Avista: A Written Text Or An Oral Tradition?

Although each and every nation’s history of literature reflects their actual history, there is the question why the Persian literary tradition did not have the same weight that the ancient Persian government as one of the then two world superpowers did. The main question of the present article is whether Avista as the most important literary text of ancient Persia is a product of the Sassanid era, or writing of the book dates back to the life span of Zoroaster. There are two different answers to the question. According to the first, Avista existed in oral form and then was written in the Sassanid era when Avistan alphabet was coined. According to the second, however, Avista had been a written literary text since Zoroaster which was destroyed as a result of Alexander’s invasion of Persia. To examine the two answers, the article used the library research method with a focus on primary and secondary documents. The first answer is critiqued before the second is confirmed based on documentation. Next it is claimed that the special attention to Avista during the Sassanid dynasty was accounted for by the necessity of compiling fragmented Avista’s texts in order to establish an official religion in harmony with the Sassanid centralized government.