Preserve the beliefs

"The Avesta was guarded by the priesthood over millennia. Only those texts which had a ritual function survived. Three-fourths (of Zoroastrian sacred literature) was lost. The higher liturgies constitute the major part of the extant Avesta,” says Dr Almut Hint­ze emphasizing the oral tradition of early literature.

The tall, slender Hintze lectures part-time at the London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and pursues research at Clare Hall, Cambridge. Simultaneously functioning as the Heisenberg scholar of the German National Research Council in Bonn, Hintze had spoken to Parsiana during a lunch break at the Third International Congress hosted by the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute (KRCOI) (see "A clearing house of ideas,” page 192).

The thrust of her paper at this conference was that the order in which the Yasna, the Visperad and the Vendidad ceremonies are performed and the liturgies which are recited (with the exception of later additions at the beginning and at the end of the ceremonies) was as arranged from ancient times, perhaps by Zarathushtra himself. These include the first Gatha, Ahunavaity, followed by the Yasna Haptangaity (YH — also known as the Haptan Yasht) and the rest of the Gathas. Though YH, a prose composition, has not generally been considered as a part of Zarathushtra’s original message, the soft-spoken Hintze argues that it forms the kernel of these ceremonies. Martin Haug, the 19th century scholar who first differentiated the Gathas from the rest of the Avestan prayers, said that only the Gathas were composed by Zarathushtra. "Perhaps the YH was not mentioned by Haug since YH was only a liturgical (prose) text and hence overlooked,” says Hintze adding that the seminal work on the YH by Erlangen University’s Johanna Narten had found nothing therein to contradict the Gathas in text, meter or language.

Having entered the field of Zoroastrian studies via comparative philology studying Greek, Sanskrit and the Iranian languages at Oxford, Hintze earned her PhD degree from Erlangen University with a thesis on the Zamyad Yasht.

Reconstructing earlier rituals on the basis of the Vedas (the Rig Veda, according to Hintze is of the same vintage as the Gathas i.e. about 1500 to 1200 BC) Hintze notes that the Gods were then "invited to come down from their heavenly abode, to the seat prepared for them and be physically present in the ceremony...As Zarathushtra was a priest himself, it is logical to assume that as he brought in new ideas he also devised new forms of worship and that with Zarathushtra began the worship of Ahura Mazda. We find in the YH that Ahura Mazda is present in the sacred fire... the most beautiful of his shapes... There is no evidence that this was the principle before Zarathushtra,” says Hintze.

The Zamyad Yasht recounts the mythological history of Iran and speaks of the khwarena (aura) which linked Zoroastrian kings to Ahura Mazda. It was worshipped as a divine attribute in ancient times. "As long as human beings have the khwarena, they are propitious,” notes Hintze.

During a two-month research stint in India in early 1989 which Hintze spent searching for old Avestan manuscripts in private and public collections in Bombay and Gujarat, she rediscovered the "lost” manuscript F1 dated 1571 which is the ancestor manuscript of all other extant Yasht manuscripts, notes her bio data published by the KRCOI at the time of the Congress.

Hintze amplifies how she had spent two to three weeks in Navsari, Surat and Udvada and has fond memories of the Parsi householders who welcomed her and showed her around. "I would like to go back,” she smiled wistfully. In Bom­bay and Gujarat she had found that books had been kept well but the manuscripts needed restoration by specialists.

Defining Zoroastrianism as "clearly monotheistic,” Hintze is convinced that Zarathushtra recognized only one God — Ahura Mazda. "The core of Zara­thush­tra’s teaching is that good and evil have nothing in common,” that the dualism is purely ethical in nature. "The Zoroastrian world view is universal,” she maintains and though its "self-contained philosophical and theological system” remained confined to India and Iran, it had its impact on Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Apart from her published doctoral thesis Der Zamyd Yasht in 1994 which contains the Avestan texts with a translation, commentary and glossary in German and a short English translation, Hintze says she has worked on a series of 15 articles on the Saoshyants, written a text book on Zoroastrianism for Penguin and has been getting involved with the Pahlavi and Pazand translations of the Avesta, particularly the Avesta-Pahlavi versions of the 19th fargad of the Videvdat. Her future plan, as noted in January 2000 was to pursue the central tenets of the faith from the Gathas through the Pahlavi texts to later literature and beliefs.

Commending the generosity of Mehraban and the late Faridoon Zartosh­ty whose munificent donation has funded her series of lectures on Zoroastrianism at SOAS, she comments on the interest among students for this ancient religion. While there are "always some Zoroastrians who attend the SOAS lectures,” Hintze has often been invited to speak to the community at London’s Zoroastrian House. She says she finds the community’s attitude to life positive and energetic. "There is eagerness for knowledge and education.” As for the community’s propensity to argue, she cautions, "It is good to have discussions as long as it does not become destructive.”

And what about some of the people of Central Asia, liberated from the Soviet yoke, who claim Zoroastrian ancestry? "It is important to talk to them, hear what they have to say, find out which way they were Zoroastrians. Then the community must decide (whether or not accept them) as people feel.”

Commenting on the cultural changes apparent between the Zoroastrians of the subcontinent and their scions now settled in the West, Hintze observes, "It is important that (these changes) be only outward, that the beliefs are preserved...”