The Philosophy : Basics

The Avesta is a collection of texts which constitute the holy book of Zoroastrianism. It was composed over a long period of time, roughly from 900 to 300 BC, in a language called Avestan. It contains a diverse amount of material, ranging from religious poetry and theological commentaries to mythological material, liturgies, and law, all of which augment or develop upon the theology of the Gathas. The Avestan texts were initially composed in a style of oral poetry called ‘pure speech’, where priests would memorize and recite tens of thousands of words by rote. Originally, the Avesta had 21 distinct books consisting of 1016 chapters; today, unfortunately only three books and some fragments remain, making up roughly 100,000 words, perhaps 15% of the original work.

The first and most significant of these books is the Yasna, the main liturgy of Zoroastrianism. It contains 72 chapters, roughly 23,000 words, and is the most important ritual of Zoroastrianism. Most notably, it contains the Gathas in the center, as the Yasna is in truth the liturgy of reciting and honoring the Gathas. However, it also contains other interesting texts, such as the Haptanghaiti (Y. 35-41), a short work of poetry composed by early Zoroastrians in the Gathic language, the Zoroastrian Creed (Y. 12), commentaries on the 3 important Zoroastrian prayers (Y. 19-21), and the Hom Yasht (Y. 9-11) a long poem in honor of haoma, a hallucinogenic drink favored by Zoroastrian priests, which itself plays an important part in the ritual. In addition to the Yasna, there is also another related book called the Visperad, which consists of 24 short chapters that are inserted into the Yasna to increase its length.

The second book is typically called the Yashts. Although, this name is a misnomer as yašt simply means ‘honorific poem’; its original name was the Bagān-Yasn. The book displays an interesting syncretic development in the history of Zoroastrian, as many deities of the pre-Zarathushtra Iranian religion are reincorporated as creations of Ahura Mazda. These reincorporated deities, along with a few personified concepts from the Gathas, are called Yazatas, a sort of subdeity halfway between god and angel, and their attributes and characteristics are detailed in the Yashts in their honor, typically qualifying them as creations of Ahura Mazda. Today, the Yashts are typically divided between the epic Yashts: large poems in honor of important Yazatas, such as Ahura Mazda, Mithra, Anahita, or the Fravashis (‘guardian angels’), and the much shorter poems containing only sparse content. While all these together count 21 chapters over about 34,000 words, it is uncertain if the shorter ones were intended to be counted as individual chapters.

The third book is the Vidēvdād, often called the Vendidad, and contains 22 chapters and roughly 22,000 words. The bulk of the material is religious and purity laws, which, while very archaic, harsh, and outdated in the modern day, likely helped to keep ancient Iran much cleaner than other areas of the ancient world. However, these religious laws only make up the 15 middle chapters of the Vidēvdād, and the chapters at the beginning and end of the book contain interesting mythological material, likely drawn from missing areas of the Avesta. Of these chapters, Vidēvdād 2 is an interesting myth about Yima Xshaeta (Jamshid) preparing for a devastating winter which will envelop the Earth; Vidēvdād 1 is a geographical account of 16 Avestan nations, as well as their positive and negative traits; and Vidēvdād 19 is a somewhat staggered legend about Zarathushtra reciting the Yatha Ahu to frighten away Angra Mainyu and the Daevas.

Of the missing material, we are fortunate to know a lot regarding what is missing, in large part due to descriptions written in the 9th and even 15th century (see here). It originally contained large epics poems such as the Spand Nask, an epic about the legend of Zarathushtra and the history of the religion before and after, and the Wishtasp-sast, a parallel work about Zarathushtra’s mission to convert the ruler Vishtāspa, as well as the history of rulers and heroes before and after him. There was also the Chihrdād Nask, which was a national epic on the history of ancient Iran; this book, in fact, likely supplied the core of the ‘legendary’ section of the Shahnameh. Other books of note are the Bagãm Nask, a piece by piece commentary on the Gathas; the Damdad, a genesis-esque creation narrative with accounts of geography, biology, taxonomy, and legend; and the Hadoxt, a very large collection of various material attributed to Zarathushtra and his followers. There were many more books containing material on science, philosophy, and secular law, amidst other genres.

As for its history, the Avesta was initially a large corpus of literature composed by the Iranian peoples in Central Asia, mainly in the regions of Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. This period is typically called the Avestan Age and can be dated to the Yaz II-III archaeological cultures (1000-330 BC). This period can be characterized as following the earlier Gathic age, which had ended around 900 BC with a cataclysmic event that nearly destroyed the religion. What followed was a century of darkness and a switch from the Gathic (“Old” Avestan) language to the related Avestan language.

Zoroastrianism was eventually revived, thanks to the efforts of figures like Arezva and Spento-xratu, although what emerged had heavily mythologized the life and teachings of Zarathushtra and substantially reincorporated many of the beliefs and deities of the pre-Zarathushtrian religion. After recovering, the Avestan peoples would reach a stage of prosperity and interconnection between the different nations. It is likely that this time period saw the large amount of Avestan works being composed. Eventually, the Avestan peoples would come in much closer contact with their Median and Persian cousins, who had formed successive empires in the west, as they incorporated into these empires. Following this, Darius I would commission the Avestan text to be written down on 1200 oxhides, maybe encompassing some 3-5 million words. This Achaemenid Avesta, more of a library of religious texts than a canonized scripture, would unfortunately be heavily damaged by the destruction caused by Alexander of Macedon in 330 BC.

What remained, roughly 1/3rd of the original, survived thanks to the faithful memory of priests who fled into the mountains to survive the deliberate massacres of Zoroastrian priests. This surviving material, scattered all over greater Iran, would be collected by the Parthian Emperor Vologasses I and written down, this time with translations into the Parthian language. Eventually, the Parthians would be succeeded by the Sassanid Persians, under Ardashir and his high-priest Tansar in 212 AD. Tansar would enact an official canonization of the Avesta, incorporating some material and excluding others. In this process, the Avesta was specifically crafted to have comprehensive numerologically correlations to the Gathas and the Haptanghaiti, encompassing some 21 books and 1016 chapters (see here). The full extent of this Avesta, while not certain, likely was ~1,000,000 words based on the chapter count. Later in the Sassanid empire, the Avestan Alphabet would reach its current state, and the Zand tradition (translations with commentary) would expand many times larger than the Avesta. This canonized scripture with its extensive commentary would go on to form the core of the state religion of Iran until the coming of Islam.

From 633-651 AD, the Arab Muslims conducted a massive and brutal invasion of Iran, massacring massive amounts of people and destroying any library and written work they could find. The Avesta, again due to the faithful memory of the priests, would mostly survive this conquest. Although, due to the oppression of Zoroastrians, it would continue to shrink over the centuries. By the 1400s AD, it only contained ~60% of the original material. Unfortunately, with the rise of the Safavid Dynasty of Iran, Zoroastrians would once again be massacred in large amounts, and nearly the rest of the Avesta would be destroyed. What survived was mainly what the Parsis had taken with them to India and is the same material that we have today. Again it is thanks to the faithful priests that we are able to have any of what we have today, in spite of the many hardships, making up roughly 15% of the Sassanid Avesta.