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Avestan xratu-
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
The specific sense that the word xratu- possesses in the Gāthās has not received the attention it deserves. As this article will show, this specific sense points to the eschatological foundation of Zoroastrianism. Eschatological concerns did not first develop in the frame of an established “monotheistic” religion; rather, Zoroastrianism arose from those concerns. The xratu- has a strictly eschatological function in the Gāthās. The noun retains this semantic capacity not only in the Young Avestan but also in the Middle Persian Zoroastrian texts. Iranian languages share the noun with Vedic and (archaic) Greek, where it has the basic meaning of the mental capacity to achieve proposed goals, hence practical intelligence, resourcefulness, or efficacy. If this is in fact the general sense that xratu- has in Iranian, as will be briefly pointed out, the specifically eschatological meaning that it acquires in the Gāthās must indicate the type of religious discourse to which these compositions belong. The noun may, further, have developed its eschatological meaning before the time of the Gāthās and already become a technical term. In this case, it would be legitimate to ask whether there are traces in the Gāthās that point to the institutional background of the term. There do indeed seem to be such traces. The term seems to have been used in the technical sense of the mental power to attain the divine sphere in the daēva cult.
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- Copyright © 2014 The International Society for Iranian Studies
Footnotes
Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewer's observations which led to considerable improvement of the earlier version. The author would like to dedicate this article to Almut Hintze.
References
1 See Strunk, K., “Semantisches und Formales zum Verhältnis von Indoiran. krátu-/xratu- und Gr. κρατύς,” in Monumentum H.S. Nyberg (Leiden, 1975), 2: 286–292, 296.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., 276–83.
3 Ibid., 277–8. [krátu is connected with manas (e.g., RV IV 33.9, similarly in the Avesta), but is more particularly directed to practical activity. However, it does not simply mean ‘willing’, but generally the mental faculty directed to action, to have the intelligence to know what to do with regard to something and the will to do it (that is, to get it done), both without distinction.]
4 Ibid., 280–81.
5 Wackernagel, J. and Debrunner, A., Altindische Grammatik. Vol II.2 Die Nominalsuffixe (Göttingen, 1954), 667.Google Scholar
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7 Strunk, “ Semantisches und Formales zum Verhältnis,” 280.
8 Ibid., 281.
9 Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1: 407: “des Wollens und Denkens.”
10 Bartholomae, C., Altiranisches Wörterbuch (Berlin, 1961), col. 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 See Humbach, H., The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts, 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1991).Google Scholar For instance, he translates Y 28.1cc’ vaŋhə̄uš xratūm manaŋhō yā xšnəuuīšā gə̄ušcā uruuānəm: “(for the spirit) with which Thou mightest satisfy the intellect of good thought and the soul of the cow” (Humbach, The Gāthās, 1: 117); and Y 48.4dd’ θβahmī ×xratāu apə̄məm nanā aŋhat̰: “Finally, he [who shapes his daēnā favorably or unfavorably] will be (recorded) in Thy intellect here and there” (Humbach, The Gāthās, 1: 177).
12 See Insler, S., The Gāthās of Zarathustra (Leiden, 1975).Google Scholar He translates Y 48.4dd’ as “(But) when Thy will shall be done, the end shall be different (for each)” (ibid., 91).
13 Ibid., 59.
14 See Gershevitch, I., “Die Sonne Das Beste” in Mithraic Studies (Manchester, 1975), 1: 79.Google Scholar Mayrhofer (Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1: 407: “Siegeskraft, Herrscherkraft”) and Strunk (“Semantisches und Formales zum Verhältnis,” 282: “kämpferisch Drang des Kriegers und Wettkämpfers”) give among the meanings of Vedic krátu- (martial) superior power. This particular usage is not attested in the Gāthās and, as far as I can tell, anywhere in Iranian contexts. Gershevitch's translation of the stanza is riddled with errors: “Through-the-fact-that you have ordered these (deeds, by) doing which the worst men wax darlings of the gods (despite their) shunning Good Mind, (despite their) recoiling from the Lord Mazdā's commandment and from Truth” (Gershevitch, “Die Sonne,” 79). Is conformity with the “Good Mind,” etc., a value for the daēvas, in which case only “despite” would have any sense? One must admit, given Gershevitch's enthusiastic defense of the monotheism of the Gāthās, that the passage stages a burlesque play: the “prophet” apostrophizes the “gods” that do not exist and accuses them of “ordering” actions that lead to ruination, for which these nonexistent gods are held responsible.
15 de Vaan, M., The Avestan Vowels (New York, 2003), 10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Kellens, J. and Pirart, É., Les textes vieil-avestiques,3 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1988–1991), 2: 231.Google Scholar
17 See the supplement (“support”) to Kellens' January 18, 2013 lecture at Collège de France.
18 See Kuiper, F.B.J., “The Bliss of Aša,” Indo-Iranian Journal 8 (1964): 96–129Google Scholar; Ahmadi, A., “The Syntax and Sense of the Ahuna Vairiia,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22 (2012): 519–540Google Scholar; A. Ahmadi, “What is aṣ̌a-?,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (forthcoming). The eschatological meaning of the phrase is clear in Y 51.13.
19 The literal translation is: “he [i.e. Mazdā] is the creator of aṣ̌a- thanks to the efficacy, with which the best thinking holds it up.” It is the efficacy of the good thinking that “supports” the existence of aṣ̌a-, not that of Mazdā.
20 Compare Y 51.5 dāθaēibiiō … ratūm.
21 Rix, H., Lexicon der Indogermanischen Verben (Wiesbaden, 2001), 132–133.Google Scholar
22 Cf. Hintze, A., A Zoroastrian Liturgy. The Worship in Seven Chapters (Yasna 35–41) (Wiesbaden, 2007), 59.Google Scholar
23 Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2: 34.
24 See Kellens, J., “L'eschatologie mazdéene ancienne,” in Irano-Judaica, ed. Shaked, S. (Jerusalem, 1994), 3: 52–53.Google Scholar
25 For √taš, see Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1: 612–13: e.g. “zimmern.”
26 See Hintze, A Zoroastrian Liturgy, 99–105. See also de Vaan, The Avestan Vowels, 35: “reception, acceptance.”
27 Kellens and Pirart, Les textes vieil-avestiques, 189.
28 See Ahmadi, “What is aṣ̌a-?,” BSOAS (forthcoming).
29 See Y 49.8–10.
30 See, for example, Frame, D., The Myth of Return in Early Greek Myth (New Haven, CT, 1978)Google Scholar; Parpola, A., “The Nāsatyas, the Chariot, and Proto-Aryan Religion,” Journal of Indological Studies 16/17 (2004–5): 1–63Google Scholar; Goto, T., “Aśvín- and Nā́satya- in the Ṛgveda and Their Prehistoric Background,” in Proceedings of the Pre-Symposium of RIHN and 7th ESCA Harvard-Kyoto Roundtable (Kyoto, 2006), 253–283Google Scholar. Cf. West, M., Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007), 468–470Google Scholar.
31 See Kellens, J., “La fonction aurorale de Miθra et la Daēnā,” in Studies in Mithraism (Rome, 1990)Google Scholar; Kellens, J., “L’âme entre le cadavre et le paradis,” Journal Asiatique 283 (1995): 19–56;Google Scholar Piras, A., “Daēnā with White Arms,” in Ātaš-e Dorun. The Fire Within: Jamshid Soroush Soroushian Memorial Volume (Bloomington, IN, 2003), 345–351.Google Scholar
32 “Il semble donc bien que l’uruuan de la vache constitue l'offrande d'immortalité par laquelle le sacrifiant assure le souffle éternel des dieux … Par la même occasion, c'est l’uruuan de la vache qui cristallise tout le symbolisme eschatologique du rituel. L’âme de la vache sacrifiée parvient au monde divin par le chemin rituel” (Kellens, “L'eschatologie,” 53). Cf. Schmidt, H.-P., Zarathustra's Religion and His Pastoral Imagery (Leiden, 1975).Google Scholar
33 Y 48.10c–d’ yā aṇgriiā karapanō urūpaiieiṇtī yācā xratū dušə.xšaθrā daxiiunąm “(the intoxicating drink) by which the Karapans and the holders of evil power in countries make (men) sick with efficacy and ill-will.”
34 Kellens, Compare J., “Liturgie et dialectique des âme,” in Rites et croyances dans les religions du monde romain (Geneva, 2006), 299–300Google Scholar; Kellens, J., Le Hōm Stōm et la zone des déclarations (Paris, 2007), 30–34;Google Scholar Falk, H., “Soma I and II,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 52 (1989): 77–90.Google Scholar
35 On dūroaša- as the standing epithet of hoama-, see Y 9.2, 19; 10.21; 11.3, 10. Compare de Vaan, The Avestan Vowels, 287; Pirart, É., L’éloge mazdéen de l'ivresse (Paris, 2004), 118Google Scholar; Kellens, Le Hōm Stōm, 47.
36 See Ahmadi, A., “Y 34.9 aṣ̌ā and Other Unexpected Plurals in the Gāthās,” Indo-Iranian Journal 57 (2014), 61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 On the eschatological pretention of the daēva cult, compare Y 48.1b’–c’ yā daibitānā fraoxtā amərətāitī daēuuāišcā maṣ̌iiāišcā “(words) that are uttered by the daēvas and mortals together in quest for immortality.”
38 See Piras, A., “āsna- xratu-: Innate or Rising Wisdom?,” East and West 46 (1996): 14.Google Scholar
39 Describing the dawn as a cow is conventional in Vedic hymns. See, for example, Swennen, P., “Indo-iranien *aruná-,” Journal Asiatique 291 (2003): 69–96Google Scholar.
40 Piras, “āsna- xratu-,” 10. I am not sure whether Piras understands the simile as based on the metaphorical use of the dawn: the dawn of a new day → the dawn of a new era. If so, as the cited sentence suggests, it is mistaken. The xratu- is the pivot of the comparison.
41 Ibid., 14.
42 Ibid., 14.
43 Ibid., 15.
44 Ibid., 17.
45 Gershevitch, I., The Avestan Hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959), 127.Google Scholar
46 Piras, “āsna- xratu-,” 15.
47 See Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, col. 1739; Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2: 686–7.
48 See Mayrhofer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1: 105–6; Rix, Lexicon, 299–300: “sich in (Fort-)Bewegung setzen.”
49 See Kellens, J., “Aši ou le grand départ,” Journal Asiatique 287 (1999): 457–464.Google Scholar
50 Compare Y 34.13a–b’ tə̄m aduuānəm ahurā yə̄m mōi mraoš vaŋhə̄uš manaŋhō daēnå saošiiaṇtąm yā hū.kərətā aṣ̌ācīt̰ uruuāxšat̰ “(show) that road, O Ahura, which you tell me (is that) of good thinking, the well-made (road) along which the vision-souls of the vitalizers proceed by reason of aṣ̌a-.”
51 There is the following enigmatic statement about the power of Saošyant's gaze in Yt 19.94: “he will behold with the eyes of efficacy (xratə̄uš) … he will look at the whole corporeal existence with the eyes of invigoration (ižaiiå), and will make indestructible the entire corporeal world with (his) look.” The term īžā- “strengthening,” derived from iš- “vigor,” is a ritual term. See Narten, J., Der Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (Wiesbaden, 1986), 290Google Scholar n.12; Kellens and Pirart, Les textes vieil-avestiques, 2: 224; Hintze, A Zoroastrian Liturgy, 211–14. Hintze makes the following observation in connection with the passage from Yt 19. “Yt 19.94 and 1.29,” she writes, “suggest that both īžā- and āramiti- are perceived as special weapons for overcoming death and destruction. Moreover, they attest that the association of īžā- and āramiti- is also present in Younger Avestan. Eschatological connotations of īžā- are also found in the noun's third YAv. attestation in Y 70.4. At the conclusion of the Yasna ritual, the worshippers express their wish to be Saoshyants:
Y 70.4 yaθa īžā vācim nāšīma
yaθa vā saošiiaṇtō daxiiunąm suiiamna vācim barəṇtū
buiiama saošiiaṇtō
buiiama vərəθrājanō
buiiama ahurahe mazdå friia vāzišta astaiiō
… so that we may raise our voice along the with the fat-offering.
Likewise let the deliverers of the countries, as they gain strength, definitely raise their voice.
May we be deliverers,
May we be victorious,
May we be Ahura Mazdā's dear, most effective guests!”
In its relation with the īžā- and more importantly in its overcoming of the mortal condition of life, the xratu- is clearly an allegorized eschatological power in Yt 19.94.
52 See Strunk, “Semantisches und Formales zum Verhältnis,” 276–83.
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