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48-529: The Avestan word Saoshyant derives from an active participle (indicated by the -ant- ) of the future stem of the verbal root sū- / sau- , which itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European root * ḱewh₁- 'to swell'. The Avestan sūra- 'strong' and yawaēsū- 'ever-thriving' derive from this root. Over time, the verbal root acquired the extended meanings 'to be of use, profit, advantage' and 'to create profit, use, advantage, to further'. It

96-470: A certain Ādurbād Ēmēdān of Baghdad , who is also the author of the remaining six books. The manuscript 'B' (ms. 'B 55', B for Bombay) that is the basis for most surviving copies and translations is dated 1659. Only fragments survive of any other copies. The Denkard is roughly contemporary with the main texts of the Bundahishn . The Denkard originally contained nine books or volumes, called nasks , and

144-613: A copy of the Avesta , and another in which the Greeks translate the Avesta into their own language. Book 4, the shortest (and most haphazardly organized) volume in the collection, deals primarily with the arts and sciences. Texts on those topics are interspersed by chapters explaining philosophical and theological concepts such as that of the Amesha Spentas , while other chapters deal with history and

192-549: A lake that miraculously preserved the seed of the prophet Zoroaster himself. The story of the Saoshyant's conception and early life are described in Denkard 7.10.15ff as follows: Thirty years before the decisive final battle, a maiden named Eredat-fedhri ("Victorious Helper") and whose nickname is "Body-maker" will enter a lake (in Yasht 19.92, this is "Lake Kansava"). Sitting in the water,

240-519: A likely archaeological reflection of the early " Eastern Iranian " culture that is described in the Zoroastrian Avesta . It is not known what the original speakers of Avestan called the language. The modern term "Avestan" comes from the Avesta , a collection of Zoroastrian religious literature composed in the language, the name of which comes from Persian اوستا , avestâ and is of obscure origin, though it might come from or be cognate with

288-800: A number of reasons for this shift, based on both the Old Avestan and the Young Avestan material. As regards Old Avestan, the Gathas show strong linguistic and cultural similarities with the Rigveda , which in turn is assumed to represent the second half of the second millennium BC. As regards Young Avestan, texts like the Yashts and the Vendidad are situated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran and lack any discernible Persian or Median influence from Western Iran. This

336-572: A proper name in the Younger Avesta, explicitly so in Yasht 13.129 where it is used in the singular and where Astvat-ereta develops into an alternate name of the Saoshyant. The singular also appears in Yasna 59.1 where Verethragna is said to be Saoshyant's weapon in overcoming resistance. A plural form appears for instance in Yasht 17.1 where Ashi —the divinity of "recompense"—is described to give

384-409: Is an epithet of these saoshyant s. In contrast, the standing epithet of the saviour figure(s) is [astvat-әrәta] Error: {{Lang}}: Non-latn text/Latn script subtag mismatch ( help ) "embodying righteousness," which has arta / asha "Truth" as an element of the name. These saviours are those who follow Ahura Mazda's teaching "with acts inspired by asha " ( Yasna 48.12). Saoshyant first appears as

432-459: Is attested in roughly two forms, known as "Old Avestan" (or "Gathic Avestan") and "Younger Avestan". Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan; the two differ not only in time, but they are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, underwent several transformations. Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in

480-560: Is classified as Eastern Old Iranian. But the east–west distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the linguistic developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical (South-)Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, and so in this sense, "eastern" only means "non-western". Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and largely agrees morphologically with Vedic Sanskrit . The Avestan language

528-526: Is identified as the son of Vîspa.taurwairî and it is stated that he will come forth from Lake Kansaoya/Kansava and will carry the same weapon Verethragna that a number of Iranian epic heroes and kings have used in the past against various demonic foes. Haurvatat , Ameretat , the righteous Dūraoša and other similar entities will be his companions and together, they will vanquish the evil creations of Angra Mainyu . Already alluded to in scripture (e.g. Yasht 19.88-96, see above), but only properly developed in

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576-522: Is in this extended sense that the word Saoshyant was understood by Zoroastrians. In stanzas 128 and 129 of Yasht 13, the following explanation of the word's etymology is given: "we worship the frawaṣ̌i of righteous [Astwat̰-әrәta] Error: {{Lang}}: Non-latn text/Latn script subtag mismatch ( help ) , who will be the Victorious Saošyant by name ... (he is called) saošyant because he will further ( sāwayāt̰ ) all material life". In

624-489: Is interpreted such that the bulk of this material, which has been produced several centuries after Zarathustra, must still predate the sixth century BC. As a result, more recent scholarship often assumes that the major parts of the Young Avestan texts mainly reflect the first half of the first millennia BC, whereas the Old Avestan texts of Zarathustra may have been composed around 1000 BC or even as early as 1500 BC. The script used for writing Avestan developed during

672-422: Is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit , the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language . The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia , Aria , Bactria , and Margiana , corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , and Uzbekistan . The Yaz culture of Bactria–Margiana has been regarded as

720-611: The c.  12th century texts of Neryosang Dhaval and other Parsi Sanskritist theologians of that era, which are roughly contemporary with the oldest surviving manuscripts in Avestan script. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in the Gujarati script ( Gujarati being the traditional language of the Indian Zoroastrians). Some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example,

768-519: The /z/ in zaraθuštra is written with j with a dot below. Avestan has retained voiced sibilants, and has fricative rather than aspirate series. There are various conventions for transliteration of the Avestan alphabet , the one adopted for this article being: Vowels: Consonants: The glides y and w are often transcribed as < ii > and < uu >. The letter transcribed < t̰ > indicates an allophone of /t/ with no audible release at

816-464: The Gathas , the most sacred hymns of Zoroastrianism, believed to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, the term is used as a common noun to refer to the prophet's own mission and to his community of followers, who "bring benefit" to humanity. The common noun also appears in the Younger Avesta (e.g. Yasna 61.5), where it generically denotes religious leaders, including Zoroaster (e.g. Yasna 46.3) Another common noun airyaman "member of community"

864-450: The Sasanian period ". The Avestan language is only known from the Avesta and otherwise unattested. As a result, there is no external evidence on which to base the time frame during which the Avestan language was spoken and all attempts have to rely on internal evidence. Such attempts were often based on the life of Zarathustra as the most distinct event in the Avestan period . Zarathustra

912-515: The kart / kard , from Avestan karda meaning "acts" (also in the sense of "chapters"), and dēn , from Avestan daena , literally "insight" or "revelation", but more commonly translated as "religion." Accordingly, dēn-kart means "religious acts" or "acts of religion." The ambiguity of -kart or -kard in the title reflects the orthography of Pahlavi writing , in which the letter ⟨t⟩ may sometimes denote /d/. The individual chapters vary in age, style and authorship. Authorship of

960-502: The "Book of Daylamite", is addressed to a Muslim, Yaqub bin Khaled, who apparently requested information on Zoroastrianism. A large part of this section is summary of the history (from the Zoroastrian point of view) of the world up to the advent of Zoroaster and the impact of his revelations. The history is then followed by a summary of the tenets of the faith. According to Philippe Gignoux ,

1008-671: The 1st millennium BC). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism . Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family . Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language , a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language , with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language ; as such, Old Avestan

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1056-414: The 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for many centuries, and remained in use only as a liturgical language of the Avesta canon. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood and recited by rote. The script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh "religion writing". It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left. Among

1104-503: The 53 characters are about 30 letters that are – through the addition of various loops and flourishes – variations of the 13 graphemes of the cursive Pahlavi script (i.e. "Book" Pahlavi) that is known from the post-Sassanian texts of Zoroastrian tradition. These symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably

1152-411: The 9th–12th century texts, is the role of the Saoshyant during the final renovation. In these Middle Persian texts, the name is contracted to Soshans or similar ( Sōshans in living Zoroastrianism). Those medieval works of Zoroastrian tradition envision three future saviours, each of them a Soshans/Saoshyant, with one for the end of each thousand-year period that comprise the last 3,000 years of

1200-489: The Avestan term 𐬎𐬞𐬀𐬯𐬙𐬁𐬬𐬀𐬐𐬀 , upastāvaka , 'praise'. The language was sometimes called Zend in older works, stemming from a misunderstanding of the Zend (commentaries and interpretations of Zoroastrian scripture) as synonymous with the Avesta itself, due to both often being bundled together as "Zend-Avesta". Avestan and Old Persian are the two attested languages comprising Old Iranian , and while Avestan

1248-523: The Denkard at least makes it possible to determine which portions are missing and what those portions might have contained. The Denkard also includes an enumeration of the divisions of the Avesta, and which once served as the basis for a speculation that only one quarter of the texts had survived. In the 20th century it was determined that the Denkard's divisions also took Sassanid-era translations and commentaries into account; these were however not considered to be

1296-546: The Saoshyants the power of "making wonderful" ( frasho.kereti ). The term may also be rendered as "Renovation" and can be translated etymologically as " juicy-making ". The role of the Saoshyant, or Astvat-ereta, as a future saviour of the world is briefly described in Yasht 19.88-96, where it is stated that he will achieve the Frashokereti, that he will make the world perfect and immortal, and evil and Druj will disappear. He

1344-495: The Zoroastrians of the period were severely criticized, such as marriage to next-of-kin (chapter 80). Although on first sight there appears to be no systematic organization of the texts in book 3, the chapter that deals with the principles of Zoroastrian cosmogony (Ch. 123) is the central theme around which the other chapters are topically arranged. The last chapter of book 3 mentions two legends: one in which Alexander destroys

1392-470: The efficacy of good thoughts, words and deeds as a means to battle evil. Book 6 is a compilation of andarz (a literary genre, lit: "advice", "counsel"), anecdotes and aphorisms that embody a general truth or astute observation. Most of the compositions in book 6 are short didactic sentences that deal with morality and personal ethics. Structurally, the book is divided into sections that are distinguished from one another by their introductory formulae. In

1440-460: The end of a word and before certain obstruents . According to Beekes, [ð] and [ɣ] are allophones of /θ/ and /x/ respectively (in Old Avestan). The following phrases were phonetically transcribed from Avestan: Denkard The Dēnkard or Dēnkart ( Middle Persian : 𐭣𐭩𐭭𐭪𐭠𐭫𐭲 "Acts of Religion") is a 10th-century compendium of Zoroastrian beliefs and customs during

1488-508: The extant texts. In roughly chronological order: Many phonetic features cannot be ascribed with certainty to a particular stage since there may be more than one possibility. Every phonetic form that can be ascribed to the Sasanian archetype on the basis of critical assessment of the manuscript evidence must have gone through the stages mentioned above so that "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan" really mean no more than "Old Avestan and Young Avestan of

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1536-666: The final renovation are described in the Bundahishn (30.1ff): In the final battle with evil, the yazatas Airyaman and Atar will "melt the metal in the hills and mountains, and it will be upon the earth like a river" ( Bundahishn 34.18) but the righteous (i.e., the ashavan ) will not be harmed. Eventually, Ahura Mazda will triumph, and his agent Saoshyant will resurrect the dead, whose bodies will be restored to eternal perfection, and whose souls will be cleansed and reunited with God. Time will then end, and asha and immortality will thereafter be everlasting. Bahá'í tradition considers

1584-425: The first three books is attributed by the colophons to 9th-century priest Adurfarnbag-i Farrokhzadan , as identified in the last chapter of book 3. Of these three books, only a larger portion of the third has survived. The historian Jean de Menasce proposes that this survival was the result of transmission through other persons. The first three books were edited and in fact partially reconstructed, circa 1020, by

1632-475: The first two and part of the third have not survived. However, the Denkard itself contains summaries of nasks from other compilations, such as Chihrdad from the Avesta , which are otherwise lost. The natural divisions of the books are as follows: Books 3-5 are devoted to rational apologetics , book 4 to moral wisdom, and books 7–9 to exegetical theology . Book 3, with 420 chapters, represents almost half of

1680-456: The girl, who has "not associated with men" will receive "victorious knowledge." Her son, when born, will not know nourishment from his mother, his body will be sun-like, and the "royal glory" of the Khvarenah will be with him. Then, for the next 57 years he will subsist on only vegetables (17 years), then only water (30 years) and then for the final 10 years only on "spiritual food." The events of

1728-496: The later Zardosht-nama ) in that it presents the story of the prophet as an analogy of the Yasna ceremony. The thematic and structural divisions are as follows: Book 8 is a commentary on the various texts of the Avesta , or rather, on the Sassanid archetype of the Avesta. Book 8 is of particular interest to scholars of Zoroastrianism because portions of the canon have been lost and

1776-438: The names of authors that may have once been the last part of the book. In its extant form the book has a sixth part that, like the first part, addresses religious subjects. Book 7 deals the "legend of Zoroaster", but which extends beyond the life of the prophet. The legend of Zoroaster as it appears in the Denkard is differs slightly from similar legends (such as those presented in the contemporaneous Selections of Zadspram and

1824-504: The prophecies of the Saoshyant (Bahá'i 'Soshyosh') to have been fulfilled in the person of Bahá'u'lláh , while the prior two Soshans of Zoroastrian tradition are interpreted as referring to Muhammad and the Báb , respectively. Avestan Avestan ( / ə ˈ v ɛ s t ən / ə- VESS -tən ) is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages , Old Avestan (spoken in the mid-2nd to 1st millennium BC) and Younger Avestan (spoken in

1872-481: The religious contributions of Achaemenid and Sassanid monarchs. Book 4 also contains an enumeration of works from Greece and India , and "reveals foreign influence from the 3rd century onward." The last chapter of Book 4 ends with a chapter explaining the necessity for practicing good thoughts, words and deeds, and the influences these have on one's afterlife. Book 5 deals specifically with queries from adherents of other faiths. The first half of Book 5, titled

1920-470: The section "clearly nationalist and Persian in orientation, expressing the hope of a Mazdean restoration in the face of Islam and its Arab supporters." The second half of Book 5 is a series of 33 responses to questions posed by a certain Bōxt-Mārā, a Christian . Thirteen responses address objections raised by Boxt-Mara on issues of ritual purity . The bulk of the remaining material deals with free will and

1968-526: The surviving texts. Jean de Menasce observes that there must have been several different authors at work, as the style and language of the collection is not uniform. The authors are however united in their polemic against the "bad religions", which they do not fail to identify by name (the prudent avoidance of any mention of Islam being an exception). The majority of the chapters in book 3 are short, of two or three pages apiece. The topics covered in detail, though rare, frequently also identify issues for which

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2016-581: The thematic divisions identified by Shaul Shaked, the first part is devoted to religious subjects, with a stress on devotion and piety. The second and third are related to ethical principles, with the third possibly revealing Aristotelian values. The fourth part may be roughly divided into sections with each addressing a particular human quality or activity. The fifth part includes a summary of twenty-five functions or conditions of human life, organized in five categories: destiny, action, custom, substance and inheritance. The fifth part also includes an enumeration of

2064-412: The time. The Denkard is to a great extent considered an "Encyclopedia of Mazdaism" and is a valuable source of Zoroastrian literature especially during its Middle Persian iteration. The Denkard is not considered a sacred text by a majority of Zoroastrians, but is still considered worthy of study. The name traditionally given to the compendium reflects a phrase from the colophons , which speaks of

2112-432: The vowels, which are mostly derived from Greek minuscules. A few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language; the character for /l/ (a sound that Avestan does not have) was added to write Pazend texts. The Avestan script is alphabetic , and the large number of letters suggests that its design

2160-570: The world (these three millennia follow the "millennium of Zoroaster"). According to the tradition (found e.g. in the Jamasp Namag ), the first Saoshyant will be named (H)Ushedar, the second (H)Ushedarmah and the third will again be the Saoshyant, who will lead humanity in the final battle against evil. The medieval works also transmit a tradition in which the three future saviours are mythologised as born of maidens, conceived while their mothers bathed in

2208-458: Was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective. The Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi -based scripts. This is a relatively recent development first seen in

2256-401: Was localized in the northeastern parts of Greater Iran according to Paul Maximilian Tedesco  [ de ] (1921), other scholars have favored regarding Avestan as originating in eastern parts. Scholars traditionally classify Iranian languages as "old", "middle" and "new" according to their age, and as "eastern" or "western" according to geography, and within this framework Avestan

2304-545: Was traditionally based in the 6th century BC meaning that Old Avestan would have been spoken during the early Achaemenid period . Given that a substantial time must have passed between Old Avestan and Young Avestan, the latter would have been spoken somewhere during the Hellenistic or the Parthian period of Iranian history. However, more recent scholarship has increasingly shifted to an earlier dating. The literature presents

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