Yasna 28.11, Yašt 1.26 and the Warštmānsar Nask: untangling an intertextual network (2019) (original) (raw)

Detailed TOC followed by a brief outline of my PhD thesis (final version, February 2021)

The Yasna ī Rapiϑβin is usually classified as one of the liturgies belonging to the Long Liturgies (LLs), although it is not a vīspa ratu ceremony. It has been only edited once by ANKLESARIA (1888: 312ff.) with the ritual instructions in Gujarati. However, an in depth structural analysis of the Yasna ī Rapiϑβin texts has not yet been carried out. In this contribution, we try to sketch the main features of the text of the Yasna ī Rapiϑβin, regarding the ritual logic behind these variations in comparison to the Yasna. Furthermore, we summarize the information on the context in which the Yasna ī Rapiϑβin from the Sasanian times is performed, with the evidence of the Nērangestān, through the Revāyat to the present days with the information gathered by MARY BOYCE (1969).

This article argues that the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti constituted the kernel of a ritual text recited during the Yasna ceremony. Zaraθušhtra's Gathas were arranged around it, and so were the holy prayers and later additions in Younger Avestan. The arrangement of the extant Older Avesta is probably the original one, and may go back to the composer himself. Its compositional principle is that of parallelism and ring composition, a pattern which can be found both in individual Gathic hymns, two of which (Y 28 and 43) are analysed, and in the structure of the entire Yasna.

This article examines the extent of the concluding section (Y 41) of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti in light of the manuscript evidence and the section's divergent reception in a Middle Persian text known as the “Supplementary Texts to the Šāyest nē Šāyest” (Suppl.ŠnŠ). This investigation will entertain the possibility of an alternative ritual being described in the Suppl.ŠnŠ. Moreover, it argues that the manuscripts transmit the ritual text along with certain variations and repetitions while the descriptions of the extent of each section preserve the necessary boundaries of the text as a textual composition or unit.