Hello everyone,
In my research about the historicity of the idea of the maiden (also known as daena or den) which is an embodiment of one’s good deeds in Zoroastrianism, I came across very interesting research matters.
From what I could gather from this article, the idea of the maiden is attested, amongst other documents, in the Vendidad, which according to this article is not quite reliable since the language is in a bad state and could thus have been composed during Sasanian times.
That leaves us with Kartir‘s inscription‘s from the third century CE and the Hadoxt Nask 2, a fragment which I could find not a single dating for.
I know that the (Young) Avesta is said to have been composed in the BCE‘s, but I assume that the case of the Vendidad proves that that is not always quite the case.
Now, I have discovered a vaguely similar idea in Mandeism, mentioned in the Left Ginza Rabba, which is said to have been written down in the 3rd century CE (with some people dating it even to be even older).
However, I couldn’t find any dating for the Hadoxt Nask anywhere.
Now I wonder when the Hadoxt Nask fragment could have been composed, so that I may know if the Mandeic idea could possibly be older or not.
I’d be very grateful if you guys could help me!
The problem with the Hadoxt Nask is that either we have 6 fragments of it preserved in other texts, or none of it at all. We know there was a "hadoxt" genre of hymns and prayers because other sections of the Avesta reference it, but we cannot say whether the Hadoxt Nask was just a collection of all those hadoxt genre texts. The Nask itself is only explained in very general terms in a 9th Century religious guidebook, the Denkard.
On the issue of the Vendidad, while it could theoretically have been composed at any time, it's worth reading through all of the conclusions and evidence addressed in that Iranica article. For instance, just as the absence of evidence for Achaemenid Persian people and places casts doubt on an Achaemenid-era origin for the text, the same is even more true if you consider the Sassanids. The Sassanid kings were highly concerned with creating a centralized religious authority, and it is impossible to imagine they would have commissioned a law code that didn't account for that. However, the articles' analysis accounts for this.
...we see that the passage is not the rude essay of someone attempting to compose in Avestan; rather, it is the piecing together of separately good Avestan phrases by someone who could not compose Avestan, yet who could produce, nonetheless, an intelligible statement. These considerations lead to the conclusion that the text of the Vendīdād was redacted after Avestan ceased to be a live medium of communication, yet was still understood in its general contours. If, as is generally held, the Zoroastrianized verses of the Yašts were composed in decent Avestan approximately in the 5th century B.C.E., then the Vendīdād will have been composed in the Arsacid period, if not even under the early (?) Sasanians.
The conclusion is that Vendidad was "redacted" by later composers piecing grammatically correct Avestan laws that may or may not have started as one work. Up to the middle Sassanid period, religious doctrine, hymns, and prayers were almost exclusively memorized rather than written down. They were thus vulnerable to being forgotten especially as the language began to shift away from the original composition, hence the choppy nature of the Vendidad.
This is relevant to the Hadoxt Nask, because it establishes that the end point for scriptural Avestan is still the 5th Century BCE, and that the Hadoxt itself is likely even older. If we assume that even one of the texts identified as fragments of the Nask by eminent western scholars or centuries of Parsi tradition is correct, then we can safely rule out Vendidad-style piecemeal composition. None of the fragments have the same grammatical issues. If we go further and accept that some of the quotations from the Hadoxt identified by James Darmetester or Martin Haug in other parts of the Avesta (Yasht 11, Yasna 57, Yasna 58, and the Afrinigan a Gahanbar), then it can safely be dated to the 6th Century BCE or earlier. The Gahanbar calendar texts must be fairly late, but when exactly Yasht 11, the Srosh Yasht, was composed is more debatable. In the current collection, it is directly connected with the Mihr Yasht, one of the oldest, but that means very little.
Yasna 57, which contains many of the same passages as the Yasht may provide a hint, especially taken together with the description of the Hadoxt Nask in the Denkard. Yasna 57 and 58 are clearly connected in the liturgy, and the former flows directly into the latter. Yasna 58 itself contains several quotations of Old Avestan language surrounded by Younger Avestan commentary and ritual. The Denkard identifies the Hadoxt Nask as part of the "Gathic nasks" of the Sassanid Avesta, suggesting that the Sassanids connected it to the Old Avestan Gathas attributed to Zoroaster himself. It is clear that the whole Hadoxt was not written in Old Avestan from the other fragments, but its inclusion in the Old Avestan collection and the intermixing of Younger and Old Avestan in Yasna 58, combined with the direct connection to Yasna 57 to suggest that at least portions of the Hadoxt Nask came very early on, at a time when Old Avestan was still well understood as a liturgical language. That further supports a 6th Century BCE or likely earlier date.