ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the earliest historical sources available to scholars of Zoroastrianism, namely the Avesta and the Achaemenid inscriptions, and offers an overview of the important Avestan texts. A number of themes that are particularly significant in the history of religions are discussed in some detail. The scholarly approach to the Avestan texts has considerably changed in the past thirty years. Scholars now read and interpret the texts in their ritual context. This contextualisation has determined the direction of research and produced admirable results. But the ritualist approach has also encouraged speculation as a means to fill in the gap between the earliest texts (e.g., the Gathas) and doctrines such as eschatology and cosmic history that are known from Greek and Pahlavi sources. For instance, the understanding of sacrifice in the works of a number of influential scholars is ultimately based (e.g., via the work of Molé) on Eliade’s questionable theory of the sacred. As for the Achaemenid inscriptions, they are royal proclamations – and not ritual or doctrinal statements. Nonetheless, they give some indirect evidence of the presence of Zoroastrian ideas in Western Iran. Curiously, however, the Persian empire is not at all mentioned in the Avesta. The question whether Zoroastrianism was present in Persia (Persis) during the Achaemenid empire, and if so, in what form, continues to preoccupy scholars.
