Khordeh Avesta

Name

The Modern Persian term Khordeh Avesta is derived from Middle Persian hwltk ʾp(y)stʾkʼ (xwurdag abestag). Here, Avesta refers to the collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, whereas xwurdag is Middle Persian for small, minor or little. The name therefore means Little Avesta or Minor Avesta. This Minor Avesta is often seen in contrast to the Great Avesta of the Sasanan period. Next to Khordeh Avesta, other scholarly transliterations of the name include Khorde Avesta, Khorda Avesta, Ḵorda Avesta or Xorde Avesta.

Deleniation of the term

The Khordeh Avesta collections are very heterogeneous and in modern scholarhsip, the manuscripts are, therefore, grouped into two or three main classes. The largest class contains a number of short liturgies, like the Niyayishn, the Afrinagan, and several shorter Yashts. They have been labeled the Khordeh Avesta "in the proper sense of the term." The second class are the so called Tamam Khorda Avesta manuscripts. Here, Tamam is Gujarati for complete. As the name implies, they are found among Indian Zoroastrians, and contain a more complete collection of hymns, in particular, a full collection of all Yashts. Sometimes, pure Yasht manuscripts are also classified as Khorda Avesta, but most consider them to be a distinct class of short liturgies. In the following, we will focus on the first class, i.e., the Khordeh Avesta "in the proper sense of the term."

Manuscripts

The extant manuscripts of the Khordeh Avesta can be classified according to a number of traits. The have been analyzed by König and grouped into whether they contain a translation or not, the languange of the translation, the script which is used and whether they originated from the Iranian or Indian Zoroastrian communities:

Here the top category classifies according to whether the manuscript contains a translation or not.This category is similar to the classification of manuscripts of the Long Liturgy. However, manuscripts of the Long Liturgy with translations are used by priests for exegetical pruposes, whereas the translations of the Short Liturgies allows lay people to understand their content. Consequently, none of them have a Zend.

Structure and content

Even manuscripts of the proper Khordeh Avesta show pronounced differences. Hardly two manuscripts are exact copies of one another and no attempt at a text critical stemmatic has ever been attempted. In his seminal edition of the Avestan corpus, Geldner referred to the Khordeh Avesta as a mere Sammelsurium (hodgepodge). However, more recently, König has analyzed the available manuscripts of this type and identified the core structure, which is found therein.

A common structure of the proper Khordeh Avesta would, therefore, be bookended by some introductory prayers and final minor texts, whereas the core would consist of the Niyayishn, the Gāh, the Yasht, and the Afringan. König has, furthermore, argued that the arrangement of the prayers in the Khordeh Avesta is organized according to the occasions on which Zoroastrians are supposed to perform them.

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