115 "...Zoroaster..." "The best known (Zoroastrians were the) Magi, the "Wise Men from the East" in the Bible, who brought gifts to Bethlehem) and whose graves Marco Polo claimed to have seen in what is today the district of Saveh, near Tehran, Iran. In English, the term is the origin of the words magic and magician. "Many traits of Zoroastrianism can be traced back to the culture and beliefs of the proto- Indo-Iranian period, and Zoroastrianism consequently shares some elements with the historical Vedic religion that also has its origins in that era. Central to Zoroastrianism is the emphasis on moral choice, to choose between the responsibility and duty for which one is in the mortal world, or to give up this duty and so facilitate the work of druj. Similarly, predestination is rejected in Zoroastrian teaching. Humans bear responsibility for all situations they are in, and in the way they act to one another. Reward, pun-
