Studien zur Pahlavi-Ubersetzung des Avesta.

• Author: Shayegan, M. Rahim
• Position: Book review

Studien zur Pahlavi-Ubersetzung des Avesta. By ALBERTO CANTERA. Edited by MARIA MAClial. Iranica, vol. 7. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ, 2004. Pp. x + 379.

Studien zur Pahlavi-Ubersetzung des Avesta is the thoroughly revised version of the introduction to the author's doctoral dissertation, which also entailed a new edition of the first four chapters of the Pahlavi translation of the Avestan text, the Videvdad, including commentaries and glossaries.

By publishing his introduction as a separate study the author pursues several goals. First, he aims at partially mending the standing of the Pahlavi translation, which for a long time, especially in the nineteenth century, was regarded as an important tool for our understanding of Avestan texts, but has ever since, barring a few exceptions, fallen into desuetude. However, the author's expressed purpose is not to evaluate the Pahlavi translations in terms of their usefulness as a means of interpreting the Avesta, but as the testimony of an indigenous exegetical tradition that could elucidate the Sasanian and post-Sasanian reception of the Avesta. Second, the dependence of a number of Pahlavi texts on the Pahlavi translations of the Avesta increases their importance for Pahlavi philology. Finally, were the Pahlavi translations to prove somewhat reliable, they could be partially rehabilitated for Avestan philology as well.

The study consists of five chapters. It is preceded by a preface (pp. ix x); Chapter 1, "Das Avesta und dessen Pahlavi-Ubersetzung" (pp. 1-34), deals with the Sasanian Avesta and its Pahlavi translation; chapter 2, "Geschichte der Avestaforschung in Bezug auf die Pahlavi-Ubersetzung" (pp. 35-105), with the history of Avestan studies and Pahlavi translations; chapter 3, "Uberlieferung des Avesta and dessert schriftliche Fixierung" (pp. 106-63), with the transmission of the Avesta and its written redaction; chapter 4, "Zur Datierung der Pahlavi-Ubersetzung des Avesta" (pp. 164-239), with the dating of the Pahlavi translations; and finally chapter 5, "Ubersetzungstechnik in der Pahlavi-Version des Avesta" (pp. 240-341), with the most crucial issue of translation techniques. These chapters are followed by a postface (pp. 343-47); indices (pp. 349-56); abbreviations (pp. 357-59); and finally the bibliography (pp. 361-79).

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the meaning of the expressions Abest[a.bar]g ud Zand 'Avesta and Zand', notably the history of attempts to etymologize the term zand...