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Avestan o is a special form of Pahlavi l that exists only in Aramaic signs. Some letters (e.g. ŋ́, ṇ, ẏ, v), are free inventions. [4] Avestan script, like Pahlavi script and Aramaic script also, is written from right to left. In Avestan script, letters are not connected, and ligatures are "rare and clearly of secondary origin". [3]
The Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was (and still is) considered necessary for the prayers to be effective.
In the late 11th or early 12th century, Indian Zoroastrians (the Parsis) began translating Avestan or Middle Persian texts into Sanskrit and Gujarati. Some Middle Persian texts were also transcribed into the Avestan alphabet. The latter process, being a form of interpretation, was known as 'pa-zand'.
As the language and script of religious and semi-religious commentaries, Pahlavi remained in use long after that language had been superseded (in general use) by Modern Persian and Arabic script had been adopted as the means to render it. As late as the 17th century, Zoroastrian priests in Iran admonished their Indian co-religionists to learn it.
The Avesta (/ ə ˈ v ɛ s t ə /, Book Pahlavi: ʾp(y)stʾk' (abestāg), Persian: اوستا (avestâ)) is the text corpus of religious literature of Zoroastrianism. [1] All its texts are composed in the Avestan language and written in the Avestan alphabet. [2]
These Avestan language exegeses sometimes accompany the original text being commented upon, but are more often elsewhere in the canon. An example of exegesis in the Avestan language itself includes Yasna 19–21, which is a set of three Younger Avestan commentaries on the three Gathic Avestan 'high prayers' of Yasna 27.
Verses of the Avesta (Yasna 28.1) in the Avestan script. The primary source for the Avestan period are the texts of the Avesta, i.e., the collection of canonical texts of Zoroastrianism. All material in the Avesta is composed in Avestan, an otherwise unattested Old Iranian language.
Zoroastrian literature is the corpus of literary texts produced within the religious tradition of Zoroastrianism.These texts span the languages of Avestan, named after the famous Zoroastrian work known as the Avesta, and Middle Persian (Pahlavi), which includes a range of Middle Persian literature.