The Avestan period () is the period of Iranian history when the collection of canonical texts of Zoroastrianism called the Avesta were produced. The period saw important developments to religious thought and to Iranian mythology, historiography and literature.
Scholars can reliably distinguish between two different linguistic strata in the Avesta labeled "Old Avestan" and "Young Avestan". These two strata represent two different stages in the development of the Avestan language and the society of its speakers. The Old Avestan society is the one to which Zoroaster and his immediate followers belonged. The Young Avestan society is less clearly delineated and reflects a longer time span.
There is a varying level of scholarly consensus on the chronology and geographical extent of the Avestan period. Scholarship largely agrees that it reflects the eastern portion of Greater Iran. Early scholarship placed Zoroaster in the 6th century BCE. More recent scholarship, however, places him several centuries earlier, and this dating has become widely accepted. This early chronology would place the Avestan period , mostly predating the Achaemenid Empire of 550 – 330 BCE. The early chronology would thus make the Avestan period the oldest period of Iranian history for which literary sources are available.
Sources
The primary sources for the Avestan period are the texts of the Avesta. All material in the Avesta is composed in Avestan, an otherwise unattested Old Iranian language. The first edition of the Avesta was compiled and put into writing much later during the Middle Iranian Sassanian period (224 – 651 CE). Avestan had long ceased to be a spoken language by the time of the Sassanians, and it is generally agreed that the texts of the Avesta had been passed down orally. The exact age and provenance of the different Avestan texts are still debated, but scholars can reliably distinguish two linguistic strata, Old Avestan and Young Avestan.
Old Avestan
The Old Avestan material is found in the Staota Yesnya, the central part of Zoroastrinian High Liturgies such as the Yasna and the Visperad. The Staota Yesnya consists of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, and a number of manthras including the Ashem vohu, the Ahuna vairya and the Airyaman ishya. These Old Avestan texts are assumed to have been composed close together in time and to have taken their final form early in the period, possibly due to the activity of Zoroaster himself. The Yenghe hatam manthra and some parts of the Yasna Haptanghaiti may have originated during the Young Avestan time; if so, they were composed in a style characterized as "pseudo-Old Avestan" in order to appear more ancient.
Young Avestan
There is much more material in Young Avestan than Old Avestan. Young Avestan is more varied, which may indicate a longer time of composition and transmission, during which the different texts may have been constantly updated and revised. When these revisions eventually stopped, the Young Avestan texts "crystallized" into their final shape, and the material began to be transmitted largely unchanged. This crystallization may have occurred in the Achaemenid period (550 – 330 BCE), a consequence of Old Persian- and Median-speaking priests (Magi) who were not fluent in the Avestan language.
However, some Young Avestan texts are considered to have altered after the major parts of the corpus had been fixed. The alterations may indicate composition and redaction by people who did not speak Avestan, possibly after Avestan became an extinct language. An example of late revision may be found in the Aban Yasht (a yasht being a Zoroastrian hymn of praise) dedicated to Aredvi Sura Anahita, an Iranian deity later known simply as Anahita. Anahita became popular under the Achaemenid kings, and some scholars argue that verses in the yasht were added later, reflecting Anahita's popularity and a pronounced Near Eastern influence under royal patronage. A particularly late date is often considered for the Vendidad. This text is assumed to have been redacted by an editor or group of editors who, while having only a limited command of the Avestan language, compiled a number of early Avestan sources, now lost. Apart from such changes and redactions, the extant Old and Young Avestan texts were then passed on orally for several centuries until they were eventually set down in writing during the Sassanid period.
Zoroastrian literature
In addition to the canonical texts in Avestan, Zoroastrianism features a large literature in Middle Persian. The most important of them are the Bundahishn, a collection of Zoroastrian cosmogony, and the Denkard, a sort of "encyclopedia of Zoroastrianism". These contain texts said to be from the Avesta which are not present in the extant text. These texts are not considered scripture. A large portion of the Avesta became lost after the Islamic conquest of Iran and the subsequent marginalisation of Zoroastrianism. The summaries of and references to these lost texts in the Middle Persian literature are, therefore, an important additional source on the Avestan period.
Geography
The Old Avestan portions of the Avesta contain no geographical places names that can be identified with any degree of certainty. Later Iranian tradition identifies Airyanem Vaejah as the home of the early Iranians and birthplace of Zoroaster. There is no consensus, however, on where Airyanem Vaijah was located, or even whether it was a real place or strictly mythical. Attempts to locate the Old Avestan society are thus often reliant on the assumed chronology of the text. Proponents of an early chronology locate Zoroaster and his followers in Central Asia or Eastern Iran, whereas proponents of a late chronology sometimes place him in Western Iran.
The Younger Avestan portion of the text contains a number of recognizable place-names and references that can be identified with modern locations, allowing a closer delineation of the Avestan geography. It is generally accepted that these place names are concentrated in the eastern parts of Greater Iran, centered around modern-day Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
Chronology
There has been a long debate in modern scholarship about the chronology of the Avestan period, particularly about the life of Zoroaster. While a relative chronology between the time of Zoroaster and that of his community in the Young Avestan period has been established with some certainty, opinions about its absolute place in time have changed considerably in recent decades. It is generally accepted that the Young Avestan period reflects considerable linguistic, social and cultural changes compared to its Old Avestan predecessor. Scholars posit that such change can occur only over the course of several centuries. Jean Kellens gives an estimate of roughly 400 years, whereas Prods Oktor Skjaervo assumes that 300–500 years may separate Old and Young Avestan.
Approximate timeline of the Avestan period (estimates according to Prods Oktor Skjaervo) vis-a-vis several regions inhabited by Indo-Iranian peoples from 1500 BCE to 0 CE. The range for the Old Avestan period represents an uncertainty range rather than a duration, i.e., Zoroaster and his immediate followers may have lived sometime during the indicated time frame.
Attempts to establish an absolute dating have resulted in two different chronologies, one late and one early.
The late chronology assumes that Zoroaster lived in the sixth century BCE. In this chronology, the Young Avestan period would have occurred in the Seleucid (312 – 63 BCE) or early Parthian Empire period (247 BCE – 224 CE) of Iranian history. This dating accords with some Greek accounts of Zoroaster's life as well as with later Zoroastrian texts such as the Bundahishn. Scholars Walter Bruno Henning, Ilya Gershevitch, and Gherardo Gnoli all favored the late chronology.
The early chronology, however, assumes that: Zoroaster lived sometime between c. 1500-900 BCE; and The Young Avestan material was produced between c. 900 - 400 BCE.
An early chronology is supported by two general groups of arguments. First are the numerous strong parallels between Old Avestan and the early Vedic period of the second half of second millennium BCE. Old Avestan and the Indo-Aryan Sanskrit of the Rigveda are very similar, suggesting relatively recent branching from their common Proto-Indo-Iranian ancestor. Both the Avesta and the Rigveda depict a society of semi-nomadic pastoralists, who ride chariots, engage in regular cattle raids, and neither text mentions iron. Second, the Young Avestan texts lack any discernible Persian or Median influence, indicating that the bulk of the texts was produced before the rise of the Achaemenid Empire in c. 550 BCE. As a result, more recent scholarship now supports an early chronology for the Avestan period.
This early chronology is also supported by an older Greek dating of Zoroaster's life which—while giving an implausibly early date of 6,000 years before the time of Xerxes (r. 486 – 465 BCE)—suggests that the Greeks initially placed Zoroaster in a remote past.
Archaeology
Modern archaeology has unearthed a wealth of data on settlements and cultures in Central Asia and Greater Iran from the Middle Bronze Age to the rise of the Achaemenids. Linking the data to the literary sources of the Avesta remains difficult due to the uncertainty of the texts' provenance, and any identification of a particular archaeological site or culture with descriptions in the Avesta runs the risk of circular reasoning. Modern scholarship thus largely interprets the Avesta only within the broader outline of Iranian history, focusing in particular on the migrations of Iranian peoples. Through the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, these early Iranians moved south from their homelands in the Eurasian steppe. They entered southern Central Asia before eventually arriving in the Iranian plateau.
The pastoralism in the Old Avestan material has prompted some scholars to connect Avestan with the Bronze Age Andronovo culture of the Eurasian Steppe. Southern Central Asia has also been proposed as the geographical range of the Young Avestan period. A shift from a pastoralist to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle between the Old and Young Avestan period, and the interaction of the Avestan people with pastoralist Eurasian nomads of the steppes, indicate a continued proximity to the Eurasian Steppe during the Young Avestan period.
Bronze Age southern Central Asia was home to an urban civilization called the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) which had long-range trade networks to the south. The middle of the second millennium BCE saw major transformations of the BMAC, with urban centers replaced by smaller settlements and a shift to a mixed agricultural-pastoral economy with strong links to the northern steppe regions. These transformations are attributed to the arrival of the Iranian tribes from the steppe. The Central Asian Tazabagyab culture in Khwarazm on the Amu Darya has also been proposed as a location for Avestan culture. Some scholars equate Khwarazm with Airyanem Vaejah, which Zoroastrian tradition names as the early homeland of the Iranians and birthplace of the Zoroastrianism. The Yaz culture, also known as Sine-Sepulchro or Handmade-Painted-Ware cultural complex, has also been proposed as the historical Avestan culture. Like the Avestan culture, the Yaz culture shows evidence of the in-migration of steppe peoples, common farming practices, and—consistent with the Zoroastrian practice of excarnation—a lack of burial sites.
Society Old Avestan period