The Zarathushtra Gâthâs and the origins of Mazdaism (continued) (1)

1. 18.11.2011: History of gāthic studies: the specificity of the Gāθās recognized by Martin Haug (1859-1862); from Christian Bartholomae's verse sermons(Verspredigte)(1905) to Helmut Humbach's hymns(Lieder) (1959).
2. 25.11.2011: History of gāthic studies: Johanna Narten acknowledges that the Gāθās constitute, together with the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti in prose, a set that can be defined as the ancient Avesta (1986). Jean Kellens and Éric Pirart ratify this new fact, at the same time as they attempt, after Stanley Insler (1975), an in-depth study of syntax (1988-1991).
3. 02.12.2011: History of gāthic studies: after 1991, in the wake of earlier studies conducted, between 1954 and 1985, by Wolfgang Lentz and Hanns-Peter Schmidt, the debate focused mainly on the mode of composition of Gāθās and their primitive function (Almut Hintze, Stephanie Jamison, Martin Schwartz, Jean Kellens).
4. 09.12.2011: General description of the gāthic corpus and the empirical impressions it arouses in those who seek to analyze it (example of the breaks in the thread of discourse by Y 30.7 and Y 33.5). Catalog, with the help of Y 28.1, the difficulties that hinder our understanding of the text.
5. 16.12.2011 : The question of whether the Gāθās are a liturgical recitative, once they have been recognized as hymns, has been bitterly debated ever since Jean Kellens and Éric Pirart sought to make the rite their exclusive function. One observable fact stands out: the massive condensation of ritual vocabulary in a well-defined sector of each Gāθā composed of several chapters leads to the conclusion that each includes a "sacrificial moment", usually a final one.
6. 06.01.2012 : The 2009-2010 lecture revealed that Y 58 closes the phase of the general Yasna liturgy devoted to the meat offering, which began with Y 34. The authors of the recent Avesta and the arrangers of the Yasna therefore knew that, in the original rite of the first Gāθā, the animal immolation and the depositing of fat in the fire took place during the recitation of Y 34.
7. 13.01.2012: As a hypothesis, we must consider that the first phase of the "sacrificial moment" of the first Gāθā, corresponding to Y 33, is that of the haoma offering.
8. 20.01.2012: It is another fact of observation that the Gāθās speak surprisingly little of the post-mortem fate of individual souls: only one stanza of each Gāθā (Y 31.20, Y 46.11, Y 49.11 and Y 51.13) evokes that of the wicked and only one of the entire corpus (Y 49.10) that of the good. In reality, gâthic eschatology is inscribed in the sacrificial mechanism: the daēnā "auroral vision" enables the officiant who has become saošiiaṇt "destined to swell" to follow a path leading to the mīžda "prize of victory".
9. 27.01.2012: We can see that the daēnā is the immaterial form of the aurora and that the swelling inscribed in the saošiiaṇt 's name is that of the auroral light merging with the religious vision of men. But what does the victory prize consist of? Clearly, it's neither the reward granted to individual souls, nor the final perfection of the world. We'll have to come back to that.
10. (03.02.2012) : Recapitulative reading of the "sacrificial moment" of the first Gāθā (Y 33-34).

From now on, we'll turn our attention to the third item: human personnel. Each Gāθā, whatever its length, enumerates the names of a few men with a list that varies in length according to the Gāθās. Here is the most common canonical list:

1. Zaraθuštra, who has the privilege of being mentioned several times in each Gāθā. The term itself presents a phonetic anomaly, since we would expect *zaraduštra, but this does not prevent the term from being understood. We have a compound with a first verbal term that represents the quality of the second: "the man who owns old camels" formed on the root zar-"to be old" and uštra-"camel". So, as is often the case, we're dealing with a depreciative noun.
2. Vīštāspa "one whose horses are deharnessed".
3. Fǝrašaoštra: = fraša + uštra i.e. "he who has healthy camels", which contrasts with Zaraθuštra.
4. Dǝ̄jā̄māspa, which is not always mentioned, is also a depreciative name "one whose horses have been burnt by the sun, are dehydrated".

Sometimes, the family situation of these characters is specified: father's name or the name of a larger social group. Over the next few sessions, we'll be trying to answer the following questions: What does the enumeration of proper nouns correspond to? Where is it located in each Gāθā? In what context is this enumeration made?