Peschl, Benedikt. 2022. The First Three Hymns of the Ahunauuaitī Gāθā. The Avestan Text of Yasna 28–30 and Its Tradition (Corpus Avesticum 4). Leiden: Brill.

At the center of this book stands a text-critical edition of three chapters of the Gāthās, exemplifying the editorial methodology developed by the “Multimedia Yasna” (MUYA) project and its application to the Old Avestan parts of the Yasna liturgy.
Proceeding from this edition, the book explores aspects of the transmission and ritual embedding of the text, and of its late antique exegetical reception in the Middle Persian (Pahlavi) tradition. Drawing also on a contemporary performance of the Yasna that was filmed by MUYA in Mumbai in 2017, the book aims to convey a sense of the Avestan language in its role as a central element of continuity around which the Zoroastrian tradition has evolved from its prehistoric roots up to the modern era.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Editing Old Avestan in the Context of the MUYA Project

• Manuscripts Collated
• Methodology of the Collation Process (1): Transcription of the Manuscripts
• Methodology of the Collation Process (2): Regularisation of Variant Readings
• Scope of the Constituted
• Editorial Decisions Regarding Non-Trivial Phonetic and Orthographic Alternations

Part 2 Yasna 28–30: Text, Translation, Selected Commentaries and Glossary

• Preliminaries to the Edition of the Avestan Text
• Yasna 28: Edition of the Avestan Text
• Yasna 29: Edition of the Avestan Text
• Yasna 30: Edition of the Avestan Text
• Yasna 28: Constituted Text and Translation
• Yasna 29: Constituted Text and Translation
• Yasna 30: Constituted Text and Translation
• Notes on the Translation of the Avestan Text
• Selected Commentary Essays Proceeding from the Avestan Text
• Glossary of the Avestan text of Yasna 28–30

Part 3 Studies on the Ritual Setting of the Ahunauuaitī Gāθā (Yasna 28–34)

• Ritual Actions During the Recitation of the Ahunauuaitī Gāθā
• Considerations on the Rationale Behind Specific Ritual Actions
• Ritual Directions Accompanying Yasna 28–30 in the Manuscript Tradition
• Studies on the Exegetical Reception of Yasna 28
• Re-approaching the Pahlavi Gāθās
• Edition and Translation of Pahlavi Yasna 28
• Pahlavi Yasna 28: Commentary
• On the Marginal Headings Accompanying the Old Avesta in the Exegetical Manuscripts of the Yasna
• Yasna 28.11, Yašt 1.26 and the Warštamānsar Nask: Untangling an Intertextual Network
• Appendix to Part 4: Edition and Translation of the Commentary on Yasna 28 in the Dēnkard Epitome of the Warštamānsar Nask (Dk 9.28)
• Concluding Thoughts: Advancing a Holistic Approach to the Zoroastrian Textual Tradition

Benedikt Peschl holds a BA in General and Indo-European Linguistics from the University of Munich, an MA in Religions of Asia and Africa from SOAS University of London, and a PhD in Study of Religions from SOAS (2021). He now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Iranian Studies of Freie Universität Berlin.