Zoroastrianism

Distillation of Zoroastrianism — Decision Record

This README fixes which texts and which translations are distilled, and who reviewed the choices.

Tradition

• Slug: zoroastrianism
• Tradition / family: Zoroastrianism (Mazdayasna) — the religion of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), the Avestan textual tradition. Living communities: the Parsis (India) and Iranian Zoroastrians.
• Primary frame in one sentence: an ethical monotheism in which the one wise Lord Ahura Mazda is the source of all good, the cosmos is the arena of a real struggle between Asha (truth/right order) and Druj (the Lie), and each person freely chooses a side through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds.

Canon selection (what is included, and why)

Text	Included?	Rationale
The Gāthās (Yasna XXVIII–XXXIV, XLIII–LI, LIII)	yes — the doctrinal core	The 17 hymns held to be Zarathushtra's own composition; the oldest, most authoritative, and most liturgically central Avestan text. Distilled in full.
The Yasna (wider) — esp. Y. XII (the Fravarane / confession)	yes (selections)	The chief liturgy; Y. XII is the recited profession of faith. High lived-centrality.
The Vendidad (Vidēvdāt), SBE 4	yes (ethical selections)	Law and purity code; selected where it carries load-bearing ethics (e.g. the sanctity of agriculture, the earth). Much is ritual/purity detail, distilled only where principle-bearing.
The Yashts & Sîrôzahs, SBE 23	yes (selections)	Hymns to the divine beings; the Ormazd Yasht (the Names of Ahura) and the standing Fravarane/Ashem Vohu formulas are cited for lived-centrality.

• Doctrinal-core commitment: the Gāthās first and in full (highest authority + lived-centrality), then principle-bearing selections from the wider Avesta. This follows the brief's instruction to prioritise the Gāthās as the doctrinal core.

Translation policy

• Gāthās & Yasna: Lawrence Heyworth Mills, The Zend-Avesta, Part III: The Yasna, Visparad, Âfrînagân, Gâhs and Miscellaneous Fragments, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XXXI (Oxford, 1887). Public domain.
• Access: Internet Archive, zendavesta03darm — raw plain text zendavesta03darm_djvu.txt.
• Vendidad: James Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta, Part I: The Vendîdâd, SBE vol. IV (Oxford, 1880). Public domain. Internet Archive, zendavesta01darm — zendavesta01darm_djvu.txt.
• Yashts & Sîrôzahs: James Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta, Part II: The Sîrôzahs, Yasts and Nyâyis, SBE vol. XXIII (Oxford, 1883). Public domain. Internet Archive, zendavesta02darm — zendavesta02darm_djvu.txt.
• Why these translations: unambiguously public-domain, the standard scholarly English SBE set, and a complete Avesta in English.
• Caveat — Mills' Gāthā style: the Gāthās are famously the most disputed text in Indo-Iranian philology; Mills renders them word-for-word and fills lines with parenthetical glosses (e.g. "(the Divine) Righteousness," "(within us)"). The parentheses are Mills' interpretation, not the Avestan text. Where a gloss carries interpretive weight, the bare Avestan term is preserved and the gloss flagged.
• Citation form: Yasna <ch>:<v> for the Gāthās and Yasna (e.g. Yasna 30:3); Vendidad <fargard>:<v> and Yasht <n>:<v> for the wider Avesta. Chapter numbers given in arabic; the SBE uses roman.
• Quote accuracy: char-for-char verified against Internet Archive SBE 31/4/23 plain text. See quote-audit-zoroastrianism.md — PASS (67 anchors; 65 PASS, 1 DRIFT fixed, 1 minor paraphrase noted).

Untranslatable terms to preserve

Asha (truth / cosmic-moral right order / "the Right"), Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord), Druj (the Lie, the principle of falsehood/disorder), Angra Mainyu (the Hostile/Destructive Spirit; later Ahriman), Spenta Mainyu (the Bounteous/Holy Spirit), Vohu Manah (the Good Mind), Khshathra (Sovereign Power/Kingdom), (Spenta) Armaiti (holy devotion/piety), daēnā (conscience/religion/inner self), Amesha Spentas (the Bounteous Immortals), Saoshyant (the future saviour/benefactor), Frashō-kereti (the final "making-wonderful"/renovation), Humata–Hūkhta–Hvarshta = good thoughts, good words, good deeds.

Reviewer / standpoint

• Within-tradition reviewer: none secured.
• Therefore: this output is "one structured reading, not authoritative" and the reviewer gap is flagged. Care is taken not to over-read later Pahlavi-era systematics (e.g. the fully personified Ahriman, the strict body/purity code) back into the Gāthās, where Mills himself notes the dualism is stated of two spirits/principles before later personification.

Structure for this tradition

• Atomic unit ("books/"): a group of Gāthā chapters or a wider-Avesta selection.
• Internal convergence layer?: not used. The Gāthās are one authored core; the wider-Avesta files are treated as supporting selections, not a pooled multi-source layer.
• Sensitivity boundaries: the purity/corpse code and the polemic against the Daēva-worshippers are noted but not foregrounded; the compass draws on the ethical/devotional core.

Files

File	Status
Methodology	done
Index and traceability	done
Ahunavaiti I extraction (Y. 28–30)	done
Ahunavaiti II extraction (Y. 31–34)	done
Ushtavaiti and Spenta Mainyu extraction (Y. 43–48)	done
Vohu Khshathra and Vahishtoishti extraction (Y. 49–51, 53)	done
Wider Avesta: confession and ethics (Y. 12; Vendidad III; Yashts)	done
Core principles	done — 12 core principles
Structural analysis	done
Rooted compass	done