Yashts
The Yashts argue that Ahura Mazda's created order is upheld by many distinct worshipful divine beings, Mithra, the waters, the sun, guardian spirits, personified virtues, who reward with victory and prosperity those who invoke them correctly.
- individual hymns to specific yazatas rather than a single unified god
- absorption of older pre-Zoroastrian Iranian cult material
- the Mihr Yasht to Mithra as a major, comparatively archaic component
- oral composition written down only centuries later under the Sasanians
A collection of 21 hymns of praise addressed to individual yazatas, worshipful ones, in the Zoroastrian pantheon under Ahura Mazda: the sun and moon, the star Tishtar, the waters, the guardian Fravashis, and figures such as Mithra and the personifications of justice and courage. Several Yashts, notably the great Mihr Yasht to Mithra, preserve material widely judged pre-Zoroastrian or only loosely reconciled with the Gathas' strict dualism, suggesting the priesthood absorbed older Iranian cults into the Zoroastrian system rather than suppressing them. Composed orally in Younger Avestan across a long, imprecisely dated period conventionally bracketed 1000-400 BC; as with the rest of the Younger Avesta, the texts were not committed to writing until the Sasanian era, centuries later, so the dating here reflects compositional history rather than manuscript date. Its exact location within that eastern Iranian world is unknown.
Commentary
Readers' notes on this work. No account needed - be scholarly, or at least civil.
Loading commentary…