Avesta

Avestan ( ) is the liturgical language of Zoroastrianism. It belongs to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family and was originally spoken during the Avestan period ( BCE) by the Iranians living in eastern Greater Iran as evidenced from names in Avestan geography.

The Avesta is the text corpus of religious literature of Zoroastrianism. All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. It represents the largest literature of the Old Iranian period and contains the oldest texts in any Iranian language.

Aryan (), or Arya (borrowed from Sanskrit ārya), is a term originating from the ethno-cultural self-designation of the Indo-Iranians. It stood in contrast to nearby outsiders, whom they designated as non-Aryan (). In ancient India, the term was used by the Indo-Aryan peoples of the Vedic period, both as an endonym and in reference to a region called Aryavarta (), where their culture emerged. Similarly, according to the Avesta, the Iranian peoples used the term to designate themselves as an ethnic group and to refer to a region called Airyanem Vaejah (), which was their mythical homeland. The w

The Gathas () are five hymns in the Avestan language from the Zoroastrian oral tradition of the Avesta. The oldest surviving text fragment dates from 1323 CE, but they are believed by scholars to have been composed before 1000 BCE and passed down orally for centuries. They are traditionally believed to have been composed by the prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. They form the core of the Zoroastrian liturgy (the Yasna). They are arranged in five different modes or metres.

Yasna (; ) is the Avestan name of both a text within the Avesta collection and of the Yasna liturgy, Zoroastrianism's principal act of worship.

The Vendidad /ˈvendi'dæd/, also known as Videvdad or Juddevdad, is the only volume of the Sasanian Avesta to be still present in the extant Avesta collection. It is assumed that its use within the Videvdad liturgy guaranteed its survival to this day.

Yasht (, ) is a Middle Persian term for sacrifice or worhship. The term commonly applies to the collection of 21 Yashts, although it may also refer to other texts within the wider Avesta collection.

The Visperad () is one of the texts in the Avesta collection. Its 24 chapters do not have any internal unity, but are only used within the Yasht i Visperad liturgy, where they are individually inserted into the text of the Yasna.

Pazend () or Pazand (; ) is one of the writing systems used for the Middle Persian language. It was based on the Avestan alphabet, a phonetic alphabet originally used to write Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.

early period in the history of the Iranian peoples

compilation of the geographical references in Avesta

First Zorastrian Canonical Formula