Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures 101 years after the inauguration of the Ratanbai Katrak Lecturership at the University of Oxford.
‘With which Yasna shall I worship you (kana θβąm yasna yazāne)? Zoroastrian Rituals in the Antique and Late Antique Iranian world’
Please use this link to attend the lectures on Zoom.
Lecture 1: Manuscripts and Rituals: The Written Transmission of the Zoroastrian Rituals 11 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD
Lecture 2: The Questioned Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Rituals: Their Reception in Western Academia 18 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD
Lecture 3: The Ritual System: Modularity and Productivity 25 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Ertegun House, 37A St. Giles’, Oxford OX1 3LD
Like many other religions, Zoroastrianism frequently restructured its priestly organization during its long history, largely because of the environmental changes to which it was exposed. A major shift in status – from being the state religion in the Sasanian Empire to holding only a minor position in the early Islamic period – challenged the Zoroastrian hierarchy of authority. The Abbasid state provided Zoroastrianism with an opportunity to initiate a new office, which was called hu-dēnān pēšōbāy “Leader of the Zoroastrians”. This article is the first to deal with this office in detail and scrutinizes the concept of leadership (pēšōbāyīh) in Sasanian and Abbasid Zoroastrianism. It sheds some light on the priestly structure of Zoroastrianism in this period and investigates the position of the office within the overall religious organization. It re-examines, moreover, evidence for the officiating Zoroastrian theologians in this office at the Abbasid court in Baghdad. Finally, it searches for the parallels between this office and that of the East-Syrian catholicos and the Jewish exilarch.
The Circle for Late Antique and Medieval Studies presents a discussion with Professors Almut Hintze, Martin Schwartz and Peter Jackson Rova on the oral traditions in Zoroastrianism. The panel discussion is online and open to the public. The website is here.
How should we conceive of Prophet Zoroaster? What was the context in which he lived and composed the Gathas of Zoroaster? Do they provide a unique window into oral composition and transmission of tradition(s)? Can the early poetry attributed to Zoroaster teach us something about the cryptic techniques of Indo-European poetry and the beginnings of Greek philosophy? How did orality sustain the Zoroastrian community through millennia?
Panaino, Antonio, Andrea Piras and Paolo Ognibene (eds). 2023. Studi iranici ravennati IV (Indo-iranica et orientalia, Lazur 25). Milan: Mimesis.
This volume collects a number of scientific articles dealing with history, linguistics, philology, archaeology, ethnology and anthropology of the ancient and modern Iranian peoples.
But we would like to take this opportunity to mention ‘Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief‘, which has been designed by Dr Sarah Stewart and Dr Céline Redard and is offered as a free online course (MOOC).
The latest issue of Iran and the Caucasus (26.4) contains several interesting contributions.
Table of contents:
Li Sifei: Tubo-Sogdian Relations along the Silk Road: On an Enigmatic Gold Plaque from Dulan (Qinghai, China)
Sebastian Bitsch: Hell’s Kitchen: The Banquet in the Hereafter and the Reflexion of Zoroastrian Eschatological Motifs in the Qurʾān
Alex MacFarlane: The City of Brass and Alexander’s Narrow Grave: Translation and Commentary of Kafas added to Manuscript M7709 (Part 2)
Richard Foltz: The Survival of Ossetians in Turkey
Marco Fattori: The Elamite Version of A2Ha and the Verb vidiyā- in Old Persian
John D. Bengtson and Corinna Leschber: On Criticism of S. L. Nikolayev/S. A. Starostin, A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary
Victoria Arakelova: The Talishis on Opposite Banks of the Araxes River: Identity Issues
Arsen K. Shahinyan: The Southern Boundaries of the Southern Caucasus
Adrian C. Pirtea: [Review of] Samuel N. C. Lieu, Glen L. Thompson (eds.), The Church of the East in Central Asia and China (China and the Mediterranean World, 1), Turnhout: “Brepols”, 2020.—xiii + 245 pp.
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.
Ognibene, Paolo, Antonio Panaino & Andrea Piras. 2023. Studi Iranici Ravennati IV. Milano; Udine: Mimesis.
The forth volume of the Studi Iranici Ravennati, a collection of research papers on Iranian studies edited by the scholars of Iranian Studies at the University of Bologna in Ravenna.
In this monograph, the author proposes a general reflection on the metaphysics of the Zoroastrian priestly organization in the light of the Indo-Iranian context and starting from the preparation of the sacrifice and the installation of the seven assistant priests in the solemn Zoroastrian liturgy under the direction of their chief-priest, the zaōtar-. The relationship between priests and gods is analysed in the light of the symbolism endorsed by the priestly college, which is “activated” as a mimetic double of the divine world. Thus, names, functions and liturgical correspondences between the eight priests (seven plus the zaōtar-) and the college of Aməṣ̌a Spəṇtas headed by Ahura Mazdā himself (as zaōtar-) are discussed. On the other hand, the book analyses the functional correspondences of the activated priestly team in the Vedic field. The author also develops a discussion concerning the unbroken chain of sacrificial rituality as a structure of the cosmic and temporal order. Within this framework, he highlights the importance of the deinstallation or deactivation of the sacrificial college before the end of the Yasna in the long liturgy, a theme that is linked to the question of the reinstallation of another college in the unbroken chain of cosmic liturgy. This study also sheds light on the question of the purpose of the sacrifice and that of the bloody sacrifice. Finally, it proposes a return to Kerdīr through an analysis of the “vision” of the High Priest, this time explained as an esoteric liturgy of the encounter with the feminine double.
While the first volume of A History of Rationality in Ancient Iran aims both to determine the significance of ancient Iran within the framework of the theory of the Axial Age (German Achsenzeit) and to point to some of the basic figures of a history of rationality that can be recognised in the Iranian materials and still extends to the present day, the second volume shown here serves above all to extend this analysis of figures into thematic fields that are essential for the understanding of Iran.
In three sections – “Substance and Spirit”, “Explorations of the World. The Becoming of History”, “The Path to Truth” – a total of 16 texts are brought together which, on the one hand, outline basic constellations and concepts of thought, as they characterise the (older and younger) Avesta in particular, and, on the other hand, trace the movements which emanate from precisely these formations of thought.
The second volume is preceded, as it were, by a counterpoint to the discussion of the axial perspective in the first volume, by a critique of the historical-philosophical definition and classification of Iran and Zoroastrianism, as developed by Hegel in his various series of lectures and as it has since then sustainably guided the view of Iran in ancient studies.
