor indeed in much of Europe, the chosen tree became a genus of pine, abundant in Europe.
So now with or without the children at home, we decorate a small Sarve with a star (Mitra's) on top and many presents all around, not necessarily for Mitra, but in memory of my ancestors for my children and grandchildren.
Please, therefore, decorate a tree at this joyous time, call it by its true name -- Yalda Tree -- and celebrate it as your own and don't feel ambivalent when your children wonder if we celebrate the occasion. So Happy Yalda and the greetings of the season to all of you; no matter what your religion.
In fact what is mentioned in your article about the Christmas day is very true. Pop Leo and other western Europeans decided to change the date of birth for Jesus Christ because they couldn't get people to leave their ancient traditions of celebrating the winter solstice festival on 25th of December.
Now if you look into Armenia, which was the *first* official Christian nation in the world (before the Romans), they celebrate Christmas on 6th of January. Similarly, Russian, Macedonian, Serbian, Ukrainian and elements of the Greek Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on 6th or 7th of January.
(at December 18, 2004 02:56 PM)
im gonna be there for yalda! i will be eating hendoone for everyone here. a bit of deldard the next day is worth it i think :-) lol
ali
(at December 19, 2004 12:55 AM)
I come from an Armenian orthodox family. I am not at all religous but i celebrate christmas and easter for that matter, because I consider these kinds of holidays more traditional than religous. I don't tend to argue about the correctness of this atricle because it is out of the realm of my knowledge in history.
This article has some hidden bitterness in it that was hard for me to ignore. The fact that iranians feel this big burden during christmas holidays in western countries. In alanogy, I grew up in Iran and I remember we never celebrated Nowrooz. It was the same old story "it has nothing to do with 'us'". Later when I grew older, i decided to change that, put my own "haft sin" and just felt happy seeing my iranian friends enthusiasm for "their" new year. I didn't pretend that it meant the same as decorating a xmas tree for me but still it felt good. To fit in a society you have to share somethings with others and what better than sharing happy occasions? Ironically now that I am in US, I still put up the 7 sin and invite my non-iranian frinds for celebration. We celebrate chinese new year with our chinese friends and so on. I guess as long as you are not feeling insecure about your own culture and traditions, sharing others holidays shouldn't be a burden for you. Just for fun check out this website http://www.missvickie.com/library/1newyearsother.html
(at December 19, 2004 03:53 AM)
Firstly I have to say that there is no historical evidence about the date of birth of Jesus Christ. As other friends mentioned in the comments, Christian officials decided to set it to 25 December in Rome to ride on the waves of an already established festival of winter solstice and other ancient Celtic celebrations.
Secondly, I agree with the last comment about Christmas being more of a tradition these days. It's a time of celebrations, you get time off work to spend with your family, enjoy with your friends and travel about. If you don't get this point of Christmas, you're off the track.
(at December 19, 2004 04:29 AM)
Actually, modern scholars are more and more finding that Christmas was celebrated long before Mithraism became popular enough in Rome to have a holiday. Roman-style Mithraism, on the contrary, seems to have absorbed Christian motifs because Christianity _was_ so popular.
So...why is Christianity on December 25th? Because the general belief among early Christians was that Jesus died on March 25th, and that this was also the day Jesus was conceived (Feast of the Annunciation). Nine months from March 25th is December 25th!
This, of course, does leave room for comparison with Persia's New Year. And March 25th was indeed counted as the first day of Europe's year until not too many centuries ago!
http://www.geocities.com/traditions_uk/newyear.html will fill you in on all the details of the old New Year's Day....
But honestly...it would probably pay to be gentle about claiming that Persia's traditions have been "stolen". Certainly Persia's influence went far and wide, as you would expect from any great empire and culture. But it was also just one branch of the Indo-European/Aryan culture family. People didn't jump over fires in Ireland in spring because they'd stolen it from Persia; they did it because their ancestors had carried and remembered the custom, over thousands of miles from thousands of years ago. ;)
The truth is, just about everybody everywhere had major festivals at the major turns of the year, at planting time, and at harvest time. Mostly, dates varied only according to local variations in planting and harvest time. You gotta have a party when the harvest comes in; you gotta have a party when winter's finally done. A little gratitude to God is also in order at these times, most humans feel. So there you go!
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