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65-414: Barashnûm is a Zend word meaning "top of the head". The whole ritual is named "Barashnûm" because purification starts from the head of the person, which is the first part in his body which is purified. In pre-Islamic times, Barashnûm was used to purify men and women who had been defiled by contact with dead matter and by priests before undergoing training for priesthood and certain ceremonies. However, now

130-703: A forgery in poor Sanskrit , but he was vindicated in the 1820s following Rasmus Rask 's examination of the Avestan language ( A Dissertation on the Authenticity of the Zend Language , Bombay, 1821). Rask also established that Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts were a fragment of a much larger literature of sacred texts. Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts are at the Bibliothèque nationale de France ('P'-series manuscripts), while Rask's collection now lies in

195-501: A hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian word for "praise-song" (Bartholomae: Lobgesang ); but this word is not actually attested in any text. The Zoroastrian history of the Avesta, lies in the realm of legend and myth. The oldest surviving versions of these tales are found in the ninth to 11th century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (i.e. in the so-called " Pahlavi books "). The legends run as follows: The twenty-one nask s ("books") of

260-459: A limited time frame. Most scholars today consider a time between 1500 and 900 BCE to be possible, with a date close to 1000 BCE being considered likely by many. They must have crystallized early on, meaning their transmission became fixed shortly after their composition. During their long history, the Gathic texts seem to have been transmitted with the highest accuracy. Most of the Avestan corpus

325-462: A much larger Avestan corpus was still available during the Sassanian period than exists today. Only about one-quarter of the Avestan sentences or verses referred to by the 9th/10th century commentators can be found in the surviving texts. This suggests that three-quarters of Avestan material, including an indeterminable number of juridical, historical and legendary texts have been lost since then. On

390-590: A number of distinct stages, during which different parts of the Avestan corpus were composed, transmitted in either fluid or fixed form, as well as edited and redacted. A small portion of the Avestan corpus is composed in a more archaic language than the rest. These so called Old Avestan texts are the Gathas , the Yasna Haptanghaiti , and a number of short mantras . They are linguistically very similar and are therefore considered to have been composed over

455-558: A series of three furrows. The impure person should walk to each of the holes containing gomez in turn while reciting Yasna 49 of the Avesta while the Zoroastrian priest recites the same from outside the furrow surrounding the hole and sprinkles gomez upon the impure person on completion of each recitation. The priest purifies the brows, the back of the skull, jaws, ears, the shoulders, arm-pits, chest, back, nipples, ribs, hips, genitals, thighs, knees, legs, ankles, feet and toes of

520-432: Is a Zoroastrian term for Middle Persian or Pahlavi versions and commentaries of Avesta n texts. These translations were produced in the late Sasanian period. Zand glosses and commentaries exist in several languages, including in the Avestan language itself. These Avestan language exegeses sometimes accompany the original text being commented upon, but are more often elsewhere in the canon. An example of exegesis in

585-694: Is a ceremony called the Vendidad , in which the Yasna is recited with all the chapters of both the Visparad and the Vendidad inserted at appropriate points. This ceremony is only performed at night. The Yasht s (from yešti , "worship by praise") are a collection of 21 hymns, each dedicated to a particular divinity or divine concept. Three hymns of the Yasna liturgy that "worship by praise" are—in tradition—also nominally called yasht s, but are not counted among

650-558: Is a contraction of the Avestan language word za nti ( 𐬰𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬙𐬌 , meaning "commentary, explanation"). The authorship of the Zand is unknown. The dating of the Zend is considered complicated in contemporary scholarship, especially in the light of the orality of the text and the lack of reference to it outside of Zoroastrian literature . The earliest manuscripts of the Zend date to

715-610: Is almost as old as the Gathas , consists of prayers and hymns in honor of Ahura Mazda, the Yazatas , the Fravashi , Fire, Water, and Earth. The younger Yasna , though handed down in prose, may once have been metrical, as the Gathas still are. The Visperad (from vîspe ratavo , "(prayer to) all patrons") is a collection of supplements to the Yasna . The Visparad is subdivided into 23 or 24 kardo (sections) that are interleaved into

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780-432: Is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual, and there is a degree of moral relativism apparent in the codes of conduct. The Vendidad ' s different parts vary widely in character and in age. Some parts may be comparatively recent in origin although the greater part is very old. The Vendidad, unlike the Yasna and the Visparad, is a book of moral laws rather than the record of a liturgical ceremony. However, there

845-460: Is believed to defile the objects around him. Once every three days, he is enjoined to bathe himself and wash his clothes in gomez and water as a part of the purification ritual. On the completion of his third bath, he is considered to be "completely purified" and is permitted to lead a normal life. The fee to be paid to the priest who cleanses an impure person is also specified in the Fargard 9 of

910-591: Is composed in Young Avestan. These texts originated in a later stage of the Avestan period separated from the Old Avestan time by several centuries. Due to a number of geographical references , there is a wide consensus that they were composed in the eastern portion of Greater Iran . These texts appear to have been handed down during this time in a more fluid oral tradition and were partly composed afresh with each generation of poet-priests, sometimes with

975-545: Is largely taken from Secunda 2012. Avesta The Avesta ( / ə ˈ v ɛ s t ə / ) is the primary collection of religious literature of Zoroastrianism . It was compiled and redacted during the late Sassanian period (ca. 6th century CE) although its individual texts were ″probably″ produced during the Old Iranian period (ca. 15th century BCE - 4th century BCE). Before their compilation, these texts had been passed down orally for centuries. All texts in

1040-801: Is not recited entirely from memory. Some of the materials of the extended Yasna are from the Yashts , which are hymns to the individual yazata s. Unlike the Yasna , Visperad and Vendidad , the Yasht s and the other lesser texts of the Avesta are no longer used liturgically in high rituals. Aside from the Yasht s, these other lesser texts include the Nyayesh texts, the Gah texts, the Siroza and various other fragments. Together, these lesser texts are conventionally called Khordeh Avesta or "Little Avesta" texts. When

1105-488: Is the only nask that has survived in its entirety. The text consists of 22 Fargard s, fragments arranged as discussions between Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster. The first fargard is a dualistic creation myth , followed by the description of a destructive winter (compare Fimbulvetr ) on the lines of the Flood myth . The second fargard recounts the legend of Yima . The remaining fargard s deal primarily with hygiene (care of

1170-570: The Kushti , the sacred thread worn by Zoroastrians, represent these sections. The central portion of the Yasna is the Gathas , the oldest and most sacred portion of the Avesta, believed to have been composed by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. The Gathas are structurally interrupted by the Yasna Haptanghaiti ("seven-chapter Yasna "), which makes up chapters 35–42 of the Yasna and

1235-542: The Avesta that is not already present in one of the other categories is placed in a "fragments" category, which – as the name suggests – includes incomplete texts. There are altogether more than 20 fragment collections, many of which have no name (and are then named after their owner/collator) or only a Middle Persian name. The more important of the fragment collections are the Nirangistan fragments (18 of which constitute

1300-622: The Parthian emperors named Valaksh (one of the Vologases ) supposedly then had the fragments collected, not only of those that had previously been written down, but also of those that had only been orally transmitted ( Dk 4C). The Denkard also records another legend related to the transmission of the Avesta. In this story, credit for collation and recension is given to the early Sasanian-era priest Tansar ( high priest under Ardashir I , r. 224–242 CE, and Shapur I , 240/242–272 CE), who had

1365-813: The Royal Library, Denmark ('K'-series). Other large Avestan language manuscript collections are those of the British Museum ('L'-series), the K. R. Cama Oriental Library in Mumbai , the Meherji Rana library in Navsari , and at various university and national libraries in Europe. In the early 20th century, the legend of the Parthian-era collation engendered a search for a 'Parthian archetype' of

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1430-429: The Yasht collection since the three are a part of the primary liturgy. The Yasht s vary greatly in style, quality and extent. In their present form, they are all in prose but analysis suggests that they may at one time have been in verse. The Siroza ("thirty days") is an enumeration and invocation of the 30 divinities presiding over the days of the month. (cf. Zoroastrian calendar ). The Siroza exists in two forms,

1495-523: The Yasna text is recited. The most important portion of the Yasna texts are the five Gathas , consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of the Yasna , are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the Yasna 's texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of

1560-556: The Zand ") as its subtitle and is crucial to the understanding of Zoroastrian cosmogony and eschatology. Another text, the Wizidagiha , "Selections (from the Zand)", by the 9th century priest Zadspram, is a key text for understanding Sassanid-era Zoroastrian orthodoxy. The Denkard , a 9th or 10th century text, includes extensive summaries and quotations of zand texts. The term zand

1625-412: The exegetical commentaries (the zand ) thereof. The literal meaning of the word abestāg is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from * upa-stavaka is from Christian Bartholomae ( Altiranisches Wörterbuch , 1904), who interpreted abestāg as a descendant of

1690-455: The nask s are divided into three groups, of seven volumes per group. Originally, each volume had a word of the prayer as its name, which so marked a volume's position relative to the other volumes. Only about a quarter of the text from the nask s has survived to the present day. The contents of the Avesta are divided topically (even though the organization of the nask s is not), but these are not fixed or canonical. Some scholars prefer to place

1755-476: The zand of Avestan texts, also of Avestan texts which have since been lost. Through comparison of selections from lost texts and from surviving texts, it has been possible to distinguish between the translations of Avestan works and the commentaries on them, and thus to some degree reconstruct the content of some of the lost texts. Among those texts is the Bundahishn , which has Zand-Agahih ("Knowledge from

1820-407: The (by then) non-Avestan-speaking public. In contrast, the Avestan language texts remained sacrosanct and continued to be recited in the Avestan language, which was considered a sacred language . The Middle Persian zand can be subdivided into two subgroups, those of the surviving Avestan texts, and those of the lost Avestan texts. A consistent exegetical procedure is evident in manuscripts in which

1885-630: The Authenticity of the Zend Language (Bombay, 1821), may have contributed to the confusion. Propagated by N. L. Westergaard's Zendavesta, or the religious books of the Zoroastrians (Copenhagen, 1852–54), by the early/mid 19th century, the confusion became too universal in Western scholarship to be easily reversed, and Zend-Avesta , although a misnomer, continued to be fashionable well into the 20th century. The following list of Zand texts

1950-463: The Avesta are composed in the Avestan language and are written in the Avestan alphabet . The oldest surviving fragment of a text dates to 1323 CE. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect , or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the Yasna , which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, at which

2015-535: The Avesta became available to European scholarship comparatively late, thus the study of Zoroastrianism in Western countries dates back to only the 18th century. Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron travelled to India in 1755, and discovered the texts among Indian Zoroastrian ( Parsi ) communities. He published a set of French translations in 1771, based on translations provided by a Parsi priest. Anquetil-Duperron's translations were at first dismissed as

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2080-455: The Avesta is a compilation from various 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. According to the Denkard , the 21 nask s (books) mirror the structure of the 21-word-long Ahuna Vairya prayer: each of the three lines of the prayer consists of seven words. Correspondingly,

2145-596: The Avesta were created by Ahura Mazda and brought by Zoroaster to his patron Vishtaspa ( Denkard 4A, 3A). Supposedly, Vishtaspa ( Dk 3A) or another Kayanian , Daray ( Dk 4B), then had two copies made, one of which was stored in the treasury and the other in the royal archives ( Dk 4B, 5). Following Alexander's conquest, the Avesta was then supposedly destroyed or dispersed by the Greeks, after they had translated any scientific passages of which they could make use ( AVN 7–9, Dk 3B, 8). Several centuries later, one of

2210-420: The Avesta, as they exist today, derive from a single master copy produced by that collation. That master copy, now lost, is known as the 'Sassanian archetype'. The oldest surviving manuscript ( K1 ) of an Avestan language text is dated 1323 CE. The post-Sassanian phase saw a pronounced deterioration of the Avestan corpus. Summaries in the texts of the Zoroastrian tradition from the 9th/10th century indicate that

2275-465: The Avesta. According to the theory of Friedrich Carl Andreas (1902), the archaic nature of the Avestan texts was assumed to be due to preservation via written transmission, and unusual or unexpected spellings in the surviving texts were assumed to be reflections of errors introduced by Sasanian-era transcription from the Aramaic alphabet -derived Pahlavi scripts . The search for the 'Arsacid archetype'

2340-474: The Avestan language itself includes Yasna 19–21, which is a set of three Younger Avestan commentaries on the three Gathic Avestan 'high prayers' of Yasna 27. Zand also appears to have once existed in a variety of Middle Iranian languages , but of these Middle Iranian commentaries, the Middle Persian zand is the only one to survive fully, and is for this reason regarded as 'the' zand . With

2405-605: The Bareshnum ceremony is only undertaken by priests before their Navar and Martab training ceremonies for initiation into priesthood and before the Vendidad Nirangdin Yasna ceremonies and the one to purify men or women coming in contact with dead is discontinued. Fargard 9 of the Vendidad prescribes the requirements for the Barashnûm ritual. It prescribes that a series of six holes two feet deep if it

2470-445: The Vendidad. The Fargard decrees that a fellow defiled priest should be cleansed in return for blessings, the lord of province for the payment of a camel, the lord of a town for the payment of a horse, the lord of a borough for the payment of a bull, and a householder in return for a three-year-old cow. The Vendidad also specifies the punishment to be handed to a priest who has erred in the rituals. The cleanser who has not performed

2535-471: The Yasna during a Visperad service (which is an extended Yasna service). The Visperad collection has no unity of its own, and is never recited separately from the Yasna. The Vendidad (or Vidēvdāt , a corruption of Avestan Vī-Daēvō-Dāta , "Given Against the Demons") is an enumeration of various manifestations of evil spirits, and ways to confound them. The Vendidad includes all of the 19th nask , which

2600-777: The addition of new material. Most scholars assume that this phase corresponds to a time frame from ca. 900-400 BCE. At some time, however, this fluid phase must have stopped as well and the process of transmission of the Young Avestan texts became fixed similar to the Old Avestan material. This second crystallization must have taken place during the Old Iranian period, as Young Avestan does not show any characteristics of Middle Iranian. The subsequent transmission took place in Western Iran as evidenced by alterations introduced by native Persian speakers. Scholars like Skjærvø and Kreyenbroek correlate this second crystallization with

2665-537: The adoption of Zoroastrianism by the Achaemenids . As a result, Persian - and Median -speaking priests would have become the primary group to transmit these texts. Having no longer an active command of Avestan, they choose to preserve both Old and Young Avestan text as faithfully as possible. Some Young Avestan texts, like the Vendidad , show non-Avestan influence and are therefore considered to have been redacted or otherwise altered by non-Avestan speakers after

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2730-471: The categories in two groups, one liturgical, and the other general. The following categorization is as described by Jean Kellens (see bibliography , below). The Yasna (from yazišn "worship, oblations", cognate with Sanskrit yajña ), is the primary liturgical collection, named after the ceremony at which it is recited. It consists of 72 sections called the Ha-iti or Ha . The 72 threads of lamb's wool in

2795-416: The cleansing according to the rites, shall be taken to a desert place; there they shall nail him with four nails, they shall take off the skin from his body, and cut off his head. If he has performed Patet for his sin, he shall be holy (that is, he shall go to paradise); if he has not performed Patet, he shall stay in hell till the day of resurrection Zend Zend or Zand ( Middle Persian : 𐭦𐭭𐭣 )

2860-694: The day and the month. The five Nyayesh es, abbreviated Ny. , are prayers for regular recitation by both priests and laity. They are addressed to the Sun and Mithra (recited together thrice a day), to the Moon (recited thrice a month), and to the Waters and to Fire . The Nyayesh es are composite texts containing selections from the Gathas and the Yashts, as well as later material. The five gāh s are invocations to

2925-411: The dead in particular) [ fargard 3, 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]. Fargard s 4 and 15 discuss the dignity of wealth and charity, of marriage and of physical effort and the indignity of unacceptable social behaviour such as assault and breach of contract , and specify the penances required to atone for violations thereof. The Vendidad

2990-452: The first Khordeh Avesta editions were printed in the 19th century, these texts (together with some non-Avestan language prayers) became a book of common prayer for lay people. The term Avesta originates from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Middle Persian abestāg , Book Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾkʼ . In that context, abestāg texts are portrayed as received knowledge and are distinguished from

3055-502: The first six are to be filled with gōmēz while the other three are to be filled with water. Holes 4-6 should be separated from holes 7-9 through a ring of 3 furrows arranged concentrically which act as a protective barrier. Similarly, holes 4-9 were to be separated from holes 1-3 by a barrier of 3 furrows. This arrangement is called the Barashnûm-gâh and is to be separated from cleaner pastures by an outer enclosure comprising

3120-436: The five divinities that watch over the five divisions ( gāh s) of the day . Gāh s are similar in structure and content to the five Nyayesh es. The Afrinagan s are four "blessing" texts recited on a particular occasion: the first in honor of the dead, the second on the five epagomenal days that end the year, the third is recited at the six seasonal feasts, and the fourth at the beginning and end of summer. All material in

3185-527: The fourteenth century, with colophons assuring the existence of earlier manuscripts at least up to 1000 CE. For several reasons, it has been argued that the Zend was first assembled prior to the Arab conquests. These include the presence of many stylistic and linguistic characteristics that belong to the Sasanian cultural context with none belonging to the post-conquest era (and no references to Islam), as well as

3250-413: The holes 4-9 cleansing himself with the water contained in them. Once the ritual is complete, he may come out of the Barashnûm-gâh and is permitted to return to his house. However, he is confined to a corner of the house called Armêsht-gah for nine nights. During this period, he is prohibited from contacting water, fire, earth, cow, trees and other Zoroastrians as he is considered to be impure and his contact

3315-515: The language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the Vendidad and the Visperad . The Visperad extensions consist mainly of additional invocations of the divinities ( yazata s), while the Vendidad is a mixed collection of prose texts mostly dealing with purity laws. Even today, the Vendidad is the only liturgical text that

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3380-435: The main corpus became fixed. Regardless of such changes and redactions, the main Avestan corpus was passed on orally until its compilation and redaction during the Sassanian period. It was not until around the 5th or 6th century CE that Avestan corpus was committed to written form. This is seen as a turning point in the Avestan tradition since it separates the purely oral from the written transmission. The surviving texts of

3445-532: The notable exception of the Yashts , almost all surviving Avestan texts have their Middle Persian zand , which in some manuscripts appear alongside (or interleaved with) the text being glossed. The practice of including non-Avestan commentaries alongside the Avestan texts led to two different misinterpretations in western scholarship of the term zand ; these misunderstandings are described below . These glosses and commentaries were not intended for use as theological texts by themselves but for religious instruction of

3510-512: The original Avestan and its zand coexist. The priestly scholars first translated the Avestan as literally as possible. In a second step, the priests then translated the Avestan idiomatically. In the final step, the idiomatic translation was complemented with explanations and commentaries, often of significant length, and occasionally with different authorities being cited. Several important works in Middle Persian contain selections from

3575-412: The other hand, it appears that the most valuable portions of the canon, including all of the oldest texts, have survived. The likely reason for this is that the surviving materials represent those portions of the Avesta that were in regular liturgical use and therefore known by heart by the priests and not dependent for their preservation on the survival of particular manuscripts. In its present form,

3640-574: The route of transmission from somewhere in eastern Iran (i.e. Central Asia) via Arachosia and Sistan through to Persia; and in part due to the influence of phonetic developments in the Avestan language itself. The notion of an Arsacid-era collation and recension is generally rejected by modern scholarship. Instead, there is a now wide consensus that for most of their long history the Avesta's various texts were handed down orally and independently of one another. Based on linguistic aspects, scholars like Kellens , Skjærvø and Hoffman have also identified

3705-429: The scattered works collected – of which he approved only a part as authoritative ( Dk 3C, 4D, 4E). Tansar's work was then supposedly completed by Adurbad Mahraspandan (high priest of Shapur II , r. 309–379 CE) who made a general revision of the canon and continued to ensure its orthodoxy ( Dk 4F, AVN 1.12–1.16). A final revision was supposedly undertaken in the 6th century CE under Khosrow I ( Dk 4G). Texts of

3770-412: The shorter ("little Siroza ") is a brief enumeration of the divinities with their epithets in the genitive. The longer ("great Siroza ") has complete sentences and sections, with the yazata s being addressed in the accusative. The Siroza is never recited as a whole, but is a source for individual sentences devoted to particular divinities, to be inserted at appropriate points in the liturgy depending on

3835-455: The subject by sprinkling a few drops of gomez upon them. Once the purification is complete, the subject recites the Ahunwar , Kem-na-Mazda, Kem verethrem ja and other principal prayers of the Zoroastrians. The defiled person, then sits inside the outer enclosure but outside the ones enclosing holes 4-9 and rubs dust all over his body for it to dry. He, then enters the inner furrows and steps in

3900-410: The texts, hence the misnomer "Zend-Avesta" for the Avesta. In priestly use, however, "Zand-i-Avesta" or "Avesta-o-Zand" merely identified manuscripts that are not suitable for ritual use since they are not "clean" ( sade ) of non-Avestan elements. The second mistaken use of the term Zend was its use as the name of a language or script. In 1759, Anquetil-Duperron reported having been told that Zend

3965-419: The use of source criticism to provide a relative dating of the text alongside other more concretely dated texts. One study has shown that all the major authorities of the Zend flourished from the late fifth to sixth centuries CE. The priests' practice of including commentaries alongside the text being commented upon led to two different misunderstandings in 18th/19th century western scholarship. The first

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4030-407: Was increasingly criticized in the 1940s and was eventually abandoned in the 1950s after Karl Hoffmann demonstrated that the inconsistencies noted by Andreas were actually due to unconscious alterations introduced by oral transmission. Hoffmann identifies these changes to be due, in part, to modifications introduced through recitation; in part to influences from other Iranian languages picked up on

4095-420: Was summer season and four feet deep if it was winter season be dug at a distance of three feet from each other and a series of three holes at a distance of nine feet from the other six. The hole at the most extreme corner should be situated at a distance of at least thirty paces from the holy fire or consecrated barsom and three paces from "clean" Zoroastrians. The holes should lie in a north–south direction and

4160-468: Was the name of the language of the more ancient writings. Similarly, in his third discourse, published in 1798, Sir William Jones recalls a conversation with a Hindu priest who told him that the script was called Zend , and the language Avesta . This mistake resulted from a misunderstanding of the term pazend , which actually denotes the use of the Avestan alphabet for writing certain Middle Persian texts. Rasmus Rask 's seminal work, A Dissertation on

4225-417: Was the treatment of "Zend" and "Avesta" as synonyms and the mistaken use of "Zend-Avesta" as the name of Zoroastrian scripture. This mistake derives from a misunderstanding of the distinctions made by priests between manuscripts for scholastic use ("Avesta- with -Zand"), and manuscripts for liturgical use ("clean"). In western scholarship, the former class of manuscripts was misunderstood to be the proper name of

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