The Zend Avesta, Part 1 of 3: The Vendidad (Forgotten Books)

Avesta, also called Zend-avesta, is the sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law, & liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra). The current Avesta is all that remains of a much larger body of scripture. The voluminous manuscripts of the original are said to have been destroyed when Alexander the Great conquered Persia. The present Avesta was assembled from remnants and standardized under the Sasanian kings (3rd–7th century ad). It is interesting to see how much of mythology of New Testament and Quran is influenced by Zoroastrianism. The Forgotten Books Series has descent size print and nice spacing making it comfortable to read. The Avesta is also interesting from a cultural aspect. I hope this is helpful to you.

This book is assumed to be written by Zarathustra although there is no historical evidence of such a thing therefore they say its writer is unknown. The book is easy to read the translation is good. Zarathustra asks questions to Ahura Mazda and Ahura Mazda responds to him which explains the laws to live by and creation of earth. There are 22 books of Fargard in this book. The issues of Death, burial and touching of corpses are addressed in this book. Apparently, in this religion corpse were taboos and they were not supposed to be touched because they believed that as soon as one dies he/she becomes demons. Also women's monthly periods, child births, miscarriages and pregnancies are addressed. It is a good source about an ancient religion i read it because it was religion of my ancestors and it explained some of my mother's superstitious beliefs (even though my mother does not know it is rooted from this religion). Also this religion had influenced Christianity and Islam. I recommend it to people to read it. Holy spirit comes from this religion as well as the concept of afterlife which influenced the ancient Greeks and Christianity.

With this kind of item one must know exactly what is buying: this is a reimpresion of a public domain XIX text, and besides it's not a "facsimile" reprint, like others, but a impresion with modern typography and a quite big font. That has his advantages; the text is easier to read and the impresion is very clean; some XIX reprints are a bit "dirty". One can see or read online the entire books in forgottenbooks's webpage. Not all the XIX reprints can be retyped.This books are an easy and affordable way to read confortably such texts instead of read in a screen or print at home.The book itself is a famous translation of the Avesta (not the entire Avesta) by Darmesteter. It's outdated in many aspects (He made another best translation into french, but sadly it's hard to find) but in general is still readable and highly interesant for the history of Avesta translations and studies. And it's by far a better option than the Spiegel/Bleeck translation for those interested in the subject that can't read avestan or german (Wolff's translation). This volume 1 contains a very interesant preface for the history of zoroastrian studies. Darmesteter translated for Sacred Books of the East volumes 1 and 2; volume 3 contains Yasna and Gathas translated by Mills and is a highly outdated version.

Enlightening

As described. Nice book delivered in excellent condition

Well written explanation about what can be a rather confusing text.

Amazing book, a rare one, I will buy more books of this edition. Why we have to write that much?

good

Great book about the avesta