Tag: Zoroastrianism

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Change in the Approach to the Zoroastrian Liturgy

Jashan ceremony, The Banaji Atash Behram in Mumbai, 2011 Photo © KainazAmaria
Jashan ceremony, The Banaji Atash Behram in Mumbai, 2011 Photo © KainazAmaria

Cantera, Alberto. 2016. A Substantial Change in the Approach to the Zoroastrian Long Liturgy: About J. Kellens’s Études avestiques et mazdéennes. Indo-Iranian Journal 59(2). 139–185.

Between 2006 and 2013 J. Kellens published in five volumes (the last one together with C. Redard) a corrected version of the text edited by K.F. Geldner of the longest and most important Zoroastrian ritual usually known by the name of one of its variants as the Yasna. The text accompanies an experimental translation and both are followed by a commentary. J. Kellens is pioneering in translating and studying, not only the standard daily variant of the liturgy, but also its more solemn version. Furthermore, his work is the first attempt to read the complete text of the liturgy as the coherent text (although produced at different times) of an old and meaningful liturgy, although it has been traditionally understood as a late composition. As it appears in the manuscripts and is celebrated still today in India, the liturgy is the result of a series of conscious interpretations, reinterpretations and rearrangements of older versions. Despite of this, it is a coherent text and ritual in which each section of the liturgy plays a concrete role that J. Kellens has tried to bring to light for the first time. In the present review, I try to highlight the extraordinary importance of Kellens’ new approach to the Zoroastrian Long Liturgy and to expose his main achievements. At the same time, I expose the main weaknesses of this monumental work: 1. its dependence on the text edited by Geldner, which hides part of the ritual variety of the Long Liturgy; 2. the conscious disregard of the meta-ritual information provided by the Zoroastrian tradition about the performance of the liturgy; 3. J. Kellens’s Yasna-centrism that prevents him to recognize the close connections between the Long Liturgy and other minor rituals and the participation within the Long Liturgy of many short rituals that can be celebrated independently.
Read the article here.
 About the Author:
Alberto Cantera is a scholar of Ancient Iranian Studies and Avestan and Middle Persian Philology and Codicology. He is the director of the Institut of the Iranian Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.
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Events

Between Zoroastrianism and Islam

Photo © Gianroberto Scarcia
Marijan Molé (1924-1963). Photo © Gianroberto Scarcia

Between Zoroastrianism and Islam
International conference on the work of Marijan Molé

Friday, June 24, 2016, École française d’Extrême-Orient – 22, avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris.

Organized by Samra Azarnouche (EPHE).

The works of Marijan Molé (1924-1963) has left a distinctive and lasting imprint on the field of Iranian Studies. His careful and insightful studies on the Avestan and Middle Persian literature, the Islamic mystical treatises as well as the Persian epics play an important role in our understanding of Iranian history, culture and religions. This conference focuses on one of the peculiarities of Molé’s research, namely the scholarly attempt at bridging the gap between pre-Islamic and Islamic Iranian Studies, between the different strata of religious and literary traditions, and between the great mythical and prophetic figures. The (recent) discovery of his Nachlass (IRHT and BULAC) gives us the opportunity to make an inventory of his legacy, which highlights the originality of his approach in the study of religions.

Program (PDF):

MOLÉ ET L’AVESTA: ENTRE TRADITION ET COMPARATISME

  • Jean Kellens: “le printemps des études gâtiques”
  • Philippe Swennen: “Marijan Molé à l’aube du nouveau comparatisme indo-iranien”

PROPHÈTES ET HÉROS

  • Anna Krasnowolska: “Molé’s Early Works and his Study of Persian Epics”
  • Michel Tardieu: “Vies de Zoroastre, Vies de Mani, Vies de Muhammad :un apport de M. Molé à l’histoire des religions”

COSMOLOGIE ET ESCHATOLOGIE : D’UNE TRADITION À L’AUTRE

  • Antonio Panaino: “Le gētīg dans le mēnōg et le système chiliadique mazdéen” selon la réflexion de Marijan Molé
  • Shaul Shaked: “Immortality and Eschatology”
  • Pierre Lory: “Marijan Molé, ‘Aziz Nasafî et l’Homme Parfait”

RAYONNEMENT ET POSTÉRITÉ DE L’OEUVRE

  • Jaleh Amouzegar: “Marijan Molé en Iran”
  • Alexey Khismatulin: “He was years ahead of his time: Destiny of the Unpublished Works by Molé on the Naqshbandiya”
  • Conclusions: Frantz Grenet

 

 

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Books

Forgotten religions in the Middle East

We rarely introduce non academic books. The following volume, however, is too close to our interests to be ignored:

Russell, Gerard. 2015. Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms. Simon & Schuster UK.

Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges of the magnificent civilizations in ancient history: Persia, Babylon, Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Their followers have learned how to survive foreign attacks and the perils of assimilation. But today, with the Middle East in turmoil, they face greater challenges than ever before.
For more on the book, see its website. William Dalrymple has reviewed it for the Guardian.
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Events

Sasanian legal terminology in religious context

Capital and Yield: Sasanian Legal Terminology in Religious Context

A lecture by Arash Zeini on the occasion of a meeting of Corpus Avesticum (CoAv), a European network of scholars aiming to create new and accessible editions of the Zoroastrian sacred texts.

Location: Institute of Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

Time: 16.06.2016, 18:00 – 20:00

Arash Zeini (PhD 2014, SOAS), is a scholar of Ancient Iranian and Zoroastrian philology, history and culture. His main research interests include the study of ancient Iran, Zoroastrianism, particularly the late antique exegesis of the Avesta, and aspects of digital humanities.

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Incense in the Zoroastrian Rituals

A pilgrim lays offerings of candles and incense at the Zoroastrian mountain shrine at Chak Chak (Pir-e Sabz), during the annual pilgrimage, Yazd, Iran, 16th June 1994. Photo © Kaveh Kazemi
A pilgrim lays offerings of candles and incense at the Zoroastrian mountain shrine at Chak Chak (Pir-e Sabz), during the annual pilgrimage, Yazd, Iran, 16th June 1994. Photo © Kaveh Kazemi

Workshop: Trade Going Up in Smoke? Contact and Exchange in Incense Practices — The Southern Levant as Case Study

Käte-Hamburger-Kolleg “Dynamics in the History of Religions Betwenn Asia and Europe”

14-15 June 2016, Bochum, Germany

Götz König (Berlin): “The Use of Incense in the Zoroastrian Rituals and its Eschatological Meaning”

Rüdiger Schmitt (Münster): “Incense Practice in the Family and Household Religion of the Levant in the Iron Age”

Continue reading “Incense in the Zoroastrian Rituals”
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Articles

Les origines du dualisme mazdéen

Kellens, Jean. 2015. Les origines du dualisme mazdéen. In Jourdan Fabienne  & Anca Vasiliu (eds.), Dualismes: Doctrines religieuses et traditions philosophiques (χώρα Hors-série/2015), 21–29.

The discussions about the origin of mazdean dualism are concentrated upon the interpretation of the Gathic stanza Y30.3 which opposes two mental powers called mainiiu and usually translated by «spirit». The divergence of the understandings led to a controversy on the nature of this dualistic opposition : is it philosophical, cosmic or religious? Do these various distinctions remain relevant now we know that this stanza is not a piece of a sermon, but of a liturgical recitative?

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Books

Penitential Sections of the Xorde Avesta

Buyaner, David. 2016. Penitential sections of the Xorde Avesta (patits). Critical edition with commentary and glossary (Iranica 22). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

The Zand ī Xorde Awestā, the Pahlavi version of the compilation of Avestan liturgical texts with the traditional name “Small Avesta” (Xorde Awestā), is one of the main monuments of the corpus of Pahlavi translations and commentaries (called zand) of Avestan original texts. Since the Xorde Awestā and its Pahlavi version consist of a variety of heterogeneous texts which belong to different strata of Zoroastrian literature, they are not only sources of utmost importance for Avestan and Pahlavi philology, but also for the history of Zoroastrianism, and, especially in its penitential sections, for the reconstruction of Zoroastrian law. The recitals of repentance called Padēd ī pašēmānīh (“Penitentiary prayer for repentance”, in two versions) and Xwad padēd (“Penitentiary prayer for oneself”), which are the main focus of this project, are of great interest for the reconstruction of Zoroastrian jurisprudence, since they contain the most extensive enumeration of sins and offences, using the specific terminology of religious and criminal law. The semantic and etymological analysis of legal vocabulary is one of the most urgent desiderata of Iranian Studies. Two other significant problems in this context concern the date of the composition of the Xorde Awestā and the underlying principle of its compilation. An exact analysis of those sections of the Zand ī Xorde Awestā without a prototype in the Avestan original, such as the Padēd texts, which are also known in their Pāzand version (i.e. in Middle Persian written in the Avestan script), would shed light on the question as to why these compositions were included in a zand compilation and the problem of the origins of this unique source.

For more information see the Table of Content of this volume.

Table of Content:

Continue reading “Penitential Sections of the Xorde Avesta”
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Events

Sources of the Indo-Iranian Liturgies

To the sources of the Indo-Iranian Liturgies

June 9th and 10th 2016, University of Liege

International conference to be held at the department of “Langues et religions du monde indo-iranien ancien” at the University of Liege. This conference is organized by Philippe Swennen, Céline Redard and Hamid Moein and will take place on June 9th and 10th.

Programme:

  • J. Kellens: “Ahu, mainiiu, ratu“
  • A. Cantera: “The threefold structure of the Long Liturgy and its daily times of celebration”
  • J. Jurewicz: “Fire and the immortal self. The meaning of Vedic sacrifice”
  • N. Nishimura: “On the first mantra section of the Yajurveda-Saṁhitā”
  • Ph. Swennen: “Lecture de l’ājyaśastra“
  • K. Amano: “What is ‘knowledge’ justifying a ritual action? Uses of yá evám véda / yá ev vidván in the Maitrāyaṇī Samhitā”
  • C. Redard: “Les  āfrīnagāns”
  • A. Panaino: “Mysteries and dangers of the Mazdean Nocturnal Liturgy”
  • A. Hintze: “Rejected Ritual Practices”
  • M. Hale: “Interpreting the Indo-Iranian Tradition of the Gathas: the evidence of the Pahlavi and Sanskrit translations”
  • E. Doyama: “Reflections on YH 40,1 from the Perspective of Indo-Iranian Culture”
  • H. Moein: “Ritual Instructions in the Rivayats”
  • M.Á. Andrés-Toledo: “The Vedic and the Avestan Investitures with the Sacred Girdle”
  • G. König: “daēnā, xratu and the mystical view. Some considerations to Alberto Cantera’s essay ‘Talking with god'”
  • J. Ferrer: “La récitation de l’alphabet avestique dans les rituels : innovation ou archaïsme?”
  • J. Houben: “The Indo-Iranian tradition and ancient Indian ritual and conceptual innovations”
  • T. Goto: “Bergung des gesunkenen Sonnenlichts im Rigveda und Avesta”
  • É. Pirart: “L’idée d’hospitalité dans le sacrifice indo-iranien”
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Books

Kushan Histories

Kushan HistoriesFalk, Harry (ed.). 2015. Kushan histories. Literary sources and selected papers from a symposium at Berlin, December 5 to 7, 2013 (Monographien zur indischen Archäologie, Kunst und Philologie 23). Bremen: Hempen Verlag.

Harry Falks “Kushan Histories“ discusses new research concerning the Kushan dynasty and is based on a Symposium held from December 5-7th, 2013 in Berlin.

The first part of the book introduces the literary sources. After naming the primary sources and translations a wide range of texts presented chronologically gives an overview of the Kushan history in its totality.

In the second part of “Kushan Histories” five papers deal with different religious, military and cultural aspects of the Kushan dynasty: How were the expansion of Buddhism and the dynasty linked to each other and which role did Zoroastrianism play among the Kushans? How can new geographical perspectives prove the former existence of a military camp of the Kushans north of the Bactra oasis? Which historical data regarding Kanishka’s conquest of India can be drawn from a Bactrian inscription and what did the female deity Nana mean to the Kushans?

Table of Contents

Continue reading “Kushan Histories”
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Journal

Iranica Antiqua, Volume 51

The table of contents of the latest issue (51) of the journal Iranica Antiqua: