is a neuter noun (nominative 
), in a few places where it is personified Zoroaster uses a nominative and vocative of animate gender, 
, probably intending it as a masculine. See Iran 44 (2007), 77.1 The Indian Zoroastrians and their descendants in other lands are known as Parsis (or Parsees in the older English spelling).
2 See Gherardo Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, 129–58; Frantz Grenet in V. S. Curtis and Sarah Stewart (eds.), Birth of the Persian Empire (London 2005), 29–51.
3 See F. Grenet (as previous note), 36–8. Some Greek authors too, perhaps beginning with the historian Ctesias about 400 BCE, located Zoroaster in Bactria. Diodorus Siculus (1. 94. 2) follows some earlier writer who had placed ‘Zathraustes’ among the Ariaspai, that is, in Seistan. Later Zoroastrian tradition put the prophet’s home in north-western Iran, but this will reflect spurious claims made after the religion had established itself in those parts.
4 Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, ii. 41–3, 49–69, and in Achaemenid History iii (Proceedings of the London Achaemenid History Workshop, Leiden 1988), 26–31.
5 The earliest clear evidence for this scheme is a report by the Greek historian Theopompus, writing in the fourth century BCE, but it must have been established for some time before that. It is set out in detail in Middle Persian sources.
6 Xanthus of Sardis, Eudoxus, Aristotle, and others; see A. V. Williams Jackson, Zoroaster. The Prophet of Ancient Iran, 152–4.
7 Yasna 32. 1; 33. 3–4; 46. 1; 49. 7. Cf. Paul Thieme, Mitra and Aryaman (New Haven 1957), 80. – For the pronunciation of Avestan words see p. xi.
8 Yasna 31. 16, 18; 46. 4; 48. 10, 12; 53. 8.
9 Yasna 46. 1; 48. 10.
10 See also Yasna 31. 9–10; 32. 8, 10, 12, 14; 33. 4; 44. 6, 20; 51. 14.
11 Yasna 29. 9–10; 46.2.
12 Zoroaster often refers to him simply as Mazdā, ‘the Mindful one’, or as Ahura, ‘the Lord’. When he uses both terms together, he does not have them in a fixed order, and they can be separated by other words. In later Zoroastrianism Ahura Mazdā became a fixed combination, appearing in the Achaemenid royal inscriptions as Auramazdā and in Middle Persian as Ohrmazd.
13 Yasna 31. 7, 11; 51. 16; cf. 54. 1.
14 Yasna 31. 13; 43. 6; 45. 4. The concept of an all-seeing god with a celestial eye, or many eyes, not to be deceived, was taken over from the traditional religion. In the Rigveda these are the characteristics of Varuna or Mitra–Varuna, and they remain attached to Mithra in the Avestan hymn to him (Yasht 10). The eye was sometimes identified with the sun. See my Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford 2007), 171–2, 198–9.
15 Yasna 28. 6, 11; 31. 3, 8; 32. 1; 43. 5, 11; 45. 3, 5. Mazdā is the source of ‘mantras’, that is, pieces of instruction to be learned and repeated: 28. 7; 29. 7; 43. 14; 44. 14; 45. 3. I have translated the word as ‘prescript’, though of course no writing was involved.
16 Yasna 30. 9; 31. 4; cf. 28. 1, ‘You all’.
17 Yasna 29. 2–4; 44. 8; 45. 2; 46. 9.
18 Yasna 47. 2, cf. 44. 3. I say ‘his’ because although is a neuter noun (nominative ), in a few places where it is personified Zoroaster uses a nominative and vocative of animate gender, , probably intending it as a masculine. See Iran 44 (2007), 77.
19 Yasna 31. 8; 45. 4.
20 Yasna 31. 11–13. See also 43. 16; 45. 2; 47. 1–6.
21 Yasna 47. 3. As in another poem (30. 3) the good and bad Wills are called twins, it ought to follow that Ahura Mazdā was also the father of the bad one. But Zoroaster never intended this conclusion, and it was left to later Zoroastrians to draw it and wrestle with it.
22 Yasna 28. 3; 30. 8; 31. 7; 33. 10, 12; 34. 1, 11; 44. 6; 46. 16.
23 The Maker of the Cow: 29. 2; 31. 9; 46. 9; identified with Ahura Mazdā, 44. 6, 51. 7; with the Bounteous Will, 47. 3. The Shaper: 29. 6. (He seems to be a traditional figure, as the Avestan 
corresponds to the Vedic creator 
) The Creator of Wrong: 51. 10.
24 Yasna 32. 8.
25 Yasna 32. 13. Cf. 46. 11; 53. 6.
26 Yasna 30. 9. Cf. 28. 11; 33. 1; 34. 15; 44. 2; 50. 11.
27 Yasna 31. 19; 44. 2, 16; 34. 13; 45. 11; 46. 3; 48. 9, 12; 53. 2.
28 Yasna 33. 5; 43.2, 13.
29 Yasna 46. 10–11; 51. 13. The bridge leading to the land of the dead was a traditional element of popular mythology, perhaps Indo-European; see my Indo-European Poetry and Myth, 390.
30 Yasna 30. 2; 31. 3, 19; 32. 7; 34. 4; 43. 4, 9; 46. 7; 47. 6; 51. 9. Ancient India and Greece both knew the custom by which someone suspected of wrongdoing could undertake to prove his or her innocence by walking unscathed through fire or by contact with red-hot or molten metal.
31 Yasna 30. 2; 49. 9; 31. 14.
32 Yasna 31. 20, 22; 46. 14; 48. 7.
33 Yasna 31. 20; cf. 30. 4, 11.
34 Cf. Rigveda 2. 27. 14, ‘may I attain the broad, safe Light, Indra; may the long Darkness not overtake us’.
35 Yasna 30. 1; 31. 7; 32. 2, cf. 53. 4; 32. 10. The last passage may allude to sacrificial rites performed at night. Cf. also 50. 2, 10; Seven Chapters, 37. 4.
36 zaotar-, Yasna 33. 6; 
, 31. 5; staotar-, 50. 11, cf. 30. 1, 34. 15, 45. 8, 49. 12; 
, 32. 13, 50. 5–6.
37 See Yasna 28. 1; 29. 5; 33. 7, 14; 34. 1–3; 50. 8–9.
38 Yasna 29. 11; 46. 14; 51. 16; 53. 7; persons involved with it (magavans), 51. 15. (At 33. 7 the word apparently refers to conventional cult practitioners.)
39 Yasna 30. 1; 45. 1; cf. 31. 18; 47. 6. In the translation I have used ‘proselytes’.
40 Yasna 31. 2; 50. 4. In the later Avesta ‘the house of song’ becomes a term for Paradise, but in the Gāthās it evidently means the place where Zoroaster delivers his poetic addresses to his followers.
41 Frasha-ushtra’s name contains the same ‘camel’ element as Zarath-ushtra. For him see also 28. 8; 49. 8; 53. 2; plural Djāmaaspas in 49. 9. In the one Gāthic poem that is not Zoroaster’s own work (53. 2) Vishtaaspa is himself designated as a Spitāma, and indeed as 
, which could mean ‘Zoroaster’s son’ but is more probably to be understood as ‘Zoroaster’s follower’, ‘Zoroastrian’. In the next stanza the poet addresses ‘Porucistā of the Haecataspa Spitāmas, youngest of Zoroaster’s daughters’. These may be actual daughters of Zoroaster’s or just his female followers. It is noteworthy that men and women appear to enjoy equal status in the cult, cf. Yasna 46. 10; 54. 1; and in the Seven Chapters, 35. 6; 37. 3; 39. 2; 41. 2.
42 Yasna 32. 3; 43. 12, 15; 49. 1.
43 See Yasna 29. 8; 30. 10; 43. 5–6; 44. 4; 48. 2; 49. 9; 50. 6, 7; 51. 6. ‘Horse’ (aspa-) appears as an element in the names Vishta-aspa, Djāma-aspa, and Haecat-aspa. According to the later Avesta Zoroaster himself was the son of Porušaspa, ‘Greyhorse’.
44 Yasna 30. 10, 32. 15, 44. 9; 32. 13; 46. 6, 11, 49. 11, 51. 14; 49. 10; 45. 8, 50. 4, 51. 15.
45 Yasna 33. 5, 34. 12–13, 51. 16; 43. 3; 46. 4; 50. 4; 53. 2; 44. 8.
46 See the note on the fourth chapter (Yasna 38. 1–2).
47 Yasht 5. 105, 109–18; 9. 29–32; 19. 87.
48 See e. g. Yashts 5–10, 15; Yasna 25. 4–5.
49 The Hymns of Zarathustra (London 1952).
1 Or: place, seat.
2 The word properly denotes animal marauders such as wolves. Here (as in 34. 5 and 9) it stands for the wrongful men who harass the cow.
3 That this is the metaphor is suggested by 30. 10 and 50. 7. Similar imagery occurs in the Rigveda and in Greek poets.
4 Or ‘who … art the same.’
5 Or, with an emended reading, ‘the companion of Right (and) creator’.
6 Right is here called ‘sunny’ or ‘sunlit’ from its association with the light of day; cf. stanza 10, and 31. 7; 53. 4.
7 ‘Earth’s seventh part’ refers to a mythical geography found in the Younger Avesta (e.g. Yasht 10. 133), by which the earth is divided into seven karšvars or (arable) lands.
8 The interpretation of these lines is uncertain.
9 Elsewhere called the House of Wrong (46. 11; 49. 11; 51. 14).
10 I.e. the innocent cattle-farmers forced to cooperate with the authorities who demand cow sacrifices.
11 The image may be of setting ambushes.
12 Literally ‘at the unharnessing’.
13 Or ‘visibly’.
14 This stanza is patterned on the model of a sacrificial ritual in which a wealthy patron offers up a quantity of animals to the gods who have provided for their nurture, in the expectation of benefit commensurate with his generosity.
15 Emended reading; the transmitted text has the senseless phrase ‘or the way I sleep’.
16 See note on 28. 5.
17 Or according to a variant reading, ‘from it’.
18 ‘Promoters’ is my translation of saosyanto; see p. 15.
1 Racecourse metaphor.
2 Or ‘(Thou) whom’.
3 Proselytes restored by conjecture.
4 Those that she complains of in 29. 1.
5 In 31. 8 Mazdā himself is the father of Good Thought. But here the reference is to the Bounteous Will.
6 Or ‘Thou seest’.
7 Apparently a traditional poetic phrase meaning ‘new dawns’.
8 Or perhaps ‘him’.
9 I translate as ‘his flock’, it being the same word as is used in stanza 12 and elsewhere for the Zoroastrian ‘flock’, but here it could refer to livestock.
10 Cf. 53. 3 with note.
11 The questions seem to be put by the Mindful Lord. For the ‘great rite’ cf. 29. 11.
12 Line missing; probably something like ‘ye shall be rewarded with bliss’.
13 Or: a milch cow and bull.
14 ‘Those things’ are the other-worldly rewards that are beyond Zoroaster’s power to confer.
1 That is, for the adherents of good or bad thought.
2 Sense uncertain; some interpret as ‘on my grain’.
3 Like racehorses.
4 The last word (or pair of words) in the line is unintelligible.
5 The reference to the sun is not certain, but it fits Zoroaster’s thought; cf. stanza 10, and 32. 10.
6 Literally ‘to be the charioteer’.
7 A traditional phrase, paralleled in the Rigveda, referring to the butter libations splashed on the fire altar.
8 Cf. 46. 3 with note.
1 Cf. 43. 5 with note.
2 This parallels the relationship seen between the Vedic Rishi and the wealthy patron of the sacrifice.
3 Or ‘The Mindful Lord knows in whose’ etc. The verse was so construed, apparently, by the author of 27. 15; see above, p. 23.
1 Cf. the expression in 54. 1 below, ‘the men and women of Zarathushtra’.
2 Or so it seems to us. It is possible that the lost parts of the preceding lines contained something relevant, for example a condemnation of extra-marital sex.
3 Text and sense uncertain.
4 This stanza is transmitted as the first section of chapter 54 of the Yasna, and also as chapter 27. 5, so not as part of the Gāthās proper. But in its very distinctive metrical form and its Old Avestan language it belongs with Yasna 53, and it may have formed part of the wedding poem from the beginning; the old Indo-Iranian god Aryaman invoked in it was associated with social and marital ties. It was not necessarily the last stanza of the poem: it would go as well at the beginning. The prayer took on a life of its own, being regarded as a general defence against illness, magic, and evil (Yasna 54. 2, Yasht 3. 5, Gāh 1. 6, Vīdēvdāt 20. 12, cf. 22. 6–20), and it has traditionally been used in the Zoroastrian marriage ritual. That is no doubt the reason why it is separated off from Yasna 53 in the Avestan canon.
1 The material and the spiritual.
2 That is, the commitment each has made by choosing the good religion. The word rendered ‘commitment’, fravaši-, later came to mean the personal soul that existed before birth and after death.
3 The term apparently reflects a traditional concept of terrestrial goddesses or nymphs. The Zoroastrian has given them new identities as personifications of religious offices.
4 This may refer to libations of water.
5 Literally ‘with (our) offering it will befit Thee’.
6 Unintelligible adjective.