Tag: Avestan

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Change in the Approach to the Zoroastrian Liturgy

Jashan ceremony, The Banaji Atash Behram in Mumbai, 2011 Photo © KainazAmaria
Jashan ceremony, The Banaji Atash Behram in Mumbai, 2011 Photo © KainazAmaria

Cantera, Alberto. 2016. A Substantial Change in the Approach to the Zoroastrian Long Liturgy: About J. Kellens’s Études avestiques et mazdéennes. Indo-Iranian Journal 59(2). 139–185.

Between 2006 and 2013 J. Kellens published in five volumes (the last one together with C. Redard) a corrected version of the text edited by K.F. Geldner of the longest and most important Zoroastrian ritual usually known by the name of one of its variants as the Yasna. The text accompanies an experimental translation and both are followed by a commentary. J. Kellens is pioneering in translating and studying, not only the standard daily variant of the liturgy, but also its more solemn version. Furthermore, his work is the first attempt to read the complete text of the liturgy as the coherent text (although produced at different times) of an old and meaningful liturgy, although it has been traditionally understood as a late composition. As it appears in the manuscripts and is celebrated still today in India, the liturgy is the result of a series of conscious interpretations, reinterpretations and rearrangements of older versions. Despite of this, it is a coherent text and ritual in which each section of the liturgy plays a concrete role that J. Kellens has tried to bring to light for the first time. In the present review, I try to highlight the extraordinary importance of Kellens’ new approach to the Zoroastrian Long Liturgy and to expose his main achievements. At the same time, I expose the main weaknesses of this monumental work: 1. its dependence on the text edited by Geldner, which hides part of the ritual variety of the Long Liturgy; 2. the conscious disregard of the meta-ritual information provided by the Zoroastrian tradition about the performance of the liturgy; 3. J. Kellens’s Yasna-centrism that prevents him to recognize the close connections between the Long Liturgy and other minor rituals and the participation within the Long Liturgy of many short rituals that can be celebrated independently.
Read the article here.
 About the Author:
Alberto Cantera is a scholar of Ancient Iranian Studies and Avestan and Middle Persian Philology and Codicology. He is the director of the Institut of the Iranian Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.
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Articles

Les origines du dualisme mazdéen

Kellens, Jean. 2015. Les origines du dualisme mazdéen. In Jourdan Fabienne  & Anca Vasiliu (eds.), Dualismes: Doctrines religieuses et traditions philosophiques (χώρα Hors-série/2015), 21–29.

The discussions about the origin of mazdean dualism are concentrated upon the interpretation of the Gathic stanza Y30.3 which opposes two mental powers called mainiiu and usually translated by «spirit». The divergence of the understandings led to a controversy on the nature of this dualistic opposition : is it philosophical, cosmic or religious? Do these various distinctions remain relevant now we know that this stanza is not a piece of a sermon, but of a liturgical recitative?

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Books

Penitential Sections of the Xorde Avesta

Buyaner, David. 2016. Penitential sections of the Xorde Avesta (patits). Critical edition with commentary and glossary (Iranica 22). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

The Zand ī Xorde Awestā, the Pahlavi version of the compilation of Avestan liturgical texts with the traditional name “Small Avesta” (Xorde Awestā), is one of the main monuments of the corpus of Pahlavi translations and commentaries (called zand) of Avestan original texts. Since the Xorde Awestā and its Pahlavi version consist of a variety of heterogeneous texts which belong to different strata of Zoroastrian literature, they are not only sources of utmost importance for Avestan and Pahlavi philology, but also for the history of Zoroastrianism, and, especially in its penitential sections, for the reconstruction of Zoroastrian law. The recitals of repentance called Padēd ī pašēmānīh (“Penitentiary prayer for repentance”, in two versions) and Xwad padēd (“Penitentiary prayer for oneself”), which are the main focus of this project, are of great interest for the reconstruction of Zoroastrian jurisprudence, since they contain the most extensive enumeration of sins and offences, using the specific terminology of religious and criminal law. The semantic and etymological analysis of legal vocabulary is one of the most urgent desiderata of Iranian Studies. Two other significant problems in this context concern the date of the composition of the Xorde Awestā and the underlying principle of its compilation. An exact analysis of those sections of the Zand ī Xorde Awestā without a prototype in the Avestan original, such as the Padēd texts, which are also known in their Pāzand version (i.e. in Middle Persian written in the Avestan script), would shed light on the question as to why these compositions were included in a zand compilation and the problem of the origins of this unique source.

For more information see the Table of Content of this volume.

Table of Content:

Continue reading “Penitential Sections of the Xorde Avesta”
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Events

Sources of the Indo-Iranian Liturgies

To the sources of the Indo-Iranian Liturgies

June 9th and 10th 2016, University of Liege

International conference to be held at the department of “Langues et religions du monde indo-iranien ancien” at the University of Liege. This conference is organized by Philippe Swennen, Céline Redard and Hamid Moein and will take place on June 9th and 10th.

Programme:

  • J. Kellens: “Ahu, mainiiu, ratu“
  • A. Cantera: “The threefold structure of the Long Liturgy and its daily times of celebration”
  • J. Jurewicz: “Fire and the immortal self. The meaning of Vedic sacrifice”
  • N. Nishimura: “On the first mantra section of the Yajurveda-Saṁhitā”
  • Ph. Swennen: “Lecture de l’ājyaśastra“
  • K. Amano: “What is ‘knowledge’ justifying a ritual action? Uses of yá evám véda / yá ev vidván in the Maitrāyaṇī Samhitā”
  • C. Redard: “Les  āfrīnagāns”
  • A. Panaino: “Mysteries and dangers of the Mazdean Nocturnal Liturgy”
  • A. Hintze: “Rejected Ritual Practices”
  • M. Hale: “Interpreting the Indo-Iranian Tradition of the Gathas: the evidence of the Pahlavi and Sanskrit translations”
  • E. Doyama: “Reflections on YH 40,1 from the Perspective of Indo-Iranian Culture”
  • H. Moein: “Ritual Instructions in the Rivayats”
  • M.Á. Andrés-Toledo: “The Vedic and the Avestan Investitures with the Sacred Girdle”
  • G. König: “daēnā, xratu and the mystical view. Some considerations to Alberto Cantera’s essay ‘Talking with god'”
  • J. Ferrer: “La récitation de l’alphabet avestique dans les rituels : innovation ou archaïsme?”
  • J. Houben: “The Indo-Iranian tradition and ancient Indian ritual and conceptual innovations”
  • T. Goto: “Bergung des gesunkenen Sonnenlichts im Rigveda und Avesta”
  • É. Pirart: “L’idée d’hospitalité dans le sacrifice indo-iranien”
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Events

Corpus Avesticum III: Phonetics and Phonology in Avestan and Beyond

A Vidēvdād Sāde, 1704. (©Jamsheed K. Choksy) via EIr.
A Vidēvdād Sāde, 1704. (©Jamsheed K. Choksy) via EIr.

Corpus Avesticum III: “Phonetics and Phonology in Avestan and Beyond”

Paris, 25-26. April. 2016

The third meeting of the European research network Corpus Avesticum to be held in Paris, 25-26 April. 2016. Researchers from France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the UK will meet to discuss various projects in preparation of a new edition of the Avesta and the special topic of this meeting.

This meeting is dedicated to the research questions mainly regarding to the “Phonetics and Phonology in Avestan and Beyond”.

See here the detaild Programm and the Abstracts.

Program:

25. April 2016

  • Briefing: Current state of Avestological project of the members of the Network
  • Salome Gholami: “Newly found Avestan manuscripts from Yazd”
    Martin Kümmel: “Avestan syllable structure: a look from Middle Iranian”
  • Götz Keydana: “Evidence for foot structure in Early Vedic”
    Paul Widmer: “Phonological domains in Avestan”
  • Chiara Riminucci-Heine: “Av. saoka- und av. hu-xšn aora- : zwei altiranische Wortstudien”
  • Almut Hintze: “Proto-Indo-European *h₁u es- ‘to be good’ and Avestan vahma-“
  • Michiel de Vaan: “On the orthography and phonology of <h>”
  • Alberto Cantera & Jaime Martínez Porro: “On the treatment of n before front vowels”
  • Benedikt Peschl: “The transmission of anaptyxis before the endings -biš and -biio in Avestan”

26. April 2016

  • Armin Hoenen: “La statistique des déviations du Yasna”
  • Tim Aufderheide: “Zoroastrian phoneticians? Reconstructing the phonetic knowledge underlying the transmission of the Avesta”
  • Shervin Farridnejad: “Scribal Schools and Dialectal Characteristics in the Transmission of the Avesta”
  • Miguel Ángel Andrés Toledo: “Avestan and Pahlavi Paleography
    in the oldest Pahlavi Widewdad Manuscripts”
  • Salome Gholami: “Dialectal phonological variations in the colophons”

The Project of Corpus Avesticum (CoAv) is a pan-European Co-operation that aims at making the Zoroastrian Texts, called the Avesta accessible in a new Edition. The current one stems from 1896 and is erroneous with regard to many crucial aspects, the most important of which is the amalgamation of the liturgical and exegetical text witnesses.

See also the previous posts on the First and Second Meeting of Corpus Avesticum.

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Books

Ardwahišt Yašt

Yast_3_KönigKönig, Götz. 2016. Yašt 3. Der avestische Text und seine mittel- und neupersische Übersetzungen. Einleitung, Text, Kommentar. (Estudios Iranios Y Turanios. Supplementa 1). Girona: Sociedad de estudios iranios y turanios (SEIT).
The third Yašt (“hymn”) in the collection of the 21 (22) YAv Yašts is dedicated to (the deity, prayer and the divine correspondence of the fire) Aša Vahišta “Best Order”. The text formulates an (eschatologically significant) ritual context and a magical (= medical) charm. Due to the ritual and medical importance of Yt 3, various translations into Middle and New Persian can be found. They provide insights into the interpretation of the text by the later Zoroastrians.
Ardwahišt Yašt is the third in the series of Avestan hymns addressed to individual divinities. It is devoted to one of the greatest of the Zoroastrian Aməša Spəntas, Aša Vahišta. The Ardwahišt Yašt is itself accordingly recited in rituals to cure the sick.

See the table of contents here.

 Götz König is a scholar of Zoroastrianism and a philologist working on ancient and Middle Iranian languages. He is currently a deputy professor at the Institute of Iranian Studies, Free University of Berlin, Germany. He has made important contributions to the study of Old, Middle and New Iranian Zoroastrian literature. His two monographs, “Die Erzählung von Tahmuras und Gamšid” (Wiesbaden 2008) and “Geschlechtsmoral und Gleichgeschlechtlichkeit im Zoroastrismus” (Wiesbaden 2010), have to be highlighted. They convey an impression of his refined philological technique which is at the service of a history of Iranian culture.
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Journal

A tribute to Éric Pirart

The second issue of the Estudios Iranios y Turanios, which was launched last year by the Sociedad de Estudios Iranios y Turanios, has been published. This issue of the journal, entitled Homenaje a Éric Pirart en su 65º aniversario, collects a number of philological discussions in honour of Éric Pirart’s 65th birthday.

The ToC is here.

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Articles

The vision of Ahura Mazdā’s poet

Image © Euromazdean Traditional Reader

Panaino, Antonio. 2015. The vision of Ahura Mazdā’s poet. Notes on Y. 31,5. In M.C. Pelevin (ed.), «НА ПАСТБИЩЕ МЫСЛИ БЛАГОЙ» Сборник статей к юбилею И. М. Стеблин-Каменского [Collection of articles for the anniversary of Steblin-Kamensky], 47–62. St. Petersburg: Контраст.

Y.31,5 is a very intriguing O.Av. stanza, which presents some interesting problems centered on the pivotal role of ərəšiš “seer, inspired poet”, corresponding to Ved. r̥ṣi-, whose insight should be connected not only with the Manah who was Vohu, but also with the inner manah- of Ahura Mazdā himself by means of a word-game played around the stem manah- evoked in its compositional form (mə̄ṇ°). The “better” (vahiiō) rule assigned by the Gods to the poet and priest (Zoroaster) opens his eyes offering the Av. ərəši– a new power of discrimination and comprehension of the world (probably both in the ritual dimension and in reality) so that he might actually impress in his own mind what does not exist and what is really existent. In this respect the text by means of the direct opposition between two subjunctives (yā nōit̰ vā aŋhat̰ aŋhaitī vā) of the root ah (very interestingly, one with a secondary ending, the latter with a primary one), shows how the idea of “existence” and “inexistence” — in this very case deeper than that of “being” or not “being” — was fittingly formulated already in the earliest Mazdean framework.
Antonio Panaino is professor of ancient Iranian philology and hitory of religion at the University of Bologna.
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Journal of the American Oriental Society

The latest issue of the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 135(3), has several articles and reviews of interest to scholars of ancient Iran. We have already announced Michael Shenkar’s Rethinking Sasanian Iconoclasm in a previous post. Among the reviews three stand out for their direct relevance for Iranian Studies:

The full JSTOR Table of Contents is available here.

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Articles

Repetition Analysis Function and the Avestan Manuscripts

The Avestan Manuscript J2, fol. 5 Y.07c-Y.09a. Yasna with Its Pahlavi Translation (A.D. 1323). © TITUS, Frankfurt 2001-2002

Jügel, Thomas. 2015. Repetition analysis function (ReAF) I. Indogermanische Forschungen 120(1).177–208.

Repetitions are relevant for several aspects of historical philology. With regard to Avestan, they may allow for the identification of ceremonial frames or opening and closing sections revealing the compositional structure of a ceremony. In case of manuscript comparison, the question arises whether a variant appears only once or in all of its repetitive passages. Furthermore, by analysing the compositional structure we may be able to detect ceremonial structures different to the practice of today. A secondary aspect relates to the interpretation of the grammaticality of Young Avestan passages. The repetition analysis provides evidence that passages which are hitherto considered ill-formed actually follow the rules of Avestan grammar. The scope of this study is to investigate computational means for detecting repetitive sequences. It represents a case study of the manuscript J2 by means of tools that were set up in the LOEWE priority programme Digital Humanities at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main: a digital lexicon, a letter discrimination matrix for Avestan, and the programme Repetition Analysis Function. The article ReAF I offers some basic observations on repetitive sequences in the manuscript J2 and lays the foundation for ReAF II (Jügel forthc.), where the results of the repetition analyses will be used to discuss the compositional structure of the Yasna.