Chinvat Bridge
Zoroastrian mythological location
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The Bridge's appearance varies depending on the observer's asha, or righteousness. As related in the text known as the Bundahishn, if a person has been wicked, the bridge will appear narrow and the demon Chinnaphapast will emerge and drag their soul into the druj-demana (the House of Lies), a place of eternal punishment and suffering similar to the concept of Hell. If a person's good thoughts, words and deeds in life are many, the bridge will be wide enough to cross, and the Daena, a spirit representing revelation, will appear and lead the soul into Garo Demana (the House of Song). Those souls that successfully cross the bridge are united with Ahura Mazda.
Often, the Chinvat Bridge is identified with the rainbow, or with the Milky Way galaxy, such as in Professor C.P. Tiele's History of Religion. However, other scholars such as C.F. Keary and Ferdinand Justi disagree with this interpretation, citing descriptions of the Chinvat Bridge as straight upward, rather than curvilinear.
Three divinities are thought to be guardians of the Chinvat Bridge: Sraosha (Conscience), Mithra (Covenant) and Rashnu (Justice).
Alternate names for this bridge include Chinwad, Cinvat, Chinvar or Chinavat.
The last gateway to Heaven and Hell; As-Sirāt in Islam is similar to concept of Chinvat.
In scripture
In the 71st chapter of the Avestan text, the Yasna, there is a description of the Chinvat Bridge.
The Vendidad also describes the Chinvat Bridge in fargard 19.
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In literature
Dimitris Lyacos's second part of the Poena Damni trilogy With the People from the Bridge alludes to the Chinvat Bridge. In the book a bridge functions as part of the setting of a makeshift performance but also as a narrative element that connects the world of the living with the world of the dead.
American poet Charles Olson refers to the Chinvat Bridge ("Cinvat" in his reading) in his epic, The Maximus Poems – a work which deals with Avestan mythology, among numerous others.
External influence
Cyrus Niknam, a Mobad, writer and researcher of ancient Iranian culture, denies the existence of a bridge and considers the idea to have come from other religions in the Sassanian era:
In Zoroastrian hymns, a passage called "Chinovat Perito" is mentioned. This word consists of two parts: "Chin," meaning "how," and "Perito," meaning "passage." Therefore, this word would serve as a gateway to how to live, in this vision, there is no mention of the materiality of such a passage for the soul through the past. Perhaps a time will come when every human being will consult their conscience and question it after every behavior or action they have undertaken.
The priests of the Sassanid era followed the culture of others who had arrived in Iran at that time, adapting and harmonizing beliefs about heaven, hell, the afterlife, and their history in order to better understand and comprehend the material life of the time for Iranian Zoroastrians, thus, in Zoroaster's thought, heaven and hell, initiated by a monk named Arday Viraz, led to the writing of the Pahlavi poem "Book of Arda Viraf," and took on a different form.
The rewards and punishments of deceased human bodies were also predicted. Heaven and Hell are given paths and roads (in a short Avesta text called the Batit), and the Chinvad Pass is also described as a bridge (wide and wide for the righteous, thin as hair for the sinners) that a departing soul must cross under special circumstances to reach Heaven or be led to Hell.
Such a definition, which follows a different culture, is clearly incorrect and inconsistent with the wise vision of Ashura Zoroaster. A religion that was transformed and developed by the ideas of the priests of that time, sometimes out of necessity or ignorance, even though it also used the name Zoroaster, undoubtedly the recommendations and visions of that time sometimes conflicted with the true vision of the teacher of truth and wisdom, Ashura Zoroaster, mentioned in his poems (the Gathas).
In visual culture
Representations of bridges on early medieval Sogdian funerary couches have been identified as the Chinvat Bridge. The most notable of these appears on the east wall of the funerary couch of the sabao Wirkak excavated at Xi'an, and another fragmentary depiction appears on the funerary couch in the Miho Museum.
Yazidi parallel
In Yazidism, the Silat Bridge is a bridge in Lalish that leads to the most holy Yazidi shrine. It symbolizes the connection and crossing over from the profane earthly world and the sacred, esoteric world. As in Zoroastrianism, the Silat Bridge will also play a role at the end of times in Yazidism (Kreyenbroek 2005: 39).