YASHT

The Yashts (Yašt) are a collection of twenty-one hymns in the Younger Avestan language. Each of these hymns invokes a specific Zoroastrian divinity or concept. Yasht chapter and verse pointers are traditionally abbreviated as Yt.

Overview :

The word yasht derives from Middle Persian yašt (“prayer, worship”) probably from Avestan (yašta, “honored”), from (yaz, “to worship, honor”), from Proto-Indo-European *yeh2?- or *Hya?-, and several hymns of the Yasna liturgy that "venerate by praise" are—in tradition—also nominally called yashts. These "hidden" Yashts are: the Barsom Yasht (Yasna 2), another Hom Yasht in Yasna 9-11, the Bhagan Yasht of Yasna 19-21, a hymn to Ashi in Yasna 52, another Sarosh Yasht in Yasna 57, the praise of the (hypostasis of) "prayer" in Yasna 58, and a hymn to the Ahurani in Yasna 68. Since these are a part of the primary liturgy, they do not count among the twenty-one hymns of the Yasht collection.

All the hymns of the Yasht collection "are written in what appears to be prose, but which, for a large part, may originally have been a (basically) eight-syllable verse, oscillating between four and thirteen syllables, and most often between seven and nine."

Most of the yazatas that the individual Yashts praise also have a dedication in the Zoroastrian calendar. The exceptions are Drvaspa and Vanant.

The twenty-one yashts of the collection (notes follow) :