On the Yašt Gāhān (= Gāh Sārnā)

The Gā ϑ ā s are known to be a central building block of the Yasna / Visparad liturgy as well as of the Vīdēvdād Sāde and Vīštāsp Yašt Sāde , liturgies which are based on the Visparad . The functional difference of these liturgies (the Yasna / Visparad are intertwined with sacrificial, the Vīdēvdād with purification acts; the function of the Vīštāsp Sāde is obscure) shows that the Gā ϑ ā s can be used in a variety of ritual contexts, in other words, that they are hermeneutically open. In Zoroastrian Studies the impression prevails that the Gā ϑ ā s could and can be used only in connection with their Younger Avestan embedding in the Yasna and in the Long Liturgy . However, with the text Yašt Gāhān , in which the first Gā ϑ ā encounters a liturgical embedding that corresponds to that of the so-called Short Liturgies , there is a counter-example attested to in the manuscripts. Remnants of a parallel use of the second Gā ϑ ā indicate a) that once (probably before the 2nd millennium CE ) all five Gā ϑ ā s could be recited in the way the Yašt Gāhān is recited still today, and b) that the five Gā ϑ ā s formed perhaps a liturgical sequence also beyond the Yasna ritual complex. Since the Yašt Gāhān is a liturgy in the context of the rites of the dead – it is recited at the moment when the corpse is lifted up and carried out of the house – it seems reasonable to assume that a recitation of all five Gā ϑ ā s formed once the chant accompanying the dead from the place of death to the daxme . Furthermore, there are indications that there was a connection between the separate recitation of the five Gā ϑ ā s and the five (or twice five) year-end days named after the five Gā ϑ ā s.