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On the Age of the Zoroastrian Sages of the Zand1

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On the Age of the Zoroastrian Sages of the Zand1 Iranica Antiqua, vol. XLVII, 2012 doi: 10.2143/IA.47.0.2141967 ON THE AGE OF THE ZOROASTRIAN SAGES OF THE ZAND1 BY Shai SECUNDA (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Abstract: This article attempts to date the named Zoroastrian sages of the Zand — the translation-cum-commentary on the Avesta. First it analyzes a short passage in the Middle Persian Zand i Wahman Yasn, which lists a group of sages who attended a council of King Xusro I in the early 530’s. The passage’s historicity is demonstrated based on its distinct style, the description of the event in relatively early Arabic sources, and in the case of two sages via confirmation from other textual corpora. The sages who attended the council are then linked with their interlocutors in the Zand, who may also be assumed to have flourished within some temporal proximity to the early sixth- century. The article adduces further sources that link the authorities of the Zand to one another in teacher-student, and occasionally biological relationships. This makes it possible to map a string of associations between many of the major authorities of the Zand, who seem to all have flourished during the late fifth- to sixth- centuries CE. Keywords: Zoroastrianism, Sasanian Empire, Zand, Middle Persian literature, Zoroastrian sages, Xusro I. Introduction Over the years, various attempts have been made to catalogue and date the Zoroastrian authorities cited in the Pahlavi Zand — the translation- cum-commentary on the Avesta — and related works.2 The dating of these 1 An early version of this paper was first presented at a session organized by Professor Touraj Daryaee at the eighth biennial conference of the International Society for Iranian Stud- ies held in Santa Monica, CA. I am grateful to Professor Daryaee, as well as the other par- ticipants, namely Dr. Kevin van Bladel, Dr. Charles Haberl, Mr. Dan Sheffield, and Dr. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina. Following the conference, I reworked the paper and received support from many helpful mentors and colleagues. These include Professor Galit Hasan-Rokem, Dr. Geoffrey Herman, Mr. Yishai Kiel, Professor Maria Macuch, Dr. Scott Mcdonough, Professor Shaul Shaked, and Professor P. Oktor Skjærvø. Special gratitude is due to Professor Yaakov Elman for his comments and for the dialogue that this paper sparked. 2 For the purposes of this paper, these works include Herbedestan (Herb; a Zand on an Avestan work about the laws of priestly study), Madayan i hazar dadestan (MHD; a Sasa- nian civil law book), Nerangestan (Ner; a Zand on an Avestan Book concerning ritual), Pahlavi Rivayat accompanying the Dadestan i denig (PRDD; a compilation of responsa on 94839_Iran_Antiq_47-2012_09.indd 317 12/04/12 08:42 318 SHAI SECUNDA authorities is a matter of signal importance for anyone interested in the history of Zoroastrianism, Sasanian law, and the religious, intellectual, and cultural history of the Sasanian Empire. Early research on the topic con- sisted mainly of listing the names of these authorities with little attempt to locate them historically or according to schools.3 The last decade and a half saw a number of important publications on the topic. Philippe Gignoux published a pioneering article that considered the formation of Zoroastrian legal and exegetical schools, cited epigraphic evidence, and discussed the dating of some of the Zoroastrian authorities.4 Alberto Cantera devoted a chapter of his monograph on the Zand to dating its authorities.5 Cantera’s discussion is more comprehensive than Gignoux’s, and he analyzed pas- sages of historical interest in greater detail. Yaakov Elman has recently pro- duced a pair of articles about Zoroastrian and Jewish identity that along the way treat the historical time period of the Zoroastrian authorities.6 Signifi- cantly, aside from discussing some of the Iranian sources that can be used to date these authorities, Elman also compared the Zand and the Babylonian Tal- mud with the aim of tracing a joint intellectual history. Finally, mention should be made of a recent article by János Jany which is mainly concerned with jurisprudence, but which also expends considerable effort to date the sages.7 Despite their great merit, these studies do not systematically examine all of the available sources that directly refer to the Zoroastrian authorities. The goal of this paper is thus to set down all the directly relevant sources, subject them to analysis, and consider their historical reliability and meaning.8 In legal and theological issues), Pahlavi Widewdad (PV; a Zand on an Avestan book concerned mainly with the laws of purity), Pahlavi Yasna (PY; a Zand on the Avestan Yasna, or sac- rifice), Sayest ne sayest (SnS; a compilation about legal and theological issues), Zand i fra- gard i jud-dew-dad (ZFJ; a text bearing a strong relation to the PV), and Zand i wahman yasn (ZWY; an apocalyptic Pahlavi text). 3 Early examples include Anquetil-Duperon 1771 and Spiegel 1860. For a more recent example, see de Menasce 1983: 1171-1172. An important but brief attempt at dating some of the authorities also appears in Tavadia 1956: 38-44. 4 Gignoux 1995. 5 Cantera 2002: 164-239. 6 Elman 2005 and 2006. 7 Jany 2006. 8 In general, this paper will not concern itself with the study of the meaning of the authorities’ names, and their etymologies. Some of this work has been already undertaken in the proceeding works. See especially Gignoux 1995 and Cantera 2004: 209-211. In addition, it should be noted that some of the names appear in a variety of forms. I have only treated the different forms when it is necessary for reconstructing the history of the authorities. 94839_Iran_Antiq_47-2012_09.indd 318 12/04/12 08:42 ON THE AGE OF THE ZOROASTRIAN SAGES OF THE ZAND 319 preparation for this article, I compiled a list of every named authority men- tioned in the literature of the Zand and, when applicable, juxtaposed these names to the names of interlocutors. I then collected and analyzed the few sources which link historical events or personages to Zoroastrian authori- ties. By placing the two sets of data together, I will tentatively argue that most of the authorities of the Zand were active within some chronological proximity to the sixth century of the Common Era. Despite the challenging nature of the material and the relatively few available sources, the approach taken here assumes that the philological and direct historical evidence must be considered in toto. Furthermore, this information should be contemplated apart from other data — at least ini- tially. For that reason, in this paper I do not consider those talmudic and East Syriac texts which, while parallel to the Zand, do not directly refer to the Zoroastrian authorities.9 As noted above, Elman and other scholars (including myself) are currently engaged in the task of comparing the rab- bis of the Babylonian Talmud and the Zoroastrian religious authorities who populate Middle Persian literature.10 The findings of this research are quite exciting, and they point to a shared and dynamic intellectual discourse in the Sasanian Empire. The dating that emerges from this paper seems to place the Zoroastrian authorities somewhat later than their rabbinic coun- terparts, though not by very much. Thus on the whole, this paper confirms what recent comparative research of the Talmud, Middle Persian literature and texts from the East Syriac scholastic tradition11 has been arguing; namely, that the final centuries of Sasanian rule were ones of great intellec- tual ferment and intersection for the religious communities of Greater Iran. The Zoroastrian Authorities Literary and epigraphical sources of the Sasanian Empire provide us with an impressive variety of positions and tasks occupied and performed by Zoroastrian priests.12 Along with official matters of the state, some priests were engaged in the study and interpretation of the Avesta (or at 9 Again, Elman 2005 and 2006 are pioneering in their use of the comparative data for dating the Zoroastrian authorities and compilations. 10 For a recent bibliography, see Secunda 2010a: 311-313. 11 On the comparative study of the Talmud and East Syriac texts, see Becker 2010. 12 For basic orientation, see Daryaee 2009: 126-133. 94839_Iran_Antiq_47-2012_09.indd 319 12/04/12 08:42 320 SHAI SECUNDA least in its Middle Persian adaptation) as well as Zoroastrian law, theology, and ritual. Like the Babylonian rabbis and Eastern Christian schoolmen, many Zoroastrian priests were committed to the ideals of religious study. Learning and studying the religious tradition is frequently praised in Middle Persian literature, and it is something about which the third century high priest, Kirdir, boasted.13 One can get a basic impression of what Zoroastrian religious learning looked like from the Herbedestan, an Avestan work devoted to the laws of priestly study which contains a Pahlavi translation and commentary that occasionally “updates” the text to the realities of late antiq- uity.14 In addition, Christians and Jews alike describe the distinct Zoroastrian devotion to the recitation of their sacred texts.15 Perhaps the best window into Zoroastrian learning is provided by the texts themselves, which preserve complex legal and exegetical discussions and numerous debates. In order to better understand the nature and contours of Zoroastrian reli- gious study during Sasanian times, it is thus essential that we date the Middle Persian compilations along with the authorities mentioned in them. This is a task fraught with difficulty. According to the regnant view, the majority of Pahlavi literature was written down only in the ninth century CE. When coupled with the fact that our earliest manuscripts date to the fourteenth century and derive from a manuscript tradition that can be traced back through colophons no earlier than approximately 1000 CE, some scholars are reluctant to rely on Pahlavi literature in reconstructing Sasanian Zoroastrian- ism.
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