Chapter 10. The Gathas and the Avesta: Scripture, Transmission and Canon

The Avesta that survives is the remnant of a much larger scripture. Priests passed it down by memory for centuries before it was written, its custodians read it through layers of commentary, and Europe first met it in a translation later judged “utterly incorrect”. This chapter describes the canon and the place of the Gathas within it. It then follows the tradition of loss and recovery, the chain of translations, and Europe’s discovery of the texts, and ends by comparing renderings of one Gathic stanza.

The parts of the Avesta

Boyce explains Avesta as probably meaning “the Injunction (of Zarathushtra)”, written in two stages, Gathic and Younger, of an “otherwise unrecorded Eastern Iranian language” [Boyce (ed.), Textual Sources, #55116, §1.1.1.1]. Haug links the Yasna’s seventy-two chapters (6 × 12) to the six seasons of creation, noting that the number was reached deliberately by duplicating chapters [Haug, Essays, #55015, Essay III §IV].

According to Boyce, the extant texts make up “about a quarter” of the Sasanian canon of twenty-one nasks. This estimate rests on the Denkard’s summaries [#55116, §1.1.1.10].

The five Gathas: metre and authorship

Haug lists the five Gathas: Ahunavaiti (Y. 28–34), Ushtavaiti (Y. 43–46), Spenta-mainyu (Y. 47–50), Vohu-khshathra (Y. 51) and Vahishtoishti (Y. 53). He shows that each has its own metre, of the Vedic kind in which syllables are counted without regard to quantity. Ahunavaiti stanzas have three lines of sixteen syllables. Ushtavaiti stanzas have five lines of eleven syllables. Spenta-mainyu stanzas reproduce the Vedic trishtubh (4 × 11) exactly. Yasna 57.8 already speaks of “the five Gathas of Spitama Zarathushtra”. From such internal quotations Haug concluded that the Gathic portion was “the most ancient of the whole Zend-Avesta, being known as scripture already to the later Yasna, the Visparad, and Vendidad” [Haug, #55015, Essay III §§IV–V]. He held that the rest of the scripture is “the joint work of the high-priests … compiled in the course of centuries”, and that only “the scanty texts” of the Gathas go back to the founder [ibid., §III]. Boyce credits Haug with first identifying the Gathas as the prophet’s own words [Boyce, Zoroastrians, #55117, index s.v. “Gathas”]. The Pahlavi scholar Zadspram counted 278 stanzas, 1,016 lines and 6,666 words in them [West (tr.), Pahlavi Texts IV, #55048, “Selections of Zadspram”, pp. 401–405].

Mills stressed how far language and ideas had moved since the Veda: “We can therefore place the Gathas long after the oldest Riks” [Mills (tr.), SBE XXXI, #60422, Introduction]. Boyce explains how the liturgy protected the hymns. As the Gathic dialect faded, priests arranged them by metre around the Yasna Haptanghaiti, “like protective walls on either side of the rituals”, so that they had to be learned exactly [Boyce, #55117, ch. 3].

The oldest prayers and the creed

Four short prayers frame the Gathas: the Ahuna Vairya, the Ashem vohu, the Yenhe hatam and the Airyema ishyo (Y. 54). Boyce shows that the Yenhe hatam is a remodelling of Y. 51.22, “altered rather awkwardly to create a prayer of general application”. She translates the Ashem vohu: “Asha (is) good, it is best. According to wish it is, according to wish it shall be for us. Asha belongs to Asha Vahishta” [Boyce, #55117, ch. 3]. The creed (Fravarane, Y. 12.1) begins: “I profess myself a worshipper of Mazda, a follower of Zoroaster, rejecting the Daevas, accepting the Ahuric doctrine” [Boyce, #55117, ch. 3].

The unrecorded centuries, loss and recovery

According to Boyce, the Iranians of Zarathushtra’s time did not know writing and for centuries regarded it as “fit only for secular purposes”. The holy texts were committed to writing “probably [in] the fifth century A.C.”, and the oldest surviving manuscript is dated 1323 [Boyce, #55116, §1.1.1.1]. In her history, an “unknown genius” among the priests invented the Avestan alphabet. It was based on mid-Sasanian Pahlavi but had forty-six letters instead of fewer than twenty, and Boyce says it “has been compared for accuracy with the modern ‘international phonetic alphabet'”. A ninth-century book reports that at the council of Khosrow Anoshirvan the high priest Veh-Shabuhr “published the twenty-one divisions”. The nasks were grouped in three sevens: Gathic texts, scholastic works, and law and instruction. The fire-temples that held copies were destroyed “through successive conquests by Arabs, Turks and Mongols” [Boyce, #55117, ch. 9 “The written Avesta”; #55116, §1.1.1.10].

The Zoroastrian account of how the scripture was lost survives in Denkard III, translated by West. Kai-Vishtasp ordered the original deposited “to the treasury of Shapigan” and a copy “to the fortress of documents”. Then, “owing to the evil-destined villain Alexander, that which was in the fortress of documents came to be burnt”, and the other copy fell to the Greeks and “was translated … into the Greek language”. Ardashir son of Papak brought the scattered scripture together, and “the righteous Tosar … appeared with an exposition recovered from the Avesta, and was ordered to complete the scripture”. After the Arab conquest, Atur-farnbag and Aturpad son of Hemed gathered the copies again [West, #55048, Introduction, Dk III]. Denkard IV adds that the Arsacid Valkhash “ordered the careful preservation” of the Avesta and Zand [West, #55048]. It also says, in Boyce’s translation, that Shabuhr I collected texts on medicine, astronomy and other sciences that had been “dispersed … throughout India, the Byzantine Empire, and other lands” [Boyce, #55117, ch. 7]. Duchesne-Guillemin calls this information “difficult to interpret” [Duchesne-Guillemin, #38271, §II].

James Darmesteter, the SBE translator of the Vendidad, concluded late in life that the Gathas owed their central ideas to Philo of Alexandria. Moulton rejected this on the evidence of metre: Gathic forms such as Armaitis “refuse to scan” unless restored to older forms, which no first-century priest could have counterfeited [Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, #55011, Lecture I].

Zand and the chain of translations

Zand means interpretation: glosses, translations and commentary. The phrase Zand-Avesta misled early Western scholars into taking Zand as the name of the language. Parsis who settled in Gujarat began translating “from the Middle Persian Zand into Sanskrit and Old Gujarati” in the late eleventh or twelfth century. Neryosang’s Sanskrit version is the best known of these. Pahlavi transcribed into Avestan script became Pazand [Boyce, #55116, §§1.1.1.12–18]. Dhalla’s 1908 edition of the five Nyayesh prints the Avestan text alongside the Pahlavi, Sanskrit, Persian and Gujarati versions [Dhalla (ed.), The Nyaishes, #55137]. Mills’s Study of the Five Zarathushtrian Gathas likewise prints the Pahlavi and Sanskrit beside the Avestan. In Neryosang’s gloss on Y. 30.3 the twin spirits are glossed as Hormijdah and Aharman, Ohrmazd and Ahriman [Mills, Study of the Five Gathas, #60441, Y. 30.3].

Europe discovers the Avesta

Haug tells the story of discovery. Anquetil-Duperron sailed for India in 1754 as a sailor of the French India Company. At Surat, finding the priests “full of distrust”, he “bribed one of the most learned Dasturs, Dastur Darab”, and checked what he learned against other priests. He left in 1761 with about 180 manuscripts and published his Zend-Avesta in 1771 [Haug, #55015, Essay I §II]. Anquetil’s own narrative records: “I applied myself at once to the translation of the Zend books with Darab” [Anquetil-Duperron, Narrative, #55016].

Kant found “not the slightest trace of philosophical ideas” in the work, and Sir William Jones called the books “the fictions of priestcraft”. Rask showed in 1826 that Avestan is a sister of Sanskrit, and Burnouf founded Avestan philology. Haug judged Anquetil’s version “utterly incorrect”, compounding errors of “the Pahlavi translations, … the Dasturs, and … his own misunderstandings”. In Vendidad 19.9, for example, Anquetil read the locative “in boundless time” as a nominative, so that “boundless Time” created Ahriman [Haug, #55015, Essay I §II].

One stanza, many readings: Yasna 30.3

Guthrie claims to separate the Gathas into “priestly” and “personal” documents, “a new discovery in higher criticism”, and renders divine names as qualities, “Asha (justice)”, “Vohu Manah (good disposition)” [Guthrie, Life of Zoroaster, #55082]. Orthodox Parsis rejected the reformers’ practice of treating the Gathas as the only standard. In the introduction to Masani’s 1917 book, J. J. Vimadalal calls the doctrine that anything not in the Gathas “may thus be challenged” a reformist “pet theory”. He objects that hymns “cannot … be expected to embody either a complete philosophy, or an exhaustive ritual” [Masani, Zoroastrianism Ancient and Modern, #55152, Introduction].

The hymn to Mithra

Yasht 10, the Mihr Yasht, is the main Younger Avestan hymn to Mithra, the god treated in Part 3. Gershevitch renders its refrain as “Grass-land magnate Mithra we worship”. The hymn describes an abode that Ahura Mazda fashioned for him above Hara, “where is no night or darkness” [Gershevitch, Avestan Hymn to Mithra, #60160, §§12, 25]. Gershevitch notes the hymn’s “initial statement” that “Mazdah created Mithra and made him as great as himself”. Even so, he suggests that the old pairing mithra ahura, with Mithra named first, “may have been the reasons why in some respects Mithra came to surpass Ahura Mazdah” [#60160, Introduction]. The Farvardin Yasht contains a different kind of historical clue: a victor “from discussions with Gaotema, the heretic”. Darmesteter took this as “an allusion to controversies with the Buddhists” in eastern Iran [Darmesteter (tr.), SBE XXIII, #60421, Yt. 13.16 n.].

Key points

• The Avesta has Gathic texts (the Gathas, Yasna Haptanghaiti) and Younger Avestan ones (Yasna, Yashts, Vendidad, Visperad, prayers). According to Boyce they are about a quarter of the Sasanian canon.
• The five Gathas are grouped by Vedic-type metres. Haug held that they alone go back to the founder.
• The four great prayers and the Fravarane creed frame the Gathas in the Yasna.
• Boyce holds that the Avesta stayed oral until a 46-letter Sasanian alphabet was invented. The oldest manuscript dates from 1323.
• Denkard III tells that Alexander burned the scripture and that Ardashir, Tosar and, after the Arabs, Atur-farnbag restored it.
• Anquetil-Duperron’s 1771 translation opened the field. Haug judged it unreliable, and Rask and Burnouf founded Avestan philology.
• Renderings of Y. 30.3 range from literal (Mills) through traditional (Boyce, Neryosang) to psychological (Guthrie). Orthodox Parsis rejected reading the Gathas alone.
• In Gershevitch’s Yasht 10, Mithra is created by Ahura Mazda yet ranks almost as his equal.