er
Articles or Abstracts > Chosroes
The 03 Oct. 2009 at 11:58The pact of the high-priests with Xusrō
After the success of Xusrō (sixth century) to re-establish the authority of state, the Aryan councillors assembled by him, re-affirmed the views advocated by Ādarbād.
Dk iii M 218 abar dah handarz ī anOSag-raWAn husrO SAhAn SAh I kaWAdAn O erAn hanzamanIgAn ped dastWarIh I ohrmazd dEn.
‘About the ten injunctions of Xusrō, of Immortal Soul, king of kings, son of Kavād, to the Aryan audience of the Assembly, on the authority of the daēnā of Ahura Mazdā.’
M 219 Ek, cASiSn I dEn mahr, ud IziSn ud kirdagAn I yazadAn, hAmis dAd <ud> EWEn, ped cAStag ud kirdag I hAWiStAn I AdarbAd I mahrspendAn, I az kurAn deh bUd, kirdan.
‘One (of his injunctions) was to practice the teachings of the formulas of the religion (= the Avesta texts), the liturgies and (other) ritual acts (for) the Yazata, together with the laws and traditions in accordance with the teachings and works of the disciples of Ādarbād, son of Mahrspend, who came from the land of Makran.’
Xusrō, son of Kavād, had to cope with a “heresy” within the clergy preached by a certain Mazdak, son of Bāmdād, who exercised a certain fascination on the laity (vehān lit. ‘the good’), and appeared to cause disturbance among the priests (āsrōnān). Xusrō rejected Mazdak’s teaching and works, because he was afraid of his force of propaganda among the “populace” (xvardagān), and his power of subjugating the kingdom by a band of clergymen. His doctrine was a new interpretation (zand) of the daēnā, a kind of mazdaica superstitio, detached progressively from the Moγestān, and implicated the laymen in religious controversies. An assembly was summoned by Xusrō to which seven high priests of the Moγestān were invited to put it in order. He urged the priests to teach the collection of Avesta liturgies (yasnīhā) to the good; at the same time, he demanded of the priests that, the Zand was to be strictly kept from laymen. In this way, he freed his Aryan subjects from the religious quarrels that could divide them into hostile sects.
The pact preserved in the Zand ī Vahman Yasn 2 bears witness to this act:
ped zand I Wahman yasn, harodad yasn, aStAd yasn pEdAg kU:
E bAr guzastag mazdak I bAmdAdAn dEn-pedyArag O pEdAgIh Amad, u-SAn pedyArag ped dEn <I> yazadAn kird, hAn <bay> anOSag-raWAn husrO <I kaWAdAn> +mAh-WindAd (/ +mAh-dAd), +Weh-SAbuhr, dAd-ohrmazd I AdarbAyagAn dastWar, AdarfarrObay I a-drO, ud AdarbAd, ud Adar-mihr, ud baxt-AfrId O pES XAst. u-S peymAn aziS XAst kU: En yasnIhA ped nihAn mA dAred, be ped peyWann I aSmA zand mA cASed!
aWESAn andar husrO peymAn kird.
‘In the commentary of the Vahman Yasn, and of the Harodād Yasn and of the Arštād Yasn, it is revealed that:
Once the Accursed Mazdak, son of Bāmdād, the adversary of the religion, appeared, and brought detriment to the religion of the Yazata, then Xusrō of Immortal Soul, son of Kavād, summoned before him Māhvindād (or, Māhdād), Vehšābuhr, Dādohrmazd the high-priest of Ādarbāyagān, Ādarfarrōbay the free-from falsehood, Āderbād, Ādarmihr and Baxtāfrīd; and he demanded from them a pact, [saying]: “Do not keep these (Avesta) liturgies in concealment, but do not teach the commentaries outside your lineage!”
They made the pact with Xusrō.’
The “pact” put forward in the assembly was accepted and, sealed on the authority of the daēnā (Harodād Yasn):
Yt 4.9 zaraquStra aEtvm mLqrvm mE fradaxSayO (Yt 14.46 fradaEsayOiS) ańyAT piqre WA puqrAi brAqAi brAqre WA haDO.zAtAi
‘O Zaraθuštra, do not teach this Formula except either to the father for (transmission to) the son, or to the brother for (transmission to) the uterine brother, or to the priest for (transmission to) the θrāyavan!’
The Avesta texts in practical use were the liturgical ones: the Yasnīhā. The canonical texts of the Avesta were only studied in the learned circle of the Magi. The word yasnīhā refers to any collection of (Avesta) texts required for the liturgical services: the Yasna of the 72 chapters, the Visprad (a haδaoxta ‘complement’ of the Yasna), the Vidēvdād (a variant of the collection used Vīštāsp Yašt in place of the Vidēvdād), the five Gāh (for the performance of the ceremony in the five periods of the day: hāvani, rapiθβina, uzayeirina, aiβisruθrima, ušahina), the Āfrīnagān, the Sihrōzag, the 21 hymns addressed to the deities, and some other small formulas known as Vāz.
What Mas˓ūdī tells us about the state of religious tradition at the Sasanian period confirms the existence of this collection: « When the kingship passed from the petty kings (the Aršaka) to Ardaššēr son of Pābag, he made the Aryans in accord about the reciting of one “naska” (of the book of Zaraθuštra) called +Yasnīhā, and until nowadays the Aryans and Magians only recite that –the first book is called Avesta. »
The Zand is comprised of the literal translation of the Avesta texts, glosses and commentaries interpolated in the translated texts, quoting the different opinions of the teaching priests.
According to the “pact” (peymān) it is expedient for priestly teachers, that they teach the Avesta texts –collected in the Yasnīhā – to all those of the good religion; but, it is proper for priests, that they teach the different commentaries of the Formulas, and the doctrinal schools –the whole “literature” about the daēnā māzdayasni is called Zand –only to one who is of priestly family, who is an intelligent priest.
In the Xusrō son of Kavād and a page, the hero of the story is a young man of a princely family, who relates to the king Xusrō that:
HKR 8 ped hangAm O frahangestAn [kirdan] dAd hom. u-m ped frahang kirdan saxt aWiStAft hom. 9. u-m yaSt ud hAdOxt ud … ud jud-dEWdAd hErbedIhA Warm, gyAg gyAg zand niyUSId estAd.
‘At the proper time I was given to the School, and I was very diligent during school education. I learnt by heart the Yašt (of the 72 chapters), and the Hadōxt, and the …, and the Vidēvdād like a teaching priest, and studied their Zand passage by passage.’
It seems that the story takes place before the “ban” on the study of the Zand in the (pricely) schools (frahangestān).
We find an echo of the “pact” of Xusrō, after the Sasanian period, in the prose Sad-dar (‘A hundred chapters’), 98, 99.