Yasht i Gahan

Yasht i Gahan
Safavid era Zoroastrian priest, holding Barsom twigs while performing a ceremony
GenreFuneral rite
DateOccasion dependent

The Yasht i Gahan or Gah Sarna, is an important Zoroastrian funeral ceremony. Its purpose is to guide the soul to the afterlife. It is performed by two priest, who chant the seven hymns of the Ahunavaiti Gatha over the body of the deceased.[1]

Name

The ceremony is known as Yasht i Gahan or Yasht Gahan in Iran,[1] or Gah Sarna in India.[2] Here yasht is the Middle Persian term for a ceremony of sacrificial worship and gahan refers to the Gathas.[3] The term, therefore, means the Ceremony of the Gathas. This plural use in at odds with the ritual practice, where only one of the Gathas, namely the Ahunavaiti Gatha is celebrated.[4] In contrast, the term Gah Sarna consists of the singular gah, i.e., Gatha,[5] and sarna, the Gujarati form of Modern Persian saraidan,[6] itself derived from Middle Persian srayishna, singing.[7] It, therefore, means Singing the Gatha.

Sources

The Yasht i Gahan is described in a number of sources. The oldest source containing a description of the ceremony is the Revayat of Behdin Jasa from 1515, whereas the Revayat of Kamdin Shapur from 1559 contains the full text. In addition, the text is extant in a number of liturgical manuscripts starting in the 17th century.[8] A list of all manuscripts containing the Yasht i Gahan is presented by König.[9] Modi describes the ritual in a dedicated essay[10] and within the context of Zoroastriani funary rites.[11]

Ceremony

The ceremony is performed by two priests. It begins with the Padyab-Kusti, i.e., the ritual fastening of the Kushti. The priests then enter the room of the deceased and begin performing the first half the Ahunavaiti Gatha.[12] Then, the corpse is lifted up and the priests the continue to chant the Ahunavaiti Gatha, while carrying the corpse to the daxma.[13] This practice may be derived from the Vendidad, where the Gathas are prescribed as repelling the polluting influcene of Nasu, the daeva of dead matter.[14]

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 König 2024.
  2. ↑ Karanjia 2016.
  3. ↑ MacKenzie 1971, p. 34: "gahan [g’s’n'] the Gathas".
  4. ↑ König 2024, "Not unlikely seems to me an assumption that the expression “Yašt (ī) Gāhān” once referred to a recitation not of a single Gāϑā, but of all the five Gāϑās (see below). However, such a full Gāϑā celebration is neither attested by description nor by manuscript".
  5. ↑ MacKenzie 1971, p. 34: "gah [gs] а Gatha".
  6. ↑ Modi 1914, p. 415: " Sárna is the Gujaraticised form of Pers. Saraidan".
  7. ↑ MacKenzie 1971, p. 77: "srudan, sray- [slwtn'] sing, recite, play (an instrument). ~ishn(ih): singing, recitation".
  8. ↑ König 2024, p. 182.
  9. ↑ König 2024, pp. 183-186.
  10. ↑ Modi 1914.
  11. ↑ Modi 1922, pp 52-53.
  12. ↑ Modi 1922, pp. 52-53.
  13. ↑ Boyce 1993, "Latterly in Bombay the practice of the priest's repeating the whole of Ahunavaitī on the way to the daḵma was generally adopted".
  14. ↑ Modi 1914, p. 145.

Bibliography

  • Boyce, Mary (1993). "CORPSE". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. VI. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 279–286.
  • Karanjia, Ramiyar (21 November 2016). "Death rituals". ramiyarkaranjia.com. Retrieved December 31, 2025.
  • König, Götz (2024). "On the Yašt Gāhān (= Gāh Sārnā)". DABIR. 10: 175–202. doi:10.1163/29497833-20230002.
  • MacKenzie, David N. (1971). A concise Pahlavi dictionary. London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press.
  • Modi, Jivanja J. (1914). "The Geh-Sarna Recital as enjoined and as recited about 150 years ago". Sir J.J. Madressa Jubilee Memorial Volume. Bombay. pp. 415–420.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Modi, Jivanja J. (1922). The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees (PDF). Bombay: British India Press.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.