aētā̊sә.tē ātarә zaoϑrā̊. On the Mazdean Animal and Symbolic Sacrifices: Their Problems, Timing and Restrictions
p. 119-163
Résumés
Cette contribution traite divers problèmes liés à la doctrine du sacrifice dans la tradition mazdéenne. Le sacrifice incluait habituellement l’abattage d’un animal, mais il était possible de remplacer la victime par une offrande carnée prélevée sur un animal sacrifié antérieurement. Ces deux possibilités répondaient à des nécessités d’ordre pratique.
Alors que les sacrifices auroraux et diurnes étaient des pratiques normales, les cérémonies nocturnes incluant l’abattage, même si elles sont bien connues dans la tradition iranienne, méritent d’être discutées et analysées. Les évidences textuelles montrent que les libations (zaoϑrās) et les sacrifices (yasnas) ont été interdits après le crépuscule (hū frāšmō.dāiti-), c’est-à-dire durant le gāh dédié à la première partie de la nuit. Ce gāh semble avoir été dédié aux activités orales et spéculatives. La seconde partie de la nuit, ušahina-, était au contraire considérée comme une préparation à l’apparition de l’« aurore » (ušah-). Pour cette raison, elle a été choisie pour accueillir la cérémonie Vidēvdād, qui constitue une offensive rituelle dans un espace temporel où le pouvoir des daēuuas était encore important, et surtout où les forces de la discorde et de l’obscurité pouvaient encore arrêter ou retarder le lever du soleil. Le déroulement du Vidēvdād présente des caractéristiques très intéressantes. Il incluait notamment la double récitation du Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, qui correspondait au temps établi pour le sacrifice animal. L’article insiste sur le sens attribué à cette double récitation, qui nous montre la présence potentielle de deux sacrifices successifs, l’un juste avant la première récitation du Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, le second durant sa répétition. Alors que le premier sacrifice trouvait sa place avant le chant du coq, sous la protection de Sraoša, il semble possible qu’un second sacrifice, vraisemblablement sans abattage, était célébré à la lumière du soleil levant. Une telle performance suggère un symbolisme fort, qui nous rappelle la célébration future du sacrifice cosmique, qui doit être offert par Ohrmazd et le troisième Sōšāns. En fait, dans cette longue session rituelle, couvrant la journée entière, seul le sacrifice célébré durant le gāh ušahin confère l’immortalité à l’humanité. L’importance croissante attribuée à la force symbolique du sacrifice et sa réduction à une simple offrande de viande ont favorisé la diminution progressive, puis l’élimination, du sacrifice animal pendant les cérémonies solennelles mazdéennes.
The present contribution deals with a number of problems connected with the animal sacrifice in the Mazdean tradition. The sacrifice included the killing of an animal, but it was also possible to substitute the victim with the offering of a piece of meat taken from an animal sacrificed during a previous session. These two alternatives answered technical reasons.
While morning and daily sacrifices were normal practices, nocturnal ceremonies including slaughtering, although surely known in the Iranian tradition, have been discussed and analysed. Textual evidences show that libations (zaoϑrās) and sacrifices (yasnas) should have been forbidden after sunset (hū frāšmō.dāiti-), i.e. in the gāh or “watch” dedicated to the first part of night. This gāh seems in any case to have been dedicated more to speculative and oral activities. The second part of the night, ušahina-, was considered the one preparing and announcing the appearance of “dawn” (ušah-). For this reason, it was chosen to host among others in particular the Vidēvdād ceremony, which was a sort of ritual attack against the daēuuas, i.e. the forces of disorder and darkness trying to block or delay sunrise. The timing of the Vidēvdād presents some interesting aspects. In particular, it includes the double recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, which was the right time for the animal sacrifice. This article insists on the meaning to be attributed to this double recitation, which presents us with the potential presence of two following sacrifices, once just before the first recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, and a second time during its repetition. While already the first and, in origin, complete sacrifice occurred after the call of the cock, under the protection of Sraoša, the present study investigates the possibility that even a second sacrificial moment, reasonably without animal slaughtering, was performed in the light of the rising sun. Such a performance suggested a strong symbolism, which reminds the one of the future cosmic celebration to be finally performed by Ohrmazd and the third Sōšāns. In fact, in this long ritual session, covering the whole day, the sacrifice celebrated during the ušahin gāh will be the one definitively conferring immortality upon humanity. The increasing importance attributed to the symbolic force of the sacrifice and its progressive reduction to a simple offering of meat favoured the progressive reduction (even the elimination) of the animal sacrifice.
Remerciements
I must thank many colleagues who kindly have read this article during its preparation and who have given to me fitting suggestions and remarks. I thank Dr. Amir Ahmadi (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia), Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Dr. Almut Hintze (SOAS, London), Prof. Dr. Jean Kellens (Collège de France, Paris), Dr. Céline Redard (Université de Liège), Prof. Dr. Adriano Rossi (Università di Napoli, “L’Orientale”), Prof. Dr. Velizar Sadovski (Institut für Iranistik, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien).
Texte intégral
1. Preface: Methodological and Terminological Problems
1The Mazdean doctrine of the “sacrifice” has been a controversial object of discussion, frequently based on a priori categorizations and on general theoretical premises concerning the theological kernel of the Zoroastrian doctrine in the course of its history. In the last ten years a strong revision in the textual analysis of the so-called “Long Liturgies” and of the function and disposition of the “Intercalations”, has strongly contributed to a reduction of abstract discussions, consequently forcing scholars to concentrate their attention and rely on the mss. data and their ritual prescriptions, including a more careful consideration for liturgical manuals as the Nērangestān2 or for the witness coming from sources as the New Persian Rivāyats. This framework has shed new light on the subject, arising not only different questions, but imposing also a reappraisal of old problems in a strongly modified context. In fact, in spite of all these evident improvements, some interpretative categories, general as well as punctual, have not been yet properly framed and rediscussed as it should be done. It is true that this change of orientation in our work is too recent and that the time has not been yet sufficient for a detailed theoretical revision of the whole Mazdean doctrine of the sacrifice, but we can start with few questions needing an urgent classification and clarification. In this way I hope to contribute to put on the first line, some central items that inevitably might remain, if not properly treated, on the hidden back of the current discussion, troubling our progress or creating new interpretational barriers, sometimes based on conscious or unconscious prejudices, which any specialist might assume, willy-nilly, in his/ her approach (and I put also myself among the scholars who can fall in this trap).
2In the present article I would like to clarify, if possible, the nature of different forms of sacrifice, which I would like to distinguish in two main (in origin only) “practical” varieties, one including the real killing of the animal, another one allowing just the offering of a piece of meat to the fire, so using portions of a beast already sacrificed in a previous session. The final success of this procedure is visible in the fact that the cake offered and tasted during the drōn-rituals,3 represents the animal world, and it was called in Pahlavi gōšūdāg, i.e. Av. gǝ̄uš hudā̊ “generous cow”, as underlined by De Jong.4 In spite of the fact that this offering nowadays consists of ghee or butter, we know that in the past it contained a piece of meat taken from a sacrificial animal previously offered in another ceremonial session. I would like to also insist on the presence, in connection with both forms of sacrifice (the one with the act of killing, the other one with the simple offering of meat), of a liturgical modality in which the self-offering of the priest’s uruuan- was prescribed. I described this process as an “interiorization” of the sacrifice,5 as suggested for the Vedic world by Madeleine Biardeau6 and Charles Malamoud7 in connection with the ātmayajña-, but we can define it simply as an act of “self-offering”. As a theoretical premise, I do not put this modality in any case in contrast with the other ones, as the two already mentioned varieties of the sacrifice (with or without physical killing) are not antagonist to each other, at least in principle. In various recent studies some scholars have also considered fundamental the moment of the “offering” of the priest’s uruuan- during the Avestan liturgy,8 and I will define this process as a patent form of self-offering. Kellens,9 in particular, has shown how the priest firstly abandons his own body (tanuuascit̰ xvax́iia uštānәm [Y11.18 to be connected with Y33.14])10 and his uštā̆na- (or mortal animation), and finally, reduced to his own uruuan-, but connected with his frauuaṣ̌i-, he can send his own uruuan- (along the sacrificial path together with the animal’s soul [gǝ̄uš uruuan-]) to join the daēnā-.11 The ritual moment designating this union coincides with the recitation of Y53, i.e. the Vahištōištī Gāϑā.12 Kellens’ observation that “c’est un mort qui prononce le Frauuarānē”,13 underlines the strong esoteric dimension of the Mazdean ritual, in which the myth of the post mortem hierogamic union between the two parts of the human soul, the masculine and the feminine one, is transferred on a ceremonial drama.14 In this framework, the sacrifice of the body and of the animation of the officiating priest and the pro-motion of the uruuan- towards the daēnā-, equally (and implicitly) involves an offering of the uruuan- itself, and its donation or sacrifice, because only in this way the innermost qualities of the individual can be sent in presence of Ahura Mazdā. My definition of “interiorization”, then, must be explained in the same line, in order to avoid “spiritualizing” anachronistic misinterpretations. I also suggested that the Avestan passages referring to a worship offered to the uruuan-, which are attested in some pertinent cases,15 implied an elevation of the human-self to a divine status, a promotion that represented a sort of self-offering of the uruuan- as a kind of self-sacrifice,16 which was necessarily inner (being actually connected with the soul), but whose result, as now it becomes more clear, was the “projection” of the priest’s soul together with the animal’s breath (when it was actually killed) along the ritual path towards the daēnā- and the gods. In the same context, I also underlined the importance of the sacrifice of the uštā̆na- and of the bones (ast-), as it appears in Y37.3, and whose evidence assumes now a more complex relevance.
3The presence of rituals in which a sacrificial animal was not present, but only a portion of its meat was offered to the fire, suggests that a certain level of liturgical abstraction was accepted, and that the sacrificial dimension with a sacerdotal self-offering accompanying the sacrificial meat (but not necessarily the sacrificial breath and soul of the animal) was possible and well established.
4The problem of the act of killing and of blood dispersion,17 in the ritual actions in which a knife was used and the beast was not smothered (apparently a forbidden variety as suggested by J. Kellens with reference to certain particular cases),18 is per se important, and its occurrence, sequence and modalities are pertinent with respect to many subjects among which I would like to focus on just two of them: was ritual killing ritually legal in every liturgical moment or not? In other words, which ones were the potential restrictions or bans to be prescribed and according to which main technical differences along the five ritual sessions of the day, with particular regard to the most risky gāh or periods surrounding the nocturnal phase of obscurity (aiβisrūϑrima- aibigaiia- gāh “[the time of] chanting characterized by attentive listening”,19 i.e. from sunset to midnight, and ušahina- gāh “the time bringing to dawn”, from midnight to dawn)?
5It is to be noted that in this study I will try to avoid the word “immolation”,20 which has been usually adopted also in our disciplines as synonym of “animal sacrifice”, because of an already ancient extension of the original meaning of Latin immolātio, but which, in its turn, results to be abusive and, if not completely incorrect, at least misleading. In fact, as underlined by Emmanuel Dupraz and Jörg Rüpke in their studies,21 the first and original meaning of immolāre did not strictly refer to any violent act, but denoted a phase preceding the animal sacrifice itself, in which the priest had to sprinkle the victim with holy flour and salt. Then, the flour mixed with water was transformed into a mola salsa, a sort of sacrificial barley cake. From this basic semantic implication the meaning of Latin immolāre was, already in Latin, eventually transferred for metonimia to denote also the act of killing, but this was a non-technical use of the term. I think that in the framework of a sophisticated discussion about sacrifice it would be better to maintain the implication connected with the original meaning of the Latin word, as recommended by both previously mentioned scholars, who actually invite specialists of the ancient world to avoid this highly too extensive use of the word “immolation”. In any case, in this study, in spite of my previous usage, I will not adopt the term “immolation” as a current synonym of “animal sacrifice”.
2. Old and New Reflections on the Sacrifice
6Although today it might seem very peculiar, the general trend, in which entire generations of Avestan and Zoroastrian scholars were educated, considered the Mazdean sacrifice just as a sort of spiritual action, in which the “orthodox” theoretical model attributed to the historical reformer of the Proto-Iranian “pagan” tradition, i.e. Zoroaster, was connected with the refusal of the haoma- ritual and of the animal sacrifice.22 In a framework in which the Gāϑās substantially were considered theological “sermons” without ritual implications, the idea of a Yasna in which the choreography of the liturgy might imply an act of killing was “removed” from the panorama. In spite of Greek, Byzantine or Sasanian sources,23 or even of various Young Avestan explicit statements concerning the use of the verb yaz- (mainly) with the accusative of the divine being to which the sacrifice was offered and the instrumental of the offered substance or of the animal ritually killed,24 this evidence was considered as embarrassing. Thus, without considering the patent positive statements of few, but clear, passages attested also in the Nērangestān, or again in contradiction with some evident data coming from anthropological observations on the practices still preserved in the recent daily life of Persian Zoroastrains, or of a Parsi priestly school such as the Bhagarias,25 the actual presence of a sacrifice in the Mazdean liturgy was a sort of taboo, which worked as blinkers in the correct evaluation of the reality. The implicit or rarely explicit idea was that these forms of sacrifices were deviations from an ideal, pure, reformed model installed by Zoroaster himself, as a sort of step back to the dimension of the Indo-Iranian paganism. Thus, sacrifice was obtorto collo admitted, but considered as a deviation or an infection. The ideological and theological Western prejudices (shared by many Parsis, who, in their turn, tried to completely reject the image of the animal sacrifice)26 lying a priori behind this approach to Zoroastrianism have become in last years sufficiently clear,27 and although with different nuances, commonly rejected by the scholarly community, so that it is not for a long time that during our meetings we do not speak of the prophet Zoroaster or of his vision of the world, which in reality turned out to be very often “our own vision” projected into the past. Thus, when in my turn I tried to formulate a hypothesis28 on the meaning of the Yasna in order to explain the apparent semi-inactivity of the priests during the central part of the ceremony in Old Avestan, I too started from trembling premises,29 i.e. that in the course of the Yasna-celebration no animal sacrifice had technically taken an important place, and I tried to explain the objective decay of this ritual practice supposing an earlier substitution by means of an “interiorized” form of liturgy. That assumption was surely incorrect with respect to the presumption that “Zoroaster and his circle” had rejected animal sacrifice, as it was the general under-evaluation of the complex nature of the intercalated ceremonies. On the other hand, in the framework of my investigations I have insisted on the modalities through which the uruuan- of the sacrificer was offered to Ahura Mazdā, as a sort of self-sacrifice or of self-offering,30 and I do not think that in se that proposal was wrong, because in various forms the same idea was and has been independently suggested by other scholars. As stated into the premises to this article, I found in the Indo-Iranian comparative level a supportive example in the Later Vedic tradition of the ātmayajña-, which has been carefully presented in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa IX, 2, 6, 13–1431 In the same years, other scholars32 under different and, sometimes, more advanced representations of the entire liturgy have started to emphasize the process through which the priests offered their own uruuan- to Ahura Mazdā before to become Saošyaṇts and meet the daēnā-. I accept this explication, under whose basis I had earlier defined the process of self-offering, and consider it as an improvement to the idea of a self-sacrifice, which in my opinion implied also a process of “interiorization”, as explicitly proposed by M. Biardeau and Chr. Malamoud with respect to the ātmayajña-. I think that this additional Indo-Iranian comparison better frames the context in which both ritual traditions have independently evolved, while in general the only remark to my hypothesis has been directed against the “interiorization” considered as an act explaining the inactivity,33 while, from the moment in which all of us accept the presence of an animal sacrifice or its practical substitution with a piece of meat taken from an animal previously killed during another ritual session, the focus on the symbolic process of offering of the uruuan- by the priest remains a most relevant point of common agreement. In this sense, after decades of polemics based on a lot of pre-conditioned theological interpretative options, I do not see the need to focus on mainly on positions which have been abandoned since time without remarking the different points in which similar approaches and compatible interpretations have been finally shared.
2.1. The Forms of the Animal Sacrifice
7If the animal sacrifice — as we know it — was a basic practice in the Indo-Iranian world, and the Zoroastrians since their earliest phases never abandoned such a tradition, which were the practical forms of ritual enactment of the act of killing the sacrificial beast? Can we postulate also substitute ritual forms, and when? Apart from the fact that an animal can be killed in various ways, we know from the Nērangestān, as previously remarked, that it was killed with a knife (but stunned with a mallet),34 just at the end of Y34, before the beginning35 of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti,36 while some passages confirm that it would have been forbidden to smother or strangle the animal,37 as already suggested by Kellens with respect to Y44.20. We know that other animal sacrifices, outside of the Long Liturgies, for instance, during a Hōm Drōn ceremony, were possible,38 even at the beginning of the ušahina- session, as remarked by Cantera.39 For this reason, it would be correct to observe that if in theory we must postulate the presence of a full sacrifice strictly after Y34, this textual place cannot be used as a statement forbidding the enactment of a ritual sacrifice in another part of the liturgy or in other liturgies in coincidence with different textual contexts. We know for certain that the final blow inflicted to the animal coincided with the recitation of the Ahuna Vairiia, as stated in N47.19,40 and as it happens also in the case of other less important ritual actions (e.g. in the act of cutting the rows woven for the preparation of a kustīg);41 it is also probable that the priest stroke the sacrificial victim according to a particular sequence of strikes (3, 6, 9) that followed a numerical progression again in connection with the three recitations of the Ahuna Vairiia,42 but we cannot exclude that this prayer might not be used for the same function in other places,43 which are not registered in the extant literature. In the introduction, I have insisted on the possibility that just a piece of meat or of “hairy meat” (gōnbed) might be taken from the body of an animal previously sacrificed during another ritual ceremony instead of the obligatory use of a fresh piece of meat immediately extracted from an animal knocked down in a quasi-contemporary moment. This assumption is confirmed by Nērangestān 47.18,44 where the remarkable opinion of a prestigious priestly authority, that of Rōšn, is reported:
rōšn guft hād hamē ka nē brīnēd <ka> nē kuštan; ka kušt zōhr ōh dahišn. ka *gōnbēd ast, ast; (*ka) nēst hān ī pēš ka pad kār šud estēd ā šāyēd. ka ēk ast kē nē pad kār šud estēd ā nē šāyēd; ka ēk-ēk-iz nēst ka hamāg pad kār šud estēd ā nē šāyēd.
Rōšn said: “If he does not intend to cut off (the hairy meat), then he should not kill it; if he has killed it, then he should make the fat offering.” As to the hairy meat, if it is there, it is there; if it is not there, then (the sheep) of the previous (day), if it has been used (for ritual purposes), is permissible. If it is one that has not been used (for religious purposes), then it is not permissible. If not a single (sheep) is to be found at all that has been used (for religious purposes), then it is not permissible.
8This statement confirms the use of an offering made of meat taken from a sacrificial animal previously killed, but only under the strict condition that it was killed for strictly ritual purposes.
2.2. The Costs of the Animal Sacrifice
9The desired and correct re-appraisal of sacrifice in the Mazdean liturgy should not overestimate the role and percentage of the animal sacrifice in its full form (i.e. with the physical killing of a consecrated beast any time) and describe it in a completely unhistorical fashion. Presently there is a general agreement on the fact that the sacrifice was practiced, and that animal sacrifice was not theologically forbidden, as wrongly assumed in a number of past interpretations. But we cannot ipso facto assert that every Yasna as every solemn ceremony compellingly involved a full sacrifice (in particular that of a cow). The idea that in the course of each of the basically five (or four) daily liturgies performed for each of the five (or four, in the winter) gāh a cow or even another animal were offered would mean that in every community more than 1,500 beasts should be killed each year. Even on the assumption that smaller animals generally or on some occasions were the preferred victims, the final amount would have still been exorbitant in the ancient world even for a large social group, while for a little community it would have been completely impossible. The sacrifices pad ruwān that the great inscription of Šābuhr I listed and ordered,45 in spite of the fact that we have to do with a royal ceremony and, then, with the direct support of the royal treasury, cannot compete with the social costs to be presumed according to the uncritical assumption that any everyday ritual would have imposed an animal sacrifice. We simply must observe that in this case the lambs (thus, no cow and no sheep)46 to be offered for the souls of the king and his royal family (plus the rest of the animals for the sake of the other lords and nobles) were in total 1,000 (ŠKZ § 35) for five Fires, and distributed as follows47: “one per day” (M.-P. rōz ō rōz) for the soul of the king (i.e. 365 lambs in a year), only one per day for all of the members (§ 36–38) of the royal family (i.e. other 365 lambs in a year), and, finally, another lamb per day again for the rest of the persons mentioned in the inscription (§ 39–40) as worthy of memory (i.e. the 270 remaining lambs). The complete figure is meaningful is we imagine that it was connected with a sacrificial activity scheduled during a solar religious year of 365 days.48 In that way, it was possible to distribute three animal sacrifices per day for 270 days, while for the remaining three months and 5 days the animal sacrifices should have been only two. This means that only two fire-temples were in condition to host at least one ceremony with an animal sacrifice (if so!) every day, and that in the other three temples the rituals implying animal sacrifices were surely less.
10Recently Ahmadi49 has shown the same reservations in relation to the Achaemenid period and the relevant data coming from the Elamite tablets50 of Persepolis confirm the same prudent perplexities. In the absence of central authorities to sponsor the systematic application of these sacrifices, which should have been at least three, if not five every day, the economic burden would have been unbearable. It is for this reason that I think we must carefully distinguish between an ideal model of full sacrifices (as a never-ending chain of liturgies and complete animal sacrifices)51 and its practical performance, a distinction that may help us to be less radical in the interpretation of the facts and to frame the figures of the historical picture in a more reasonable form.
11The new framework I have tried to propose here opens a different scenario: indeed, there is no reason to postulate the systematic presence of animal sacrifices on every occasion,52 and it is difficult to accept the idea that there were systematically even two of them in the course of each ritual. Such an expensive ceremony could have been reserved for special celebrations such as some annual events as Gāhānbār or New-Year festivals etc., or at the behest of wealthy sponsors (perhaps after a successful cattle raid), but could not have been an everyday practice, in particular in a pacific little community. If one, contrariwise, would insist on the assumption of an actual practice of daily animal sacrifice, we would have to double the suggested figure of the slaughtered animals every year (see above). These considerations simply mean that the animal sacrifice can correspond to a real killing or to its substitution by means of a piece of meat previously preserved for this purpose. The theoretical problem which I cannot resolve, but that I can advance, concerns the fact that we do not really know in which way the death of the animal was felt, if as a true violence or not. We know that the Zoroastrian tradition systematically insist on the obligation of avoiding any unnecessary sufferance to the sacrificed animal, and that various strategies were enacted in order to kill in the most efficient and swift way.53 Furthermore, the Mazdean source show a certain sensibility towards animals’ treatment and their possible pain that we can speak — without falling in the risks of an anachronistic speculation — of a deep level of psychological concern and sympathetic share for their destiny. On the other hand, the lamentation of the Soul of the Cow in Y29, reminds us that such a problem was in any case considered (although, as remarked by Humbach54 and suggested also by Kellens,55 this expression of sorrow might play a dramatic role that was functional to the development of the liturgy, without necessarily referring to a primordial myth) and that the violence on the sacrificial animal was limited to what resulted strictly necessary.56 In this respect the offering of a piece of meat to the fire shows that this seems to have been the most important action; if in other rituals the breath of the suffocated animal was contrariwise more important than his meat is something we must consider, but this kind of procedure seems to have been rejected in Iran and we are not able to develop a more detailed discussion with regard to its importance. In the case of the Vedic tradition, the aśvamedha-shows the complexity of the act of killing and of its modalities, in which even a strong erotic component played a remarkable weight. In this respect, the Mazdean world do not properly preserves something of substantially comparable, apart some generic references to the sacrifice of horses, but without textual and ritual clear contexts. Also the erotic allusion contained in the Old Avestan stanzas concerning Pourucistā and a hierogamic situation (Y53.1–9) simply inform us about the more complex theatrical dimension of the Mazdean ceremony,57 which unfortunately escapes us in its full extent. But its textual location before the end of the Staota Yesniia perfectly fits with the esoteric dynamic of the ritual, in which the union of the uruuan- and of the daēnā- was strongly concerned. In any case, what I desired to emphasize was that in the Zoroastrian framework we must postulate the presence of a full animal sacrifice, but also the diffusion of a substitute ritual; the latter one was not enacted against the animal sacrifice, but it was in principle another form of animal sacrifice, reduced to the final effects of its earlier performance. It is also clear that in the course of time, the substitute ritual might play various functions, as not only that of avoiding the dissipation of an unbearable quantity of animals, but also in order to limit the practice of the killing itself. In fact, we must observe as a matter of fact that the full animal sacrifice was progressively reduced, and that it became obsolescent in many Zoroastrian later traditions. I could tentatively attribute the most important results derived by this process of decay some centuries after the Sasanian period with the progressive collapse of the power possessed by the Mazdean Church and its clergy.58 But similar trends are attested also for earlier periods in Greek sources, if we must give credit to Porphyrios (De abstinentia ab usu animalium IV, 16, 1–4), who, with reference to the Persian Magi (but also to the Mithraic Mysteries), stated that the highest class of them did not eat and kill animals (οἱ πρῶτοι καὶ λογιώτατοι οὔτ᾽ ἐσϑíουσιν ἔμψυχον οὔτε φονεύουσιν). Furthermore, Porphyrios in the same work (II, 40, 1–2) insisted on the “bad demons” (κακοεργοí) following the Principle of evil, who actually would have desired cruel animal sacrifices.59 Although these statements must be cautiously considered, their witness is in any case important, and must be prudently evaluated. It is also to consider that for the Zoroastrians the act of killing animals was fundamental in order to allow people to eat their meat, because no animal might be legally eaten out of a sacrifice (or out of a ceremony that assumed the modality of a sacrifice, although without its full solemnity). On the other hand, we must point out that the ritual sources (as we have previously seen) insist on the fact that if the slaughtering of an animal must always be ritually performed, there is a strong difference between an act of killing done in order to have meat for eating and a sacrifice offered to the gods, because only in this second case it was possible to use again the meat also for a following ceremony. In any case these actions in later times entered into new schemes, in which the role of the priests was not so relevant and indispensable as in the past. It is in fact useful to remark that some schools of Zoroastrian priests, as recalled by M. Boyce,60 still preserved until few decades ago the memory and the practice of offering a gōspand for the čahārom ritual,61 but the animal had to be sacrificed at dawn, not before, and it was obviously not at daily service. The endurance of these animal sacrifices in the Yazdī villages of Iran, at least in the years when M. Boyce62 recorded them, confirms the importance of sacrifice, but it also stands as evidence of a complete collapse of the tradition, because the animal sacrifices were mostly performed by laymen, then, outside of any official ceremony, solemn or normal. In reality, we should wonder if also in antiquity, the priest appointed for the sacrifice had a high position or not, and what was his prestige. Actually, we do not really know, apart from few details, the responsibilities assigned to the generally unnamed assistant priest in charge of animal sacrifice, i.e. the one who was installed with the formula pasuuāzaŋhәm āstaiia “I ritually install the (priest) who must accompany the animal (to the sacrifice)”.63 This assistant, in his turn, was not installed in the solemn rituals with the ceremony of Vr3.1–2, and given his supposed and expected importance, his absence deserves at least attention; furthermore, he is never otherwise mentioned, and we can even suspect that it was of lower rank and that his functions might be performed by another priest or even by a non-priest, as sometimes it happens in the Indian tradition. I cannot exclude that in certain cases other persons, frequently mentioned, as the vastriiō.fšuiiaṇt- would be involved in the rude, but necessary, technicalities of this function. As known, the passage in which he appears just as a hapax legomenon is not otherwise attested, and presently his function is not explicitly mentioned in the ritual directions preserved in some manuscripts. I hope that some additional pieces of information would emerge in the next future. But it is certain that the pasuuāzah- was not listed in the installation formula of Vr3.1, which should be relatively old, in particular if the parallelism with the order of the Vedic priestly college as well as that with the structural simile of the Amәṣ̌a Spәṇtas (and with the Ādityas as well) is correct.64 If this priest was not installed by means of the fundamental ceremony, we can deduce that he was not necessary any time, and that his presence was required only on some occasions, or that the installation formula in its today’s shape has been shortened and modified at some stage. I reject the second solution, because the text is well preserved and, in spite of the ritual simplification that occurred in later times when all the functions of the seven priests were incorporated by the rāspīg, the ritual remained unchanged. This is another witness of the polymorphism of the ritual, which might include or not the pasuuāzah- “the driver of the cattle” when necessary, with his direct installation at the right time.
2.3. The Risks of the Nocturnal Ceremonies
12The Mazdean religious tradition since the earliest sources in Old Avestan deprecates the powers of the demons, which are strongly connected with night, and insists on the power of sunlight, as already stated in Y43.16d:
xvǝ̄ṇg.darәsōi, xšaϑrōi x́iiāt̰ ārmaitiš
aṣ̌īm š́iiaoϑanāiš, vohū daidīt̰ manaŋhā
May Ārmaiti stay in the sun-exposed domain.
May she grant through the actions (promoted) by the good thinking (their right) allocation.
13The remarkable antagonism against darkness, the importance attributed to the diurnal ritual65 and the preoccupations with respect to the nocturnal period must be evaluated as part of the strong refusal of the daēuuas and their cult, which belongs to the Zoroastrian tradition. I do not think that we dispose of sufficient information for deducing also a real change of ritual philosophy, as Kellens suggested in 1988,66 when he considered the Gāϑic sacrifice strongly different from the Vedic one, where the main target would have been, as in the Agnihotra, that of supporting the re-appearance of Dawn. Kellens himself has presently framed the relation between Old and Younger Avestan literature in such a different way that it would be difficult to insist on this kind of reconstruction.67 Kellens, in fact, now postulates the relevant importance of the “temps rituels” (ratu-), which include the nocturnal space, so arriving at the conclusion that the Gāϑic system was not at all in a phase of formation, but that it should have been already reached its full maturity.68
14These observations invite us to study the rituals in a close relation with the different liturgical sessions of the day, and when possible, on a comparative dimension. Then, as I will show later, it results still important to verify in which measure the Vedic tradition can explain the nature and meaning of some peculiar cults that might have been refused in the Mazdean framework. In this context, we can observe that a Younger Avestan passage from Yt5.94–9569 (Ābān Yašt) is still a paradigmatic example of the daēvic nature of certain rituals performed in the night, in spite of the fact they might be offered even to genuinely Mazdean gods:70
paiti dim pәrәsat̰ zaraϑuštrō
arәduuīm sūrąm anāhitąm
arәduui sūre anāhite
kәm iδa tē zaoϑrā̊ bauuaiṇti
yasә tauua frabarәṇte
druuaṇtō daēuuaiiasnā̊ŋhō
pasca hū frāšmō.dāitīm.
Zaraϑuštra asked her,
Arduuī Sūrā Anāhitā:
“O Arduuī Sūrā Anāhitā
now what becomes of these libations to you,
which the people who worship the daēuuas,71
the followers of lie, bring forth (i.e. offer) to you
after the setting of the sun?”
15Anāhitā’s answer to this question is very important and clear, notwithstanding the presence of a number of textual problems in this stanza that make any translation not yet definitive:72
āat̰ aoxta arәduuī sūra anāhita
әrәzuuō aṣ̌āum
spitama <zaraϑuštra>
niuuaiiaka nipašnaka
apa.skaraka apa.xraosaka
imā̊ paiti.vīsәṇte
yā̊ māuuōiia pasca vazәṇti
xšuuaš *satәm73 hazaŋrәmca
yā nōit̰ *paiti.vīsәṇte74
daēuuanąm *hәṇti75 yasna
Then, Arduuī Sūrā Anāhitā answered:
“O upright, righteous
Spitama (Zaraϑuštra),
the terrifying, aslant observing,
impatient and vociferating (daēuuas)76
accept77 as fitting these (offerings)
which they confer to me after (the sunset)
(in the number of) thousand and six hundred;
(but all these) sacrifices which do not fit (for me),
are of the daēuuas.”
16Although the text is not completely clear, we can certainly understand that the goddess does not receive any advantage from these “libations” (zaoϑrā-),78 which exclusively go to satisfy the daēuuas. In this case we must observe that the exclusion does not concern only and strictly “libations”, which, as we know, are particularly connected with the worship of the waters79 and of Anāhitā, and absolutely forbidden in the night, but also “sacrifices” (yasna-), as stated at the end of Y5.95. The nocturnal offering of libations as a daēvic practice is confirmed also in the Avestan and Pahlavi text of V7.79:
[…] drujimca vīnasti yō nasumaitīm āpәm vīzaoϑrąm frabaraiti, yō upa. naxturušu tąϑraēšu vīzaoϑrąm frabaraiti.
[…] he who brings water (for a libation) defiled by a corpse80 (and) unfitting for a libation, who brings forth unfitting (water) for a libation in the dark times (when they are already) bordering the night.81
[…] drōzišn windēd [kū-š wināh bawēd] (B) kē ō ān ī nasā-ōmand āb zōhr frāz barēnd (C) kē abar pad nihuftag tārīk be zōhr frāz barēd.
[…] he finds the lie [it is a sin for him], (B) that would be he who carries water containing dead matter for libations — (C) he who in concealment and darkness carries (water containing dead matter) for libations.82
17These unlawful procedures were considered even more dangerous, because the offered waters were defiled, but I want to underline that we must register a general hostility against nocturnal ceremonies if dedicated to the waters. We may affirm that this was a very strict taboo. The nocturnal nature of the daēuuas is explicitly evoked in the Younger Avesta, for instance, in passages like Yt6.4, where it is stated that the worship of the sun (huuar-) is a barrier against darkness and against the “demons manifesting themselves in the darkness” or “taking their nature from the night” (paitištātǝ̄e tәmasciϑranąm daēuuanąm). There is no doubt about the fact the demons were considered stronger at night.83 Although “night” is not completely negative, because, according to Y44.5,84 it was Ahura Mazdā to establish the alternation between night and day,85 this divine primordial act was enacted in order to prevent the chaotic forces of evil from any potential prevarication through which they would be able to extend the powers of darkness over the good creation. Night is also the right period of sleep,86 which alternates with waking according to a regular cycle, as again stated in the same Gāϑic passage. But, as sleep cannot surrender to sloth, also the night remains, in spite of its partial encapsulation into the creation of Ahura Mazdā, a dangerous condition, full of unpredictable forces and drives. For this reason, a good priest cannot sleep all the night without worshiping, reciting, memorizing and performing rituals, as e.g. stated in V18.5.87 A sleeping, slothful, priest is not a true priest. Again, according to V18.6,88 the true priest is the one who can directly speak with the mental capacity (xratu-) supporting order during the whole night. All these abilities developed by the good priest open the way to the Cinuuat̰ Bridge. Cantera suspects that the action of “asking all night long” might be something of ritual and not just a reflective activity.89 In support of his statement we may recall that in the Atirātra rituals, during the overnight soma-offerings to Indra, the priests should compose poems.90 In this case, it is not a matter of poetical games, but a ritual expectation, the enactment of a mental power in order to worship the highest god. This observation receives new force if we consider that the mental operations enforcing the vision of the Cinuuat̰ Bridge and the union with the daēnā- of the sacrificers, must compellingly take place in the emerging light of the sun or after sunrise, towards the end of the nocturnal-auroral Vidēvdād-sāde ceremony.
18If we also consider that this liturgy had extraordinary importance during the ceremonies in favour of the souls of the departed, in particular those celebrated after the third day following death, we may appreciate the rich symbolic implications of these rituals.91 It is also to be noted that the previous passage of the Vidēvdād presents an interesting problem: its reference to the nocturnal period is not clear, in the sense that we do not exactly know neither to which of the gāh were strictly connected these obligations nor to which period of the darkness the risks of the rituals overnight were mainly attributed. Furthermore, we should also clarify the limit of the interdictions concerning the nocturnal dimension and the possible different rules to respect without solution a priori.
2.4. The Ritual Sessions and the Problem of the Liminal Phases
19As well known, the gāh “(appointed) time” are four or five (but only in summer) divisions of the day:
- hāuuani- gāh “(session) concerning/belonging to the (haoma-) pressing (hav-/ hu-)” (from morning to midday or to mid-afternoon); cf. hāuuana- “haoma-pestle”;
- rapiϑβina- gāh “(session time) appropriated to meal” (from midday to mid-afternoon); this gāh works only for the first seven months, Frawardīn to Mihr; in the rest of the year it is called second hāuuani-;92 “for midday”;
- uzaiieirina- gāh “(session) pertaining/referring to the end of the day”, from Av. uz-aiiara- “end of the day” (from mid-afternoon to sunset), with °aiiara- from aiian-/aiiar-, n., “day” (in opposition to night);93
- aiβisrūϑrima- aibigaiia- gāh “(session of) chanting (aibigaiia-) characterized by attentive listening (aiβisrūϑrima-)” (from sunset to midnight);
- ušahina- gāh “(session) pertaining/referring to dawn (ušah-)” (from midnight to dawn).94
20These parts of the day are also an object of veneration (then, they can occur as substantives and not only as adjectives), as many other portions of time (day, month, seasons, years), and the liturgical order of their mention can be different depending on the fact that it follows the scheme typical of the simple Yasna (starting with hāuuani-) or that of the Vidēvdād (starting with ušahina). A. Hintze has fittingly shown that between these two patterns,95 the most archaic one is the one preserved by the Vidēvdād tradition. If we suppose that an even earlier scheme was the one consisting of three main ceremonies every day (dawn, midday and evening/night), the sequence should have been later amplified (although in very ancient times). On this subject Cantera96 has suggested that such an expansion could be put in connection with the calendrical introduction of the five epagomenal days. In the same framework, we must also observe, as again underlined by Cantera, that the Yasna of the morning became the standard ceremony, while the one of midday has been restricted to a seasonal celebration, limited to summer. In the contribution offered for the present volume, Cantera seems to prefer a different timing in which the third Old Avestan session, that of “night” (xšapan-) would start from noon to midnight, a division that I consider less probable, while I prefer still his previous approach to the problem, as it was the one recently advanced also by Humbach.97 More probably, the times connected with these sessions should be distributed approximately as follows: ušah- “dawn”, from the second part of the night till dawn and sunrise; arǝ̄m.piϑβā- “timing fitting for eating, midday”, from noon to the appearance of the stars and the falling of the sun; xšapan- “evening and night”, from the appearance of the stars after setting to their disappearance in the light of dawn. This threefold division would correspond to about eight (unequal) hours for each session (0–8 / 9–16 / 17–24), with inevitable adaptations according to the different seasons and latitudes.
21The amplification to five sessions, if this was the case, could also be due to the need of protecting in a more precise way the nocturnal period, with two better determined sessions, the first one starting with the end of the day and the beginning of the night, which was defined as a ritual period distinguished by singing and learning activities, and the latter characterized by the wait for the dawn. Then, the night period was closed between a phase in which the sun has already set (hū frāšmō.dāiti) and “(from the time) when the appearance of the stars has started to become visible up to midnight” (Bd25.9: ka stārag ō paydāgīh mad tā nēm-šab gāh ī ēbsrūsrīm), and another one “from midnight until the stars become invisible” (Bd25.9: az nēm-šab tā stārag a-paydāg bawēd gāh ī ušahin).98 Then, according to the Bundahišn, what resulted more relevant was the first visibility of the stars and, on the opposite, their progressive disappearance in the light of dawn; this rule would fit also with the earlier triadic scheme. What is also remarkable is the time direction connected with the definition of three gāh- in particular, i.e., rapiϑβ-ina-, uzaiieir-ina- and ušah-ina-. These derivative stems, originally in *-iná- (probably with a motion of the stress distinguishing the adjectival form from the corresponding name, as already suggested by Bartholomae),99 seem to denote in Avestan the temporal progress (i.e. the direction) of the session, but in two cases this time clearly concerns the end of a given part of the day (uzaiieirina- and ušahina-), i.e. the end of the period of daylight (or the final period of afternoon), and the end of darkness, i.e. the appearance of dawn. Contrariwise, rapiϑβ-ina- seems to distinguish the beginning of the session, but this is due to the translation “midday”, which, although correct, does not permit to consider in a proper way the temporal extension of the period of eating, which was imagined as a long and comfortable moment. Coming back to ušahina- we must also consider that ušah-, as Vedic uṣah-, refers not only to morning dawn, but also to twilight and crepuscular light. Thus, I consequently deduce that the people who established the amplification of the sessions also emphasized the role of ušah- in both “her” phases, the crepuscular and the auroral one, with a stress on the most dangerous moments, which should be seen not in ušahina-, whose progression was directed toward the rising of the sun, but that of aiβisrūϑrima- aibigaiia- “the (session of) chanting (aibigaiia-) characterized by attentive listening”. In itself the definition of this session points out to a temporal phase in which no risky rituals, but only speculative and meditative activities should be performed or at least given preference. Thus, it is reasonable to deduce that complex ritual ceremonies, with animal sacrifices and libations, were interdicted during this temporal session, although the textual sources, which we will soon analyse, present some strange contradictions. The main problem, however, concerns the following session (ušahina-), whose nocturnal nature is present only in its timing, but not in its definition, that, as we have noted, insists on the appearance of dawn. We must also observe that with respect to the earlier threefold division of the day (approximately 3 sessions x 8h), the new one was of 5 (equal?) sessions of about 4h 48m each for seven months, while in the rest of the year the division was not, as we should expect that of 6h x 4 (equal) sessions, but the diurnal ones (first and second hāuuani-) took on together more or less the time of a double session, i.e. about 9 hours; thus, the remaining 3 sessions should last about 5 hours each. Of course, these figures are based on rough approximations, but it is important that we consider the technical problem of the temporal division of the day, of its seasonal differences, as the evidence that unequal hours were used.100
2.5. The Parts of the Night and the beginning of Ušahina
22It is in this particular context that we must attract the necessary focus on the interesting and rare division of the night in three different temporal unites, of three thirds (of one ideal night) each, a pattern which is mentioned in the Vidēvdād, fragard 18, par. 18 (āat̰ mē paoiriiāi ϑrišuuāi xšafne ātarš ahurahe mazdā̊ nmānahe nmānō.paitīm yāsaiti “then, for the first third of the night the Fire [son] of Ahura Mazdā invokes the house-master of the house”), 20 (āat̰ mē bitiiāi ϑrišuuāi xšafne ātarš ahurahe mazdā̊ vāstrīm fšuiiaṇtәm yāsaiti “then, for the second third of the night the Fire [son] of Ahura Mazdā invokes the pastor”), and 22 (āat̰ mē ϑritiiāi ϑrišuuāi xšafne ātarš ahurahe mazdā̊ sraošәm aṣ̌īm yāsaiti “then, for the third third of the night the Fire [son] of Ahura Mazdā invokes Sraoša given with reward”),101 and that is implicitly referred to again at the end of this text, in fragard 21, par. 3:102
yezi uzīrō.huua mәrәṇcaite arәzahuua bišaziiāt̰
if one is harmed in the afternoon periods, one will be healed in the evening periods;
yezi arәzahuua mәrәṇcaite xšapōhuua bišaziiāt̰
if one is harmed in the evening periods, one will be healed in the night periods;
yezi xšapōhuua mәrәṇcaite ušahuua bišaziiāt̰ […]
if one is harmed in the night periods, one will be healed in the dawn periods.
23Then, we have the following proportion:
uzīrah, n., “afternoon” | – | 2arәzah-, n.,103 “evening”; |
2arәzah-, n., “evening” | – | xšapan-, n., “night”; |
xšapan-, n., “night” | – | ušah-, f., “dawn”. |
24The three thirds in which the night is divided, thus, correspond to a phase starting with the afternoon and ending with the beginning of dawn. It is to be noted that according to the Frahang ī ōīm, 27b,104 the night is divided in four parts:
hūfrāšmōdāta-, n., “(the time) after the sunset”;
әrәzauruuaēsā-, f., “the turning of the darkness” (*әrәzu- *uruuaēsa-);
ušah- sūrā-, f., “the strong Dawn” (cf. V18.15);
fragaiti- (f.) raocaŋhąm, “the approach of the lights”.
25The first two parts, hūfrāšmōdāta- and әrәzauruuaēsā-, as stated in this later source, belong to the gāh of Aiβisrūϑrima-.105 In addition to this explicit statement we must observe that, according to V18.15,106 the cock Parō.darš sings during the time of ušah- sūrā-, so that we can be sure that the last two parts of the night in reality belong to the gāh of ušahina-, as recently underlined also by Kellens.107 As we will see, this is really a turning point in the economy of the ritual timing, full of symbolical implications.
2.6. Unspecified Nocturnal Sacrifices in general and in the aiβisrūϑrima-aibigaiia- gāh
26In a wide anthropological perspective we can affirm that nocturnal animal sacrifices have been usually considered as a very obscure and sometimes demonic practice in the Indo-European framework, so that, after the already mentioned restrictions occurring in Yašt 5, not only against libations, but more in general with regard to yasnas overall, we have the right to raise doubts concerning the real presence of overnight blood sacrifices in the framework of the Zoroastrian community, and particularly during rituals specifically enacted against the daēuuas.108 In the case of Yašt 5, it is useful to recall that the forbidden ceremonies seem to occur only after the setting of the sun (hū frāšmō.dāiti-), i.e. in a period, which coincides with the aiβisrūϑrima- aibigaiia- gāh. But from the scattered references to nocturnal sacrifices attested in the whole corpus of the Mazdean sources we get the impression of a general (but imprecise) rejection, whose rules must be clarified.
27An intriguing reference to a nocturnal ritual is clearly preserved in Nērangestān 33, 5,109 whose relevance has been fittingly emphasized by Ahmadi:110
[…] ka yazišn ēw-tāg kunēd pēš-rōz ud šab bawēd ātaxš pad nigērišn sar frāz kunēd dēw-ēzagīh ī tanāpuhlagān. ēn kū yazišn sar be kunišn ayāb nē ā-m nē rōšnag.
“If one is performing an act of worship single-handed on the previous day and night falls, to let ritual fire go out on purpose is the devil-worship of tanāpuhl sinners.” Whether or not one should finish the act of worship is not clear to me.
28The whole chapter111 discusses a problematic situation where a ritual started in the Aiβisrūϑrima- gāh (Ēbsrūsrim) — i.e. from sunset till midnight —, thus during a watch already considered dangerous, continues into the darkness. The situation is not at all clear, and the answers offerred into the text are, in fact, contradictory, with the direct statement that different opinions were concurrent, as the one stating that “it is still day” (N33.4) for the person who is performing an act of worship. In this case, the power of the fire seems to overcome that of darkness, but it is clear that the subject had become really obscure. The presence of so many uncertainties concerning the legitimacy of “liminal” rituals, i.e. ceremonies whose borders risk crossing or inevitably must overlap the thresholds between day and night, thus entering a crepuscular or auroral mixture, shows that also the Pahlavi Nērangestān,112 reflects the state of decay in the ceremonial competence and orthodoxy of the priests. This must be considered embarrassing, given its composition in the late Sasanian period, if it did not rather indicate the concurrent presence of different and contrasting traditions, whose discrepancies could not be controlled by a superior authority anymore.
29We must also take into consideration another very peculiar passage occurring in Nērangestān 40, 5:113 albeit it is mentioned as a supportive evidence for the slaughtering of a small animal, it is incomplete and rather intriguing:
әō pasūm *auua.vīnaōiti pasca hū frāšmō.dāitīm asaocaṇtat̰ paiti āϑrāt̰.
he who slays an animal after the setting of the sun without a burning fire (end of the fragment).114
30The verbal root 2vi (present stem vīnao-/vīnu-)115 with the preverb auua° (auui° in the mss.) seems to imply some “cruel” hues (Bartholomae116 translated it as “abschlachten”), while in V18.70 frā° + vi was attested with reference to the sacrifice of one thousand of sheep (hazaŋrәm anumaiianąm frāuuinuiiāt̰) by a sinner, who, in order to be forgiven for the fault of a copulation with a woman in menses, has to offer a great sacrifice. If the evaluation of a nocturnal killing of a small animal would be theoretically open to different interpretations, the fact that this rite is performed without the presence of a burning fire117 goes beyond the limits of what might be acceptable in the Zoroastrian framework. We must actually remind that the victim, before being sacrificed, was made to face the fire,118 so that its absence is very peculiar. Bulsara119 apparently found the passage difficult and somewhat embarrassing, observing that, in spite of the evidence that this Avestan phrase was mentioned in order to present a peculiar action as legal, “no holy function especially at night, is permitted without a blazing fire”. Thus, he presumed that the text might be interpreted as referring to an attempt to protect the fire from being sullied by bloodshed. But also this statement contradicts the basic rules of sacrifice and the close connection between the fire and the sacrifice, which in any case was a conditio sine qua non in a regular ceremony. Then, the present fragment puts us in a difficult position: it is in fact possible to state that it cannot be used to demonstrate the lawfulness of nocturnal animal sacrifices (at least, in the Ēbsrūsrim gāh) if we consider the reference to the absence of a burning fire as an additional fault, but it would also be possible to presume that in presence of the fire such a sacrifice was still allowed. The scenario is actually unclear and we must consider that the reference to the absence of the fire confirms the fact that this act of slaughtering could not have been part of an official orthodox liturgy, at least not in the way it is presented in the passage. In addition, we have to remark that the ritual is envisaged to take place after the twilight, so that it could even be listed among the cases in which a ritual having started during a certain gāh continues in the following one, a very ambiguous subject whose interpretation seems to have given room to different ritual prescriptions. If we have to do with a ceremony (in this case it seems to be a Drōn-service) that started at the beginning of the Ēbsrūsrim gāh, i.e. with the twilight, the sacrifice would reasonably fall in the full gloom, probably not far from midnight. But, in spite of this circumstance, the service120 could be still considered as legitimate, because, at least according to some priests, it would be as if the sunlight were still present (N33.4: u-š rōz pad-iš abāz bawēd “it is still day for him”), and this against the opposite indication (N33.5), just following in the text, and considering such a timing worthy of a tanāpuhl sin. In any case, the explicit absence of the burning fire in the case of N40.5 puts this reference in a very negative position. But we must also underline the striking evidence that already Yt5.94–95, a most authoritative source, strictly forbade zaoϑrās and yasnas after sunset, so that in any case also the apparently tolerant ritual directions of the Nērangestān appear in this case extremely peculiar and in patent contradiction with such an older and most prestigious statement. Furthermore, we must also consider that the contradictory disquisitions on the legitimacy or not of these nocturnal (after sunset) rituals do not rely on earlier and genuine Avestan sources, but are only attested in the Avestan Nērangestān and its Pahlavi translation, so we cannot be sure about their antiquity and pertinence. My impression is that the sacerdotal schools developed different directions and that, as it happens in liturgical regulations, contrasting solutions and even opposite explications and justifications were at hand. Thus, we must observe that the later Avestan point of view attested in the Yašts literature refuses the celebration of libations and sacrifices after sunset, but that other opinions (and practices) were possible. I cannot exclude that some of these diverging traditions were unorthodox or even of external origin, but the internal data are insufficient for a more precise investigation, and we must look at the Vedic world for additional pieces of information.
2.7. Vedic Comparative Data about Nocturnal Sacrifices and Ambiguous Mazdean Ceremonies
31We actually know that in many Indo-European cultures, e.g., among Indians, Greeks, Romans, etc., nocturnal rituals present, if not always explicitly demonic characters,121 a strongly ambiguous dimension, as, in particular, it was the case in the ancient Indian world of warrior initiations, which must be considered as “borderline events”, at least with respect to the official religion.122 All the complex cycle of the Atirātra- rituals123 dedicated to the soma- and performed124 overnight strictly concern Indra, because he is the only god who can destroy the Asuras overnight, while the other divinities are afraid of them in the darkness.125 In its turn, the soma-, specifically offered to Indra, is jā́gr̥vi- “waking” the God himself, because it must support his nocturnal struggle against Vr̥tra and the Asuras in the hope that the sun will rise soon. The demonization of Indra in Iran should be a memento against any simplistic accommodation of the Indo-Iranian facts and should alert us with regard to the ambiguity of any warlike nocturnal ceremony.126 I would like to insist on the fact that, in patent contrast with the negative function attributed to nocturnal offerings in favour of Anāhitā after sunset, the Atirātra rituals include not only four different animal sacrifices, but in particular one (that of a goat) that was offered to Sarasvatī. The difference is clear and sharp: in the Avestan liturgy the nocturnal offering to Anāhitā became totally unlawful, in the Vedic ceremony, this procedure was considered correct; certainly, it is difficult to deny the presence of a different theological trend. Then, the existence of Iranian traditions other than Zoroastrianism, probably possessing (some of) the characteristics condemned in the Avesta, and perhaps closer to the proto-Vedic ones, reminds us that the condemnation of the cult of the daēuuas was not simply an abstract theological subject, but a real and living antagonism, as perhaps the one of the Viiāmbura daēuuas, mentioned in Yt14.54–56, whose followers were named daēuuaiiāza- “sacrificing to the daēuuas”.127
32But Zoroastrian sources present other strange violent ceremonies, whose classification is embarrassing and problematic. For instance, in Nērangestān 41, 3128, we find a very peculiar and unclear reference to the sacrifice of a she-wolf (vәhrkā-; Pahl. gurg), whose body and milk should be mixed; the nature of this sacrifice turns out to be very ambiguous, if not patently demonic, because the context explicitly refers to daēuuaiiasna- tanu.pәrәϑa-, “daēuua- worshippers whose bodies are forfeit”. In his recent analysis of this very intricate passage, Ahmadi129 is probably right in underlining the demonic aspects of it, rejecting Kotwal’s and Kreyenbroek’s attempt of justifying its compatibility with the Zoroastrian tradition,130 which seems to be admitted by their interpretation of the Pahlavi commentary.131 In any case, the Pahlavi text, as the Avestan one, presents many problems, and we must recall that its general framework remains very negative also with respect to the sacrifice of a female dog and her milk (N41.2). Certainly, the wolf sacrifice as the use of its blood immediately reminds us of a seemingly daēvic ritual mentioned by Plutarch in his De Iside et Osiride, ch. 46,132 where it is stated that an apotropaic sacrifice should be offered to Arīmanios. During the ritual, in which Hades and darkness were invoked, a certain herb,133 named by Plutarch omōmi, was pounded into a mortar, and the blood of a slain wolf was mixed with it. The sacrificial matter was then transported to a sunless spot and thrown away. This passage has provoked a number of pertinent discussions that we cannot resume here,134 but we must emphasize the fact that it openly points to a demonic framework, which makes any sacrifice of a wolf very suspicious135 not only in the Mazdean framework, but everywhere. The idea, apparently supported only by the Pahlavi commentary to N41.3,136 that the body and the milk of a she-wolf can be a legitimate offering, under the condition that the tip of their tail has been cut off, remains very strange. In any case, it cannot be used for the determination of earlier, i.e. Avestan attitudes towards apotropaic sacrifices, because the Avestan text of the Nērangestān does not authorize it, and, furthermore, because it counters the general rule that wild animals should be avoided.137 It is true that the killing of Ahremanic beasts is a meritorious act in the Zoroastrian tradition, but a violent, warlike, performance is too different also from the sacrificial violence, whose blood component is never emphasized. I would avoid suggesting that the slaughtering of the demonic creatures might be equated to the sacrifice, because the quality of the performance seems to me completely different.
33I would also like to insist on a remarkable Indo-Iranian contrastive evidence, which results strictly connected with the sacrificial dimension and the afterlife. Actually, in the Vedic framework it was possible to perform a ritual sacrifice of the so-called “four-eyed dog” (caturakṣa- śvan-), usually on the opening day of the aśvamedha- ceremony.138 Although this sacrifice was celebrated as an anti-demonic action,139 its very presence already marks a strong difference with the Avestan sacrifice, where only the idea of a dog-sacrifice would be a tremendous and unforgivable sin.140 In fact, the dog as a “liminal” animal, which assumes psychopomp functions141 as watcher of the accesses to the afterlife dimension and plays a strong purificatory role, particularly in Iran (the sag-dīd ritual),142 is a fellow of human beings and its sacrifice implies a bold psychological “reversal” in the economy of this alliance. In the Vedic context, contrariwise, even the dog became a sacrificial animal. In this case it was a “four-eyed dog”, i.e. one that, exactly as the caϑru.cašman- span- in the Avesta (V8.16–18), was considered a very special positive creature, to be executed with a club in the centre of the ritual space by a “son of a prostitute” (pauṁścaleya-).143 If this means that all the priests should directly look at the sacrifice, while usually, during animal sacrifices, they must turn the eyes toward another direction,144 the peculiarity of this ritual becomes even more evident. In fact, the possibility to kill a psycopompous animal like the dog (not the wolf) is in my opinion another patent manifestation of a deeply different conception of the sacrifice that probably corresponded also to a diverging attitude with respect to the limits of the orderly ritual action. For these reasons, I suspect that the animal sacrifice reflected different trends in the Vedic and Avestan traditions, so that the two cultures, in spite of the fact that they shared a common origin and still preserved ancestral practices even in the animal sacrifice, had historically developed a deeply diverging vision of its meaning, which should find contrastive reflexes also in a different approach to nocturnal ceremonies.
3. Post-Nocturnal Auroral Sacrifices in the ušahina- gāh and the Vidēvdād’s Timing
34The well-documented presence of a number of prominent liturgies performed during the ušahina- period or gāh (from midnight till dawn or sunrise) has received in past times a certain attention, although not so deep as it should have been done.145 These liturgies actually are the most important ones of the whole Mazdean ceremonial tradition, and apparently also the longest ones, as those of the Vidēvdād-sāde,146 the Visperad, the Bayān Nask147 and the Yašt. In the past few years the topic has finally received serious scholarly attention following the drive to re-examine the whole corpus of the Avestan liturgy and according to a new approach that has emphasized — as never before — the importance of the “intercalations” in the plain sequence of the standard Yasna (particularly among the chapters of the Staota Yesniia) as well as the presence of different varieties, very few of them still surviving. In particular a very important ceremony148 held during the ušahina- gāh as the one of the Vidēvdād follows the technical requirement of aligning the recitation of (part of) the Gāϑās with the sunrise. The research of such a kind of synchronicity invites us to frame the problem of the role of this ritual session and to investigate whether its liminal position has the same restriction of the precedent one, i.e. the Ēbsrūsrim gāh or not. This is a problem that in my ken has never been explicitly discussed and that deserves a deep clarification. In fact, if we consider this period in its nocturnal aspects, we must deduce some prejudicial negative implications concerning the enactment of libations and sacrifices during its period, contrariwise, if we insist on its auroral dimension, i.e., on the direction toward the rising of the sun, the final evaluation is different.
35With regard to the synchronicity with the sun’s rising Cantera149 has explained this choice as due to the explicit desire of obtaining a direct symbolic link with the ritual moment celebrating the union of the soul of the officiating priest with his daēnā-.150 Under this perspective, the “auroral” dimension would be very strong, and it emphasizes the function of the daēnā- as a manifestation of the growing light of dawn (ušah-),151 and, then, of the sun. Cantera has also assumed that the most fitting time for the recitation of Y50–53 and, thus, of the Vahistōištī Gāϑā, was sunrise.152 In his turn, Skjærvø153 has simply remarked that the Vidēvdād’s performance was timed so that the recital of Yasna 62, the hymn to the fire, should coincide with sunrise. We know for certain that the later Zoroastrian tradition, as noted by Stausberg,154 ritually forbade the recitation of Y62, if the sun has not yet arisen, and if need be it was possible to interrupt or delay the liturgy. The pertinent prescriptions are stated in two Persian Rivāyats, of which the first one by Kāmdīn Shāpur is of the year 1558.155 We can read Dhabhar’s translation of the Persian text:
Question. “About consecrating the Vendidad: how should it be consecrated?” Answer: “When it is known that midnight has passed, and when it is ascertained that the gāh (i.e., the period of the day) is on a par with Ooshahen, (the priest) should, during the first gāh (i.e., Ooshahen), proceed (with the consecration), and when the sun rises, it is necessary that he should have finished the 9th fargard. If he has not yet finished it, he should again consecrate (that Vendidad) during the next night, for that is the proper period of time. But, before the sun rises, if he approaches (the recital of) the Atash Nyaish (Ys. 62), he should wait until the sun rises, then proceed with it and recite it at that time. (The Vendidad for) the Nirangdin ceremony should be consecrated with the Khshnuman of Sarosh.156 Other Vendidads may be consecrated with any Khshnuman, except in the night of Anirān (i.e., the last day) when the (previous) month passes on to the next month and on the day Abān and (the Vendidad should not be consecrated with the Khshnuman of) Vispeshãm.”
36Now we can compare with it also the ritual directions preserved in a Rivāyat by Shāpur Bharuci:157
If one consecrates the Vendidad at night (commencing from the Ooshahin gāh), and if he finishes the 8th fargard (of the Vendidad) and arrives at the 9th fargard, just when it is (the period of) Hāvan, (i.e., day-break), then (the consecration) is valid; if not, (the Vendidad) should be celebrated on the next (day at) night. If, during the night, one has finished off the 9th fargard, or if one has recited the whole (Vendidad) during night, then until it is Hāvan-gāh, he should not recite the Atash Nyaish (Y62). (For that recital) he should wait a little until it is Hāvan-gāh and then (during that period of the day) it is permitted to recite the Atash Nyaish (i.e., Y62).
37It is to be noted that Dhabhar’s additional remarks, put into brackets, are not extremely precise, in the sense that, for instance, as remarked by Cantera,158 during the long and solemn ceremonies, as the Vidēvdād, Y62 did not properly correspond in its internal order to the text dedicated to Ātaxš; in reality, according to the ritual mss., the sequence was as follows: Y59–61, Y62.1–6, Ātaxš Drōn, Dahma Āfriti,159 and finally the rest of Y62.7–10, which form a particular kind of ceremony to the fire. Thus, when I will make references to this chapter of the Yasna, I will assume that it was recited in the order attested for the long liturgies.
38If we carefully examine the two quoted Persian texts, we must note that they do not properly agree in all details.160 In fact, the first one says that the ceremony is valid if the recitation of the V9 coincides with the sunrise (i.e., at least 8 fragards are recited before dawn, including Y32–34.13). We must observe that in this case the first intonation of the YH (Y35–41), which occurs after that of fragards 7–8, and precedes fragard 9, should fall a little bit earlier than dawn, but reasonably after the cockcrow.161 In that case, the rest of the Gāϑās would be recited after sunrise. But, then, the second stipulation not only says (as the first one) that the priest can arrive at the 9th fragard when it is already dawn, but also adds that if the priest has recited all of Vidēvdād, while it is still dark, for reciting Y62, he should wait until the sunrise. This means that according to this second different direction the entire Gāϑās and all the fragards of the Vidēvdād might be completely recited before dawn. Does this mean that the timing of the recitation of the Gāϑās in the Vidēvdād’s ceremony might be a matter of indifference? I will try to answer this question in the following pages entering one of the most intriguing subjects of the Zoroastrian tradition, that of the auroral sacrifice.
39With regard to these two Rivāyats not only the presence of different practices is evident, but also the mention of these distinctions can be due also to the probable consideration of practical problems deriving from the speediness or, on the contrary, the slowness of the officiating priests. Certainly, at least on one main point of the liturgical rationale both sources totally agree, i.e. on the need of avoiding that the celebration of the fire, at the beginning of the third phase of the ritual (i.e. around Y62)162 might be performed too early, i.e. before the rising of the sun. We may presume that in order to gain this result in a service starting after midnight and including the preparation of the paragṇā, the whole ceremony required a certain time, probably not less than something about 5/6 hours, while the period of 9 hours indicated by Hintze seems to me too long,163 because it compellingly should last too much more than the expected time of the ušahina- gāh. It is clear that for Shapur Bharuci the central point was simply the celebration of the fire in Y62 (or better to the particular text to be recited in that position), while for Kamdin Shapur the recitation of a certain part of the Staota Yesniia (including that of the first Yasna Haptaŋhāiti) had to be completed before sunrise. This particular focus on V9, which thus becomes a turning point of the ritual, was certainly connected with the liturgical meaning of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, and with the circumstance that this text was strictly connected with sacrifice and the offering of a piece of meat to the fire.
3.1. The Evidence of Nērangestān 28, 1–6
40The Avestan ritual directions expressly formulated in the Nērangestān 28 shed more light on the Sasanian tradition of performing solemn ceremonies in the course of the ušahina- gāh. I follow the text edited and translated by Kotwal and Kreyenbroek:164
28, 1: kahmāt̰ haca ušahinanąm gāϑanąm* ratufritiš frajasaiti?
28, 2: haca *maiδiiaiiāt̰ xšapat̰ hū vaxšāi pairi.sacāiti.
28, 3: aϑa *aiβi.gāme.
28, 4: āat̰ *hami әezi para *hū vaxšat̰ ahunauuatca gāϑanąm srāuuaiieiti.
28, 5: әasnәmca haptaŋhāitīm uštanuuaitīm hāitīmca.
28, 6: *anāstәrәtō pascaēta <auuā̊ ẏā̊> aniiā̊ srāuuaiiot̰ <ā maiδiiāt̰> *fraiiarāt̰.
28, 1: From what time onwards does the gratification of the Ratus through the Gāϑā recitations of the Ušahin watch commence.
28, 2: It lasts from the middle of the night until sunrise.
28, 3: Thus in winter.
28, 4: Then in summer, if one recites the Ahunauuaiti Gāϑā before sunrise.
28, 5: And the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, and also the Uštauuaiti Chapter.
28, 6: Without guilt he may then recite the others until the middle of the morning.
41Although this chapter does not explicitly mention the Vidēvdād ceremony, Kotwal and Kreyenbroek165 fittingly remark that this is the only liturgy beginning in the Ušahina- gāh and continuing into the next watch to be known in the modern Parsi sacerdotal practice. They also state that during the performance of the Vidēvdād the Ahunauuaiti Gāϑā and the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, followed by fragard 9 of the Vidēvdād, must be completed before daybreak, but that fragard 10 and the Uštauuaiti Gāϑā could be recited at, or after that time, with direct reference to the two passages contained in the Persian Rivāyats we have already discussed. This certainly means that the first recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti should be compellingly performed just before sunrise, but that it was possible to recite the second one also after it. In any case, from these ritual directions we do not find any explicit obligation to complete the recitation of the entire Vidēvdād before sunrise.
42We know that according to many ritual manuscripts the two fragards of V9– 10 were performed after Y35–42 and Vr16–17, and that after Vr21 the recitation of Y35–42 was repeated a second time,166 but this repetition did not include chapters 16–17 of the Visperad and fragards 9–10 of the Vidēvdād. Thus, we can conclude that the strict requirement stipulated in the Persian Rivāyats to reach at least the eighth fragard of the Vidēvdād before sunrise, but also the one contained in the Avestan text of the Nērangestān 28, concerned only the first recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, while the subsequent texts, including a second recitation of Y35–43, the so-called Apara Yasna Haptaŋhāiti,167 the “rear/posterior Yasna Haptaŋhāiti”, could be offered at the full light of the sun.168 This distinction is crucial, because, as I have already remarked, the texts to be recited/performed twice, i.e. the YH, are strictly connected with sacrifice, and their differential temporal disposition with respect to the sunrise can be of a certain interest in the interpretation of the service. The possibility that the ceremony might be invalidated due to a wrong timing must, in fact, be connected with a deeper meaning. The synchronicity of these two recitations should be certainly investigated in further studies, but I will try to make some noteworthy points about this temporal alignment, going beyond the evident observation that Y62 or better its specific variant here performed,169 (in any case a text strictly connected with the igneous force of the sun [Y62, 1–10 basically corresponds to Ātaxš Niyāyišn 7–16170 and with the sacrificial “transferal” function of the flames consuming the offering]), should not be recited before sunrise. We must also consider that the third part of the ritual was also connected with the worship of the waters,171 and that their adoration was forbidden after the setting of the sun and probably this ban was extended until the rising of the sun. In this respect, we must observe that the refusal of nocturnal ceremonies (i.e. after sunset) was strictly respected in the orthodox Mazdean ritual tradition. In addition to the data we have collected and discussed with stronger emphasis, we must insist on other minor but patent evidences, as the fact that the performance of the Vidēvdād ceremony was not allowed in the day of Ābān, as previously stressed by Kamdin Shapuhr in his Rivāyat.
3.2. The liminary position of the Vidēvdād ceremony
43Normally, as remarked by M. Boyce, the pressing of the haoma- may take place only “between sunrise and noon” (Av. hāuuani- ratu-, Pahl. hāwan gāh, the “time of pressing”) with the remarkable exception of the Vidēvdād ceremony,172 a liturgy that the much regretted British scholar considered as a later creation, probably only of Sasanian origin. This statement has been subjected to criticisms.173 It appears to be based on some prejudices. We must note that the communis opinio today increasingly dates the liturgy to an earlier period.174 In fact, the idea of sandwiching the Staota Yesniia in other Younger Avestan texts was relatively ancient,175 for it continues the practice that produced the new “mixed” Yasna, where a group of selected Old Avestan texts,176 already arranged according to inner criteria,177 were preceded and followed by a number of Younger Avestan texts. This practice satisfied a priestly ratio concerning the ritual, in which the invitation of the gods, the preparation of the haoma-, the sacrifice of an animal, the meeting with the daēnā-, etc., were arranged and timed in a pre-ordained logical sequence.178
44The subsequent expansions of the ritual followed a similar pattern. They were certainly realized in a later phase (of course, not before the re-arrangement of the liturgical synthesis joining together Old, Middle and Younger Avestan texts), as we must deduce simply for technical reasons. A most sacred kernel, a strong nucleus of mantras, was extended with other prayers, which enlarged the ritual and presumably adapted it to specific functions. An auroral liturgy, expressly elaborated against the power of darkness, must have been already current in the earlier Iranian traditions (and it has also Vedic parallels), so that there is no reason to postulate a Sasanian invention. The reason behind this scholarly negative evaluation was probably the assumption that all the ceremonies were extracted from the Great Avestan Canon somewhat similar to a Christian Missal, that contains pericopes drawn from the Old and New Testament, and arranged according to a seasonal liturgy. The antiquity of the ceremony does not rule out that in the course of time some innovations, textual corruptions (also due to its oral dimension), changes in ritual habits et cetera, might have occurred; but these possible or even probable changes do not constitute a compelling argument in favour of a late dating of the Vidēvdād-sāde ceremony in its earliest version. This statement does not imply that the liturgy was performed from its first elaboration to Sasanian and post-Sasanian times exactly in the same way without suffering radical changes in texts and rituals. The living dimension of the services inevitably involves a continuous re-elaboration, that in spite of a basic conservatism, introduces differences of schools, e.g. in the intonations of the texts, and other similar phenomena.179 Similarly, we cannot affirm that all the single chapters of the Vidēvdād were specifically composed for such an intercalation service, or that textual changes and substitutions were not practiced, but there is a certain rationale in the disposition;180 the different level of compositional quality and contents shown by the single fragards of the Vidēvdād seems to indicate that, in their present version, these chapters can easily belong to different periods, and perhaps also that some of them might have been already part of other unknown liturgies and at a certain point assembled ex novo in a new fashion.
45As we have previously noted, in the case of the Vidēvdād, the liturgy, chronologically later than the basic Yasna,181 preferably takes places between midnight and the sunrise (Dastur Barzu in his Rivāyat sharply declares that “the Vendidad cannot be consecrated during the day”),182 and, as far as we know, among the extant ceremonies, and perhaps within the whole original Mazdean ritual corpus as it once existed, it is the most complex and certainly demanding one. The decline of the priests’ ability to recite the liturgy by hearth has necessitated the progressive introduction of textual support in conducting the ceremony.183 From the theological point of view, it represents an enforcement and an additional expansion of an already “expanded” Yasna-Visperad liturgy, so that its formation seems to perform the specific task of protecting the entire world during one of the most dangerous phases of the nychthemeron, that of the cyclical defeat of darkness, and we may suspect that at least sometimes in the past, it had to be performed even every night. In this way, it was a means of support and protection for the new sunrise and the defence of the correct order of life, so that the function of this anti-nocturnal auroral liturgy assumed very strong and clear anti-demonic features.
3.3. The Meaning of the Double Recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti: A Working Hypothesis
46All the previous remarks are meant to caution about the complex dimension connected with the end of night and the problems deriving with the auroral timing of the Vidēvdād-sāde liturgy, on which I would like to concentrate my investigation. Its arrangement and development, in fact, should have followed a series of cautious technical caveats aimed at avoiding any possible confusion of the sacrificial target or, in other words, preventing the production of a ritual in favour of demons. The Vidēvdād liturgy, being the most aggressive action against the power of darkness, can be symbolically described as a ritual fight into a territory that still belongs, at its beginning, i.e. about the middle of the night, when the stars were well visible, but not yet the light of the rising sun, to the dimension of the enemy. The double recitation of Y35–42,184 a text strictly connected with the timing of the animal sacrifice, usually occurring just before its first recitation, in a moment hosting the offering of meat to the fire, presents us with a number of important questions. In this respect, we must remark that Cantera has already noted the presence of a problem and has formulated a fitting observation185 concerning the meaning and the rationale of such a double recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti during the Long Liturgy,186 arising the question whether its occurrence might be potentially connected with a double offering to the fire. I think that this question is still open, in spite of the negative conclusions advanced by Cantera himself to his own question. We must, in fact, remark that in his further evaluation of the data Cantera very cautiously observed that, if such a double offering had taken place, it could be connected with a double sacrifice.187 But he also questioned the possible occurrence of such a second animal offering to the fire, on the basis that, according to the directions of the ritual manuscripts, it is the rāspīg, i.e. the assistant priest, who is charged with the second recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti.188 In addition, we may observe that the ritual directions do not attest the presence of a sequence of Ahuna Vairiia prayers, which usually denote the presence of a prominent sacrificial action, but this is a matter on which further analysis should be developed. In any case, according to a provisory reconstruction of the ritual sequence, there should have been an animal sacrifice in the course of the first recitation, but, as far as the stipulation of N28.9 (already quoted below) is valid, not another one during the second performance of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, if this had taken place during a Vidēvdād ceremony in the time of the following gāh, a condition that, as we have seen, was probable and frequent. In that case, the second offering, if present, should have been simply of meat, and without the prescription of an animal sacrifice when the ceremony had already entered the watch belonging to hāuuani-. But, if the ritual was performed in a very fast way, it was, at least theoretically, possible to have two sacrifices before dawn, at the condition of avoiding the recitation of the fire and waters worship before sunrise. Again, with regard to the Vidēvdād-sāde performance, we must observe that no sacrificial ban can be a priori evoked for the ušahina- session, in particular if we consider that both sacrifices would fall in any case after the cockcrow, which would announce the appearance of the sunlight and of dawn. I recall that the cock was in fact named after the Ahuric lexicon not kahrkatat-, but parō.darš- “the one who sees in advance (the sunrise)”.189
47Thus, we may suspect that the double recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti had a significant meaning, and that if its recitation was actually connected with a sacrificial performance (bloody or symbolic), we may suspect that it was possible to give two offerings to the fire: the first one was probably performed after the song of the cock, while the second one took place in the rising light of the sun or when the sun was already appeared, if the ceremony was not performed in a swift way. Of course, from the freedom of the extant ritual prescriptions on this matter, the timing of the YH was not obligatory, being compulsory only the ban of reciting the third part of the celebration concerning the fire, the water, and the sun still without sufficient light. I wonder whether these restrictions were also connected with climatic conditions, as the impossibility to see the sunrise and the disappearance of the stars, because of clouds or other unpredictable atmospheric phenomena; in any case, it was possible to stop the liturgy, and we can suspect that in this case the priests had the possibility to introduce other litanies as a sort of intermezzo in order to gain time. The Persian Rivāyats certainly gave more to the simplest and most evident synchronicity between the sunrise and the celebration of the sun as yazata- through the exaltation of the fire (Y62) than to other aspects of the service, whose meaning was no longer significant, but also ch. 28 of the Nērangestān does not arise problems, while, as previously remarked, it gives a lot of additional pieces of information in particular with regard to the sacrificial animal. In fact, N28.9, specifies that if the animal was not sacrificed before the change of the gāh, its killing was forbidden. So we may suppose that it would have been possible to offer at least an oblation of fat also a second time, if the animal sacrifice had taken place before the end of the gāh. In any case, we can state that it is not at all necessary to postulate an obligatory second act of killing of another sacrificial victim.
3.4. The Change of Priest and the role of the pasuuāzah-
48According to the ritual mss., during the second recitation of the YH the leading priest was no more the zaotar-, but the rāspīg, as fittingly pointed out by Cantera.190 We must note that, when the whole sacrifice was displaced in its full version, the priests were still eight (in the solemn liturgies), and the assignment of the parts might have been different, so that a change of leadership would be more frequent and practical, particularly for a long ceremony like the one in question. Certainly, we can suppose, after the rule of N28.9, that in most cases the second offering did not strictly involve a killing of another animal. The two offerings probably answered two different needs, and were enacted in two separate moments and for two distinguished, but interconnected, aims, so that also the change of the roles of the priestly does not necessarily represent a diminutio for the sacrificer, but a new differentiation of functions, where the previously leading priest gives the way to another one of the seven assistants, who probably performed just a second offering of meat without any act of killing. We must also consider that an exchange of functions between the zōt and the rāspīg is not at all unknown, and that, for instance, it can happen when the two priests need to have equal power, as remarked by M. Boyce.191
49Thus, in particular with regard to the two recitation of the YH, I would like to advance the following working hypothesis. I have shown in a series of studies that the installation of the full priestly college was interpreted as an event in which gods and human performers of the sacrifice mirrored each other, and that some aspects of these modalities were known also in the Vedic tradition. In the eschatological scenario of the last days, gods and humans sacrifice in order to regenerate the world, so that Ohrmazd and the Sōšāns correspond as two zaotars, one divine, the latter human. The opportunity to lead the ceremony just for a second offering, given to another priest, might be considered as an additional way of representing these two levels of the ceremony, in which the first (eventually full) sacrifice was performed by the zaotar-, while the second (only through an offering of a piece of meat) was celebrated before the end of the central part of the ceremony by one of the seven priests as, for instance, the ātrauuaxša- or the sraošauuarәza-. Then, if we postulate this variety, with and without animal sacrifice, the presence of the assistant priest in charge of animal sacrifice, i.e. the one who was installed with the formula pasuuāzaŋhәm āstaiia “I ritually install the (priest) who must accompany the animal (to the sacrifice)”,192 becomes unnecessary (at least with regard to the second part the ritual offering) as there was no need of a second recitation of the three Ahuna Vairiia as of all the normal liturgical sequence prescribed before the first performance of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti.
4. The Auroral Sacrifice in its Cosmological Meaning
50We must not forget the speculative dimension of the Mazdean ritual, which assumed an eschatological value that became extremely evident at least in the later traditions concerning the end of the world. At the Renovation a double sacrifice will take place, one visible on the earth, performed by a sacerdotal college composed by the Sōšāns as a zōt and his co-operators (frašgird-kardārān), and one invisible, because enacted by Ohrmazd together with the Amahraspandān who would take place in the spirit of the single priests.193 During this final action against the demons (Wizīdagīhā ī Zādspram 35.15–29), the double priestly college will perform five following yasnas, in correspondence of the five gāh of the whole day, starting from Uzērin, through Ēbsrūsrim, Ušahin, and Hāwan up to Rapihwin.194 This means that the technically “concatenate” ritual session, albeit divided in five parts, will be without interruptions. It is also to be noted that all the dead will acquire immortality only in correspondence with the Ušahin gāh, i.e. in the framework of the central liturgical session. With the following day of Ahunawad (the first one of the five Gāϑic days), two hours before the night, the descent on the earth of Ērman will make the difference between good and bad human beings definitively clear and sharp; Ahreman, Āz and the dēws will become all visible to humanity, so that most of them will be destroyed by their direct celestial antagonists (WZ35.33–37). Thus, during the night, the Amahraspandān will be mixed (gumēxtēnd) with their own natural corresponding elements, and finally, on the Gāϑic day of Spandarmad,195 they will appear again with Ohrmazd on earth and the single kišwar. Clearly, the cosmic sacrifice corresponds to the regeneration of the world and humanity, and it is interesting that during the crepuscular phase the demons are made manifest and destroyed, while in the course of the following night, in the prospective time of an auroral manifestation, the reunification of the mēnōg and gētīg dimension will be fully accomplished.196
51The theology of the final sacrifice would deserve a special study, but it certainly presents us with a number of pertinent facts showing the complexity of the Mazdean speculations on the meaning of the ritual. In spite of the discrepancies attested in the description of the last phases of human history as reported by the Bundahišn and the Wizīdagīhā ī Zādspram, we know for certain that the Sōšāns, assuming the function of the zaotar- leading the ritual, must slaughter with the help of his assistants the bull Hadayōš (or Hadayans), as stated in Bd34.23:197
yazišn ī pad rist-wirāyīh sōšāns abāg ayārān kunēd. ud gāw ī hadayōš pad ān yazišn kušēnd ud az pīh ī ān gāw ud hōm ī spēd anōš wirāyēnd ud ō harwisp mardōm dahēnd ud harwisp mardōm a-hōš bawēnd tā hamē (w)-ud-hamē (w)- rawišnīh.
The Sōšāns together with his assistants will perform a sacrifice for the resurrection of the dead, and they will slaughter the bull Hadayōš during that sacrifice, and from the fat of that bull and the white Hōm they will restore immortality and will give (it) to all the humanity, and the entire humanity will become immortal for ever and ever.
52Thus, there is no doubt that this final ceremony will include a sacrifice of a bull or an ox, but the cosmic sacrifice of the sacrificial animal cannot be performed many times! It must take place only once and in correspondence of only one of the five ritual sessions. Although there are no definitive elements in order to solve this question, the description of the ceremony as presented in WZ35.27198 can be directly compared with the already quoted passage of the Bundahišn:
+ušahin gāh a-hōšīh <ī> wispān rōšn tōhmagān rāy pad ham ēwēnag yašt kunēnd ahōš bawēnd ud+ušahin nām az a-hōšīh.
In the time of the Ušahin-gāh, for the immortality of all the (living beings) of beaming-race, they will make a sacrifice in the same manner, (and) they will become immortal, (because) the name of ušahin comes from the (word) a-hōšīh (immortality).
53The wording of this passage directly evokes that of the Bundahišn, so that we can simply underline once more the cosmic importance of this phase of the day, placed at the end of the nocturnal-auroral session, i.e. in the light of the new day, although it was not the last in the framework of the final cosmic ceremony, whose conclusion was placed in the Rapihwin gāh. We have already noted that the first session of this complex ceremony took place in the Uzērin, i.e. in correspondence to a very uncommon moment. In fact, as we have previously seen, the list of the gāh usually started with Ušahin or with Hāwan, never with Uzērin. But this peculiar choice was due to the desire of having the final session in Rapihwin, i.e. with the position of the sun in medium caeli, when the final victory can be completely gained. This was, for instance, the fitting case of Tištriia’s victory over Apaoša (Yt8.28: ā.rapiϑβinәm zruuānәm).199 We cannot forget also the symbolic implication of this gāh-, to which the beginning of the gētīg period and the aggression of Ahreman into the world corresponded: thus, the cycle was closed. But, as we have seen, it is only the sacrifice at dawn, which becomes in this sequence the central one, the one that would assume a proper regenerative function with the contemporary rising of the sun and of the resurrection of the whole humanity. This interpretation confirms the importance and prominence attributed already by Hintze200 to the ušahinagāh- as the first ritual session of the day occurring in some texts in alternative to that of hāuuani-. It is in this light that probably we can even interpret the meaning of the sacrifice of a gōspand for the čahārom ritual at dawn, which was preserved until some years ago in certain Zoroastrians traditions, although we must also observe that the auroral dimension of the cosmological final sacrifice is anticipated every time the Vidēvdād ceremony was performed in the ušahina- gāh.
54Given also the double recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti and its strong connection with the moment of the sacrifice I simply wonder whether its repetition during the Solemn Liturgies did not symbolically evoked also the occurrence of a double sacrificial performance, the first one by the priests as visible representatives of Ohrmazd and his divine assistants, the second one (only symbolical, i.e. without slaughtering) offered in their role of ritual Saošiiaṇts, anticipating the future sacrifice of the third son of Zoroaster. In any case, the reason of its repetition should have been very significant, in particular if we consider that this text was the centre of the whole liturgy, and that its repetition should necessarily imply a deeper emphasis on the entire ceremony before the performance of Y58, which represented a strong change in the role of the fire, opening the exodus of the ritual and the semi-disinstallation of the priestly college.201 In other words, my impression is that also if we would like to exclude the performance of any sacrificial action, real or simply symbolic, during its recitation, only the oral performance of this text involved a deep force that in any case remained and reinforced the (previous) sacrifice and its cosmological value.
5. Conclusive Remarks
55The present contribution tries to offer a cautious attempt of pointing out a number of problems that still demand new insight, and suggests a provisional explanatory outline for the progressive symbolic importance of the auroral watch and its ceremonies. It established a sharp distinction between evening-nocturnal ceremonies, which were subjected to severe restrictions, and the nocturnal-auroral watch, where the taboos connected with the risks of failure in the ceremony were different, and did not concern the killing of animals, although a substitutive sacrifice was possible, in particular if a second offering was given to the fire. In addition, the present study touches the problem of the progressive reduction and later elimination of the animal sacrifice from the solemn and normal rituals of the Mazdeans, which happened after the fall of the Sasanian Empire,202 without resorting to the ideological model of a growing resentment against violence203 and/or to the impact of the Hindu ahiṁsā-influence,204 in spite of the fact that some Brāhmaṇic schools still sacrifice animals.205 Furthermore, the observation that no ritual has included as indispensable the celebration of an animal sacrifice can offer a useful key for a reasonable solution explaining the internal history of the Mazdean liturgical tradition. In other words, although it is true that the progressive disappearance (or reduction) of an important practice such as that of the animal sacrifice could find more than one explanation, the supposed impact of other traditions like the Islamic or the Hindu one, too frequently evoked, does not offer a definitive supportive evidence, because both traditions know and celebrate animal sacrifices till nowadays. Thus, its influence, albeit possible, was not unique and compelling. It is to be eventually noted that even the decay of the power attributed to the Mazdean communities in the post-Sasanian period would not be sufficient alone to explain this phenomenon, because the animal sacrifice was widespread and vegetarian rules were not so strict in Islamic countries or so compelling in Indian areas, at least for non-Hindu peoples. On the contrary, we should try to find a solution in the framework of an internal evolution properly developed inside the liturgical history of the Zoroastrian tradition, which might actually offer good theological reasons for a practical limitation of an ideal model of ceremony, a model that in several cases did not correspond, also in antiquity, to its prototype. In this way, we will not be compelled to invoke the use of often-reductive sociological explications or the excuse of foreign influences.
56The important references about the sacrifice we have found in the Nērangestān and other sources doubtless give clear indications of its relevance, but we can take them neither as the exclusive key of interpretation for the entire ceremonial corpus, nor as the proof that every Yasna involved a bloody sacrifice. This, as we have remarked, would be an extreme explanation of the facts without probative evidence. The self-offering of the priests (starting with their uštā̆na-, followed by the uruuan-) was a very archaic liturgical modality, which implemented the power of the sacrifice, and gave it an enormous significance on many levels. It also opened the way to a progressive abstraction of the ceremony, which reduced, as it happened in a definitive way nowadays, the ritual obligations, in particular those strictly connected with the animal sacrifice, to minimum. In the framework of a process of ritual simplification, visible in the strong reduction the number of the priests and the weight of their distinguished functions, the symbolisation of the sacrifice seems to be the result of a long process, and not the simple effect of a radical and sudden decay. All these reflections could be of help in the explanation of what happened in the course of time. So, if we postulate a primordial ideal model, perhaps even with two or more (real o symbolic?) animal sacrifices, and an auroral variety of the ceremony with (perhaps) two such rites, the first one normally performed, and only the second one mostly limited to the offering of meat, it would be simpler to explain the further evolution of the liturgy and the progressive reduction/elimination of the animal sacrifice from the centre of the ceremonies. This transformation was also favoured by the evident fact that during the second recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti even the offering of meat to the fire was progressively obliterated, and this simplification played a certain influence also on the first recitation, which maintained a far memory of the real sacrifice only in few ceremonies as those of the Bhagarias. Thus, I simply suggest that just the normal occurrence of old varieties of the ritual in which it was possible to substitute the act of killing, became a sort of paradigmatic example, and the presence of this option progressively favoured an increasing tendency to the elimination of this part of the ceremony, of which only few scarce rests, sometimes preserved in very conservative priestly schools, still performed until few decades ago. The auroral anti-daēvic ritual, in particular, would have offered a prestigious model of celebration even during the day and on every occasion, especially in all those communities that did not possess wealth of flocks to be offered. With the dissipation of the animal sacrifice and its increasing limitation to the contexts where there was a relative abundance of victims, the scheme of the recitation without animal sacrifice, embedded in one of the most prestigious ceremonies like the Vidēvdād, was progressively extended and also introduced into other rituals like plain Yasna liturgy.
57In any case, the progressive reduction of the frequent practice of animal sacrifices cannot be due to mainly economic reasons,206 and I insist on this, because I do not want that my warnings on this problem might give a distorted idea of my point of view. The symbolisation of the sacrifice through the possibility of offering simple pieces of meat to the fire and the increasing importance attributed to the uštā̆na- and uruuan-self-donation by the priests, made the sacrificial performance more abstract since the earliest times, as it happened also in the case of the assumption of the function of ritual Saošiiaṇts by the celebrating priests. The double recitation of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti had a strong significance, and its potential connection with a second form of offering to the gods cannot be excluded at all. We can suspect that in some cases such an additional offering did not include any animal sacrifice (a part, perhaps, some exceptions, but this matter is too vague), while its progressive separation from the (symbolic) sacrifice produced a new pattern, so enforcing the way toward a simplification also of the ceremony connected with the first recitation, in particular in the conditions we have tried to describe and reconstruct. In any case, the progressive transformation of the second recitation of the most important text connected with the sacrificial performance and the consummation of meat, true or symbolic, (also in the case it was not connected with another sacrificial performance of any kind: slaughtering or simple offering of a piece of meat) probably played an influence on the further celebration of the previous Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, giving more chances to its abstract dimension.
Notes de bas de page
2 According to ch. 47 of the Nērangestān, two assistants had to bring the sacrificial animal at the beginning of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, but it is probable that they should appear on the sacrificial area before the beginning of Y35.1; the same chapter (N47.19–24) states that the animal sacrifice was celebrated during the recitation of three following Ahuna Vairiia; in particular, during the recitation of the third one the victim was killed with a knife and stunned with a hammer; see also Cantera 2016b, 152. The entrails were inspected and the sacrificial portions prepared according to N47.28 and N47.13–18, at the moment of the recitation of the word yā̊ŋhąmcā of the Yeŋhē Hātąm, which comes up just before the YH. See Cantera 2014a, 255–258. Boyce (1970, 68– 69) advanced very important considerations on the subject, observing that: “The sacrifice was performed by the frabartār (sic). The carcase was then presumably flayed and the meat dressed; and subsequently, after the recital of Hā XXXIV, a little of the meat was roasted over the fire in the pāvī, and partaken of in cāšnī by the zōt during the recital of Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, while the frabartār then proffered the ātaš-zōhr. The culminations of the sacrifice thus took place at what is evidently the highest point of the liturgy, set between Zoroaster’s own Gāϑās, which surround it protectively as the noblest of mąϑras.”
3 Modi 1937, 263–267, passim.
4 De Jong 2002, 128, 140–141.
5 Panaino 2004a, 66–75; 2004b.
6 Biardeau (in Biardeau & Malamoud) 1996, 58; cf. Panaino 2004a, 71–75; 2004b.
7 Malamoud 1989, 65 [= 1994, 70–71].
8 Kellens 1991, 50–51.
9 Kellens 2007a, 149.
10 Cf. Cantera 2013b, 117; 2016b, 155.
11 Götz König has recently underlined the importance of the xratu- in the framework of the ritual dynamics (see his contribution in this volume). On the kratu- in the Vedic dimension, see Das 1983, 448–450.
12 See Kellens 1995b, 38–40.
13 Ibidem.
14 Cf. Cantera 2013b, 118.
15 See Panaino 2004a, 66–71.
16 See Cantera 2016b, 156.
17 On the blood, see De Jong 2002, 137, n. 42, 138. The same scholar underlines (p. 142) the fact that one distinguished Zoroastrian practice was that of keeping the animal blood for as long as possible.
18 Kellens 1991, 50.
19 See Hintze 2003. Cf. Hintze 2007a.
20 I must thank V. Sadovski, who has attracted my attention on this problem.
21 Rüpke 2001, 116. Scheid in Rüpke 2011, 265–266.
22 See the synthesis by De Jong 2002 and the contribution by Malandra 2010.
23 See De Jong 1997, passim; 2002, 132–133.
24 See Narten 1995, 297–304. Cf. Benveniste 1964; De Jong 2002, 139–140.
25 Boyce 1970, 77–78.
26 See Giara (& Karanjia & Stausberg) 2004; Boyce 1967, 40.
27 See already Boyce 1966; 1970, 67–73; 1977, 157; Humbach 1964, 271–272; Kellens 2011, 112– 113; 2013, 59–61; De Jong 2002; Cantera 2014b; 2016a.
28 Panaino 2003.
29 See now Panaino 2015b.
30 Panaino 2004a, 66–75. 2004b.
31 Biardeau 1996, 57–58. Cf. Panaino 2004a, 71–72.
32 See, e.g., Kellens 2007a; Cantera 2016b.
33 See Kellens 2011, 113. Cantera 2014a, 256–257; 2016b, 151–152. I still insist on the fact that it was correct to emphasize the absence of ritual actions in the core of the Long Liturgy, as it was described in modern Zoroastrian practice, because it is a fact, whose origin is due, as now we know, from the decay of the ritual act of killing a sacrificial animal or to offer a piece of meat to the fire. Furthermore, this period of inactivity was connected also with the time necessary for the cooking of the meat. My mistake was in the supposition that this condition of inactivity was original, because I supposed that the effects of the ritual abstraction and spiritualisation had been efficient too earlier, but these facts do not eliminate the presence of a process of ritual abstraction and of self-sacrifice, which is now commonly admitted (see Cantera 2016b, 152). For instance, Kellens (2007a, 149) used, in his turn, the expression “auto-immolation” in order to define that status in which the priest has offered his uštana- and remains with his uruuan-, waiting for the moment of his union with his daēnā-, and of his transformation in a ritual saošiiaṇt-.
34 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 206–211 (in particular N47.24–25, and n. 817). See also for a possible reconstruction of the procedure and its similarities with the pounding of the haoma-, Cantera 2014b. See De Jong 2002, 138–141.
35 See Cantera 2014a, 255–257; 2015, 255–257; Panaino 2017d.
36 On this text, see Hintze 2007a (with bibliography). See also Cantera 2014b.
37 See N47.24; Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 208–209, and n. 815.
38 See N40.10; Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 170–171. Cf. Boyce 1970, 67–68.
39 See Cantera’s contribution in this volume; cf. also Cantera 2016b.
40 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 206–209. Cf. Cantera 2016b, 152.
41 See the contribution by Moein in this volume.
42 See Cantera 2014b.
43 Cantera (2014a, 256. 2016b, 152) notes that the meat of the sacrificial animal was cut during the recitation of three additional Ahuna Vairiias. Then the offering was given to the fire at the recitation of Y35.1. Between the recitation of Vr20 and Y35, 1, the formula aētā̊s.tē ātarә zaōϑrā̊ was recited “these offerings are for You, o Fire!” (N47.16; cf. Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 205–206 and n. 802), which was chosen as title of the present article. It is also to be underlined that Cantera (2016b, 164–165) suspects that “there was an immolation during the Srōš Drōn, and the victim was eaten by the participants at the end of Y8. We could imagine that during the second Drōn Yašt the rest of the immolated victim before the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti and then partially offered to the fire was consecrated and “sacrificed” (yazamaide), and then distributed between the sponsor and the sacrifice to all the other participants”. All these examples show that there were many varieties and that our reconstruction, in absence of more explicit prescriptive sources, must consider the presence of a number of different alternatives.
44 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 206–207.
45 See Panaino 2005.
46 On the hierarchy of the sacrificial animals see Puhvel 1978. Cf. Bolle 1983, 49.
47 See Huyse 1999 I, 48–49, and in particular 124.
48 See De Jong 2002, 144–145.
49 See Ahmadi 2017.
50 See Razmjou 2004.
51 We must distinguish between the crude reality and a theoretical model of the sacrifice as an uninterrupted chain of liturgical services, celebrated in a perfect manner with a sacerdotal college in its entirety and purity under the most excellent patronage offering the best victims. This distinction means that we must evaluate whether the expectations contained in the manuals and in the most conservative ritual directions correspond to the everyday practice or to an abstract description of the most ideal performance.
52 In his study of the Mazdean sacrifice, De Jong (2002, 137) observes that the quantity of sacrificed animals seems to have been under close control, in order to kill a number of beasts strictly indispensable for the survival of the community.
53 See De Jong 2002, 147.
54 See Humbach & Faiss 2010, 168.
55 Kellens 2015a, 21–22.
56 The problem of the intrinsic connection between sacrifice and violence is an object of deep and complex investigation; see: Girard 1972; Burkert 1997; Bolle 1983.
57 See Kellens & Pirart 1991, 265–267.
58 Cantera (2016b, 152, n. 16) assumes quite reasonably that the regular practice of the animal sacrifice was abandoned “sometimes between the final redaction of the Nērangestān and the first liturgical manuscripts”.
59 See the remarks by Girgenti 2005, 528, 537; cf. Clemen 1920a, 80.
60 Boyce 1970, 77–78.
61 This is the ceremony usually offered to Srōš on the fourth day after the death of a Zoroastrian. It is celebrated in memory of his soul. The version described by M. Boyce was performed by the Bhagarias priests (cf. Boyce 1970, 77–78). Cf. also Panaino 2017d.
62 Boyce 1970, 77–78.
63 See Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 206; Cantera 2014a, 256–257. See also Panaino, 2017d, and the comparison with the Vedic role of the śamitr̥-.
64 See in particular Panaino 2018, forthc.-a.
65 This seems to be evident also from the Gāϑic passages in which the uxšānō asnąm “the bulls of the days” (Y46.3) are compared to the saošiiaṇtō dax́iiunąm; see also Y50.10: raocā̊ xvǝ̄ṇg asnąm uxšā “the lights of the sun, the bull of the days”. Cf. also the fitting commentary offered by Kellens & Pirart 1991, 199.
66 See Kellens (in Kellens & Pirart) 1988, 33. Kellens (1991, 48): “Le caractère diurne du rituel implique nécessairement que le sacrifice vieil-avestique n’a pas le but qui est prêté à celui de l’adversaire, à savoir assurer la réapparition quotidienne du soleil.”
67 Kellens 2015a, 23–24.
68 A new comparative approach between Vedic and Avestan liturgies has been framed by the most regretted colleague X. Tremblay (2008, 2016); see also Swennen 2016.
69 Cf. Lommel 1927, 41; Weller 1938, 97–98 (text); 16 (translation).
70 See Ahmadi 2015, 210.
71 Cf. Kellens (1984, 75), who translates: “Qu’advient-il des offrandes pour toi quand ce sont les trompeurs qui te les apportent?”, and then he remarks: “frabarәṇte (F1) est fautif pour+frabarәṇti (J10) ou a une valeur réfléchie indirecte.” I maintain the solution made by K.F. Geldner because I prefer the second interpretation.
72 The text is strongly confusing. See Wolff 1910, 177–178; Lommel 1927, 41, n. 1; Weller 1938, 122; Gershevitch 1959, 200–201; Malandra 1983, 127; Pirart 2010, 75–76.
73 This emendation instead of satāiš was suggested by Weller 1938, 122.
74 The original text has paiti vīsәnti. Gershevitch (1959: 201) interpreted vīsәṇti as vi + isәṇti with reference to Ved. vi- + icchanti “to seek for” (iṣ- + vi°), but this solution seems to me improbable. I prefer to follow Bartholomae’s emendation (1904, 1327) of the text with paiti instead of haiti in this verse-line. Cf. Kellens 1984, 22; Klingenschmitt 1972, 125–126.
75 Emendation (hәṇti instead of haiti) suggested by Weller 1928, 98. Contrariwise, Bartholomae (1904, 1327) proposed to emend here again haiti with paiti.
76 With regard to the four compounds here listed (niuuaiiaka-, nipašnaka-, apa.skaraka-, apa. xraosaka-), see Duchesne-Guillemin 1936, 32, § 54 (but cf. Bartholomae 1904, 74, 79, 1083, 1084). Pirart (2010, 76) translates: “épouvantables et sautillants, désordonnés et gueulards.”
77 On the middle ending, see Kellens 1984, 22.
78 It is worth to recall that this Yašt cannot be recited overnight.
79 See Kellens (in Redard & Kellens) 2013, 7–9; Cantera 2016b, 165–166.
80 Cf. Ahmadi 2015, 215–216, n. 13.
81 We must remark the preservation of a derivative of the stem *nakt- (surviving in Wakī naγd “night”) in the adjectival compound upa-naxturušu (loc. pl. of upa-naxtar-). Cf. Bartholomae 1904: 391; Duchesne-Guillemin 1936, 196, § 234; Schulze 1966, 799–800, 827–828; Belardi 1977, 130.
82 Moazami 2014, 217–218. See also Darmesteter (1892, II, 114, n. 95), who notes that an ābzōhr can be performed overnight, but that it should be done in a proper way. But also in this case, it is to be noted that some acts are strictly forbidden in the nocturnal ceremony, as stated in the Nērangestān 30, 8 (Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 130–131).
83 Cf. Mendoza-Forrest 2011, 165, passim.
84 See the discussion in Panaino 2007.
85 See Keith 1916.
86 Panaino 2015a.
87 Cf. also Moazami 2014, 400–401.
88 See Cantera 2013b, 118. Cf. also Moazami 2014, 401–402. I prefer the grammatical interpretation of the passage as suggested by Ahmadi 2013.
89 In any case, we must observe that already according to V4.45, the knowledge increases during the first and the last parts of the day, and the first and the last periods of the night (cf. Wolff 1910, 339; Moazami 2014, 111–115). See also Kotwal & Boyd 1982, 169–170.
90 Falk 1989, 81.
91 This is not the place for a new discussion of the importance attributed to Sraoša also in a variety of the Vidēvdād-sāde ritual, a ceremonial variety on which Cantera (2010, 35, 39, passim) has rightly attracted due attention. The stress placed on the auroral phase is a common derivation from the Indo-Iranian background. See Cantera 2011, 22.
92 Cf. Ved. pitvá- “time of eating and drinking” (see also pitu- “meal”) > “midday” (as the eating time for excellence), Old Av. *piϑβa- in arǝ̄m.piϑβā- “time of midday” (literally, “fitting [arǝ̄m; Ved. áram, adv.; Kellens & Pirart 1990, 205] for midday”); then, Y.Av. ra-piϑβā-, f., “midday”, is an Ablaut derivation with respect to the corresponding Gāϑic form (Bartholomae 1904, 1509), for which only a temporal value (> “[part of the day] from midday to afternoon”) is well attested, but which should have had also a geographical meaning, as deducible from rapiϑβitara- “southern” and rapiϑβәnatara- “more to the south” (De Vaan 2003, 114, 155, 436, 473). In its turn, rapiϑβina- is both a substantive (like rapiϑβā-, f., “midday”, of which it is a derivative) and an adjective, which were probably distinguished by a shift in the stress; cf. De Vaan 2003, 209. See also n. 92.
93 See Bartholomae 1904, 157–158; the Avestan texts worship a series of temporal ratu- distinguished as aiiara-, asńiia, māhiia-, yāiriia- and sarәda-. On their meaning and in particular on the pertinent distinction between aiiara- “belonging to (the inner divisions of) the day (aiiar-/ aiian-)” and asniia- “belonging to the (entire) day (azan-/asn-)”, already focused on by Schulze (1966, 824–825), see Panaino 2017c; 2019. In the same articles the reader will find a discussion between yāiriia- “belonging to (the seasons of) the year (yār-)” and sarәda- “belonging to the (entire) years”. We must also note that with close reference to this part of the day the Vaeϑā Nask 104 mentions the worship of Bәrәzaṇt, i.e. of Apąm Napāt; see Humbach & JamspAsa (1969, 52), who note that during this gāh also the waters and Frādat.vīra should be worshipped.
94 Cf. N29.4; Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 113. We may recall that at the time of Ušahina also other minor divinities are worshipped, as in particular Bәrәjiia Nmāniia and Sraoša; in particular, the quality of being nmāniia- “belonging to home”, is attributed to Ušahina as well (see Bartholomae 1904, 1094); cf. Humbach & JamaspAsa 1969, 53.
95 Hintze 2007b. Cf. also Cantera 2013b, 90.
96 Cantera 2011, 30. Cantera (2016b, 168–171) suspects that in an earlier phase the whole ceremony was performed along the whole day, as in the Vedic case of the Agnicayana. This solution, already proposed by Tremblay (2008; cf. 2016), is plausible, but it should be framed in a context that it is difficult to be evaluated; furthermore, if this was the case, we must suspect that a great mass of texts in Old Avestan, as it is reasonable, has been lost. Thus, if so, the present Yasna is nothing but a synthetic ritual, which compresses in only one watch, a daylong ceremony. Nevertheless, this solution would imply a great change in the liturgical organization of the Avestan community, which, perhaps, should be connected with a calendrical reform and the adoption of the five gāh as well as of the five epagomenal days. The possibility of multiplying the force of a ritual from of just one performance to many ceremonies during a single day results in any case consonant with the same care dedicated to the concept of time in the later Avestan framework. I do not know if this radical modification should be connected with an increasing importance attributed to the centrality of Miϑra, as Cantera suggests (ibidem), but, if this was the state of facts, it involved a significant transformation also in the priestly organization. In fact, for the earlier and longer form of sacrifice a very large number of priests would have been necessary, while the new variety included the presence of eight priests only in the Solemn Liturgies, while during the standard office just two of them were sufficient. However, I wonder if it is not improbable that already in remote times other alternative forms of ritual were at disposal, and that familiar ceremonies, in which the pater familias behaved as a sacrificer, were not known and performed. We could also work with a theoretical model in which we postulate the contemporary presence of alternative rituals, so that the short version would be not a substitute of the longest one, but another kind of ceremony. For unknown reasons, perhaps the desire to have many liturgies in the different parts of the day and eventually even at the same time, would have favoured the prevalence of the synthetic ceremony against the longest one, whose presence, if we consider the comparative data coming from the Vedic world, should have been well attested.
97 Humbach (2010, 195) assumes with reference to Y44.5, that the ritual times were three: dawn, noon and nightfall (kǝ̄ yā ušā̊ arǝ̄m.piϑβā xšapācā).
98 Pakzad 2005, 286; Anklesaria 1956, 206–207. Cf. West 1880, 95 (Indian Bundahišn 25, 8).
99 Bartholomae 1904, 415–416. The suffix *-iná- < *-ino-, is of Indo-European origins (cf. Gr. νυκτερ-ινό-ς “nocturnal” (cf. Lat. nocturnus), ἑσπερ-ινό-ς “evening”, εἰαρινός “vernal”, ὀπωρ-ινό-ς “autumnal”, etc.; Brugmann & Delbrück 1906, 270–272), but it is not attested in Vedic (see Wackernagel & Debrunner 1954, 352, § 221e; De Vaan 2003, 209–210).
100 This must be deduced by passages like Frahang ī Ōīm 27b: duadasaŋhāϑrәm asti aγrim aiiarә “(of) twelve hours is the greatest day” (Reichelt 1900, 212; 1901, 142; Klingenschmitt 1968, 245–246; Bartholomae 1904, 50,763–764) and Bundahišn 25, 5 (Pakzad 2005, 285): <mahist> rōz ī hāmīnīg dwāzdah hāsar ud šab šaš hāsar. <mahist> šab ī zamestānīg dwāzdah hasar ud rōz šaš hāsar. “The <greatest> summer day takes on twelve hours and one night six hours; the <greatest> winter night takes on twelve hours and one day six hours”. Cf. Panaino 2019, 617.
101 Darmesteter 1892 II, 245–246, and n. 36.
102 See Darmesteter 1892 II, 286–287, and in particular the note 9.
103 According to Bartholomae (1904, 202) the etymology of this stem is unclear, but he closely connects such a word with arәzahī-, n., the denomination of the western Av. karšuuar-, according to the direct correspondence “Evening” = “West”.
104 Reichelt 1900, 212; 1901, 137; Klingenschmitt 1968 XVIII, 244–245, no 753, no 754. Cf. Bartholomae 1904, 353, 415, 549, 977, 1022.
105 Klingenschmitt 1968, 245.
106 Wolff 1910, 419.
107 Kellens 2016b, 196.
108 I do not have compelling arguments in order to state that one of the main characteristics of the aēnah- was the animal sacrifice overnight, although we know that its semantic implications remain in the ritual domain and strictly concern forms of violence and injustice against animals and humans (see, e.g. Y31, 15), but the problem should be taken into consideration. In fact, in the famous passage of Y32.10, following the one in which the various forms of aēnah- of Yima have been referred to (Y32.8), the “man who pronounces a very bad (hymn) in order to see the cow and the sun with his eyes”, can be involved in a nocturnal ritual if “cow” is metaphorically used for “moon”, which should be seen together with the sun in the night. According to Y9.29, the man who is guilty of committing aēnah- is cursed so that he should see the “cow” no more, an expression that might be explained as another reference to the night. If the problem was not in the nocturnal ritual in itself, but in the refusal of a nocturnal act of violence, the problem could be solved.
109 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 148–149.
110 Ahmadi 2015, 211.
111 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 147–149.
112 Boyce (1970, 68, n. 58) observed that, according to the Nērangestān, “if the gāh should change before the point of the service when the gōspand is to be killed, then the sacrifice cannot properly be made; but if the sacrifice has already taken place then the zōhr can still properly be offered in the next gāh”. As we have seen, not all these statements are clear, and furthermore it is possible that the case of the celebrations to be performed at dawn was different.
113 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 168–169.
114 No Pahlavi translation of the Avestan passage it preserved in the mss. This fragment is also completely isolated in the Avestan literary tradition.
115 Kellens 1995a, 54. Contrariwise, Kotwal & Kreyenbroek (2003, 169, n. 666) do not translate this verb.
116 Bartholomae 1904, 1356.
117 Cf. Bartholomae 1904, 207.
118 See De Jong 2002, 138.
119 See Bulsara 1915, 273–274, n. 7.
120 In any case it is not clear whether in this particular situation an animal sacrifice was allowed or not, but I seriously doubt the answer could be positive.
121 Ahmadi 2015, 209–226, passim.
122 At this proposal, I would like to recall the religious cycles connected with the Vrātyas and their violent behaviour; Heesterman 1963; 1993, 178–179, 183. Falk 1986, passim; Hiltebeitel 2001, 132–168 (with additional bibliography).
123 See Oertel 1909, 162–175; Gonda 1980, passim; Staal 1983a, 663–680; Sreekrishna-Sarma 1983b; Bodewitz 1990, 115–130; Falk 1989.
124 We should consider again that the Vidēvdād-sāde ceremony is the only Zoroastrian nocturnal service in which the haoma- can be pressed; in their turn, also the Atirātra ceremonies include three pressures of the sóma-. On this Vedic ritual, see Brereton 2013; 2016.
125 Falk 1989, 81.
126 Cf. Minkowski 1991, 65, n. 136. On the demonic dimension of night, see also Schulze 1966, 848.
127 On this passage, see De Jong 1997, 180–181. Cf. Schwartz 1990.
128 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 178–181. Cf. De Jong 2002, 134.
129 Ahmadi 2015, 212–214.
130 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 181, n. 712.
131 See in particular Ahmadi 2015, 213–214.
132 Cf. Clemen 1920a, 48; 1920b, 158–159. Clemen preferred the reading Μῶλυ (introduced by P. de Lagarde and supported by F. Cumont) instead of ὄμωμι, but there is no compelling reason to accept this solution. Unfortunately, the whole discussion was disturbed by the wrong inference that ὄμωμι should be connected with the haoma-.
133 Benveniste 1929a, 74; 1929b, 290.
134 But see again Ahmadi 2015, 211–212, 215–216. We may just recall that Benveniste (1929b) suggested that this was a Zurvanite ritual, but this hypothesis was rejected by Zaehner (1955, 13–14).
135 It is interesting to note, following Swennen (2003), that, if the adjective aruṇī- is strictly linked to uṣás- in Vedic, because it denotes her red hues, it was progressively associated also to auroral and crepuscular periods, designating also the nocturnal wolf, as underlined again by Ahmadi (2015, 210). On the demonic character of these sacrifices, see De Jong 2002, 133–135. About the wolf in the Mazdean framework see Moazami 2005, 312–315; Azarnouche (2016) has recently written a very interesting study dedicated to the wolf in the framework of the Zoroastrian sources.
136 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 180–181.
137 See on this problem already De Jong 2002, 133–141; we must note the in Yt8.58 it is prescribed a sacrifice of a sheep (pasu-) either white or black, or solely of uniform colour. This implies a selection of the suitable animal and in particular imposes the choice of a sheep (see Panaino 1990, 81,145–146). On the sacrifice as an instrument for the empowerment of the divinity, see Panaino 1986. It must be noted that hunted animals represented a particular category, whose meat might be eaten, but its status was different from that obtained after regular sacrifices (cf. again De Jong 2002, 135 with additional pertinent bibliography on this subject).
138 White 1989, 297–299.
139 For an interpretation of this sacrifice and its meaning, see also Stutley 1969, 257–258.
140 See also De Jong 2002, 134–135.
141 White 1991, 125, 231, n. 102, 253–254, n. 21.
142 See Schlerath 1954.
143 White 1989, 297–298.
144 See Schwab 1886, 106. Extremely important are also the very cautious actions enacted in order to prevent any énas- during the cooking procedure of the sacrificial meat, on which, see Vesci 1992, 144–145. Cf. Panaino 2019.
145 Unfortunately, this happened in spite of the relevant focus placed on them by Burnouf (1829), Brockhaus (1850) and Darmesteter (1892). Cf. also Kotwal & Hintze 2008.
146 Already Anquetil-Duperron noted that this ritual (i.e. the Yasna with the intercalations of the Visperad and of the Vidēvdād), must start at midnight and finish with the rising of the sun (1771, I. 75; 1771, II. 779). See also Boyce 1986, 156. It is to be remarked that since the time of Anquetil-Duperron it was known that in this ritual it was possible for a Parsi priest to read the text of the Vidēvdād during the ceremony, in particular at night. Cf. Modi 1937, 330–333. Daryaee 2012, 103–104.
147 The Bayān Yasn is explicitly mentioned in N28–32, while the description of another ceremony seems to be very close to that of the Visperad, as suggested by Cantera (2011; 2016c). In reality, the ceremony of the Vidēvdād-sāde is based on that of the Visperad, whose most important enactment should take place before the sunrise. We must recall that the mss. such as the Persian Rivāyats and other sources, confirm the existence of some varieties of these ceremonies, according to different periods of the day, of the month, of the years, and in connection with different purposes or celebrations. We may recall that the recitation of the Yašt during the ušahin gāh is admitted for most of them, being excluded only for Yt5 (Ābān) and 11a (Srōš Yašt); see Kotwal & Hintze 2008, 3–4.
148 In principle, any Mazdean liturgy must be concluded in the time limits of the same period of the day (gāh) in which it has been scheduled and performed (cf. N28.7). In this respect, in spite of a number of remarkable similarities concerning the squeezing and offering of the haoma-/ sóma-, and typical also of the Vedic śrauta rituals, the Zoroastrian tradition does not apparently preserve ceremonies whose duration can take a few days, as contrariwise it happened in India. All the ceremonies of the Long Liturgy can be performed in any of the five gāh, with the exception of the Vidēvdād-sāde, which is nocturnal.
149 Cantera 2013b, 122. A completely different analysis of the text has been proposed by Ahmadi (2013).
150 With regard to the daēnā-, in particular in the framework of the second fragard of the Vidēvdād, see the two different, but both new and original, explanations advanced by Panaino (2013, 2015a) and Cantera (2012c) of the myth concerning Yima, Ahura Mazdā and the daēnā- herself.
151 The importance of the auroral dimension and its connection with a ritual moment results patently confirmed already by the only Gāϑic passage in which ušah- is mentioned, i.e., that of Y44.5; from this stanza, in fact, we can deduce that “dawn, midday and night” (ušā̊ arǝ̄m.piϑβā xšapācā) corresponds to the three essential moments for any (ritually qualified) pious person seeking for a satisfaction of his desire (from eschatological viewpoint = his immortality). See also Cantera 2011: 21.
152 Cantera 2013b, 118.
153 Skjærvø 2007a, 118.
154 Stausberg 2004, 338; see also Cantera 2013b, 119.
155 Dhabhar 1932, 408. The original orthography and the transliteration of Persian technical words have been respected.
156 This particular ceremony is described also in the Gujarati Catechism written by Dastur Erachji Sohrabji Meherjirana; see Kotwal & Boyd 1982, 169–170.
157 Dhabhar 1932, 408–409.
158 See again his contribution in this volume. Now Cantera has explicitly revised his understanding of the Drōn service following Y59 discussed in another recent article by himself (see Cantera 2016b).
159 Cf. Modi 1937, 301–302, 34, 386–387.
160 I must thank Dr. Ahmadi with whom I shared some reflections on these passages and whose remarks I am fittingly using.
161 See Kellens 2016c, 195–198.
162 See Cantera in this volume.
163 Hintze 2007b, 36. It is to be considered, however, that 9 hours seems to be a time-duration compatible with cases in which the rituals were performed in a very slow manner, and this possibility was not excluded, at the condition that the time-line represented by the sections around Y62 (in its particular form) was respected.
164 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 64–66.
165 Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 67, n. 165.
166 Cf. also Cantera 2010, 31–32, passim.
167 Cantera 2014a, 237; 2016a, 68; cf. Kellens 2011, 47.
168 It is to note that not only the lights of the sun are specifically referred to in Y50, 10c (raocā̊ xvǝ̄ṇg), but that this presence has been realized also by the composer of V19; see Kellens 2016c, 155.
169 It is very relevant to underline here that Y62 was recited in two different parties: the first portion, corresponding to the stanzas 1–6, before Y60, and the second one, 7–10, in Y62, where we should expect it. Cantera (2015, 230–231) has been the first scholar to underline how this chapter is usually divided, and I must thank Céline Redard, who very kindly has attracted my attention on this evidence.
170 See Schlerath 1968, 40. Cf. Dhalla 1908, 134–187; Taraf 1981, 96–109.
171 See Tremblay 2006, 258–260; 2008; 2016.
172 Boyce 2003. Cf. Cantera 2016b, 153–154.
173 See Cantera 2013b, 93–103; Skjærvø 2007a.
174 See Skjærvø 2007a; Cantera 2016c, passim.
175 The text of the Vidēvdād Nask was divided in 10 blocks or sections, which have been inserted among the Staota Yesniias, so that the five Gāϑās (including the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti) are anticipated starting with Y28 and followed by a sequence of chapters of the Visperad and fragards of the Vidēvdād. The disposition of the intercalations around Y27.6, and 27.7–13, is a little more complex. See the ritual ms. 4161 of the Vidēvdād at the folios 63v–65v (Cantera & Mazdāpour 2015). Cf. Cantera 2010, 29–33; 2016c.
176 See Panaino 2012.
177 I must observe that the practice of embedding rituals of different nature in a larger ritual session was also a Vedic and Brāhmaṇic practice, as underlined by Minkowski (1989, 418–419). The recursive nature of the Mazdean ritual repetitions as well as processes of liturgical enlargement in a sort of circular form should be investigated in further studies; for the Indian side, see Staal 1980.
178 See now Kellens 2015c, 534.
179 Other problems appear in the composition of the Vidēvdād, but in any case, they result to be earlier than the period of fusion in the intercalated ceremony; these subjects have been discussed by Cantera 2005.
180 See Skjærvø 2007a; Cantera 2013b, 106–108.
181 This evaluation concerns the text of the Vidēvdād-sāde taken as a ceremony and does not involve an evaluation of the single textual portions contained in it, the dating of which can strongly differ.
182 Dhabhar 1938, 412.
183 See n. 2.
184 Cf. Cantera 2013b, 117–118.
185 See Cantera 2011, 13.
186 See Cantera 2016b, 161.
187 Cantera 2014a, 237.
188 See again Cantera, ibidem.
189 See Panaino 2015b; Kellens 2016b, 195–197.
190 Cantera 2014a, 237–238.
191 Boyce 1968, 206; cf. Modi 1937, 179–181. We cannot exclude that in particular occasions high priests of very important families were involved in the same ceremony, so that an exchange of roles can be easily postulated.
192 See Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 2003, 206; Cantera 2014a, 256–257.
193 See Panaino, forthc.-a; -b.
194 Gignoux & Tafazzoli 1993, 130–135; Boyce 1968, 202–203.
195 The last five days of the year were (and are) named according to the five Gāϑās; if Ahunawad is the first, Spandarmad corresponds to the third.
196 A particular consideration should also be given to the image of the Fire descending from the infinite light, getting light over the entire earth, and bringing in his hand the trunk of tree with the boughs upwards and the roots turned downwards (WZ35.40).
197 See Pakzad 2005, 384; cf. Anklesaria 1956, 288–292. This passage must be compared with WZ35.15 (Gignoux & Tafazzoli 1993, 130–131). Cf. De Jong 2002, 146–147.
198 Gignoux & Tafazzoli 1993, 132–133.
199 Panaino 1990, 52, 117; 1995, 18.
200 Hintze 2007.
201 On this ritual, see Panaino 2017b.
202 See Cantera 2014a, 257.
203 See De Jong 2002, 128. But the Zoroastrians of Iran, as those of India, are no vegetarian and the killing of animals must be consecrated, according to the tradition. This consecration is necessary also for other kinds of food by means of the čāsnī ritual (see Modi 1937, 264–266, passim). About the consummation of meat in the gumēzišn state, see Lommel 1930, 206–207. On the other hand, we must register a strongly contrite attitude toward the treatment of animals, not only in the way of atone and put them asleep (which was very careful in order to avoid excessive pain), but through the act of giving them a kiss of sorrow on their left cheeks (Boyce 1970, 73), just as the ancient Indians tried to “humanize” the act of killing (cf. Oberlies 2012, 279; Schmidt 1997, 223–225).
204 On the development of the ahiṁsā- notion, see, with rich bibliography, Schmidt 1997.
205 For instance, we may mention the case of the rituals dedicated to Kālī or Bhavani, although they do not seem to be Brāhmaṇic divinities, but probably belong to an earlier Indian background. Cf. also De Jong 2002, 128.
206 The risks of a determinist approach have been underlined by Shanklin (1985); but see also Bolle 1983, 49.
Auteur
-
Antonio Panaino
antonio.panaino@unibo.it
University of Bologna (Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna at Ravenna, Via degli Ariani 1, 48121 Ravenna, Italy)
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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