14468
Reading Course
SoSe 23: Gatha verses and their ancient interpreters
Benedikt Thomas Peschl
Additional information / Pre-requisites
Some knowledge of either Young Avestan or Middle Persian will be helpful. But English translations will be also supplied.
Comments
We are going to look at a selection of short passages from the Old Avestan Gathas (ca. 1000 BCE?), passages that have played a decisive role in the development of some core doctrines of Zoroastrianism.
Proceeding from the Old Avestan verses, we trace their influence and re-use in later Zoroastrian literature, composed in Young Avestan (1st millenium BCE) and Middle Persian language (1st millenium CE). Relevant topics to be addressed include cosmology, the relationship between good and evil, eschatology, and ideals of social life.
Special attention will be paid to the question to what degree the respective ideas are indeed already present in the Old Avestan text, and to what degree they were "produced out of" or "read into" the text by later exegetes. In this context, we are going to look at the exegetical techniques employed by the Young Avestan and, later on, by the Middle Persian interpreters of the Gathas. More generally, the course aims to show how this small body of text remained a central point of reference for anchoring current theological and cultural ideas in the ancient tradition.
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12 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Mon, 2023-04-17 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-04-24 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-08 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-15 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-05-22 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-05 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-12 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-19 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-06-26 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-03 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-10 14:00 - 16:00
Mon, 2023-07-17 14:00 - 16:00