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Books

The First Three Hymns of the Ahunauuaitī Gāθā

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.

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Books

The Srōš Drōn – Yasna 3 to 8

Redard, Céline. 2021. The Srōš Drōn – Yasna 3 to 8. A Critical Edition with Ritual Commentaries and Glossary (Corpus Avesticum 3). Leiden: Brill.

This book is a multi-faceted study of the Srōš Drōn, comprising chapters 3 to 8 of the Yasna ceremony, the core ritual of the Zoroastrian religion. It provides a critical edition produced with the electronic tools of the project The Multimedia Yasna, and a study of the performative aspects of the Srōš Drōn both through the lens of the ritual directions and in comparison with the Drōn Yašt ceremony.
By analysing the Srōš Drōn both as a text attested in manuscripts and as a ritual performance, Céline Redard applies a new approach to unlock the meaning of these chapters of the Yasna.

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Events

Editing Avestan Texts in the 21st Century: Problems and Perspectives

The Institute of Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, invites you to the 5th meeting of the Corpus Avesticum

Editing Avestan Texts in the 21st Century: Problems and Perspectives

Participants: M. A. Andrés-Toledo, T. F. Aufderheide, A. Cantera, S. Farridnejad, J. Ferrer, L. Goldman, A. Hintze, J. Kellens, G. König, J. Martínez-Porro, A. Panaino, B. Peschl, É. Pirart, P. Widmer and A. Zeini

Programme:

23 March

  • J. Kellens: “Exégèse et grammaire: le destin de l’Ahuna Vairiia”
  • A. Panaino: “Y. 71-72 and the end of the Ritual”
  • É. Pirart : “Pour de nouveaux fragments avestiques”
  • G. König: “Xorde Avesta as an editorial concept? Some considerations.”
  • A. Cantera: “Yašt ī keh /yašt ī meh: Sasanian taxonomies of the rituals in Avestan language”
  • K. Rezania: “When the text and diagram do not accord. On the textual and diagrammatic representations of the ritual surface of Barǝšnum in Avestan manuscripts”
  • B. Peschl: “Simple thematic presents with root vowel ā in Avestan: Textual corruption, genuine Avestan innovation or PIE archaism?”
  • J. Martínez-Porro & A. Cantera: huuarə.xšaētəm. …. raēm and the aporias of the archetype”
  • J. Ferrer: “Paleographie et édition”
  • T.  F. Aufderheide: “Avestisch <ṇ>: Über den Einfluss der einheimischen Sprachwissenschaft des Alten Indiens zur Verschriftlichung des Avesta”
  • F. Dragoni: “The Pāzand of M51”
  • P. Widmer: “Editing the Atharvaveda in the 21st century: The Zurich Paippalada project”

24 March

  • A. Hintze/L. Goldman: “Transcribing Avestan manuscripts”
  • M. A. Andrés-Toledo: “Editing the Pahlavi Widewdad”
  • A. Zeini: “Editing the Pahlavi Yasna”
  • S. Gholami: “Editing the colophons of Avestan manuscripts”
  • Round Table: “Editing Avestan texts in the 21th century: Problems and perspectives”

Time & Place: 23.03.2017 – 24.03.2017, Institute of Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

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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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Events

Mimesis and Liturgy in Zoroastrian Ritual

© Dadar Athornan Institute

Antonio Panaino: “Mimesis und Liturgie im mazdayasnischen Ritual: Die Amtseinsetzung der sieben Unterpriester und die symbolische Götter-Verkörperung”

Donnerstag, 16. Juli 2015, Freie Universität Berlin, Institute for Iranian Studies.

This lecture proceeds within the framework of the Corpus Avesticum Meeting in Berlin, which was held in 22–23 May 2015 at the Freie Universität Berlin. The lecture will be followed on Friday 17th July 2015 with an internal meeting of the members of the Corpus Avesticum settled in Berlin.

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Events

Corpus Avesticum meeting: “Ḫorde Avesta”

Corpus Avesticum | Meeting in Berlin 22–23 May 2015

Institute of Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

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.

The next meeting of the European research network Corpus Avesticum will take place in Berlin. 22. and 23. May 2015 researchers from Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK will meet at Free University of Berlin to discuss various projects in preparation of a new edition of the Avesta.

This meeting is dedicated to the research questions mainly regarding to a new edidion of the Ḫorde Avesta/Khorde Avesta.

Program:

  • Paul Widmer/Florian Sommer: “Vortrag zur Fehlertypologie in den Yašt-Handschriften bzw. den Einfluss derselben auf das Verständnis der Grammatik”.
  • Almut Hintze: “The Vištāsp Yašt and an obscure word in the Hadoxt Nask”.
  • Leon Goldman: “On the Sanskrit Yasna manuscript S1″.
  • Alberto Cantera: “On the wāz gīrišnīh”.
  • Mehrbod Khanizadeh: “A Preliminary Study on the Relationships Between the Pahlavi Version of the Exegetic Yasna Manuscripts”.
  • Celine Redard: “On the Paris Mss”.
  • Antonio Panaino: “The corpus of the Yašts and their Pahlavi Translations. Considerations about a Textual Loss and its Reasons”.
  • Götz König: “Research on the Bayān Nask. State of the Art”.
  • Miguel Ángel Andrés Toledo: “The Drōn Frawardin Yašt Ceremony in the Avestan Manuscripts”.

The other members of the research group CoAv are also Arash Zeini (London), Kianoosh Rezania (Bochum), Salome Gholami (Frankfurt), David Buyaner and Shervin Farridnejad (Berlin).

*Image: An illustrated copy of the Avestan Wīdēvdād Sāde. Copied in Yazd, Iran, in 1647 ( © British Library RSPA 230, ff. 151v–152r). Published in: Farridnejad, Shervin. 2014. The Avestan Manuscript 4060 (RSPA230), Videvdad Iranian Sade of the British Library. (Avestan Digital Archive Series 75). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca.

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Events

CoAv 2.0: Day One

In 2011, when we met for CoAv 1.0, a lot of time and attention were dedicated to organisational matters. Groups were formed, members expressed their interest in texts and types of activities, etc. We have come a long way, and CoAv 2.0 is dedicated to questions pertaining to the study of Zoroastrian manuscripts.

The first day started with a brief summary of each team’s activities since CoAv 1.0. The range of topics discussed on day one was impressive and included prolegomena, palaeography, orthography, colophons, scribal schools and mythologies behind the long liturgy. The Salamanca team, our hosts, presented their systematic approach to the study of the manuscripts. Individuals of this team each work on issues of palaeography, orthography and the colophons. The collective results will inform the forthcoming prolegomena to a new edition of the Avesta. Thanks to the efforts of Alberto Cantera and his collaborators a considerable number of previously unknown manuscripts have been uncovered, and our knowledge of their transmission is continuously improving. The combined results of the study of the colophons, palaeography and orthography bring also to light interesting details about the scribal culture of Iranian Zoroastrians and the community’s history. Around 65 manuscripts are now available online and many more will be made accessible in the near future.

Other participants discussed their work on the Sanskrit Yasna and computational methods for generating manuscript stemmas.

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Events

Corpus Avesticum 2.0

The second meeting of the European research network Corpus Avesticum 2.0 (CoAv) will take place in Salamanca. Between 28 and 30 November researchers from Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK will meet at Europe’s third oldest university to discuss various projects in preparation of a new edition of the Avesta.

CoAv 1.0, where the research network was formed, took place in 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany.