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Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism

Liber XXXVI · Zoroastrianism · Chapter II: The Avesta

The Bundahishn and Zoroastrian Pahlavi Literature Explained

The Bundahishn, Denkard, Arda Viraf and other Pahlavi books: the Middle Persian literature that preserves Zoroastrian cosmology, law and theology.

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Pahlavi literature is the body of Zoroastrian religious writing in Middle Persian, the language of Sasanian Iran, and its best-known work is the Bundahishn, the "Primal Creation", an encyclopaedic account of how Ohrmazd made the world, how Ahriman attacked it and how it will be restored. Most of these books were compiled by priests in the ninth and tenth centuries, under Islamic rule, but they preserve much older interpretation of the Avesta, and without them our knowledge of Zoroastrian theology, law and myth would be fragmentary.

What Is Pahlavi? Language, Script and the Zand§

Middle Persian was the language of south-western Iran from roughly the third century BCE to the ninth century CE, and the official language of the Sasanian empire (224–651 CE). "Pahlavi" is the name usually given to the script and literary form in which Zoroastrian priests wrote it. The script descends from Aramaic and has only a few letters, several of which look alike; it also uses many Aramaic words written as fixed signs but read as Persian (so-called heterograms or ideograms). The result is notoriously hard to read, and modern editions often differ in their transcriptions.

Much Pahlavi writing grew out of the Zand, the Middle Persian translation and commentary on the Avesta. Because Avestan had long ceased to be spoken, priests needed glosses to understand the scripture they recited, and the Zand became the channel through which theology was developed and taught. Some texts were later transcribed into Avestan script, a form known as Pazand, to make pronunciation unambiguous. For the Avestan scripture itself, see the Avesta.

The Priests Who Wrote the Pahlavi Books§

Although the material is often Sasanian, the surviving books took shape after the Arab conquest, when Zoroastrians had become a minority defending their faith against Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Manichaeism. The leaders of the community, styled hudenan peshobay, "leader of those of the Good Religion", compiled and systematised the tradition. Among the best-known figures are Adurfarnbag i Farrokhzadan, who disputed before the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun in the early ninth century; Adurbad i Emedan, who completed the Denkard in the tenth century; and Manushchihr i Juwanjaman, high priest of Pars and Kerman in the later ninth century, who wrote the Dadestan i Denig ("Religious Judgments") and letters of protest against his own brother.

That brother, Zadspram, wrote the Wizidagiha ("Selections"), a treatise on creation, the life of Zarathustra and human nature that overlaps with the Bundahishn and shows unusual interest in natural science. These works were written for a learned priestly audience and assume knowledge of the Avesta and its commentary.

The Bundahishn: The Zoroastrian Book of Creation§

The Bundahishn ("Primal Creation" or "Creation from the Beginning") survives in two forms: a shorter Indian recension and a longer Iranian one, often called the Greater Bundahishn, edited and translated by Behramgore Tehmuras Anklesaria under the title Zand-Akasih in 1956. Its final redaction dates from the ninth century or later, but it explicitly draws on the Zand of lost Avestan books.

The two spirits and the 12,000 years§

The work opens with Ohrmazd in endless light above and Ahriman in endless darkness below, separated by a void. Ohrmazd, foreseeing Ahriman's attack, creates the world first in a spiritual, invisible state (menog) and then in a material, visible state (getig). Ahriman is stunned for 3,000 years when Ohrmazd recites the Ahuna Vairya prayer. World history lasts 12,000 years, divided into four periods of 3,000, ending in the final renovation described in Zoroastrian eschatology.

The seven creations and the assault§

Ohrmazd fashions seven creations in sequence: the sky, water, the earth, plants, the uniquely created bull, the first man Gayomard, and fire, which pervades all the others. Ahriman then breaks into the world, piercing the sky, bringing darkness, noxious creatures and death; the bull and Gayomard die. From the bull's seed come the animals and from its body the useful plants; from Gayomard's seed, after forty years, grows a rhubarb plant from which the first human couple, Mashya and Mashyane, emerge. They are deceived into declaring that Ahriman made the world, and humanity's moral struggle begins.

An encyclopaedia of the world§

Much of the Bundahishn is descriptive: the stars and planets (in which the planets are associated with Ahriman's side and the fixed stars with Ohrmazd's), mountains, seas and rivers, kinds of animals and plants, the nature of the human body, the genealogy of the legendary Kayanian kings and of Zarathustra, and the calendar. It is therefore a key source for Iranian myth and for the cosmology behind Zoroastrian ritual. The broader theology is explained in Ahura Mazda and cosmic dualism.

The Denkard: The Acts of the Religion§

The Denkard ("Acts of the Religion") is the largest Pahlavi work, an encyclopaedia of Zoroastrian knowledge in nine books, of which the first two and part of the third are lost. Begun by Adurfarnbag and completed by Adurbad i Emedan, it contains:

  • Book 3, several hundred short chapters of theology and apologetics, including polemic against other religions and a famous account of how the Avesta was collected under the Sasanian kings;
  • Books 5 and 6, answers to questions and wisdom sayings (andarz), studied by Shaul Shaked in The Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages;
  • Book 7, a legendary life of Zarathustra, with miracles at his birth and accounts of the prophets who came before and after him;
  • Books 8 and 9, summaries of the twenty-one nasks (volumes) of the great Sasanian Avesta, most of which are now lost.

Books 8 and 9 are invaluable, because they show that the Avesta once contained far more legal, ritual and narrative material than survives, and they let scholars identify the subjects of texts known only by name.

Other Major Pahlavi Texts§

The surviving corpus is modest in size but varied. Among the most important works are:

  • The Book of Arda Viraf (Arda Viraf Namag), the visionary journey of a righteous priest through heaven and hell, a vivid catalogue of rewards and punishments.
  • The Spirit of Wisdom (Menog i Khrad), a dialogue in which a sage questions personified Wisdom about the creation, the afterlife and right conduct.
  • The Zand i Wahman Yasn, an apocalypse describing the ages of the world as branches of metal and foretelling disasters before the coming of the saviours.
  • The Doubt-Dispelling Exposition (Shkand-gumanig Wizar) by Mardanfarrokh, a ninth-century defence of dualism with critiques of Islamic, Jewish, Christian and Manichaean doctrine.
  • The Shayest ne Shayest ("Proper and Improper"), a legal compilation on purity, pollution and sin, and the Pahlavi Rivayats, collections of questions and answers on law and practice.
  • Andarz texts, collections of moral advice attributed to sages and kings.

Secular and semi-religious works also survive, such as the Karnamag i Ardashir, a romance of the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, and the Ayadgar i Zareran, an epic about the defence of the faith in the time of King Wishtasp.

Manuscripts, Translation and Modern Debate§

The Pahlavi books were preserved mainly by the priests of Iran and of the Parsi community in India, who exchanged manuscripts and, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, letters of religious advice known as the Persian Rivayats. Western study began when the French scholar Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron brought manuscripts from Surat to Paris and published his translation of the Zend-Avesta in 1771. The first large English translation, E. W. West's five volumes of Pahlavi Texts in the Sacred Books of the East (1880–1897), remains in use, though it has been superseded in detail by modern editions.

These texts also matter in modern Zoroastrian debate. Reformers influenced by nineteenth-century Western scholarship have often sought to return to the Gathas alone, treating later dualistic cosmology as a priestly development, while traditionalists regard the Pahlavi books as authentic interpretation of the faith. Historians use them with care: they are late in their present form, they reflect a community under pressure, and they show traces of debates within Zoroastrianism, including the speculation about Time (Zurvan) studied by R. C. Zaehner. Their relationship to Manichaeism, whose own Middle Persian writings belong to the same world, is another active field.

Frequently asked questions§

What is the Bundahishn?§

The Bundahishn ("Primal Creation") is a Middle Persian Zoroastrian text compiled in the ninth century or later from older Avestan commentary. It describes the creation of the world by Ohrmazd, the attack of Ahriman, the structure of the cosmos and the end of time. It survives in a shorter Indian and a longer Iranian version.

Is the Bundahishn part of the Avesta?§

No. The Avesta is the scripture in the Avestan language, used in worship. The Bundahishn belongs to the later Middle Persian (Pahlavi) literature, which interprets and expands the Avesta, although it draws on the commentary of Avestan books that are now lost.

What is the Denkard?§

The Denkard ("Acts of the Religion") is the largest Pahlavi work, completed in the tenth century. It covers theology, apologetics, wisdom literature and the legend of Zarathustra, and it summarises the contents of the twenty-one books of the Sasanian Avesta.

Sources and further reading§