SOAS Research Online

Abstract

On the basis of the Avesta and the Rigveda, the article provides an outline the Indo-Iranian ritual involving a triangular configuration of patron, priest and god engaged in gift-exchange. By investigating the contexts of the much disputed, but important, Gathic word maga-, it highlights some aspects of the Old Avestan ritual governed by the same triangular pattern of ritually enacted gift-exchange. Finally, it discusses the Gathic evidence for exchange and reciprocity in a non-ritual, religious context. It concludes that there are, in the Gathas, two distinct, but interpenetrary, exchange patterns: first, the inherited Indo-Iranian triangular model underlying the ritual activity and governing the relationship between Zarathustra and some of his contemporaries and, secondly, a new pattern without Indo-Iranian antecedent, of a two-way relationship between any human being and Zarathustra’s god, Ahura Mazda.