König_Notes and Considerations on the History of the Gāϑās

Studies on the Iranian World I. Before Islam, 2015

SUMMARY The Avestan socio-spatial ordering system comprised of four levels is discussed as a socio-ritual ordering system in this paper. It is proposed that its correspondence to the time ordering system, the watches of the day, in the Young Avestan texts is not according to the order of watches of day but is based on some ritual realities from this period. Furthermore, it is shown that the there is no evidence for a shift in the sequence of the watches of the day as it has been proposed so far. The evidence only suggests a change in the watch of the Yasna celebration from Ušahina watch to the Hāuuani watch. Social space is one of the significant categories of space in different cultures. In Zoroastrian, Young Avestan texts, it is mostly represented as a hierarchical structure comprising four levels nmāna-, vīs-, zaṇtu-and daŋ́hu-. In this paper, the structure of Young Avestan social space as a socio-ritual ordering system is discussed and it is proposed that its correspondence to a time ordering system in the Young Avestan texts is based on some ritual realities from this period.

The Ahuna Vairiia prayer is never repeated three times in extant Avestan texts and also the Pahlavi literature excludes this number of repetitions. This is because three repetitions of the Ahuna Vairiia are the Avestan text used for the very centre of the Zoroastrian long liturgy: the slaughter of the sacrificial victim and the meat offerings to the fire. Here again, we discover the central importance of the sacrifice when the Avestan texts used in the long and short liturgies got their current shape. Further, it is shown a ritual parallelism between the slaughter of the victim and the pounding of the haōma.

East and West, 2021

Il presente articolo tratta in dettaglio del significato iconografico dei "preti-uccello" zoroastriani rinvenuti durante gli scavi del "Complesso Cerimoniale" del sito corasmio di Akchakhankala. Queste figure, rappresentanti Parōdarsh, epifania animale del sacerdote aiutante dello yazata Sraosha, sono ascrivibili con precisione, assieme al loro contesto archeologico, a un periodo compreso tra il I secolo a.C. e il I secolo d.C., epoca in cui furono dipinte sul muro di fondo dell'ampia aula colonnata del complesso. Il "prete-uccello" corasmio, essere ibrido dato dall'associazione di uomo e gallo, precede di svariati secoli le sue ben note rappresentazioni d'ambito sogdiano in Asia centrale e Cina. In genere, se da un lato l'arte pittorica di Akchakhan-kala mostra l'utilizzo di straordinari archetipi iconografici persiano-achemenidi, dall'altro testimonia l'ingresso nella regione di elementi a essa contemporanei elaborati dall'ellenismo orientale. La posizione del motivo del "prete-uccello" rispetto a questo contesto storico-artistico, e un'ipotesi sulla sua originale elaborazione, sono puntualizzati nel presente articolo. Vista la scarsità di materiale pittorico in Asia centrale in epoca storica, è inoltre osservato come l'analisi dell'arte della Corasmia antica possa contribuire allo studio di questioni più generali, e rilevanti per la storia dell'arte dell'Asia, come la diffusione, trasmissione e ricezione di repertori iconografici tra mondo iranico, India ed ellenismo orientale. * This paper is a modified version of a conference paper presented at the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute in 2018. It was originally intended to be published in 2019. 1 Also known in older publications as Kazakly-yatkan and alternatively spelled Akshakhan-kala. For a full description of the site, see (most recently) Betts et al. 2016b; Minardi, Betts, Khozhaniyazov 2017. 2 Helms et al. 2001 with references. The KAE is a joint project of the University of Sydney and the Research Institute for the Humanities, Academy of Science of Uzbekistan, Karakalpak branch, Nukus, codirected by A.V.G. Betts and G. Khozhaniyazov. The writer joined the team in 2010. 81 [1] 3 On the radiocarbon dating, see Betts et al. 2016b: 127, 154, fig. 6; finds at Akchakhan-kala confirm this chronology. For instance, no Kushan coins have been found during the excavations at the site, unlike at Toprak-kala, the following (regional?) capital of Chorasmia (for further details and information on the dating of Toprak-kala, see Minardi 2018; 2020a with references). 4 For details on the chronology and periodization of the polity, see Minardi 2015a; on the earliest phases and the data on the Achaemenid domination in the area, see Minardi forthcoming b with references to previous work. 5 Minardi 2020a with references. 82 [2] 6 On the dragon/ketos/makara, see Minardi 2016a with references. 7 For further details on the hypostyle hall of Akchakhan-kala and on its functions as an elite space, see Minardi, Betts, Khozhaniyazov 2017. 8 The "portraits" are more likely representations of the fravashis than members of the royal clan stricto sensu (Minardi 2018); this interpretation, supported by new evidence, is further sustained and detailed in Minardi et al. 2020.

Indo-Iranian Journal

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.

ANCIENT FUNERAL CEREMONIES IN THE ZOROASTIAN RELIGION, 2024

This article describes in detail the funeral rites of the Zoroastrian (fire worship) religion, which is the basis of the first monotheistic doctrine. It also talks about different views on the burial of a deceased person and the first burial places “dakhma.” The main purpose of the article is to analyze the funeral rites in the doctrine from a historical point of view.

Aux sources des liturgies indo-iraniennes

The rituals in Avestan language have been considered for a long time as late secondary products. Only in the last years, it has started to become clear that the Avestan rituals are not random compositions out of surviving materials from the Great Avesta, but primary compositions. The most obvious consequences for our understanding of the Avestan texts are: 1. that we are compelled to try a coherent reading of all texts recited in each single Avestan ritual; 2. our understanding of each single part of a ritual is only possible in the light of the position it takes in the ritual. In this paper, it is proposed that, furthermore, all rituals in Avestan language are part of a complex ritual system sharing a common pack of textual and ritual blocks and a series of combinatory rules. It opposes the traditional Yasna-centric view according to which shorter rituals are extracted from the Yasna and longer are just random extensions from it. Fundamental elements in the complex ritual system are the prose litanies. These prose sections that imitate in the formal the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti contain the contextual performative information (time and date of the performance and god for whom it is performed) and are combined with textual blocks in poetic form that cannot be easily modified and never contain variable information like the date of performance. Usually the litanies are combined in “multiple litanies”, in which the same litany is repeated with several performative verbs. ...

SCIENZE, FILOSOFIA E LETTERATURA NEL MONDO IRANICO Da Gundishapur ai nostri giorni Omaggio a Carlo Saccone per i suoi 70 anni, 2024

Depictions of Central Asian deities related to local forms of Zoroastrianism sometimes appear as standing pairs or as seated on thrones with zoomorphic protomes. Their attributes and the frequent presence of symbolic miniature animals held in their hands on a tray seem to be reflective of codified religious iconographies reproduced more or less faithfully at all the archaeological sites examined herein. It is not always easy to propose firm identifications for the deities in these pairs. In this study, hypothetical identifications are given for two divine pairs that are particularly widespread in pre-Islamic Sogdian art. These identifications are made on the basis of astrological-astronomical arguments, and this method may unravel the mysteries surrounding these images.