The Hymns of Zoroaster

A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran

M. L. West

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781848855052
• eBook ISBN: 9780857731562
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Poetry

Zoroaster was one of the greatest and most radical religious reformers in the history of the world. The faith that he founded some 2600 years ago in a remote region of central Asia flourished to become the bedrock of a great empire as well as its official religion. Zoroastrianism is still practised today in parts of India and Iran and in smaller communities elsewhere, where its adherents are known as Parsis. It has the distinction of being one of the most ancient religions in the world: only Hinduism can lay claim to greater antiquity. The foundation texts of this venerable system of belief are the founder's own passionate poems, known as the Gathas ('Songs'), and a short ritual composed soon after his death, called the Liturgy in Seven Chapters. These hymns are the authentic utterances of a religious leader whose thought was way ahead of his time, and are among the most precious relics of human civilization. After so many millennia they continue to speak to us of an impressively austere theology and of an inspiring and easily understood moral code. Yet existing translations are few, divergent in their interpretations of the original Avestan language of Zoroaster, and frequently hard to access. M L West's new translation, based on the best modern scholarship, and augmented by a substantial introduction and notes, makes these powerfully resonant texts available to a wide audience in clear and accessible form. 'A thoroughly worthwhile and refreshingly readable translation of the Older Avesta, M L West's book will be widely welcomed, by students and general readers alike.' - Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Reader in Zoroastrianism, School of Oriental and African Studies, London

The Hymns of Zoroaster
(The Gāthās)

THE FIRST GĀTHĀ

YASNA 28

The poem follows the form of a traditional supplication to gods, reverently uttered with hands upraised, to come into the worshipper’s presence and give assistance.

28.1

I pray You all in reverence with outstretched hands for his help –

the Bounteous Will’s in first place, Mindful One, with Right – through action

by which Thou wouldst satisfy Good Thought’s wisdom and the cow’s soul:

28.2

I who will approach You, Mindful Lord, with good thought,

to give me of both existences, the material one and that of thought,

those blessings in line with Right by which one could keep one’s supporters in well-being;

28.3

I who will hymn You, Right and Good Thought, as never before

and the Mindful Lord, You whose unimpaired dominion also

is increased by Piety: come to my calls to give help.

28.4

I who have taken my soul in mind for praise-song together with Good Thought,

and knowing the Mindful Lord’s repayments for actions,

so long as I have the ability and strength, will look out in search of Right.

28.5

O Right, shall I see Thee, as I acquire good thought

and, as a path¹ for the most mighty Lord, the Mindful One, compliance?

Through this prescript may we convince the predators² most fully with our tongue.

28.6

Come with Good Thought, give with Right Thy enduring gift

in upright utterances, Mindful One, strong support for Zara- thushtra

and for us (all), Lord, with which we may overcome the foe’s acts of enmity.

28.7

Give, O Right, that reward, the blessings of good thought;

give Thou, Piety, enablement to Vishtaaspa and myself;

give Thou, Mindful One, showing Thy authority, the prescript in which we might hear Your caring.

28.8

For the best gift, Best One who art of one mind with best Right,

Lord, I pray Thee earnestly on behalf of the upstanding Frashaushtra and myself

and those on whom Thou mayest bestow it for ever out of Good Thought.

28.9

With these prayers may we not anger You, Lord, nor Right

and Best Thought, we who are busy offering Your praises:

Ye are the promptest ones; Your powers and domain are of strengths.

28.10

Those then whom Thou knowest to be upright before Right and Good Thought

and worthy, Mindful Lord, fulfil their desire with attainment;

I know that well-purposed hymns of devotion to You are not in vain.

28.11

Thou who with their aid dost protect Thy Right and Good Thought for ever,

teach me, Mindful Lord, to voice in line with Thy will

through Thy mouth (those teachings) by which the pristine existence may come about.

YASNA 29

This remarkable composition is concerned with the tribulations of cattle-owners in Zoroaster’s society. He adverts to the topic in several other poems (31. 9–10, 32. 8–14, 33. 4, 44. 6, 20, 51. 14), where it appears that cattle are repeatedly driven off from their pastures and condemned to sacrifice. Here he imagines the feelings of the cow herself and frames them into an appeal to the powers above, which leads to a concerned debate among them.

29.1

To You the cow’s soul complains: ‘For whom did Ye shape me? Who made me?

Fury and force, cruelty, violence, and aggression hold me bound.

I have no pastor but You; so show Yourselves in good pasturing.’

29.2

Then the Maker of the Cow asks Right: ‘How was Thy ruling for the cow,

when Ye powers put her there? Cattle-tending lies with the pastor;

(but) whom did Ye want to be her lord, that might repulse fury by the wrongful?’

29.3

To him Right, no breacher of unity, no enemy of the cow, will answer:

‘Of those things there is no knowing. He by whom the upright invigorate the weak

is the mightiest of beings; to his calls I will respond, my ear reaches no further:

29.4

‘the Mindful One, the most heedful of initiatives, both those taken in the past

by Daevas and mortals, and those that may be taken hereafter.

He is the lord that judges; it will be as He will.’

29.5

But we two are here with outstretched hands propitiating the Lord,

my soul and the milch cow’s, as we put the Mindful One to our questions:

‘Is there no prospect for the righteous-living one, none for the stock-raiser, among the wrongful?’

29.6

Then the Lord speaks, the Mindful One, knowing the designs in his wisdom:

‘Indeed no patron has (yet) been found, nor a ruling in line with Right;

the Shaper has created thee for the stock-raiser and the herdsman.’

29.7

Milk and butter, this is the prescript that the Lord, of one mind with Right, made

for the cow, He the Mindful One; He is bounteous to the needy through his teaching.

– Whom hast Thou who by good thought could establish those things for mortals?

29.8

‘This man here I have found, the only one who listens to Our teachings:

Zarathushtra Spitāma. He desires, mindful, on Our behalf and Right’s,

to broadcast Our praises, as I harness his well-constructed utterance.’

29.9

Yet the cow’s soul laments, ‘That I am to put up with an ineffective carer,

the voice of a powerless man, whom I wish enabled with authority!

When will there ever be one who will give him physical assistance?

29.10

‘Grant Ye them, Lord, strength with right, and that authority

with Good Thought, by which one may establish fair dwelling and peace:

I for one realize Thee, Mindful One, to be the first procurer of that.’

29.11

Where are Right and Good Thought and Dominion? It is me, with Right,

that Ye in Your providence must acknowledge, Mindful One, for the great rite.

Lord, (come) down to us now, in return for our liberality, Your followers’.

YASNA 30

This is a poetical sermon addressed to those who have gathered to hear it (the ‘proselytes’ of the first line; cf. 45. 1, 47. 6), or more broadly to mankind at large (final stanza).

30.1

Now I will speak, O proselytes, of what ye may bring to the attention even of one who knows,

praises for the Lord and Good Thought’s acts of worship

well considered, and for Right; the gladness beheld by the daylight.

30.2

Hear with your ears the best message, behold with lucid mind

the two choices in the decision each man makes for his own person

before the great Supplication, as ye look ahead to the declaration to Him.

30.3

They are the two Wills, the twins who in the beginning made themselves heard through dreaming,

those two kinds of thought, of speech, of deed, the better and the evil;

and between them well-doers discriminate rightly, but ill-doers do not.

30.4

Once those two Wills join battle, a man adopts

life or non-life, the way of existence that will be his at the last:

that of the wrongful the worst kind, but for the righteous one, best thought.

30.5

Of those two Wills, the Wrongful one chooses to do the worst things,

but the most Bounteous Will (chooses) Right, he who clothes himself in adamant;

as do those also who committedly please the Lord with genuine actions, the Mindful One.

30.6

Between those two the very Daevas fail to discriminate rightly, because delusion

comes over them as they deliberate, when they choose worst thought;

they scurry together to the violence with which mortals blight the world.

30.7

But suppose one comes with dominion for Him, with good thought and right,

then vitality informs the body, piety the soul:

their ringleader Thou wilt have as if in irons:

30.8

and when the requital comes for their misdeeds,

for Thee, Mindful One, together with Good Thought, will be found dominion

to proclaim to those, Lord, who deliver Wrong into the hands of Right.

30.9

May we be the ones who will make this world splendid,

Mindful One and Ye Lords, bringers of change, and Right,

as our minds come together where insight is fluctuating.

30.10

For then destructi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Preface
• Note on the pronunciation of Avestan words and names
• Introduction
• The Hymns of Zoroaster
• The Liturgy in Seven Chapters
• Notes on the Text
• Bibliography
• Endnotes