SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This article examines some Younger Avestan expressions and liturgical passages which highlight their indebtedness to the Older Avesta, in particular to the Yasna Hapta∞haiti. It argues that the first eight chapters of the Yasna have, like the Yasna Hapta∞haiti, a concentric arrangement and give special prominence to themes present in the older work. The article also discusses Y 13.4 as an instance of the adaptation of a Gathic phrase to a YAv. context, the common YAv. syntactic combination of a middle form of the verb vis ‘to enter, make oneself available’ with a predicative nominative and, finally, a quotation of the Pahlavi version of Y 37.1 in the Bundahisn. Such quotations and adaptations of OAv. material are interpreted as indicating that the YAv. composers had the Older Avesta and earlier YAv. texts in mind and were both able and at liberty either to quote them verbatim or to change and adapt their wording to different and new syntactic contexts.