The ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' (),
Avestan for "Worship in Seven Chapters," is a set of seven hymns within the greater ''
Yasna
Yasna (;"Yasna"
'' 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 monotheistic ...
Avesta
The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.
The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the lit ...
. Chapter and verse pointers are to ''Yasna'' 35–41. The name is from ''Yasna'' 42, a Younger Avestan text that follows the seven chapters.
Age and importance
While the first two verses (i.e. ''Y''. 35.1-2, ''cf.'' ) of the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' are in Younger Avestan, the rest of the seven hymns are in Gathic Avestan, the more archaic form of the
Avestan language
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 ...
. That older part of the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' is generally considered to have been composed by the immediate disciples of Zoroaster, either during the prophet's lifetime or shortly after his death. Joanna Narten () has suggested that, like the
Gathas, the hymns of the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' were composed by Zoroaster himself, but this hypothesis has not received a significant following from the academic community.
In substance, the seven chapters are of great antiquity and contain allusions to the general (not necessarily Zoroaster-influenced) religious beliefs of the period in which Zoroaster was himself a priest. The texts are thus also of significance to scholars of religious history, and play a key role in the reconstruction of
(Indo-)Iranian religion and for distinguishing Zoroaster's contributions from previously existing ideas and beliefs.
Structure and content
As represented within the greater ''Yasna'' liturgy, the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' are placed (and recited) between the first and second Gathas. Unlike the Gathas however, which are in verse, the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' is in prose. Analysis of the texts suggests that the hymns of the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' were composed as a discrete unit. The last verse of the last chapter suggests that the seven chapters represent the historical Yasna liturgy, around which the other chapters of the present-day ''Yasna'' were later organized. In that verse (41.6), the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' is personified as "the brave ''Yasna''" and "the holy, the ritual chief."
[A similar personification of the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'' occurs in the Younger Avestan hymn of the ''Hawan Gah'', a text of the '']Khordeh Avesta
Khordeh Avesta, meaning 'little, or lesser, or small Avesta', is the name given to two different collections of Zoroastrian religious texts. One of the two collections includes the other and takes its name from it.
* In a narrow sense, the term ...
'' collection.
The ''
zand Zand may refer to:
* Zend, a class of exegetical commentaries on Zoroastrian scripture
* Zand District, an administrative subdivision of Iran
* Zand Boulevard, in Shiraz, Iran
* Z And, a variable star
As a tribal/clan and dynastic name
* Zand tr ...
'' commentaries on the seven chapters summarize their contents as follows:
In the 19th century, ''Yasna'' 42 was considered to be a supplement to the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti'', but later discussions of the liturgy do not include it as such. ''Yasna'' 42 is younger than the ''Yasna Haptanghaiti''.
References
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Further reading
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{{Zoroastrianism
Avesta