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ZOROASTRIAN LITURGICAL TEXTS

The Avesta and the Pahlavi Texts

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OFZOROASTRIAN TEXTS:

In its present form, the Avesta is a compilation fromvarious sources, and its different parts date from

different periods and vary widely in character. Only texts

in the Avestan language are considered part of the

Avesta. There are strong linguistic and cultural similarities

between the texts of the Avesta and those of the early

Indian Rigveda; the similarities are assumed to reflect the

common beliefs of Proto-Indo-Iranian times, with the

differences then assumed to reflect independent evolution

that occurred after the pre-historical split of the two

cultures.

In its present form the Avesta may be classified into 5sections:

1. Yasna (which includes the Gathas) 2. Yashts 3. Visperad 4. Vendidad 5. Khordeh avesta


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Age of Zoroastrian Religious Texts andEarly Transmission

The texts of the Avesta which are all in the Avestan language werecollated over several hundred years. The most important portion, the

Gathas, in Gathic Avestan, are the hymns thought to have been composed byZarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself, and date linguistically to around 1000

BCE. The liturgical texts of the Yasna, which includes the Gathas, is partially

in Older and partially in Younger Avestan. The oldest portions may be older

than the Gathas, later adapted to more closely follow the doctrine of

Zoroaster. The various Yashts are in Younger Avestan and thought to date to

the Achaemenid era (559330 BCE). The Visperadand Vendidad, which are

also in Younger Avestan, were probably composed even later but this is not

certain.

Early transmission The various texts are thought to have been transmitted orally for centuries

before they found written form. TheBook of Arda Viraf, a work composed inthe 3rd or 4th century, suggests that the Gathas and some other texts that

were incorporated into the Avesta had previously existed in the palace

library of the Achaemenid kings (559330 BCE). According to Arda Viraf

1.4-7 and Denkard 3.420 the palace library was lost in a fire caused by the

troops of Alexander the Great. However, neither assertion can be confirmed

since the texts, if they existed, have been lost.

Nonetheless, Rasmus Christian Rask concluded that the texts must indeed bethe remnants of a much larger literature, as Pliny the Elder had suggested in

hisNaturalis Historiae, where he describes one Hermippus of Smyrna having

"interpreted two million verses of Zoroaster" in the 3rd century BCE. Peter

Clark inZoroastrianism. An Introduction to an Ancient Faith (1998, Brighton)suggests the Gathas and older Yasna texts would not have retained their old-

language qualities if they had only been orally transmitted.

Later Editions and Revisions to Zoroastrian texts: Later redaction According to the Dnkard, a semi-religious work written in the

9th century, the king Volgash (thought to be the Parthian kingVologases IV, c. 147191 CE) attempted to have the sacredtexts collected and collated. The results of this undertaking, ifit occurred, have not survived.

In the 3rd century, the Sassanian emperor Ardashir I (r. 226-241 CE) commanded his high priest Tonsar (or Tansar) tocompile the theological texts. According to the Dnkard, theTonsar effort resulted in the reproduction of twenty-onevolumes, called nasks, subdivided into 348 chapters, withapproximately 3.5 million words in total. One final redactiontook place under Shapur II (r. 309-379).


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The Avesta, as known today, represents only those parts of thetext that are used liturgically, and therefore survived in thememory of the priests; and, as it now consists of all survivingliturgical texts in the Avestan language, it may includematerial that never formed part of the 21 nasks at all. In that

sense, the current Avesta is a "prayer book" rather than a"Bible". The remainder of the 21 nasks has been lost sincethen, especially after the fall of the Sassanid empire, afterwhich Zoroastrianism was supplanted by Islam. However, somesecondary literature in Pahlavi purports to containparaphrases or lists of contents of the lost books.

European scholarship The texts became available to European scholarship

comparatively late. Abraham Anquetil-Duperron travelled toIndia in 1755, and discovered the texts in Parsi communities.He published a French translation in 1771, based on a modern

Persian language translation provided by a Parsi priest. Several Avesta manuscripts were collected by Rasmus Rask on

a visit to Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1820, and it was Rask'sexamination of the Avestan language that first establishedthat the texts must indeed be the remnants of a much largerliterature of sacred texts.

Rask's collection now lies in the library of the University ofCopenhagen. Other manuscripts are preserved in the EastIndia House and the British Museum in London; the Bodleianlibrary at Oxford and at various university libraries in Paris.

The confusion about ZAND: The word Zend or Zand, literally meaning "interpretation",

refers to late middle Persian (see Pazend and Pahlavi) languageparaphrases of/commentaries on the individual Avestanbooks: they could be compared with the Jewish Targums.These commentaries - which date from the 3rd to 10thcenturies - were not intended for use as theological texts bythemselves but for religious instruction of the (by then) non-Avestan-speaking public. In contrast, the texts of the Avestaproper remained sacrosanct and continued to be recited in

Avestan, which was considered a sacred language. Manuscripts of the Avesta exist in two forms. One is the

Avesta-o-Zand (or Zand-i-Avesta), in which the individualbooks are written together with their Zand. The other is theVendidad Sadeh, in which the Yasna, Vispered and Vendidadare set out in alternating chapters, in the order used in theVendidadceremony, with no commentary at all.


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The use of the expression Zend-Avestato refer to the Avesta ingeneral is a misunderstanding of the phrase Zand-i-Avesta(which literally means "interpretation ofthe Avesta").

A related mistake is the use ofZandas the name of a languageor script. In 1759, Anquetil-Duperron reported having been

told that Zend was the name of the language of the moreancient writings. In his third discourse, published in 1798, SirWilliam Jones mentions a conversation with a Hindu priestwho told him that the script was called Zend, and the languageAvesta. This mistake results from a misunderstanding of theterm pazend, which actually refers to the use of the Avestanalphabet in writing the Zand and other Middle Persianreligious texts, as an expression meaning "in Zend".

The confusion then became too universal in Westernscholarship to be reversed, and Zend-Avesta, although amisnomer, is still occasionally used to denote the older texts.

Rask's seminal work, A Dissertation on the Authenticity of theZend Language (Bombay, 1821), may have contributed to theconfusion. N. L. Westergaard's Zendavesta, or the religiousbooks of the Zoroastrians (Copenhagen, 1852-54) onlypropagated the error.

The Iranian Languages in relation to Zoroastriantexts:

The Avesta was probably first committed to writing in a newlyinvented 46 lettered Avestan script during the 6th century

C.E. Through the 2500+ years the body of the Avestan literature

increased with the languages used having undergoneimportant changes.

The original Avesta of Zarathosts time and the YoungerAvesta from the few centuries following.

Old Persian: is related to the Avestan language and was in useduring the Achaeminian dynasty from the 6th century B.C.E. .It used a cuneiform alphabet as seen in the rock inscriptionsat Behistan (Kuh-e-Alvand and Naqs-e-Rustom)

Pahlavi (Middle Persian): Was evolved from the Old Persian inlate Parthian to early Sassanian times. It developed in the 3rdcentury C.E. a very complicated alphabet of 14 letters thatwere essentially Aramaic a common semitic language of thearea but each Aramaic word was read as equivalent word inMiddle Persian. The Zand refers to the explanations andcommentaries written down in the Pahlavi script toaccompany the Avesta for teaching purposes etc.


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Pazand: refers to the explanations and commentaries of thePahlavi texts which were rewritten in the newly formed 42lettered Avestan script.

The Yasna The yasna is divided into 72 chapters called the Ha-iti or

Ha. Some of these sections are repetitive. The 72 threads of lamb wool in the Kushti represent

these sections. The main section called Staota Yesnya (words of praise

and worship begins with Yasna (Ha) 14 and ends withYasna 58 it is the formal liturgy of this religion. Itioncludes the Ahunavar prayer (yasna 19) and the prayer

A airyema Ishyo that is recited immediately after theend of the fifth Gatha (Yana 53). This way the gathas areinsulated as they are the spiritual core of the yasnaceremony.

The Yasna, or Izeshne, is primarily the name, not of abook, but of a ceremony in which the entire book isrecited and appropriate liturgical actions performed. Inits normal form, this ceremony can only be performed inthe morning.

During this recital the gathas are structurallyinterrupted by the Yasna Haptanghaiti("seven-chapter

Yasna"), which makes up chapters 35-42 of the Yasnaand is almost as old as the Gathas, consists of prayersand hymns in honour of the Supreme Deity, AhuraMazda, the Angels, Fire, Water, and Earth


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The Gathas

The holy Gathas comprise of FIVE HYMNS that incorporate theteachings of Asho Zarthust:

NAME YASNAOR Ha

FirstGatha

Ahunavad 28 to 34

SecondGatha

Ushtavad 43 to 46

ThirdGatha

Spentomad 47 to 50

FourthGatha

Vohukhshatra 51

FifthGatha

Vahishtoisht 53

The Yashts Hymns of praise for the Yazatas ( adorable beings worthy of

worship) Name of days and months in calendar named after some of

these Yazatas, e.g. Mehr, Adar. If name of day and month coincide then it isparab and

special prayers are performed on that day The introduction and conclusion of the yashts are similar in

style and syntax to one another, but each Yasht differs widelyin age and content.

The Visperad The Visperad(from vspe ratavo, "(prayer to all patrons")

is a collection of supplements to the Yasna. The

Visparadis subdivided into 23 or 24 kardo(sections)that are interleaved into the Yasna during a Visperadservice (which is an extended Yasna service).

The Visperadcollection has no unity of its own, and isnever recited separately from the Yasna.


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The Vendidad The Vendidad(or Vidvdt, a corruption of Avestan V-

Dav-Dta, "Given Against the Demons") is anenumeration of various manifestations of evil spirits,and ways to confound them. The Vendidadincludes allof the 19th nask, which is the only naskthat hassurvived in its entirety. The text consists of 22Fargards, fragments arranged as discussions betweenAhura Mazda and Zoroaster. The firstfargardis adualistic creation myth, followed by the description of adestructive winter on the lines of the deluge ofmythology. The secondfargardrecounts the legend ofYima. The remainingfargards deal primarily withhygiene (care of the dead in particular) [fargard3, 5, 6,7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19] as well as disease and spells to

fight it [7, 10, 11, 13, 20, 21, 22]. Fargards 4 and 15discuss the dignity of wealth and charity, of marriageand of physical effort, and the indignity of unacceptablesocial behaviour such as assault and breach of contract,and specify the penances required to atone for violationsthereof. The Vendidadis an ecclesiastical code, not aliturgical manual, and there is a degree of moralrelativism apparent in the codes of conduct. TheVendidad's different parts vary widely in character andin age. Some parts may be comparatively recent in originalthough the greater part is very old.

The Vendidad, unlike the Yasna and the Visparad, is a book oflaws rather than the record of a liturgical ceremony. However,there is a ceremony called the Vendidad, in which the Yasnais recited with all the chapters of both the Visparad and theVendidad inserted at appropriate points. This ceremony isonly performed at night

The Khordeh AvestaGenerally used by laity for their prayers.

It is a short compilation from the entire Avesta. Comprises of:

The five Nyayeshes (litanies in praise of the elements) The five Gahs (watches of the day) The Yashts (hymns of reverence for each of the 30 days

of the calendar month) The Afringans (Prayers of blessing)


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