Open Collections

Palladino, Martina

Database of Religious History (DRH)

The Yasna is the Zoroastrian long liturgy. Originally composed in Avestan, it was then translated into Pahlavi and some comments to the text were added. Then, the text was brought to India by the Parsi community and, presumably between the 12th and the 14th century, further translated into Sanskrit. The Sanskrit text includes many layers, namely a proper translation of the original text of the Yasna, based however on the Pahlavi version, with occasional direct reference to the original Avestan text; the translation into Sanskrit of some Pahlavi comments to the text; original Sanskrit comments, added to explain further the Zoroastrian concepts and adapt them to the Indian sociocultural environment. Finally, a few Sanskrit ritual instructions were added to the text. The Sanskrit version has never had a ritual value, but it is in any case interesting from a religious point of view. In fact, the significant terms of the Zoroastrian cult are rendered with meaningful terms belonging to other religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and, above all, Jainism. The Jaina environment of Gujarat has deeply influenced the Sanskrit version of the Yasna: for instance, the script, the so-called Parsi Nāgarī, is very close to the Jaina Nāgarī; the palaeography is close to the Jaina one, too; the text includes graphical elements which recalls the ones present in Jaina manuscripts, etc. A systematic translation project is recognisable behind the Sanskrit text, whose compilation was influenced by both Indian regional features and the Zoroastrian tradition. In the translation process, the passage from one language to the other implies the adaptation of all the formal and semantic aspects of terms and expressions. In this case, the passage went through two steps, first from Avestan to Pahlavi and then from Pahlavi to Sanskrit. The translators into Sanskrit were philologists ante litteram, who carried out a refined work of Indo-Iranian comparative philology. Finally, the geographical settlement of the Parsi community in (north-)western India, a land which has always been characterised by religious and cultural syncretism, has for sure encouraged such kind of refined study and comment to the text. There are still many open questions and the reason of the translation into Sanskrit is not clear, since the Parsi ritual language has always been Avestan and their mother tongue Gujarati. Were they trying to reach out other Indian communities and promote themselves at court? Were they providing a well-known Indian format to the Parsi community itself? The Sanskrit text of the Yasna is therefore not useful on a ritual level, but it may be extremely meaningful to throw light on the socio-cultural context of its compilation.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0431136

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/