Khordeh Avesta, meaning 'little, or lesser, or small Avesta', is the name given to two different collections of
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
religious texts. One of the two collections includes the other and takes its name from it.
* In a narrow sense, the term applies to a particular manuscript tradition that includes only the five '' Nyayesh'' texts, the five '' Gah'' texts, the four '' Afrinagan''s, and five introductory chapters that consist of quotations from various passages of the ''Yasna''.. More generally, the term may also be applied to
Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scrip ...
yasht
The Yashts are a collection of twenty-one hymns in the Younger Avestan language. Each of these hymns invokes a specific Zoroastrian divinity or concept. ''Yasht'' chapter and verse pointers are traditionally abbreviated as ''Yt.''
Overview
The wor ...
s and the thirty '' Siroza'' texts, but does not usually encompass the various Avestan language fragments found in other works.
* In the 19th century, when the first ''Khordeh Avesta'' editions were printed, the selection of Avesta texts described above (together with some non-Avestan language prayers) became a book of common prayer for lay people.. In addition to the texts mentioned above, the published ''Khordeh Avesta'' editions also included selections from the ''Yasna'' necessary for daily worship, such as the '' Ahuna Vairya'' and '' Ashem Vohu''. The selection of texts is not fixed, and so publishers are free to include any text they choose. Several ''Khordeh Avesta'' editions are quite comprehensive, and include
Pazend
Pazend () or Pazand ( pal, ๐ญฏ๐ญ ๐ญฐ๐ญญ๐ญฃ; ae, ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐ฌฐ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ฌฅ๐ฌ๐ฌ) is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used t ...
prayers, modern devotional compositions such as the poetical or semi-poetical
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
''monagat''s, or glossaries and other reference lists such as dates of religious events.