Zoroastrian scripture survived for centuries without being written down
The Avesta holds the oldest texts in any Iranian language, some possibly composed around 1000 BCE. For most of that history the hymns passed from mouth to mouth. Only in the Sasanian era, over a millennium later, did priests invent a dedicated alphabet to write them down.
The Avesta is the sacred collection of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language, a sister of Old Persian, and it forms the largest body of Old Iranian literature. Its pieces were oral compositions produced over several centuries, perhaps between the fifteenth and fourth centuries BCE. Written transmission began only under the Sasanians, who ruled from 224 to 651 CE.
Scholars divide the material into two layers. Old Avestan texts could date anywhere from 1500 to 900 BCE, with many favouring a date near 1000 BCE. Young Avestan, making up most of what survives, is several centuries later, perhaps from 900 to 400 BCE. The Old Avestan hymns, the Gathas, fixed early into a set liturgy and appear to have been passed on with remarkable accuracy, while the younger texts stayed fluid for longer. Some parts, such as the Vendidad, show clumsy grammar, as if stitched together from genuine phrases by people who no longer spoke the language, a sign they were assembled from earlier sources now lost.
Zoroastrian tradition tells a more dramatic story. Books from the ninth to eleventh centuries say Ahura Mazda created twenty-one books of the Avesta. Another legend in the Denkard credits the early Sasanian priest Tansar, high priest under Ardashir I and Shapur I, with gathering scattered works and approving only some as authoritative. Modern scholars largely reject these accounts, agreeing that the texts were transmitted orally and independently for most of their history.
Today's manuscripts preserve only part of the original corpus, chiefly ritual and devotional material. Priests recite the Yasna, Visperad and Vendidad in ceremonies of the same names, while devotional texts are used by clergy and laity alike. Even the word Avesta is puzzling: it comes from the Middle Persian abestāg, and no proposed etymology has won general agreement.
Source: Avesta
