What is the Avesta?
The Avesta is the canonical scripture of Zoroastrianism, the ancient Iranian religion of the prophet Zarathustra (Greek: Zoroaster). It is written in Avestan, an extinct Eastern Iranian language closely related to the Vedic Sanskrit of the Vedas. The corpus contains hymns, priestly liturgy, ritual law, and eschatological teaching. Its oldest and most authoritative layer, the Gathas, consists of seventeen hymns attributed directly to Zarathustra. These are the primary source for his theology.
The Avesta vs. the Gathas, the Vedas, and Zoroastrianism
The Avesta and the Gathas are not the same thing. The Gathas are the innermost core, believed to be Zarathustra's own compositions. The broader Avesta is the full canon that surrounds them, including later priestly texts on ritual and law. The Avesta is also distinct from the Vedas. Both descend from the same Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition and share cognate words and deities. But they developed separately. The Avesta is monotheistic in emphasis, while the Vedas are polytheistic. One signal of the split: the word the Vedas call deva (a god) is daeva (a demon) in Avestan. The two traditions took the same ancestral term in opposite directions. Finally, the Avesta is the text, not the religion. Zoroastrianism includes theology, practice, and community that extends well beyond the canon itself.
Structure of the canon
The Avesta is a collection of distinct texts grouped by function. The Yasna ('sacrifice, worship') is the central liturgical text, recited by priests during the Yasna ceremony. The Gathas sit within the Yasna as its innermost section. The Visperad adds supplementary invocations. The Vendidad ('given against the demons') is a priestly law code addressing ritual purity and the cosmic struggle against druj. The Yashts are twenty-one hymns to individual deities, including Mithra and Anahita. The Khordeh Avesta ('Little Avesta') is a devotional anthology for daily use by laypeople. All these texts were originally oral compositions. Zarathustra's dating is contested. Scholars place him anywhere from c. 1800 BCE to c. 600 BCE, with most recent scholarship tending toward the earlier end. The oral tradition was first written down during the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE), using an alphabet created specifically for Avestan. That written canon was largely destroyed after the Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century CE. What survives today is estimated at roughly one-quarter of the original Sasanian compilation.
Transmission and survival
The oldest surviving Avesta manuscript dates to 1323 CE. That is more than a millennium after Zoroastrianism lost its status as Iran's state religion. The texts were preserved by priestly communities in Yazd and Kerman, and by the Parsi community of Gujarat, India, who emigrated to escape persecution following the Islamic conquest. Scholars distinguish between the reconstructed Avestan language and the surviving manuscripts, which are copies of copies made long after the language ceased to be spoken. The meaning of many passages remains disputed. The tradition holds that the original Avesta comprised twenty-one nasks (books) and was substantially destroyed, first by Alexander the Great's burning of Persepolis (c. 330 BCE) and again under Arab rule. Historians treat these destruction accounts with some caution. But the documented loss of Zoroastrian literature under successive conquests is real. The surviving corpus is a fragment of what once existed.
The Avesta in the index
The index does not yet hold items specifically about the Avesta or Zoroastrianism. The Faravahar entry covers Zoroastrianism's central symbol and the theology of asha (cosmic truth and order) and druj (falsehood, chaos). The Dharma entry treats the Hindu and Buddhist concept of cosmic order, which functions as a rough parallel to asha. The Afterlife entry covers cross-traditional eschatology; Avestan teaching on the Chinvat Bridge, moral judgment, and the soul's destination after death is among the oldest systematic accounts in any tradition. The Vedas entry covers the parallel Indo-Iranian scriptural corpus. The Hinduism entry covers the tradition that shares Proto-Indo-Iranian roots with early Zoroastrianism. As content covering Zoroastrian teaching enters the index, this entry will gather it.