Avesta

Avesta
French translation of the Avesta by Polish Orientalist Ignacy Pietraszewski, Berlin, 1858.
Information
Religion	Zoroastrianism
Language	Avestan
Period	c. 1500–c. 500 BCE (Avestan period)

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Zoroastrianism
Primary topics Ahura Mazda Zarathustra Asha Vohu Manah Persia/Iran Faravahar Avestan
Divine entities Amesha Spentas Yazatas Ahuras Daevas Fravashi Angra Mainyu
Scripture and worship Zoroastrian literature Avesta Ashem Vohu Ahuna Vairya Yenghe hatam Airyaman ishya Fire Temples 101 Names of Ahura Mazda Adur Burzen-Mihr Adur Farnbag Adur Gushnasp Cypress of Kashmar Gathas Yasna Vendidad Visperad Yashts Khordeh Avesta The Rivayats Ab-Zohr
Accounts and legends Dēnkard Bundahišn Book of Arda Viraf Book of Jamasp Story of Sanjan Chinvat Bridge Frashokereti
History and culture Zurvanism Mazdakism Khurramites Calendar Festivals Initiation Kushti Sedreh Marriage Burial
Adherents Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan China Sichuan India Iranis Iran Iraq Pakistan Parsis Russia United States Uzbekistan Persecution of Zoroastrians
Related topics Criticism of Zoroastrianism Zoroastrian cosmology
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The Avesta (/əˈvɛstə/) is the primary collection of religious literature of Zoroastrianism,^[1] in which all texts are composed in the Avestan language and are written in the Avestan alphabet.^[2] It was compiled and redacted during the late Sassanian period (ca. 6th century CE)^[3] although its individual texts were ″probably″ produced during the Old Iranian period (ca. 15th century BCE - 4th century BCE).^[4] Before their compilation, these texts had been passed down orally for centuries.^[5] The oldest surviving fragment of a text dates to 1323 CE.^[2]

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 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 the language, but also from a different geographic region.

Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the Vendidad and the Visperad.^[6] The Visperad extensions consist mainly of additional invocations of the divinities (yazatas),^[7] while the Vendidad is a mixed collection of prose texts mostly dealing with purity laws.^[7] Even today, the Vendidad is the only liturgical text that is not recited entirely from memory.^[7] Some of the materials of the extended Yasna are from the Yashts,^[7] which are hymns to the individual yazatas. Unlike the Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad, the Yashts and the other lesser texts of the Avesta are no longer used liturgically in high rituals. Aside from the Yashts, 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 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.^[6]

The term Avesta originates from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Middle Persian abestāg,^[8][9] 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 Christian Bartholomae (Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 1904), 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.