Corpus Avesticum III: A text-critical edition of the Zoroastrian rituals in Avestan language

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alberto Cantera Glera
• Subject Area: Asian Studies
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 386179903

The present application is the submission for the third funding period of the Corpus Avesticum Berolinense (CAB) project: a text-critical edition of the Zoroastrian rituals in the Avestan language. In the third funding phase, we will continue, on the one hand, the already initiated work processes leading to achieving the general objectives and following the methodology derived from them. On the other hand, new insights gained during the second funding period will be incorporated into the work steps. The textual work described in the previous applications will be continued, which follows the idea of an edition of the Avestan texts as ritual texts in all its aspects, in the general text constitution as well as in the text-critical method (- analysis and presentation of the diversity and variability of the rituals; - analysis and presentation of the performative character of the texts, including the possibility to select the performative context [time, place, deity]; - presentation of a historical and place-bound concreteness of the text). For this purpose, the edition entails a comprehensive evaluation of performative information in the manuscripts and the Middle Persian and New Persian meta-ritual literature. A significant insight that has become more prominent in the second funding period than before is the modular composition of all Avestan ritual texts. We have clearly stated the existence of a general text structure underlying the entire liturgical system of the Avesta with its three fields (Long Liturgies, Drōn, Short Liturgies). In the third funding period, one of the editorial main tasks will be to draw the consequences of this new perspective - the participation of all liturgies in a limited set of text modules - for the text-critical work.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants