AVESTA. — The term AVESTA designates the collection of sacred and canonical books of the Mazdeans, i.e., the followers of the religion of Ahura Mazda. The meaning sometimes attributed to the term “avesta,” namely *upasta* “fundamental text,” is uncertain; the language in which the texts are transmitted is Iranian, but there is no agreement on the region where it was in use; it is therefore designated by the collection itself as “Avestan,” and it has sometimes been erroneously called *zend*, a term that rather indicates the commentary on the sacred books, which is written in a different language from Avestan, namely Middle Persian.
The present AVESTA is only a small part of the ancient collection, most of which has been lost; it is primarily liturgical in character, regulating the conduct of festive ceremonies, providing the prayers to be recited, and setting forth the prescriptions to be followed, etc. It is divided into five parts, which have the following names:
Yasna “prayer,” is the most important nucleus, concerning the principal act of worship: the preparation and offering of the Haoma. In this function, the entire *Yasna* must be recited, which comprises 72 chapters and contains prayers and invocations to all the deities collectively. This part contains the oldest hymns of the Mazdean religion that have come down to us, namely the *gathā*, which run from chapter 28, with some interruptions, to chapter 55.
*Vispred* “all the chiefs,” is not a separate book but rather an appendix to the preceding one; it contains invocations that are especially to be recited during certain solemnities of the year, immediately after the recitation of the first.
Aversa - Madonna with Child and Angels, by Angelillo Arguecio (1468) - Duomo.
It comprises several chapters, which are variously divided: some distribute them into 27, others into 23 or 24.
Vendidād “law against demons,” has a legal character and is a kind of priestly code, in which are set forth the prescriptions of legal purity, the rules for exposure, ecclesiastical penalties, regulations for contracts and wages; it may therefore be considered the ecclesiastical, civil, and penal code. The book opens with two chapters whose content contrasts with that of the following chapters: the first on the creations of the good and the evil principle, the second on the legend of Yima, the flood, and the paradise of Yima. Originally, the Vendidād constituted the 19th book of the AVESTA.
Yast “worship, sacrifice” contains hymns, each addressed to a particular deity, especially those from which the days of the Mazdean month derive their names. There are 21 of these, arranged according to the Mazdean calendar; the hymns for the remaining days of the month are therefore missing. In these hymns, there is a greater poetic inspiration, with vivid touches and colorful expression, and myths and heroic legends are sung, which reappear in later Persian epic.
Khorda Avesta “little AVESTA,” is a book of prayers, not entirely composed in Avestan, for use by the laity.
These various parts of the AVESTA were not composed all at once in a single historical period but at different times, separated by centuries. Nor is it easy to assign a precise date to the individual parts, since the texts contain no allusions to the time of their composition, and no other elements have yet been found to facilitate chronological determination. Nevertheless, on the basis of morphological, syntactical, and linguistic criteria, two parts of very different extent are now distinguished: the ancient AVESTA, which contains few hymns: the *gathā* (cf. above), and the recent AVESTA; the former is distinguished from the latter by its archaic forms. This distinction corresponds to a difference in style and especially in content: the style of the former is concise, abstract, and abounds in technical terms whose meaning is not always unambiguous, while that of the latter is descriptive, concrete, sometimes colorful and vivid. The content of the ancient AVESTA is profound, marked by an unusual purity of religious and moral ideas and by a lofty conception of the deity, which in certain hymns appears monotheistic; in the latter, on the other hand, a more developed polytheism predominates. The spirit that pervades the one and the other is so different that, despite the constancy of religious vocabulary, it seems to be a matter of two different religious forms.
Text and Origin. — Regarding the entire text that still existed in the 9th century A.D., we have the following information, especially from the *Denkart*, a Middle Persian book. The text consisted of 21 books, and in addition to it there was also a commentary on most of them. From the summaries of each book that have come down to us, it appears that only the 11th book then lacked both text and commentary. Of these 21 books, only the Vendidād has come down to us in its entirety; of the others, only more or less extensive fragments remain. The ancient text did not contain only strictly religious matters and doctrines but also narratives of both religious and profane events: e.g., the life of Zarathustra, that of Kavi Vištaspa, his patron and follower, the history of the Iranian lineages and kingdoms and their respective rulers from the creation onward, etc. The analogous narratives found later in Iranian epic and in Arab historians dealing with Persia derive from traditions transmitted by the AVESTA.
As for the origin of the AVESTA, the traditions are equally from the 9th century, hence of recent date and partly legendary. We are told that the AVESTA (including even the commentary) would have been written by Kavi Vištaspa, a disciple of Zarathustra, while according to a variant Vištaspa would have ordered his minister Jamasp to write II. The text would have been fixed on 12,000 oxhides, in golden letters and in duplicate, each copy being kept in a different location. Less precious copies were also circulated. Another tradition attributes all this to the Achaemenid Darius III. During the invasion of Alexander the Great, one of these copies was nearly destroyed in the burning of Persepolis, while the other was taken by the Greeks and then translated into their language. When Iran shook off the yoke of the Macedonians, an Arsacid king, Vologesus, ordered a search for the religious books and thus to reconstruct the ancient text. In the Arsacid dynasty, five kings bore the name Vologesus, so it is debated which of them is meant: some hold it to be Vologesus I, others Vologesus II, who had a long and peaceful reign (148–91) and thus favorable conditions for such work. After the Arsacid dynasty was replaced by the Sassanid, its founder Ardashir (226–41) commissioned a certain priest Tansar to gather the scattered parts of the AVESTA, to unite them into a whole, and, after examination, to declare them canonical; his son then, Shapur I (241–71), ordered a search for the parts concerning astronomy, medicine, and the sciences. Shapur II (300–79), to stem the schisms and heresies proliferating in the kingdom, ordered a final revision, which was carried out by Arturpat i Mahraspandan, who, after submitting to the ordeal by fire, once again declared the collection of books canonical.
When Iran fell under Arab domination, many of its inhabitants converted to Islam, and, as the number of believers dwindled, the ancient sacred books fell into disuse and were lost. And in the 9th century, Artur Farnbag, he who transmitted the information reported above, once again set about collecting the scattered remnants of the text and the Middle Persian commentary. But as has been seen, very little of his collection has come down to us.
The report that Kavi Vištaspa wrote or had the A. written is a sheer anachronism: in the time of Zarathustra the Iranians were unacquainted with writing, and the ancient hymns that have come down to us had to be handed down by oral tradition; as for the rest, there are doubtless elements that are truly historical, but they are not always verifiable. That a copy was carried off by the Greeks is not improbable, especially since Pliny, Hist. nat., XXX, 1, 3, records that Erimppus, librarian of the Alexandrian library after Callimachus, wrote and compiled a catalogue of the writings of Zoroaster. And since he can hardly have known Persian, the sacred books of the Mazdaeans must also have been translated.