Literary Figures in Gathic Texts

IntroductionGathic texts are a collection of religious songs of Zarothustra who lived about 1200 BC. Of the seventy two hats (stanzas) of Yasna (one of the five chapters of Avesta), seventeen hats belong to five Gathas. These seventeen hats have been classified into five categories based on their syllabic meter and the number of the song: 1) ahunavaiti, 2) ushtavaiti, 3)spanta.mainyu, 4) vohu.xsheara, and 5) vahishtoishti.Method This study is a text analysis based on modern definitions of figures ofspeech, so explication de text is used to analyze the translation of Gathas. DiscussionFourteen different figures of speech were analyzed in this paper such as: congeries, oxymorons, rhetorical questions, conglobation, apostrophe, allegory, debate, invention, allusion, decorum, and conceit. Most of the stanzas of the first four Gathas are addressed to Ahura Mazda invoking and glorifying him, and communicating with him about both spiritual and worldly subjects, such as the elimination of evil in the world and thefreedom from evil in the after-world. The nature of the Gathas is mystical but formal poetry plays an essential part in them. The fifth Gatha shows the nature of Gathas as didactical poetry.