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Zend
Zend or Zand ( pal, 𐭦𐭭𐭣) is a Zoroastrian technical term for exegetical glosses, paraphrases, commentaries and translations of the Avesta's texts. The term ''zand'' is a contraction of the Avestan language word ' (, meaning "interpretation", or "as understood"). ''Zand'' glosses and commentaries exist in several languages, including in the Avestan language itself. These Avestan language exegeses sometimes accompany the original text being commented upon, but are more often elsewhere in the canon. An example of exegesis in the Avestan language itself includes ''Yasna'' 19–21, which is a set of three Younger Avestan commentaries on the three Gathic Avestan 'high prayers' of ''Yasna'' 27. ''Zand'' also appear to have once existed in a variety of Middle Iranian languages, but of these Middle Iranian commentaries, the Middle Persian ''zand'' is the only to survive fully, and is for this reason regarded as 'the' ''zand''. With the notable exception of the ''Yashts'', almost ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rasmus Rask
Rasmus Kristian Rask (; born Rasmus Christian Nielsen Rasch; 22 November 1787 – 14 November 1832) was a Danish linguist and philologist. He wrote several grammars and worked on comparative phonology and morphology. Rask traveled extensively to study languages, first to Iceland, where he wrote the first grammar of Icelandic, and later to Russia, Persia, India, and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Shortly before his death, he was hired as professor of Eastern languages at the University of Copenhagen. Rask is especially known for his contributions to comparative linguistics, including an early formulation of what would later be known as Grimm's Law. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1829. Early life Rask was born to Niels Hansen Rasch and Birthe Rasmusdatter in the village of Brændekilde near Odense on the Danish island of Funen. His father, a smallholder and tailor, was well-read and had a decently-sized book collection. As a child, Rask's scholastic ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron
Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (7 December 173117 January 1805) was the first professional French Indologist. He conceived the institutional framework for the new profession. He inspired the founding of the École française d'Extrême-Orient a century after his death. The library of the Institut français de Pondichéry is named after him. Early life Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil was born in Paris on 7 December 1731 as the fourth of seven children of Pierre Anquetil, a spice importer. As was the custom of the time, the name of one of his father's estates, "Duperron", was added to his name to distinguish him from his brothers. Anquetil-Duperron initially distinguished himself in the study of theology at Paris and Utrecht with the intention of becoming a priest like his elder brother Louis-Pierre Anquetil. In the course of his studies, however, he acquired such an interest in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek that he chose to devote himself entirely to philology and classical studies a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 liturgical group is the ''Yasna'', which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, and at which the ''Yasna'' text is recited. The most important portion of the ''Yasna'' texts are the five Gathas, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of the ''Yasna'', are in the Old (or 'Gathic') Avestan language. The remainder of the ''Yasna'''s texts are in Younger Avestan, which is not only from a later stage of the language, but also from a different geographic region. Extensions to the Yasna ceremony include the texts of the ''Vendidad'' and the ''Visperad''. The ''Visperad'' extensions consist mainly of addit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pazend
Pazend () or Pazand ( pal, 𐭯𐭠𐭰𐭭𐭣; ae, 𐬞𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 𐬰𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬙𐬌) is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used to write Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. Pazend's principal use was for writing the commentaries (''Zend'') on and/or translations of the Avesta. The word "Pazend" ultimately derives from the Avestan words ''paiti zainti'', which can be translated as either "for commentary purposes" or "according to understanding" (phonetically). Pazend had the following characteristics, both of which are to be contrasted with Pahlavi, which is one of the other systems used to write Middle Persian: * Pazend was a variant of the Avestan alphabet (''Din dabireh''), which was a phonetic alphabet. In contrast, Pahlavi script was only an abjad. * Pazend did not have ideograms. In contrast, ideograms were an identi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avestan Alphabet
The Avestan alphabet (Middle Persian: transliteration: ''dyn' dpywryh'', transcription: ''dēn dēbīrē'', fa, دین دبیره, translit=din dabire) is a writing system developed during Iran's Sasanian era (226–651 CE) to render the Avestan language. As a side effect of its development, the script was also used for Pazend, a method of writing Middle Persian that was used primarily for ''Zend'' commentaries on the texts of the Avesta. In the texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the alphabet is referred to as "the religion's script" (''dēn dibīrih'' in Middle Persian and ''din dabireh'' in New Persian). History The development of the Avestan alphabet was initiated by the need to represent recited Avestan language texts correctly. The various text collections that today constitute the canon of Zoroastrian scripture are the result of a collation that occurred in the 4th century, probably during the reign of Shapur II (309–379). It is likely that the Avestan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 scriptural language of Zoroastrianism, and the Avesta likewise serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language. The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana, corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Jones (philologist)
Sir William Jones (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and a scholar of ancient India. He is particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among European and Indo-Aryan languages, which later came to be known as the Indo-European languages. Jones is also credited for establishing the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784. Early life William Jones was born in London; his father William Jones (1675–1749) was a mathematician from Anglesey in Wales, noted for introducing the use of the symbol π. The young William Jones was a linguistic prodigy, who in addition to his native languages English and Welsh, learned Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and the basics of Chinese writing at an early age. By the end of his life he knew eight languages with critical thoroughness, was fluent in a further eight, with a dictionary at hand, and had a fair c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bundahishn
''Bundahishn'' (Avestan: , "Primal Creation") is the name traditionally given to an encyclopedic collection of Zoroastrian cosmogony and cosmology written in Book Pahlavi. The original name of the work is not known. Although the ''Bundahishn'' draws on the Avesta and develops ideas alluded to in those texts, it is not itself scripture. The content reflects Zoroastrian scripture, which, in turn, reflects both ancient Zoroastrian and pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. In some cases, the text alludes to contingencies of post-7th century Islam in Iran, and in yet other cases, such as the idea that the Moon is farther than the stars, it reiterates scripture even though science had, by then, determined otherwise. Structure The ''Bundahishn'' survives in two recensions: an Indian and an Iranian version. The shorter version was found in India and contains only 30 chapters, and is thus known as the ''Lesser Bundahishn'', or '' Indian Bundahishn''. A copy of this version was brought to Europe by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denkard
The ''Dēnkard'' or ''Dēnkart'' (Middle Persian: 𐭣𐭩𐭭𐭪𐭠𐭫𐭲 "Acts of Religion") is a 10th-century compendium of Zoroastrian beliefs and customs during the time. The Denkard is to a great extent considered an "Encyclopedia of Mazdaism" and is a valuable source of information on the religion especially during its Middle Persian iteration. The ''Denkard'' is not considered a sacred text by a majority of Zoroastrians, but is still considered worthy of study. Name The name traditionally given to the compendium reflects a phrase from the colophons, which speaks of the ''kart''/''kard'', from Avestan ''karda'' meaning "acts" (also in the sense of "chapters"), and ''dēn'', from Avestan ''daena'', literally "insight" or "revelation," but more commonly translated as "religion." Accordingly, ''dēn-kart'' means "religious acts" or "acts of religion." The ambiguity of ''-kart'' or ''-kard'' in the title reflects the orthography of Pahlavi writing, in which the letter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religions, Iranian religion and one of the world's History of religion, oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian peoples, Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a Dualism in cosmology, dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a Monotheism, monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good. Zoroastrianism exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom known as ''Ahura Mazda'' () as its supreme being. Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism, messianism, belief in Free will in theology, free will and Judgement (afterlife), judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, Angel, angels, and Demon, demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions and Gnosticism, Southern, Eastern and Northern Buddhism, Northern Buddhism, and Ancient Greek philosoph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacred Language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives. Concept A sacred language is often the language which was spoken and written in the society in which a religion's sacred texts were first set down; these texts thereafter become fixed and holy, remaining frozen and immune to later linguistic developments. (An exception to this is Lucumí, a ritual lexicon of the Cuban strain of the Santería religion, with no standardized form.) Once a language becomes associated with religious worship, its believers may ascribe virtues to the language of worship that they would not give to their native tongues. In the case of sacred texts, there is a fear of losing authenticity and accuracy by a translation or re-translation, and difficulties in achieving acceptance for a new version of a text. A sacred language is typ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (logic), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations of virtually any text, including not just religious texts but also philosophy, literature, or virtually any other genre of writing. The phrase ''Biblical exegesis'' can be used to distinguish studies of the Bible from other critical textual explanations. Textual criticism investigates the history and origins of the text, but exegesis may include the study of the historical and cultural backgrounds of the author, text, and original audience. Other analyses include classification of the type of literary genres presented in the text and analysis of grammar, grammatical and syntax, syntactical features in the text itself. Usage One who practices exegesis is called an ''exegete'' (; from the Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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