Yasna Haptanghaiti

The Yasna Haptanghaiti (Yasna Haptaŋhāiti), Avestan for "Worship in Seven Chapters," is a set of seven hymns within the greater Yasna collection, that is, within the primary liturgical texts of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Chapter and verse pointers are to Yasna 35-41. The name is from Yasna 42, a Younger Avestan text that follows the seven chapters.

Age and importance

While the first two verses (i.e. Y. 35.1-2, cf. Humbach 1991, p. 7) of the Yasna Haptanghaiti are in Younger Avestan, the rest of the seven hymns are in Gathic Avestan, the more archaic form of the Avestan language. That older part of the Yasna Haptanghaiti is generally considered to have been composed by the immediate disciples of Zoroaster, either during the prophet's lifetime or shortly after his death. Joanna Narten (Narten 1986) has suggested that, like the Gathas, the hymns of the Yasna Haptanghaiti were composed by Zoroaster himself, but this hypothesis has not received a significant following from the academic community.