ZEND-AVESTA, the 'commentary lore' (zend, as above; ávesta or ávista being regular for ávitta (vid); Pahlavi Ávísták va Zand), comprises the ancient sacred writings of the Parsees, which, however, appear in no one MS., and are marked only by their language and general subject as a homogeneous whole. They occupy with their repetitions about a hundred thousand words, although there is good evidence that they were many times more voluminous, twenty-one books like the Vendidád having once existed and been lost. Like other sacred documents, they include works of widely differing character and age, representing the Zoroastrian religion at several differing stages in its development; they were collected into their present canon under Shahpuhar II. (Shahpur II.; 309–338 A.D.), having also received the attention of the Persian government in the non-Zoroastrian (Arsacid) period under Valkhash (Vologeses I.), a contemporary of Nero. The Yasna (sacrifice-liturgy) is itself a grouping together of important documents surrounding the Gáthas, which as the only original and historical part, separated from all the other surviving documents, are by centuries the oldest and also otherwise the most important also received of the Yasna and of the Avesta. The Visparad ('all the seasons,' or 'chief objects worshipped at the seasons') seem to have been additions to the several chapters of the Yasna (see the Vendidád Sâde, where they are mostly so written). They celebrate each sacred object as for the moment 'chief of the ritual.' The Vendidád (vî-daêvodâtá, 'laws established against the Demons') is again a compilation of widely differing matter, including valuable myths and extensive prescriptions for the exorcism of the Demon of putrefaction, together with more serious laws, while the Yashts are mostly invocations addressed to particular divinities. The Niyâyishes are daily praises to the sun, moon, water, fire, &c.; the Afrinagán are blessings repeated six times in the year over certain meals in memory of the dead; the Gâhs are prayers at the five watches of the day and night; the Sirôzah enumerates the attributes of the spiritual beings who preside over and give names to the thirty days of the month; and then there are later fragments.
A separation of these parts, especially of the two great divisions of Old and New Avesta, is indispensable to all serious consideration of the work, and the very regrettable but wide-spread neglect of such a distinction has simply left the lore of the original Avesta, the Gáthas, for the most part wholly lost in the nature-worship and superstitions of the later books. In the original Avesta none of the polytheistic features of the Veda and later Avesta appear. There is no sun-worship, nor moon-worship as noted above, no star-worship, nor Mithra-worship, nor Tishtriya (Sirius)-worship, and no Haoma-worship. There are even no Fravashis, the forth-existing (hardly 'pre-existing') guardian spirits of the dead (cf. the pitaras and manes) or of invisible and immortal beings. The very attributes of God escape perhaps entirely their later inferior but still sublime dogmatic personification; their personification even when they are invoked may be a higher poetical personification leaving them still the characteristics and not merely the archangels of a Supreme Being. And he is not yet at all identified with 'light' as so often stated; nor did he 'create the world by his Word the Honorer' (Ahuva vayrya) which is a later prayer (Yathâ ahú vayryó) founded on a line of the Gáthas. Zoroaster his prophet did not laugh at his own birth (Pliny) nor 'withdraw from the world,' nor 'live on cheese for thirty years,' and out of the heap of this rubbish we must dig that remarkable religion which was not surpassed or equalled by any lore outside of the Semitic Scriptures. It is contained in seventeen precious fragments in Aryan metres like the Vedic Trishítup, Gâyatrí, and Ásurí, not more extensive than, say, thirty or forty average Vedic hymns. In these the supreme Deity Ahura Mazda, the Living God or 'Lord' (ahu = 'the living,' 'life,' or 'spirit,' root ah = 'to be'), the Great Creator (maz + dá = Sansk. mahá + dhá), or 'the Wise One' (cf. su-medhás), is represented as endowed with and acting through six attributes, Vohu Manah, his
Good Mind (Benevolence; possibly 'his sagacity'), Asha (Vedic rita), his Order (the plan and symmetry of his works, an idea developed from the regularity of the seasons as the appointed times for prayer), his Sovereign Power Khshathra, his Perfect-mindedness Aramaiti (when dwelling in the pious worshipper it is 'complete readiness of mind,' 'devotion,' 'piety'), then his Haurvatât, welfare, wholeness, and its abiding character his Immortality, Ameretatât. These are practically the forms under which he shows himself as the Creator of heaven and earth and of all good things to his faithful worshipper the thrifty guardian of the herds, which as the source of honest livelihood had already become sacred, and were represented by the 'Mother Cow,' and by the 'Kine's Soul.'
The saintly citizen was also of necessity a tiller (vâstriya) of the not yet superstitiously sacred or worshipped earth, and an adherent to, or member of, the Maga (see below), the sacred Cause or Commonweal, more definitively expressed in the Holy Law the Daëna, the Insight (of conscience, &c.; cf. dîn, root di = dhi = 'to see'), by which he exercised his obedience Sraosha (not yet the personified angel) in 'caring for the poor.' In which duty he was opposed by the non-agricultural (avâstriya) freebooting Daëva (Deva)-worshippers who were struggling with him for the control of the territory, aided by the Turanians on the north, only a handful of whom became the Friendlies (Fryana) by conversion. These enemies invaded his fields with murderous rapine (Aëshma), carrying on a warfare which was at once a scene of raid and battle embittered on the one side (that of the Daëva-worshippers) by the divergencies of religious belief. And this in the course of protracted experience brought out into sharper outlines the recognition of one dreadful and self-dependent spiritual power, Ângra Mainyu—the assaulting (?) spirit—who was alone responsible for those sufferings which made Iranian life a load, and who acted through his chief attribute the Plotting Lie (Drukhs, Druj), perhaps, but not certainly, already dogmatically personified. He also instigates the Assault of the Raid Aëshma (see above), being animated by his Aku Munah (or Achishta Manah, Evil or 'Worst' Mind, insanity), which corresponds antithetically to Vohu Manah, although no full six attributes symmetrically corresponding to those of Ahura appear in those portions of the Gâthas which have survived to us. The moral idea is analysed as to thought, word, and deed, and represented as actuating the holy people in their struggle against their powerful and dangerous assailants, little room being left (as in the later Avesta) for anathematizing such corruptions as Pride, Scorn, Slander, Envy, the Harlot, the Sorceress. These were however doubtless quite as fully reprobated by the earliest saints. In the last 'turning of the world' the faithful Mazda-worshippers were (together with their less civilised opponents) to undergo a final ordeal. This the faithful successfully meet by passing, encouraged 'by their own conscience,' over the Chinvat, the Judge's (or the Assembler's?) Bridge. This extended toward the Home of Sublimity (or Song) Demâne Garô, which was a Heaven of good thoughts and words and deeds, the scene of God's manifestation as the rewarder. And to this they, the faithful, are welcomed by the souls that have gone before; and there they are to enjoy unending felicity. Whereas the wicked failing to pass the 'narrowed' Bridge (so in the later Zoroastrianism) and 'curst by their own consciences' (so literally) fall to the Abode of the Lie-Demon. There they are met by the souls of the already damned with poisoned food and vile reproaches, and enter a Hell of evil thoughts and words and deeds where they remain for ever.
Such is the Gâthic or original Zoroastrian religion. There is one allusion to the very ancient myth of Yima, Vedic Yama. The god Vayu may possibly be mentioned, but the word may be an exclamation. The Fire is already the symbol of holiness, and we have an allusion to an ordeal by means of it. (This later, and not in Gâthic times, degenerated into the full imposture of the Nirang-i-var, which consisted in pouring molten brass on the breast as a test of innocence.) Beyond these there is little trace of lower elements. 'The wail of the Herd's soul' is poetically represented as articulate, and Zarathushtra is figuratively said to question Ahura; but such features recur in all similar ancient as in modern compositions. The system, if not a pure Unitarianism, is certainly a pure Dualism.
The later Avesta, notwithstanding great difference in the character of its many component parts, may here be treated collectively. In it, while the sublimity maintains itself as throughout, the scene is changed, and the now established religion has paid for its success by the acceptance of doubtfully desirable additions. Ahura is still supreme, save in two foolish passages where he compliments inferior deified objects by joining in the sacrifice to them, which however is by the fact itself shown not to have involved what we call 'worship,' and the bathos is not so decided as in the case of the drunken Indra. God's attributes have become dogmatically personified Archangels with great loss of original meaning. Their names are then given as the Amesha Speïta (Amshaspends), Immortal Bounteous (or 'Holy'?) Ones. Vohu Manah (still later) becomes the representative of the good creation, Asha Vahishta of the fire, Khshathra-vairya of metals (from an accidental occurrence of words); Spenta Ar(a)maiti becomes the earth; Haurvatât represents the waters (merely accidentally, and hardly from the healthfulness of waters); Ameretatât represents plants. The Fravashis, the 'forth-existing Manes,' appear. The Fire receives sacrificial veneration, as do the sun, moon, stars, earth, verdure, waters, &c. Still later six seasons of creation are distinguished, and the five divisions of the day. Sraosha becomes a warrior angel, and the Gâthas are so ancient that their present number, 'five,' is recognised and mentioned as they are 'worshipped.' Zarathushtra loses all his human traits, and becomes a mythic demigod, conversing literally with Ahura. Laws are given through him, some of them wise and some of them excessively trivial. The Haoma-worship (see SOMA) begins, then Mithra and a throng of gods appear, and the Avesta becomes almost the Rik, and with more of its metres. The Vedic gods are often, but not always, turned into devils. Vis â vis to the Amesha Speïta (see above) appear correspondingly as six demons Aka Manah (the Evil Mind), Indra, Sauru (cf. Çarva, a name of Çiva), Nâonghaitya (Ved. Nâsatya), Tanru (cf. Sansk. tura = wound), and Zairika (cf. Sansk. jaras = decay), actually grouped, however, with their opposed divinities only in the greatly later Pahlavi Bundahish.
As to the birthplace of the Avesta, we must postulate several different regions for the different works. The privileges of the Zarathushtrian Ragha mentioned in the later Avesta have been supposed to confirm the claims of that province to be the cradle of Gâthic life; but they may have had little to do with it. Airya Vaëja (the Aryan starting-place) is lost in prehistoric mists. In the Vendidad we have, although in less original forms, the well-known names of Sughdha (Samarkhand?), Môurn (Merv), Bâkhdi (Baktra, Balkh), Harôyn (Harrud), Vehrâna (Jorjan), Harahvati (Harût), Haëtamant (Helmend), Ragha (Rai), Hapta Hindu (Punjab); and these according generally with the statements of the later Greeks lead us to look towards the east of Iran, where the Daëva-worshippers must have once lived before they became 'River-men' (Hindus) by descending into the Five Waters (Punjab). Keresaspa, an early hero, is located at Kabul, and the name Jemshid still lingers in Eastern Iran. Later the lore may have travelled westward, for Atropatene became a centre; but a religion as like the Avesta as parts of the Avesta are like each other was at home in all Media and Persia under the Achemenids, Arsacids, and Sassanians up to the Arabic conquest in 650 A.D., and a fragment of its adherents still linger at Yazd and Kerman (see PARSEES).
The age of the Avesta is to be estimated from its oldest part, the historical, which under no circumstances can be put later than 700 or 800 B.C.—i.e. two or three centuries before the inscriptions of Persepolis and Behistun, c. 500. These mention the Magians, who, by several usages never Gâthic (especially by the exposure of the dead), are identified with the later Avesta, and several centuries are necessary to account for the change. The language of the inscriptions is also in an advanced stage of decay from the earlier inflections; and this, while not decisive, has much weight, for newer language is on the whole more natural to newer writings than older forms. History is on the side of a remoter antiquity, for some of the Greeks placed Zoroaster very long before their time. But the proper test is criticism, which places the Gâtha close beside the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda—say 1200 to 1500 B.C., Zoroaster being mythically associated with the ancient Yima (Sansk. Yama). But we may be led on to accept a still remoter antiquity for the Gâthas. The absence of Mithra, Agni, Indra, and even of Soma (Haoma) and the Pitaras (Fravashis), demands a new if alternative hypothesis, which is not that they were dropped gradually or suddenly (Hang), but that these deities were still unknown and therefore ante-dated (in Iran). And this would place the Gâthas so far back as to enable us to account for the name of maga (which is strictly Aryan), as carried down by Turanian Akkadians to Babylon, and also for the appearance of Zoroaster's name in those regions (cf. Polyhistor as cited by Professor Rawlinson, Sir H. Rawlinson having also conjectured a Semitic etymology for the word). The earlier part of the later Avesta should be placed at about 600 B.C. to account for the exposure of the dead, &c., mentioned by Herodotus as Magian, while its later (genuine) portions extend say to the 3d century B.C., and easily recognisable additions may be indefinitely later.
The influence of the Avesta, or of the ancient lore of which it is a fragment, was possibly felt first in Babylon (see above), but also extended later and adversely to hostile India, where its dahyus were reprobated as dasyus and its Ahura classed with the now later reprobated Asuras. But Mazdâh-worship, of which the Avesta was the chief exponent, extended over all Iran and Media, as well as Bactria. Añgra Mainyu his great adversary is as fiercely represented on the inscriptions of Darius as he is in large portions of the Vendidad, where Druj, his representative, defiles by impurity, as he does so often on the tablets by the Plotting Lie (Draogha). The actual name Añgra Mainyu does not appear either on the rocks mentioned or in the greater part of the Vendidad itself. Even Haurvatât and Ameretatât, the great Anushaspend, Weal and Immortality (two of the Seven), are totally absent from one entire third of the Avesta, and this renders the negative argument from the absence of the names from the Inscriptions worthless as proof against the recognised existence of either these Gods or of that
Demon at the dates indicated. The Inscriptions are full of the spirit of the Avesta, which may possibly be named Abasta (so Oppert); or they are full of a lore from which both sprang. If not the Avesta, then a closely related sister-lore influenced the 'Cyrus' of Isaiah, the 'seven spirits' of Zechariah (cf. also Rev.), the Phari-sees who were the Farsees = Parsees, &c. The Avesta influenced the Gnostic philosophy in its sources—cf. the δημουργός εἰνοίας = Vohn Manah (Plutarch), δημουργός σοφίας = Aramaiti (Strabo), the δημουργός πλουτὸν = Haurvatât (Plutarch), and 'Α(μα)ν(α)ἵδατος** = Ameretatât (Strabo). It influenced Jakob Boehme (born 1575), and through him Schelling, and even the modern antithetical Dialektik and dualism (see Zeller's Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, pp. 14 and 687). For the traditional development among the Indians, see the article PARSEES.
Literature.—Spiegel's Yasna and Vendidad texts have also the Pahlavi translation. Geldner's objective edition gives an invaluable mass of variations. For the translations, see the Sacred Books of the East, by Darmesteter and the present writer (vols. iv. xxiii. and xxxi.); the latter's Gâthas, with literal and free translations, commentary, and the Zend, Pahlavi, Sanskrit, and Persian texts (Brockhaus, 1892); also Darmesteter's Yasna in French (1892).