The Avesta is the corpus of religious texts of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. It represents the largest literature of the Old Iranian period and contains the oldest texts in any Iranian language.
The individual texts of the Avesta were originally oral compositions. They were composed over a long period of several centuries during the Avestan period (possibly ranging from the 15th century BCE to the 4th century BCE). The written transmission began much later during the Sasanian era (224 to 651 CE), with the creation of the Avestan alphabet. The resulting texts were then compiled into the multi-volume edition of the Sasanian Avesta. This edition was lost after the Islamic conquest of Iran, and only a small portion of it has survived, scattered across a number of individual manuscript traditions. The oldest surviving fragment of such a manuscript dates to 1323 CE.
These surviving manuscripts no longer contain the whole Avestan corpus but specific ritual or devotional texts. Important ritual texts are the Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad which are recited by priests in the eponymous Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad ceremonies. In contrast, devotional texts are used by both priests and lay people and compiled in the Khordeh Avesta or "Little Avesta" manuscripts. Aside from the Yashts, these manuscripts include the Nyayeshs, the Gāhs, the Sih-rozag and the Afrinagans.
Name 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 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 Bartholomae, who interpreted abestāg as a descendant of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian word for "praise-song" (Bartholomae: Lobgesang); but this word is not actually attested in any text.
History Zoroastrian tradition The Zoroastrian history of the Avesta lies in the realm of legends and myths. The oldest surviving versions of these tales are found in the ninth- to 11th-century texts of the Zoroastrian tradition (i.e., the so-called "Pahlavi books"). The legends run as follows: The twenty-one nasks ("books") of 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 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, CE, and Shapur I, 240/242–272 CE), who had 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, 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).
Modern scholarship Modern scholarship generally rejects the pre-Sasanian-era Zoroastrian history of the Avesta.Instead, there is now a 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 a number of distinct phases, during which different parts of the Avestan corpus were composed, transmitted in either fluid or fixed form, as well as edited and redacted by the Zoroastrian priests.
Time and place of composition
The Avestan texts are grouped into two distinct layers: Old Avestan and Young Avestan, which belong to two different chronological strata. Regarding the Old Avestan material, scholars consider a time frame for its creation between 1500 and 900 BCE to be possible, with a date close to 1000 BCE being considered likely by many. There are no geographical references in the Old Avestan texts, which makes it impossible to specify where they were composed.
The Young Avestan texts, which form the majority of the extant Avesta, originated in a later stage of the Avestan period, separated from Old Avestan by several centuries. Scholars assume that this phase corresponds to a long time frame, possibly lasting from 900 to 400 BCE. In contrast to the Old Avestan texts, the Young Avestan parts contain a number of geographical references. As a result, there is a consensus that at least these texts were composed in the eastern portion of Greater Iran.
Some texts in the Avestan corpus, like the Vendidad or the Vishtasp Sast, show pronounced grammatical deficiencies. They seem to consist of proper Avestan phrases, which appear to have been pieced together by people who no longer had an active command of Avestan. This indicates that these texts were redacted from earlier, now lost sources, after Avestan ceased to be a spoken language.
Oral transmission The Old Avestan texts must have crystallized early, meaning their transmission became fixed. Over their long history, the Gathic texts seem to have been transmitted with the highest accuracy. While the Old Avestan material was handed down as a fixed liturgical corpus, the Young Avestan texts appear to have been transmitted for some time in an oral tradition which was still fluid. This means they were composed partly afresh with each generation of poet-priests, sometimes with the addition of new material.
At some time, however, this fluid phase must have stopped completely and the process of transmission of the Young Avestan texts became fixed similar to the Old Avestan material. This second crystallization must still have taken place during the Old Iranian period, as Young Avestan does not show any characteristics of Middle Iranian. The subsequent transmission took largely place in Western Iran as evidenced by alterations introduced by native Persian speakers. Scholars like Skjærvø and Kreyenbroek correlate this second crystallization with 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 may have decided to preserve both Old and Young Avestan texts as faithfully as possible.
Written transmission
It was not until around the 5th or 6th century CE that the Avestan corpus was written down using the newly developed Avestan alphabet. This led to the creation of a comprehensive edition of the Avestan corpus, namely the Sasanian Avesta. This is seen as a turning point in the Avestan tradition since it separates the purely oral from the written transmission.
This edition was lost at some time after the fall of the Sasanian empire, and the oldest surviving manuscript (K1) of an Avestan text is dated to 1323 CE. The history of the Avesta until these first manuscripts appear is unknown, but the post-Sasanian phase saw a pronounced deterioration of the Avestan corpus. Summaries in the texts of the Zoroastrian tradition from the 9th/10th century indicate that the Sasanian Avesta was much larger than the Avesta that 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 an indeterminable number of juridical, historical, and legendary texts have been lost since then. On 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.
Avestan studies
Avestan manuscripts 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. They were at first dismissed as a forgery in poor Sanskrit, but ultimately vindicated.
In the early 20th century, the Zoroastrian legend of the Parthian-era collation engendered a search for a 'Parthian archetype' of 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' 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 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.
Manuscripts
After the loss of the Sasanian Avesta, the Avestan corpus survived through a number of manuscript traditions in Iran and India. None of these manuscripts contains the Avestan corpus as a whole. Instead, they correspond to a specific ritual and devotional use, and it is assumed that this use guaranteed their survival. The oldest surviving fragment of a manuscript dates to 1323 CE but most extant manuscripts date from after the 17th century. Today, more than 300 such manuscripts are catalogued. The most important analysis of Avestan manuscripts was provided by Geldner in his edition of the Avesta. In the Prolegomena to his edition, he provided a critical apparatus, detailing the stemmatics of the manuscripts he used.
In modern editions, specific manuscripts are typically classified according to several criteria. One criterion is, e.g., the specific liturgy, like the Yasna, Vendidad or Visperad, in which they are used. Another criterion is whether they originated within the Iranian or Indian Zoroastrian communities. In addition, manuscripts are classified according to their use. Manuscripts for liturgical purposes contain the Avestan text plus liturgical instructions. They are called Sade or Sadah, meaning pure since they contain no translations. On the other hand, manuscripts for exegetical purposes contain the Avestan text jointly with a translation. Most exegetical manuscripts have a translation into Middle Persian, called Pahlavi. But there are also some manuscripts with translations into Modern Persian, Sanskrit and Gujarati.
Editions