The Other Revealed Roads—Krishna, Zoroaster, and Buddha in the Progressive Blueprint

Each article builds toward a larger synthesis — a living manuscript in motion, tracing the contours of humanity’s spiritual evolution as I work toward my next book. The ideas are still forming, the arguments still open to refinement, and this space is where that process happens in real time.

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Beyond Sinai: The Universal Scope of Progressive Revelation

So far, our journey has followed the Abrahamic axis—Noah, Abraham, Moses—a drama centered on covenant, law, and chosen people. Yet the pattern of expansion and consolidation, guidance and drift, is not limited to the Middle East or to the Israelites.

Across the great civilizations of India, Persia, and eventually the Far East, towering religious figures appear—each bringing an “operating system” uniquely tuned to the needs and capacities of their age. If revelation is truly progressive, then Krishna, Zoroaster, and Buddha must stand in this lineage as Manifestations of God, inaugurating new blueprints whose echoes still shape billions today.

Bahá’u’lláh affirms:

“The Bearers of the trust of God are made manifest unto the peoples of the earth as the Exponents of a new Cause and the Bearers of a new Message. ...Among these Prophets was Abraham, among them, Moses, among them was Jesus, among them Muhammad, among them the Báb, ...likewise Zoroaster, Buddha, and Krishna.” —Kitáb-i-Íqán, pars. 166–167 (official text)

Krishna: Dharma, Duty, and the Path of Devotion

In India, as tribal kingdoms gave way to larger civilizations, another crisis of meaning and morality arose. The Law of Moses had its closest parallel in the dharma tradition—codes of right order, caste, and cosmic balance. But by the dawn of the Mahabharata age, social and moral confusion had multiplied. It is here that Krishna emerges as the divine charioteer in the Bhagavad Gita, guiding humanity not by outward law, but by inner fidelity:

“Whenever there is a decline of righteousness and an increase in unrighteousness… then I send forth Myself.”
—Bhagavad Gita 4:7 (Swami Prabhupada, trans.)

Krishna’s teaching is both a consolidation and a radical expansion:

He affirms duty (dharma) but insists it must be rooted in loving surrender to the Divine.
He introduces direct devotion (bhakti), accessible to all castes and walks of life, as the antidote to the paralysis of complex rituals and social fragmentation.

In Krishna’s blueprint, action done in transcendence of ego (“renouncing the fruits of action”) becomes the new path to wholeness—a reset for a deeply stratified society, as well as a spiritual answer to stagnating legalism.

On the Iranian plateau, a different crisis stirs. The ancient Indo-Iranian society is plagued by endless tribal conflict, rituals for propitiating spirits, and the chaos of a harsh environment. Into this maelstrom comes Zoroaster (Zarathustra), bringing a clear ethical monotheism and a decisive distinction between truth (asha) and the lie (druj).

“Hear with your ears the best things; ponder them with clear thought... Choose between the two paths, man by man, each one for himself.” —Yasna 30:2 (D.J. Irani, trans.)

Zoroaster’s revelation is astonishingly modern:

Establishes the cosmic struggle between light and darkness as an ethical challenge in each heart.
Lays down the law of purity (“good thoughts, good words, good deeds”) as the defining measure, rather than ancestry or ritual superiority.
Institutionalizes the idea of judgment, reward, and punishment—a framework taken up by later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought.

Zoroastrianism’s influence on later empires—from Persia to Rome—is immense: civil service, justice courts, even the Sabbath rest find echoes in its system. As before, the initial expansion gives way to ossification, priestly control, and eventual corruption—preparing the region for Islam centuries later.

Buddha: Renunciation, Compassion, and the Quest to End Suffering

While Krishna is celebrated as divine and Zoroaster as a reformer-prophet, the Buddha appears as a “discoverer”—a royal-born ascetic who wages war not on evil empires but on the subtle tyranny of desire and illusion. In a world where the Vedic priesthood and ritual sacrifice had become abstruse and exploitative, the Buddha’s “Middle Way” offers both a pruning and an expansion.

“I teach suffering, its origin, cessation, and the path. That is all I teach.”
—Vinaya Pitaka I.11 (trans. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Buddha’s blueprint consolidates and transcends:

Subverts hereditary authority, opening the refuge of the Sangha to all—regardless of caste, gender, or past.
Redefines “law” as an inner path of self-mastery and compassion, marked by the Eightfold Path, rather than by priests or external rites.
Decentralizes worship: building a community anchored in nonviolence, personal ethics, and collective pursuit of awakening.

Yet, as with all revelations, the Buddha’s reforms too are followed by centuries of divergence: sects, councils, codifications—and, eventually, a return to ritualism and hierarchy that reveals the need for repeated returning to the original spirit of the path.

Cycles of Expansion, Consolidation, Drift, and Renewal

The stories of Krishna, Zoroaster, and Buddha echo the Abrahamic pattern:

Expansion—A new revelation or reform sweeps away enervated forms, making spiritual fulfillment widely accessible.
Consolidation—Social order is rebuilt, laws and rituals provide stability and distinction.
Drift—The very systems that brought clarity harden, fragment, or are co-opted by power; the original message is layered with human inventions.
Preparation for Renewal—Longing for new spirit, longing for the next “avatar,” “saoshyant” (Zoroastrian savior), or “Maitreya” (future Buddha) animates the faithful, confirming the progressive rhythm.

Bahá’u’lláh reaffirms this universality:

“These Manifestations...have each a definite mission, are entrusted with a special Revelation, and are appointed to carry out a specific purpose in connection with their own age and the advancement of their people...They have only differed in the intensity of their light, their comparative potency, and the relative degree of their revelation.”
—Kitáb-i-Íqán, par. 120 (official text)

Setting the Stage for New Synthesis

As we prepare to return to the “West”—to the coming of Christ, the Gospel imperative, and the rebirth of law in mercy—let us honor these blueprints from the East and Central Asia. Their cycles of guidance and forgetting, expansion and narrowing, are not footnotes to the Mosaic or Gospel worlds, but parallel tracks in humanity’s journey, waiting to be interconnected.

If Moses is the Lawgiver, these Manifestations are Law-Transcenders and Law-Renewers, anchoring the collective project of civilization across every continent and epoch.

Looking Ahead

What does Krishna’s call to action (rooted in devotion), Zoroaster’s crusade for truth, or Buddha’s compassionate renunciation demand of us today? How can the blueprint of each be seen not as rival software, but as compatible upgrades in humanity’s operating system? And what do their cycles of drift and longing teach us, as we look for renewal not only in doctrine, but in our hearts and communal life?

Next week: The world awakens to the dawn of the Gospel. Christ reconfigures law as love, community as radical inclusion, and the blueprint leaps from tablets of stone to “hearts of flesh.”

With hope,
—Wade Fransson