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44-563: Yazata ( Avestan : 𐬫𐬀𐬰𐬀𐬙𐬀 ) is the Avestan word for a Zoroastrian concept with a wide range of meanings but generally signifying (or used as an epithet of) a divinity . The term literally means "worthy of worship or veneration", and is thus, in this more general sense, also applied to certain healing plants, primordial creatures, the fravashis of the dead, and to certain prayers that are themselves considered holy. The yazata s collectively are "the good powers under Ahura Mazda ", who

88-506: A mace or bearing a crown upon their heads, or not letting sleep interrupt their vigil against the demons. At some point during the late 5th or early 4th century BCE, the Achaemenids instituted a religious calendar in which each day of the month was named after, and placed under the protection of, a particular yazata . These day-name dedications were not only of religious significance because they ensured that those divinities remained in

132-831: A number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and the Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda , which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BC. As regards Young Avestan, texts like the Yashts and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median influence from Western Iran. This

176-455: A ritual point of view, the liturgy can be broken into 4 major sections, each having its own internal prelude: Some sections of the Yasna occur more than once. For instance, Yasna 5 is repeated as Yasna 37, and Yasna 63 consists of passages from Yasna 15.2, 66.2 and 38.3. The ability to recite the Yasna from memory is one of the prerequisites for Zoroastrian priesthood. Translations of

220-438: Is "the greatest of the yazata s". Yazata is an Avestan-language passive adjectival participle derived from yaz- ; "to worship, to honor, to venerate", from Proto-Indo-European *yeh₂ǵ- (“to worship, revere, sacrifice”). The word yasna or yagna – "worship, sacrifice, oblation, prayer" – comes from the same root. A yaza+ ta is accordingly "a being worthy of worship", "an object of worship" or "a holy being". As

264-462: Is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but they are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in

308-566: Is classified as Eastern Old Iranian. But the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and largely agrees morphologically with Vedic Sanskrit . The Avestan language

352-489: Is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BC. As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennia BC, whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BC or even as early as 1500 BC. The script used for writing Avestan developed during

396-414: Is linguistically and functionally related to Vedic Sanskrit yajna . The theological function of the yasna ceremony, and the proper performance of it, is to further asha , that is, the ceremony aims to strengthen that which is right/true (one meaning of asha ) in the existence/creation (another meaning of asha ) of divine order (yet another meaning of asha ). The Encyclopedia Iranica summarizes

440-528: Is not known what the original speakers of Avestan called the language. The modern term "Avestan" comes from the Avesta , a collection of Zoroastrian religious literature composed in the language, the name of which comes from Persian اوستا , avestâ and is of obscure origin, though it might come from or be cognate with the Avestan term 𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬬𐬀𐬐𐬀 , upastāvaka , 'praise'. The language

484-453: Is removed by Verethragna ( Vahram ), and Tishtrya ( Tir ) gathers up the waters and spreads them over the earth ( Zam ) as rain. In stories with eschatological significance, Sraosha ( Sarosh ), Mithra ( Mihr ), and Rashnu ( Rashn ) are guardians of the Chinvat bridge , the bridge of the separator, across which all souls must pass. Further, what the calendrical dedications had begun,

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528-584: Is the yasna ceremony, which is understood to have a direct, immediate effect: "[f]ar from being a symbolic act, the proper performance of the yasna is what prevents the cosmos from falling into chaos." The culminating act of the yasna ceremony is the Ab-Zohr , the "strengthening of the waters". The Yasna service, that is, the recitation of the Yasna texts, culminates in the Ab-Zohr , the "offering to waters". The Yasna ceremony may be extended by recitation of

572-520: Is today so well entrenched that a gloss of 'yazata' as 'angel' is almost universally accepted; both in publications intended for a general audience as well as in (non-philological) academic literature. Amongst the Muslims of Iran, Sraosha came to be "arguably the most popular of all the subordinate Yazatas", for as the angel Surush, only he (of the entire Zoroastrian pantheon) is still venerated by name. Avestan language The Avestan text corpus

616-575: The c.  12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the Gujarati script ( Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example,

660-470: The /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below. Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of the Avestan alphabet , the one adopted for this article being: Vowels: Consonants: The glides y and w are often transcribed as < ii > and < uu >. The letter transcribed < t̰ > indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at

704-649: The Kushan Empire , Sogdia , China, and other regions where Zoroastrianism was practiced outside of Iran. In the 1860s and 1870s, the linguist Martin Haug interpreted Zoroastrian scripture in Christian terms, and compared the yazata s to the angels of Christianity. In this scheme, the Amesha Spentas are the arch-angel retinue of Ahura Mazda, with the hamkars as the supporting host of lesser angels. At

748-508: The Sasanian period ". The Avestan language is only known from the Avesta and otherwise unattested. As a result, there is no external evidence on which to base the time frame during which the Avestan language was spoken and all attempts have to rely on internal evidence. Such attempts were often based on the life of Zarathustra as the most distinct event in the Avestan period . Zarathustra

792-455: The Visperad and Vendidad . A well-trained priest is able to recite the entire Yasna in about two hours. With extensions, it takes about an hour longer. In its normal form, the Yasna ceremony is only to be performed in the morning. From a literary point of view, the 72 chapters consist of two nested inner cores, and an outer envelope. The outer chapters/sections (the "envelope") are in

836-546: The Younger Avestan language. The middle 27 chapters include the (linguistically) oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon. The inner chapters/sections (excepting chapters 42.1–4,52.5–8) are in the more archaic Old Avestan language, with the four sacred formulae bracketing the innermost core. This innermost core includes the 17 chapters of the Gathas , the oldest and most sacred texts of the Zoroastrian canon. From

880-406: The yazata s are to be worshipped while the daeva s are to be rejected. The Gathas also collectively invoke the yazata s without providing a clue as to which entities are being invoked, and—given the structure and language of the hymns—it is generally not possible to determine whether these yazata s are abstract concepts or are manifest entities. Amongst the lesser Yazatas being invoked by name by

924-464: The "offering to the waters." The ceremony may also be extended by recitation of the Visperad and Vendidad texts. A normal yasna ceremony, without extensions, takes about two hours when it is recited by an experienced priest. The Yasna texts constitute 72 chapters altogether, composed at different times and by different authors. The middle chapters include the (linguistically) oldest texts of

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968-414: The 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote. The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left. Among

1012-508: The 53 characters are about 30 letters that are – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably

1056-536: The Amesha Spentas amongst the yazatas , the most prominent amongst those "worthy of worship" is Mithra , who "is second only in dignity to Ohrmazd (i.e. Ahura Mazda) himself." Outside of the traditional yazatas, local and foreign deities may have been incorporated into local religious practice in various distant territories of the Persian Empires. This features prominently in Zoroastrian worship in Armenia ,

1100-521: The Zoroastrian canon. These very ancient texts, in the very archaic and linguistically difficult Old Avestan language, include the four most sacred Zoroastrian prayers, and also 17 chapters consisting of the five Gathas , hymns that are considered to have been composed by Zoroaster himself. Several sections of the Yasna include exegetical comments. Yasna chapter and verse pointers are traditionally abbreviated with Y. The Avestan language word yasna literally means 'oblation' or 'worship'. The word

1144-466: The Zoroastrians were poorly equipped to make their own case. In this situation, Haug's counter-interpretation came as a welcome relief, and was (by-and-large) gratefully accepted as legitimate. Haug's interpretations were subsequently disseminated as Zoroastrian ones, which then eventually reached the west where they were seen to corroborate Haug. Like most of Haug's interpretations, this comparison

1188-403: The aim of the yasna ceremony as "the maintenance of the cosmic integrity of the good creation of Ahura Mazdā ." Zoroastrianism's cosmological/eschatological perception of the purpose of humankind is to strengthen the orderly spiritual and material creations of Mazda against the assault of the destructive forces of Angra Mainyu . In that conflict, theologically speaking, mankind's primary weapon

1232-406: The day-name dedications provoked the compilation of such lists. Relatively certain however is that the day-name dedications predate the Avesta 's Siroza ("30 days"), which contain explicit references to the yazata s as protectors/guardians of their respective days of the month. The 9th–12th century texts of Zoroastrian tradition observe the yazata s (by then as Middle Persian yazad s) in much

1276-460: The end of a word and before certain obstruents . According to Beekes, [ð] and [ɣ] are allophones of /θ/ and /x/ respectively (in Old Avestan). The following phrases were phonetically transcribed from Avestan: Yasna Yasna ( / ˈ j ʌ s n ə / ; Avestan : 𐬫𐬀𐬯𐬥𐬀 ) is the Avestan name of Zoroastrianism 's principal act of worship. It is also the name of

1320-513: The extant texts. In roughly chronological order: Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of

1364-531: The gods, sacred, holy"). The term yazata is already used in the Gathas , the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism and believed to have been composed by Zarathustra himself. In these hymns, yazata is used as a generic, applied to Ahura Mazda as well as to the "divine sparks" that are in later tradition the Amesha Spentas . In the Gathas, the yazata s are effectively what the daeva s are not; that is,

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1408-541: The poet of the Gathas are Sraosha , Ashi , Atar , Geush Tashan, Geush Urvan , Tushnamaiti, and Iza, and all of which "win mention in his hymns, it seems, because of their close association with rituals of sacrifice and worship". In the Younger Avesta , the yazata s are unambiguously divine, with divine powers though performing mundane tasks such as serving as charioteers for other yazata s. Several yazata s are given anthropomorphic attributes, such as cradling

1452-399: The primary liturgical collection of Avesta texts, recited during that yasna ceremony. The function of the yasna ceremony is, very roughly described, to strengthen the orderly spiritual and material creations of Ahura Mazda against the assault of the destructive forces of Angra Mainyu . The yasna service, that is, the recitation of the Yasna texts, culminates in the apæ zaothra ,

1496-407: The public consciousness, they also established a hierarchy among the yazata s, with specific exalted entities having key positions in the day-name dedications (see Zoroastrian calendar for details). Although these day-name dedications are mirrored in scripture, it cannot be determined whether these day-name assignments were provoked by an antecedent list in scripture (e.g. Yasna 16), or whether

1540-482: The same way as the hymns of the Younger Avesta. In addition, in roles that are only alluded to in scripture, they assume characteristics of cosmological or eschatological consequence. For instance, Aredvi Sura Anahita ( Ardvisur Nahid ) is both a divinity of the waters as well as a rushing world river that encircles the earth, which is blocked up by Angra Mainyu ( Ahriman ) thus causing drought. The blockage

1584-642: The stem form, yazata- has the inflected nominative forms yazatō ( 𐬫𐬀𐬰𐬀𐬙𐬋 ), pl. yazatåŋhō ( 𐬫𐬀𐬰𐬀𐬙𐬂𐬢𐬵𐬋‎ ). These forms reflect Proto-Iranian *yazatah and pl. *yazatāhah . In Middle Persian the term became yazad or yazd ( 𐭩𐭦𐭲𐭩‎ ), pl. yazdān , continuing in New Persian as ’êzaḏ ( ایزد ). Related terms in other languages are Sanskrit यजति ( yájati , meaning "he worships, he sacrifices"), यजत ( yajatá- , "worthy of worship, holy"), यज्ञ ( yajñá , "sacrifice"), and perhaps also Greek ἅγιος ( hagios , "devoted to

1628-419: The terms 'Amesha Spenta' and 'yazata' are sometimes used interchangeably. In general, however, 'Amesha Spenta' signifies the six divine emanations of Ahura Mazda. In tradition, yazata is the first of the 101 epithets of Ahura Mazda . The word also came to be applied to Zoroaster, though Zoroastrians today remain sharply critical of any attempts to deify the prophet. In a hierarchy excluding either Ahura Mazda or

1672-455: The time Haug wrote his translations, the Parsi (i.e. Indian Zoroastrian) community was under intense pressure from English and American missionaries, who severely criticized the Zoroastrians for—as John Wilson portrayed it in 1843—"polytheism", which the missionaries argued was much less worth than their own "monotheism". At the time, Zoroastrianism lacked theologians of its own, and so

1716-454: The tradition completed: at the top of the hierarchy was Ahura Mazda , who was supported by the great heptad of Amesha Spentas ( Ameshaspand s/ Mahraspand s), through which the Creator realized ("created with his thought") the manifest universe. The Amesha Spentas in turn had hamkars , "assistants" or "cooperators", each a caretaker of one facet of creation. In both tradition and scripture,

1760-432: The vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts. The Avestan script is alphabetic , and the large number of letters suggests that its design

1804-486: Was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia , Aria , Bactria , and Margiana , corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . The Yaz culture of Bactria–Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early " Eastern Iranian " culture that is described in the Zoroastrian Avesta . It

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1848-462: Was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective. The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi -based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in

1892-803: Was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with the Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as "Zend-Avesta". Avestan and Old Persian are the two attested languages comprising Old Iranian , and while Avestan was localized in the northeastern parts of Greater Iran according to Paul Maximilian Tedesco  [ de ] (1921), other scholars have favored regarding Avestan as originating in eastern parts. Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as "old", "middle" and "new" according to their age, and as "eastern" or "western" according to geography, and within this framework Avestan

1936-556: Was traditionally based in the 6th century BC meaning that Old Avestan would have been spoken during the early Achaemenid period . Given that a substantial time must have passed between Old Avestan and Young Avestan, the latter would have been spoken somewhere during the Hellenistic or the Parthian period of Iranian history. However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating. The literature presents

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