During local festivals, the villagers of southern France decorate the horns of their cows with flowers and greenery, and in the villages of Gilan too, during local festivals, the horns of cows are decorated with flowers and greenery. The song that rural women in the settlements of southern France sing for milking cows is, in terms of melody, similar to the song that the rural women of Gilan hum for female cows.
A traveller who enters the villages of southern France sees large, thick, and heavy earthenware vessels in which rural women grind certain foodstuffs such as walnuts, almonds, and lentils after cooking them. The same vessels, in the same form and for the same use, are seen in the villages of Gilan.
Before the use of coal became common in France for winter fuel, in the villages of southern France during winter they would fill a brazier with charcoal fire and place it in the middle of the room so that it would warm the room, and this custom is still common in the villages of Gilan.
One of the customs of the villagers of southern France is that on the wedding night, they gather behind the door of the bride and groom’s room in order to hear what they say, and this custom is common in the villages of Gilan.
In all the villages of southern France, storehouses are located on the upper floor of the house, and this practice is common in all the villages of Gilan.
Some vegetables that are local plants in the villages of southern France exist exactly in the villages of Gilan, whereas those plants cannot be found in other regions of France and Iran.
It may be said that the way of life of villagers in many places resembles one another, and therefore it is not strange that the way of life of the villagers of southern France resembles that of the villagers of Gilan. But it must be known that the way of life of the villagers of southern France differs from the way of life of villagers in other northern regions of the Mediterranean Sea, although in terms of climate there is not much difference between southern France and the other northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
If we set aside the issue of the main food, which in Gilan is rice and in southern France is wheat, potatoes, beans, and fish, there is no difference between the life of the villagers of southern France and the villagers of Gilan. The difference in food is also a relatively new phenomenon. In ancient times, the villagers of southern France ate rice, and later, because rice cultivation was difficult, they abandoned it and planted other things.
A Frenchman named Mr Aoussin, who from 1922 to 1925 had an inn in the city of Rasht, which is the capital of Gilan, and whose inn was in a place called Sabzeh Meydan, relates that when he travelled around the villages of Gilan, not only did he see the way of life of the villagers as being like the way of life of the peasants of southern France, but the faces of the Gilan villagers also resembled the faces of the villagers of southern France.
This innkeeper, although he had no knowledge of history, said: “I am almost certain that the villagers of Gilan and the villagers of southern France had a single civilisation in ancient times and perhaps were of one race.”
If the statement of the Lydian historian mentioned above had not been based on these pieces of evidence, accepting it would have been difficult, because the distance between southern France and Gilan makes the possibility of migration from one region to the other very weak.
But the above-mentioned evidence, on the one hand, and historical discoveries indicating the existence of Iranian colonies on the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, especially in southern France, on the other, show that the statement of the Lydian historian is correct, and that Gath transferred Iranian farmers to southern France so that they could teach the inhabitants there the practice of rice cultivation.
Some other plants that are seen today both in southern France and in Gilan were also transferred to southern France by those same farmers.
The Greeks place the date of the reign and prophethood of this great man, that is, Zoroaster or Gath, at six hundred years before Christ. However, the Iranians do not accept this date, and it must be known that the Greeks had taken the histories related to Zoroaster from the Iranians.
In Iran itself, all the histories related to the life of this great man are subsequent to Islam, and from the histories before Islam nothing is in the hands of the Iranians.
“Al-Biruni”, who is one of the historians after Islam, says that Zoroaster was born 258 years before Alexander; and this date too, although assumed, is vague, and we do not know whether Zoroaster was born at the time of Alexander’s birth, at the time of his death, or at the time when Alexander entered Iran.
According to one tradition, the beginning of the calendar of the ancient Iranians was the time when the king of Iran named Vishtasp (Visht-asb) accepted the Zoroastrian faith.
The word “asb” appears in the names of a number of kings, commanders, and heroes of ancient Iran because they were horsemen and loved horses, and we know that the horse was a native animal of Iran and went from Iran to other countries.
It is not known where Vishtasp ruled in Iran, or whether he was a king of eastern Iran or western Iran.
The stories that exist in the Avesta mostly turn toward eastern Iran and correspond with the geography of eastern Iran. According to the traditions of the Avesta, Zoroaster lived in eastern Iran, and on the day when Vishtasp accepted the faith of Zoroaster, Zoroaster planted a cypress tree in the city of Kashmar in Khorasan, and that tree remained until after Islam.
If we consider Zoroaster’s first dwelling place to have been eastern Iran, we must accept that later, for political or religious reasons, he migrated and took the road to Azerbaijan and settled there.
Some believe that Zoroaster was born in the city of Varq, which was later called Ray, and they consider the birthplace of Zoroaster to be present-day Tehran. However, in ancient Iran there were several cities named Raq, which later became “Raqqa”, and even today in southern Khorasan, near the city of Tabas, there is a small town named Raqqa. Thousands of years ago, Nasir Khusraw Alavi, when he was travelling in southern Khorasan and in fact fleeing so that they would not kill him on the charge of being an Ismaili, prayed in the congregational mosque of the small town of Raqqa. If we consider Zoroaster’s birthplace to have been in Khorasan, we must assume that he was born in the city of Raqqa of Khorasan, which today is a small town, not in the city of Raqqa near present-day Tehran.
But the proof of the existence of this man who moved the French to Gilan and the Gilani people to France, if Gath and Zoroaster are one and the same, lies in what he left behind, especially the Gathas, which today are part of the Avesta and prove his existence. Linguistics considers the Gathas to be the oldest literary work in the land of Iran.
