BRUCE LINCOLN UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO TOWARD A MORE MATERIALISTIC ETHICS: VERMIN AND POISON IN ZOROASTRIAN THOUGHT SUMMARY Absent from the Older Avesta, vermin and poison first appear in a few verses of the Younger Avesta, whose authors misinterpreted Yasna 34.5c (where they mistook adjectival xrafstra- for a substantive) and Yasna 49.11c (whose “evil foods” [akāiš xvarəθāiš] they took to be poison [viša-]). The Pahlavi texts take the argument further, developing a narrative in which these creatures and substances become prime weapons of Ahriman in his assault on Ohrmazd’s Good Creation. Speculation along these lines introduced novel understandings of evil as a lethal substance, rather than a destructive disposition or spirit, moving questions of morality from metaphysics to physics. Keywords: Zoroastrianism; Avesta; Hermeneutics; Ethical reinterpretation; Materialism. RÉSUMÉ Absents de l’Avesta ancien, la vermine et le poison apparaissent pour la première fois dans quelques vers de l’Avesta récent dont les auteurs ont mal interprété Yasna 34.5c (où ils ont compris l’adjectif xrafstra- comme un substantif) et Yasna 49.11c (où ils ont pris les « mauvaises nourritures » [akāiš xvarəθāiš] pour le poison [viša-]). Les textes pehlevis poursuivent dans cette direction, en développant un récit selon lequel ces créatures et ces substances deviennent les armes principales d’Ahriman dans son assaut contre la Bonne Création d’Ohrmazd. Cette ligne de spéculation a produit des nouvelles manières de comprendre le mal comme étant une substance mortelle et pas seulement une disposition ou un esprit destructeurs, déplaçant les questions morales du domaine de la métaphysique à celui de la physique. Mots clés : zoroastrisme ; Avesta ; herméneutique ; réinterprétation éthique ; matérialisme. * * * I. Whereas the Older Avesta (i.e. the Gāthās and Yasna Haptaŋhāiti, composed c. 1000 BCE) generally treats evil as a spiritual quality, later Zoroastrian texts imagine increasingly tangible instantiations. This can be seen from several semantic shifts from earlier to later textual strata. To 83 STUDIA IRANICA 44, 2015, pp. 83-98 84 B. L I N C O L N StIr 44, 2015 begin with a relatively simple example, the case of xrafstra- is instructive. In the Older Avesta, this term appears three times, always as an adjective.1 The most convincing etymology derives it from an Indo-European verbal root *skrep-, “to bite, sting, cut,”2 and translators have rendered it vari- ously, including “rough,”3 “fierce,”4 “poisonous,”5 “wild,”6 “fearsome,”7 and “foul.”8 In one verse, it modifies the noun hizuua- (“tongue, lan- guage”), describing a particularly sharp kind of speech (Yasna 28.5c); in a second, it modifies auruna- “beast, wild animal” (Yasna 34.9c ).9 The third occurrence holds the most interest for us, however, just as it did for commentators in the Zoroastrian tradition, since it contains grammatical, as well as cosmological complexities of considerable importance. Here, the priest-poet addresses the Wise Lord as follows. We proclaim you superior to all noxious gods and humans. parə vå vīspāiš parə.vaox əmā, daēuuāišcā xrafstrāiš maii āišcā (Yasna 34.5c) Crucial to the interpretation of this line is the question of whether its key phrase names two or three types of being. Two are certain: the daēuua-s (i.e. the old gods, who came to be demonized in Zoroastrianism) and mašiia-s (humans, literally mortals).10 In between, however, is the term xrafstra-, which appears in the same grammatical case as the others (plural instrumental). If this is a substantive, it would constitute a third class of subordinate beings: presumably, nasty animals. Alternatively, if it is adjectival, as translated above, xrafstrāiš would modify the preceding 1 Although earlier translators and lexicographers treated xrafstra- as a substantive in some of its Gāthic occurrences (most notably Yasna 34.5, to be discussed below), see the assessment of Kellens and Pirart 1988-91, III, p. 231, who argue convin- cingly that the syntax of Yasna 28.5 and 34.5 show its usage to be exclusively adjectival in the older texts. 2 Bailey 1970, pp. 25-28. 3 Darmesteter 1892-93, French brute. 4 Insler 1975. 5 Olsson 1994, Swedish förgiftand. 6 Kellens and Pirart 1988-91, II, p. 231, French sauvage. Although this appears in the lexicon, it does not figure in any translation of the verses where the term appears. 7 Ibid., I, p. 106, French affreux, used in their translation of Yasna 28.5. 8 Ibid., I, p. 126 and 127, French infect, which is not listed in the lexicon, but is used to translate Yasna 34.5 and 34.9. 9 Technically, it is possible that auruna- is the adjective and xrafstra- the noun in Yasna 34.9, since usage of the former term is somewhat fluid. Thus, it is adjectival in Yašt 14.23, where it modifies maēša- (thus, a “wild sheep”), but substantive in Yašt 8.36, which speaks of “mountain-dwelling beasts” (aurunaca gairišācō). 10 On the formulaic relation between daēuua- and mašiia-, and proper interpretation of the former as “old god” in the Older Avesta, shifting to “demon” in later texts, see Benveniste 1967. V E R M I N A N D P O I S O N I N Z O R O A S T R I A N T H O U G H T 85 daēuuāiš, helping characterize deities of this sort and explaining why they were inferior to the Wise Lord. Two arguments militate against the first possibility. First, the logic of the series presumes a sequence moving down the scale of ontological dignity (i.e. gods-humans-animals), rather than gods-animals-humans as this wording would have it. Second, Avestan grammar requires that when a series of three nouns is coordinated via the enclitic particle -cā (“and”), the -cā can be attached to the last noun, the last two, or all three but not the first and third. In a syntactical formation like A-cā B C-cā (like daēuuāišcā xrafstrāiš mašiiāišcā) the B-element is not a noun, but a modifier functioning as part of a multi-word phrase.11 Failing to take cognizance of this rule, some translators have interpreted xrafstra- as a substantive in Yasna 34.5c,12 reifying the quality of ferocity, wildness, or toxicity it expresses and conjuring up a set of (bad) animals to parallel the (bad) gods and (bad) humans denoted by daēuua- and mašiia-. The same error was made by those who produced the Younger Avesta, where xrafstra- is never an adjective, but always a noun that denotes harmful creatures characterized by swarming and biting. Flies, ants, and lice (but no others) are identified as part of this category.13 Given the absolute benevolence Zoroastrian doctrine attributes to the Wise Lord, priests reasoned that he could not have created these destructive species, which must therefore be creatures “of the Evil Spirit” (aŋrahe mainiiəuš xrafstra).14 This idea, first introduced in the Younger Avesta, prompted a radically innovative line of speculation, construing the Evil Spirit as author of a counter-creation antithetical to the Wise Lord’s, as in Yasna 19.1-4. Zarathuštra asked the Wise Lord, “Wise Lord, Most beneficent spirit, Creator of corporeal creatures, Righteous One! What was the word you pronounced to me, Wise Lord, before there was sky, before earth, before the (primordial) bovine, before the (primordial) 11 Reichelt 1909, p. 357. Cf. Kellens and Pirart 1988-91, II, p. 143 and 150-151. 12 Inter alia, Bartholomae 1905, Duchesne-Guillemin 1948, Barr 1954, Lommel 1971, Humbach, Elfenbein, and Skjærvø 1991, and West 2010. Surprisingly, the Pahlavi translators of this verse properly understood xrafstra- as an adjective and translated the phrase daēuuāišcā xrafstrāiš by dēwān kē xrad stard, “demons whose wisdom is confounded,” suggested by the folk etymological connection between xrafstra and xrad stard. The same translation is given for the two other occurrences, Yasna 28.5c and 34.9c. Darmesteter1892-93, I, p. 208 n. 19 entertained the idea that although this rendering had the appearance of a “fantaisie etymologique,” it might actually be correct. In contrast, the most recent editors of the text so discount the reading xrad stard that they judge it “probably a scribal error for xrafstar.” Malandra and Ichaporia 2013, p. 49 n. 1. 13 Flies in Vidēuudāt 7.2 and 9.26, ants in Vidēuudāt 16.12, and lice in Vidēuudāt 17.3. 14 Yašt 21.1. 86 B. L I N C O L N StIr 44, 2015 plant, before fire, son of the Wise Lord, before the righteous (primordial) man; before gods, xrafstras, and people; before all corporeal being, before all good things created by the Wise One, which are manifestations of Truth?” Then the Wise Lord answered, “It was the Ahuna Vairiia, Spitama Zarathuštra, that I pronounced to you before there was sky, before water, before earth, before the cow, before the plant, before fire, son of the Wise Lord, before the righteous man; before there were gods, xrafstras, and people; before all corporeal being, before all good things created by the Wise One, which are manifestations of Truth.”15 Several constructs typical of the Younger Avesta (but absent from the Older) figure prominently in this passage. First, the Ahuna Vairiia—i.e. the verse with which the Gāthās commence, the most sacred of all speech acts—is theorized as originating with the Wise Lord, not Zarathuštra, and as having already existed in eternity, prior to Mazdā’s acts of material creation.16 Second, the Wise Lord is said to have established the world in seven distinct steps: first sky, then water, earth, animal, plant, fire, and human.17 Significantly, each of these nouns is in the singular accusative, conveying the idea there was originally only one of each creation, whose primordial unity was an aspect of its perfection.18 After spelling out this cosmogonic sequence, the text introduces three classes of being that stand outside the Wise Lord’s creation and in active opposition to it, each named in the plural instrumental.