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Did Zoroaster overthrow the old Vedic religion?
I've seen this accusation thrown around by a few intellectual hobbyists on various internet message boards. My own answer to this question is a simple, "probably not."
From reading the Gathas of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) many times over and even producing my own English rendering, it seems to me that Zarathustra probably did not intend to "overthrow" the version of the primordial IE tradition practiced in his own neck of the woods (Central Asia), but rather cleanse the religious practices of some of the localized corruptions that had accumulated during his time. The rigid "good vs. evil" dualism we find in the Zoroastrianism of much later times than Zarathustra (that in turn greatly influenced the Abrahamic religions) was only implied in the Gathas and only a philosophical teaching about a metaphysical duality of light vs. darkness and the general ethical orientations which self-conscious individual adopt along these lines.
I suspect that it was Zoroaster's disciples and subsequent generations of priests/practitioners who codified and ossified the original Avestan teachings into a sectarian dogma that eventually became a significant departure from the original paleo-Vedic stream it originated from. By the Achaemenid period, the Mazdean creed (which was still largely an oral tradition and not yet a centralized institution) had absorbed so many Mesopotamian features, aesthetics and attitudes that it bore little resemblance to the original practices found in Bronze Age Central Asia. By the Sassanid period it was a full-fledged Middle Eastern religion and the institutionalized priesthood of this time would have remade Zoroaster into a Semitic-style prophet. When in actuality, the historical Zoroaster (if he did indeed exist and was not just a legend) would have been more like an archaic Maha-Rishi (Great Sage-Seer) rather than a humble figure who passively receives divine grace and revelations from a higher power.
And finally, the religious divisions of Zoroaster's time was probably one small part of a great set of conflicts taking place Central Asia during the very warlike late Bronze Age period (first half of the Age of Aries. From both Vedic and Avestan accounts, it's clear there was a "Deva vs. Asura" war, which in reality would have reflected a broader tribal/factional conflict and of course the respective priesthoods belonging to each faction. Zarathustra's cult were merely one part of the Asura (Ahura) side, with the later non-Mazdean Iranic pagan practices emerging from that stream. The Deva factions would have been the ancestral Indo-Aryans who migrated away from the Aryan homeland in Central Asia (probably indicating they were the losers of the broader conflict) in multiple directions; the most notable being the migration through the Khyber Pass and into the Indian subcontient where they would merge with the Indus Valley remnants (an already-collapsed civilization, not the victims of a grand "Aryan Invasion") and form the nuclear of the great Indian Civilization that would soon emerge. The other Indo-Aryans mostly migrated into the Middle East, where they would mix with peoples native to Eastern Anatolia and become warrior elites lording over several kingdoms in Mesopotamia and Syria (Kassites rulers of Babylon and the Mittani kingdom, respectively).
Anyway, I digress and could babble on about this ad infinitum. The overall point is that the history behind these religious divergences is way more complex and nuanced than any simple narrative would require.
From reading the Gathas of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) many times over and even producing my own English rendering, it seems to me that Zarathustra probably did not intend to "overthrow" the version of the primordial IE tradition practiced in his own neck of the woods (Central Asia), but rather cleanse the religious practices of some of the localized corruptions that had accumulated during his time. The rigid "good vs. evil" dualism we find in the Zoroastrianism of much later times than Zarathustra (that in turn greatly influenced the Abrahamic religions) was only implied in the Gathas and only a philosophical teaching about a metaphysical duality of light vs. darkness and the general ethical orientations which self-conscious individual adopt along these lines.
I suspect that it was Zoroaster's disciples and subsequent generations of priests/practitioners who codified and ossified the original Avestan teachings into a sectarian dogma that eventually became a significant departure from the original paleo-Vedic stream it originated from. By the Achaemenid period, the Mazdean creed (which was still largely an oral tradition and not yet a centralized institution) had absorbed so many Mesopotamian features, aesthetics and attitudes that it bore little resemblance to the original practices found in Bronze Age Central Asia. By the Sassanid period it was a full-fledged Middle Eastern religion and the institutionalized priesthood of this time would have remade Zoroaster into a Semitic-style prophet. When in actuality, the historical Zoroaster (if he did indeed exist and was not just a legend) would have been more like an archaic Maha-Rishi (Great Sage-Seer) rather than a humble figure who passively receives divine grace and revelations from a higher power.
And finally, the religious divisions of Zoroaster's time was probably one small part of a great set of conflicts taking place Central Asia during the very warlike late Bronze Age period (first half of the Age of Aries. From both Vedic and Avestan accounts, it's clear there was a "Deva vs. Asura" war, which in reality would have reflected a broader tribal/factional conflict and of course the respective priesthoods belonging to each faction. Zarathustra's cult were merely one part of the Asura (Ahura) side, with the later non-Mazdean Iranic pagan practices emerging from that stream. The Deva factions would have been the ancestral Indo-Aryans who migrated away from the Aryan homeland in Central Asia (probably indicating they were the losers of the broader conflict) in multiple directions; the most notable being the migration through the Khyber Pass and into the Indian subcontient where they would merge with the Indus Valley remnants (an already-collapsed civilization, not the victims of a grand "Aryan Invasion") and form the nuclear of the great Indian Civilization that would soon emerge. The other Indo-Aryans mostly migrated into the Middle East, where they would mix with peoples native to Eastern Anatolia and become warrior elites lording over several kingdoms in Mesopotamia and Syria (Kassites rulers of Babylon and the Mittani kingdom, respectively).
Anyway, I digress and could babble on about this ad infinitum. The overall point is that the history behind these religious divergences is way more complex and nuanced than any simple narrative would require.
