Zoroastrian Eschatology: Judgment, Frashokereti, and the Afterlife

Zoroastrian eschatology develops one of the most elaborate and historically influential afterlife doctrines of the ancient world, beginning with an individual judgment said to take place at the Chinvat Bridge (the "Bridge of the Separator") three days after death, where the soul (urvan) of the deceased is judged according to the balance of its thoughts, words, and deeds, often figured as weighed on a scale by the divine being Rashnu, assisted by Mithra and Sraosha. For the righteous (ashavan), the bridge broadens and a beautiful maiden, personifying the individual's own good conscience (daena), guides the soul across to the "House of Song" (Garodman), the Zoroastrian paradise; for the wicked, the bridge narrows to the width of a blade's edge, and the soul, met instead by a hideous hag embodying its own evil deeds, falls from it into the "House of the Lie," a realm of torment and darkness, while souls of exactly balanced merit and demerit are consigned to Hamestagan, a neutral intermediate state of neither joy nor suffering.