Aban Yasht

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The Aban Yasht is the fifth Yasht of the 21 Yasht collection. It is named after Aban, the Waters, but is actually in praise of Anahita. It belonges to the so called Legendary Yashts and, with 132 stanzas, it is the third longest in the collection. [1]

Contents

Overview

The Aban Yasht is named after Aban, the personification of the Waters, but its content make it clear that it is actually addressed to Anahita. [1] Anahita is a goddess of rivers and lakes and, in Zoroastrian practice, she fused with Aban over time. [2] It is the fifth Yasht of the 21 Yasht collection and it is grouped into the Legendary Yashts, due to the lenghty descriptions of Avestan heroes sacrificing to her. [3]

Several verses of the Yasht form the Aban Niyayishn, also known as the Ardwi Sur Banu Niyayishn. [4] The Aban Niyayishn is the forth prayer from the Niyayishn collection, and likewise dedicated to Aban and Anahita. [5] Both, the Aban Yasht and Aban Niyayishn are never recited in the presence of fire but only near bodies of water. [6]

Content

Stanzas 1-16 form the opening of the Yasht by praising the boons granted by Anahita. [7] This opening is followed by two long parts ranging from stanzas 17-84 and 97-118, which describe how specific persons sacrifized to Anahita in order to receive such a boon. [8] These descriptions are highly formulaic beginning with a verse decribing the person performing the sacrifice, then a verse where a boon is asked for and finally a verse describing whether the boon was granted.

Thraêtaona of the house rich in life-giving strength sacrificed to her, the son of the house of Âthviya, by four-cornered Varna a hundred stallions, a thousand bulls, ten thousand rams.

Thus he asked her: Give me that prize, O good, Ardwî Sûrâ Anâhitâ, you most rich in life-giving strength, that I may overcome the giant dragon [...]

She gave him then that prize, Ardwî Sûrâ Anâhitâ. The giver of prizes to the expert (poet-sacrificer) carrying (barsom) together with libations who sacrifices to (her and) asks (her favors). On account of her wealth and munificence [...] Thus, we sacrifice to the male and female deities [...]

— Yasht 5.33 - 5.35 (translated by Prods Oktor Skjaervo). [9]

These two parts are separated by stanzas 85-96, which describe how Anahita descends from heaven and Zarathustra's injuctions on how to properly perform the sacrifice. It has been noted that the first part lists people like Yima and Thraetaona, associated with the mythical history of the Avestan people, whereas the second part lists people like Zarathustra and Vistaspa, associated with the Gathas. Stanzas 85-96 may therefore have served to signal the arrival of the new religion instituted by Zarathustra. [10] Finally, stanzas 119-132 form the closing of the Yasht, by describing and praising Anahita's appearance. [11]

History

The Aban Yasht is the product of a fluid oral culture, where over a long period of time material was added, revised and adapted. [12] Some of the poetic elements in the Yasht may point to very early times like the image of Anahita wearing beaver fur. Since this animal lives mostly in the northern regions of Eurasia, this image is sometimes assumed to go back to a time when the Iranians lived further north. [13] Other elements are often speculated to have originated during the Achaemenid period. Since some verses have a focus on her visual representation, it has been speculated that they were added during the 5th-4th century BCE., when statues of Anahita were erected in Persia. This connection has, however been critizied, such that the visual description in the Yasht is more akin to a vision than a description of a statue. [14] In general, there is no consenus on the dating and more recent scholarship has remained sceptical of connecting specific verses to a sepcific time period. [15]

The purely oral history of the Aban Yasht ended during the Sasanian period, when the Avestan literature was edited into a comprehsive anthology of 21 volumes. Within this edition, the Aban Yasht was placed with a number of other Yashts in the Bagan yasht, where it formed the second chapter. [16] This work is now lost but the Aban Yasht survived by being part of the collection of 21 Yashts, which is extant through the F1 and E1 manuscript traditions. [17]

There are no modern editions dedicated to the Aban Yasht alone but its text and translations is made available through critical editions of either the whole Avesta or the Yasht collection. For example Darmesteter published in 1883 a translation into English [18] and in 1892 a translation into French, which also included an appendix. [19] In 1927, Lommel published a translation of the Yasht collection into German. [20]

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Boyce 1982a.
  2. ↑ Boyce 1982b, "[I]n general, the concept of the Waters tends to merge with that of Arədvī Sūrā".
  3. ↑ Hintze 2014, "The first, ‛legendary’, group comprises the six hymns Yt. 5 [...], 9 [...], 15 [...], 16 [...], 17 [..], and 19".
  4. ↑ Boyce 1982a, "The [...] Ābān Niyayeš [..] is almost entirely made up of verses from the [Aban] yašt".
  5. ↑ Malandra 2000, chap. Aban Niyāyišn.
  6. ↑ Boyce 1982a, "In living usage the Ābān Yašt is never recited in a fire temple or before a fire, but only within sight of water. The same is true of the much shorter Ābān Niyayeš".
  7. ↑ Darmesteter 1883, p. 53: "The Yast is opened with a laudation of the benefits bestowed by Ardvi Sara (§§ 1-16)".
  8. ↑ Darmesteter 1883, pp. 52-53.
  9. ↑ Skjaervø 2007, pp. 73-74.
  10. ↑ Darmesteter 1883, pp. 52 -53: "This interruption may have been intentional, as it takes place just when the course of the enumeration brings us to the times of Zarathustra and of the institution of the new religion".
  11. ↑ Darmesteter 1883, p. 53: "it closes with a description of her garments and apparel".
  12. ↑ Hintze 2014, "[T]he Yašts were produced throughout the Old Iranian period in the oral culture of priestly composition, which was alive and productive as long as the priests were able to master the Avestan language".
  13. ↑ Saadi-nejad 2021, p. 70: "In any case, whether beaver fur existed in the Avestan lands or harkens back to an even earlier era, references to beaver skins in the Ābān Yašt suggest that its composer(s) is quoting a very old oral tradition, which cannot be, for example, from Mesopotamia. Rather, it shows that at least initially, Anāhitā was originally a goddess of the lands with cold climate".
  14. ↑ Saadi-nejad 2021, p. 74: "Indeed, certain aspects of Anāhitā's description in the Ābān Yašt seem more likely to be based on a vision than on actual observation".
  15. ↑ Hintze 2014, "Reconstructions of this kind, however, have been found inadequate, as it is impossible to distinguish earlier “pre-Zoroastrian” from later “Zoroastrian” passages in these texts".
  16. ↑ König 2017, pp. 21-22.
  17. ↑ Kotwal & Hintze 2008.
  18. ↑ Darmesteter 1883, pp. 52-84.
  19. ↑ Darmesteter 1892, pp. 363-402.
  20. ↑ Lommel 1927, pp. 168-186.

Bibliography

  • Boyce, Mary (1982a). "ĀBĀN YAŠT". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. 1. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 60–61.
  • Boyce, Mary (1982b). "ĀBĀN". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. 1. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 58.
  • Darmesteter, James (1883). Müller, Max (ed.). Zend-Avesta II: The Sirozahs, Yasts and Nyayis. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. 23. Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
  • Darmesteter, James (1892). Le Zend-Avesta, Vol. 2: Traduction Nouvelle Avec Commentaire Historique Et Philologique; La Loi (Vendidad); L'Épopée (Yashts); Le Livre de Prière (Khorda Avesta). Paris: E. Leroux.
  • Hintze, Almut (2014). "YAŠTS". Encyclopædia Iranica. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  • König, Götz (2017). "Bayān Yasn: State of the Art". Iran and the Caucasus 2. 21: 13–38. doi:10.1163/1573384x-90000003.
  • Kotwal, Firoze M.; Hintze, Almut (2008). The Khorda Avesta and Yast Codex E1 (PDF). Harrassowitz. ISBN   978-3-447-05692-2.
  • Lommel, Herman (1927). Die Yäšt's des Awesta. Quellen der Religionsgeschichte: Iran. Vol. 15. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  • Malandra, William W. (2000). "KHORDEH AVESTĀ". Encyclopædia Iranica. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
  • Saadi-nejad, Manya (2021). Anāhitā: A History and Reception of the Iranian Water Goddess. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc I.B. Tauris. ISBN   978-1838601591.
  • Skjaervø, Prods O. (2007). "Zoroastrian Texts translated with notes by Prods Oktor Skjaervø".
  • Yarshater, Ehsan (1983). "Iranian National History". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 3(1). Cambridge University Press. ISBN   978-0-521-24693-4.
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