SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Written as part of my collaboration at the ERC-funded “The Multimedia Yasna” (MUYA) project, this thesis is concerned with the final ten chapters 62–72 of the Zoroastrian ritual known as Yasna. The work comprises a discussion of the methodology employed in the MUYA project, the edition of Y 62–72 with a critical apparatus and the ritual directions of ms. 5, a translation in English of both the Avestan text and of the ritual directions, a linguistic commentary, a discussion of the ritual directions, and, finally, a table showing the variations which Yasna 62–72 undergoes in the Visperad, Vidēvdād and Vištāsp Yašt ceremonies. The main aim of the MUYA project is the publication of a series of critical editions of sections of the Avesta, and its main feature is the combination of traditional philological practices with the use of digital technologies to facilitate the editors’ activity. Consequently, the editorial process entailed the following steps: transcribing the text of Y 62–72 from about 30 manuscripts in the Online Transcription Editor (OTE) application and encoding all the features of the text of these manuscripts in .xml files (transcriptions); uploading the transcriptions into the online Collation Tool, where they are automatically collated against the basetext; semi-automated collation, where the editor manually organises the entries of the critical apparatus and chooses the final (= edited) text; final .txt output of the text and apparatus, to be imported into the programme LaTeX, with which the pdf version of the edition was produced. The commentary involves traditional philological tools. It is divided into two main sections: on the one hand, the ritual commentary is focused on the ritual directions of the manuscripts that describe the ritual according to the Iranian tradition, and discusses issues related to the ritual aspects of the ceremony; on the other, the philological commentary assesses the linguistic issues with reference to form, meaning and evidence of the manuscripts. The linguistic commentary focuses on Y 62.1–10, Y 65 and Y 68 because these are the only sections in Y 62–72 which are not repeated from other parts of the Yasna, and which therefore require special attention.