The Spirit of Zoroastrianism.

• Author: Daryaee, Touraj
• Position: Book review

The Spirit of Zoroastrianism. Translated and edited by PRODS OKTOR SKJAERVO. The Sacred Literature Series. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Pp. xii + 270.

Those who have studied Zoroastrianism as coursework or have taught it have traditionally had two choices for textual sources. First is the Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism by the towering figure of the field in the twentieth century, Mary Boyce, published in 1984. This book in many ways presented what nowadays may be called the "traditional" view on the religion and history of Zoroastrianism. The second work, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion: Reading from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions by William W. Malandra, is more philologically oriented than that of Boyce, where many Avestan texts were translated in their entirety, rendering perhaps the best English translation of these hymns. Since Boyce's book was far less keen on the translation of the Old Iranian texts and paid more attention to the Middle Persian texts, one can say that in a way she provided a Sasanian or a Late Antique Zoroastrian view of this religion. There are however, some translations of later Zoroastrian writings in the Persian language which are of value. On the other hand, Malandra's work, as its title suggests, wholly concentrated on the Old Iranian texts, providing ample Old Persian and Avestan texts and a view of pre-Achaemenid and Achaemenid evidence of Zoroastrianism.

The present book by Prods Oktor Skjaervo is a new handbook on the study of Zoroastrianism, especially for those unfamiliar with this religious tradition. The book is composed of a ten-part introduction that sets the stage for the author's translations of the relevant texts. It is of interest to note that Skjaervo begins by saying that he has refrained from using the traditional translation for terminologies that may be well known to the scholars in the field. He suggests that since Zoroastrianism as a religion has had a long life, the terminologies used for the religion would also have gone through changes, and it is best not to be given a fixed, academic terminology associated with other living religions.

The translation of Avestan, Old Persian, and Pahlavi material occupies the bulk of this book and is divided into ten sections: texts on sacred history; text on the creation of the world; text on the mythical history of the Zoroastrian tradition; texts on eschatology and the end of the world; texts on the...