Fragmentary and disjointed as are the remnants of the Avesta, we are fortunate in possessing even this moiety of the Bible of Zoroaster, whose compass is about one tenth that of our own sacred book.  A grouping of the existing texts is here presented:—­1.  Yasna (including Gathas). 2.  Visperad. 3.  Yashts. 4.  Minor Texts. 5.  Vendidad. 6.  Fragments.

Even these texts no single manuscript in our time contains complete.  The present collection is made by combining various Avestan codexes.  In spite of the great antiquity of the literature, all the existing manuscripts are comparatively young.  None is older than the thirteenth century of our own era, while the direct history of only one or two can be followed back to about the tenth century.  This mere external circumstance has of course no bearing on the actual early age of the Zoroastrian scriptures.  It must be kept in mind that Zoroaster lived at least six centuries before the birth of Christ.

Among the six divisions of our present Avesta, the Yasna, Visperad, and Vendidad are closely connected.  They are employed in the daily ritual, and they are also accompanied by a version or interpretation in the Pahlavi language, which serves at the same time as a sort of commentary.  The three divisions are often found combined into a sort of prayer-book, called Vendidad-Sadah (Vendidad Pure); i.e., Avesta text without the Pahlavi rendering.  The chapters in this case are arranged with special reference to liturgical usage.

Some idea of the character of the Avesta as it now exists may be derived from the following sketch of its contents and from the illustrative selections presented:—­

1. Yasna (sacrifice, worship), the chief liturgical work of the sacred canon.  It consists mainly of ascriptions of praise and of prayer, and corresponds nearly to our idea of a prayer-book.  The Yasna comprises seventy-two chapters; these fall into three nearly equal parts.  The middle, or oldest part, is the section of Gathas below described.

The meaning of the word yasna as above gives at once some conception of the nature of the texts.  The Yasna chapters were recited at the sacrifice:  a sacrifice that consisted not in blood-offerings, but in an offering of praise and thanksgiving, accompanied by ritual observances.  The white-robed priest, girt with the sacred cord and wearing a veil, the paitidana, before his lips in the presence of the holy fire, begins the service by an invocation of Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) and the heavenly hierarchy; he then consecrates the zaothra water, the myazda or oblation, and the baresma or bundle of sacred twigs.  He and his assistant now prepare the haoma (the soma of the Hindus), or juice of a sacred plant, the drinking of which formed part of the religious rite.  At the ninth chapter of the book, the rhythmical chanting of the praises of Haoma is begun.  This deified being, a personification of the consecrated drink, is supposed to have appeared before the prophet himself, and to have described to him the blessings which the haoma bestows upon its pious worshiper.  The lines are metrical, as in fact they commonly are in the older parts of the Avesta, and the rhythm somewhat recalls the Kalevala verse of Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha.’  A specimen is here presented in translation:—­