An Anagram in the Gāthās: Yasna 51.

4-5
Author(s): Stephanie W. Jamison
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society , Apr. - Jun., 2002, Vol. 122, No. 2,
Indic and Iranian Studies in Honor of Stanley Insler on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Apr. -
Jun., 2002), pp. 287-289
Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087622

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Journal of the American Oriental Society

This content downloaded from

49.251.6.234 on Mon, 20 May 2024 00:56:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 AN ANAGRAM IN THE GATHAS: YASNA 51.4-5

STEPHANIE W. JAMISON

UCLA

A syntactically anomalous phrase opening the verse Y 51.5 can be shown to be the phonetically
scrambled answer to questions posed in the previous verse and thus a cleverly crafted celebration of
the power of Zarathustra's patron.

YASNA 51 IS A POEM ABOUT RULE, about dominion-
about xs'a~ra, in short. In the twenty-two verses of this
hymn (which is both haiti and gatha), this word is found
in seven verses (1, 2, 4, 6, 16, 18, and 21), with a present
participle belonging to the same root (xs'aiis) in vss. 5
and 17. The hymn begins vohii xs'a~ram vairim "That
good rule must be chosen," in Insler's translation, and
it is referred to therefore as the Vohi.x'saOrd Gdtha. It is
also a poem in praise of Zarathustra's patron Kauui
Vi'staspa.1 These twin strains have been clearly recog-
I count myself lucky to have been (and in essence still to be)
a student of Stanley Insler's for many reasons, but perhaps
most importantly because of his constant demonstration that
close attention to the formal and technical aspects of a text en-
hances, rather than detracts (or distracts) from our appreciation
of its "meaning." Instead, what puzzles us about content will
often find its answer in form. Stanley unites the formal rigor of
a linguist with the dazzling ingenuity of a textual scholar,
qualities which are too often separated even in Indo-Iranian
philology. I further admire the extraordinary clarity and trans-
parency of his formulation of any particular problem, such that
the path to the solution emerges directly from the statement of
the problem. I cannot equal these skills of his, but I offer the
following in sincere imitation of them.
1 A brief paper of this celebratory nature is not the place to
enter into the recent controversies about the nature and histo-
ricity of Vistdspa and indeed of Zarathustra himself. In a
number of publications J. Kellens (both alone and in collabo-
ration with E. Pirart) and, in slightly different fashions, P. 0.
Skjaerv0 have disputed the royal patron (kauui) / priest-poet re-
lationship traditionally seen between Vistapa and Zarathustra.
See, inter alia, Kellens 1976, Kellens-Pirart 1988-91: passim;
Skjaerv0 forthcoming a. For example, in the last-mentioned
article Skjaerv0 interprets Zarathustra as a mythical culture
hero, the model of the poet-sacrificer, and Vigtdspa as an
tional view, that Kauui Vistaspa was a king who gave his sup-
earthly poet-sacrificer (his gloss of kauui) of old, who modeled
himself on Zarathustra. For further discussion of the term
nized and formulated in H. Humbach's recent English
translation and commentary on the Gathas: "The main
theme of Y 51 is X'saOra (xsa~ra-) 'power'.. .. Central
to the hymn is the praise of ZaraOu'stra's patron Kavi
Vi'staspa.. ." (1991, Part II: 221; cf. also Humbach
1959: 86).
I will elsewhere treat the relationship between xsa ra
and kavis, good and bad. What concerns me here is the
rhetorical structure associated with Kauui Vi'staspa and
Zarathustra's triumphant announcement of his patronage
in this poem (and elsewhere in the Gathas). Recognizing
this rhetorical pattern will give us an unexpected inter-
pretation of an apparently banal, if somewhat syntacti-
cally irregular passage in Y. 51.
On several occasions in the Gathas, the name Vi'staspa
serves as the answer to a rhetorical question. The sim-
plest example of this phenomenon is found in Y 46.14.
The first two lines of this verse ask
zaraOuftrd kastj asauud uruuaOc3
maz5i magdi kg vafdrasriidiiiii vaMti (Y. 46.14)
Zarathustra, who is your truthful ally
For the great benefit? Or, who wishes to be famed?
The answer is found in the immediately following line:
at huuo kauud vf~tasp5 . ..
It is this Kauui Vistaspa.
kauui, see Skjaerv0 forthcoming b. For a contrary opinion,
upholding the older view (convincingly, in my opinion), see
Schmidt forthcoming. Humbach (1991: 10 and passim) also
maintains this view.
The clear association between Vigtdspa and xsaOra 'lordly
power' in Y 51 seems to me a strong argument for the tradi-
port to Zarathustra.

287

This content downloaded from

49.251.6.234 on Mon, 20 May 2024 00:56:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
288 Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.2 (2002)

Thus the unadorned pattern: a question seeking the iden- I leave the first, much disputed line only partially trans-
tity of the pious supporter, followed by the simple an- lated. The rest may be rendered:
nouncement of the name.
Yasna 51 contains an almost identically phrased ques- Where ... ? Where ... ?
tion, or elaborated series of questions, in vs. 11. Note the Where is truth which brings glory? Where is holy
presence of the words uruua~a- 'ally', asa(van)- 'truth- devotion?

(ful)', and maga- 'bounty' in Y 46.14 and Y 51.11 Where is the best thinking? Where, Mazda, through
repeated elements that underline the parallelism of the your rule?

questions.
kg uruuaO5 spitamii zara~ustrdi ni mazda
kg via a?i dfraPtJ kii spanta drmaiti?
k.t va vayhlus manawh5 acisti magai ardsuuo
(Y 51.11)
Which man is the ally to Spitama Zarathustra, o Mazda?
Who has taken counsel with truth? With whom has
holy devotion (taken counsel)?
Or, which (man) of high station has made himself
known for the bounty of good thinking?2
Note that the elements and their order in the last two
lines are almost exactly identical to those of vs. 11:
'truth' (a4sa-), 'holy devotion' (spanta- armaiti-), 'good/
best thinking' (vohu-/vahista- manah-). Only the last
term differs: maga- 'bounty' in vs. 11, xsafra- 'rule,
power' in vs. 4. It is therefore telling that those two
terms are united in the answer to vs. 11, namely vs. 16
quoted above, in the phrase magahiiei xsa~rCi "by your
power/rule over the bounty." Again the ordered repe-
tition of vocabulary3 emphasizes the relationship be-
tween the verses.

The answer to these questions-who is the ally? who
consults with truth and devotion? who is for the maga?-
does not come as quickly in Y 51 as it did in Y 46.14.
There are four intervening verses, mostly telling us quite
emphatically who the ally isn't, but the response arrives
At first glance, the series of question in vs. 4 gets no
response, as the various published translations of the
beginning of the next verse (vs. 5) suggest:
Insler: "Through all this I am asking how. .

in vs. 16: it is Kauui Vistaspa. Humbach: "(I am) asking about all those ways. .
Kellens/Pirart: "Me voila a (te) poser toutes ces
tqm kauui vfsvtdsp5 magahiiii xsaOrii nqsat (Y 51.16) (questions .. .)"

Kauui Vistaspa has reached this by his power over the

But look at the form. The verse begins
bounty.

vispi ti pardsqs ya~i asii.t haci gqm vidat

That verse 16 contains the answer to the questions
posed in verse 11, and that this rhetorical exchange is
The questions do indeed receive an answer, but a coded
exactly parallel to the much more condensed one in Y
46.14, has been noted before. See, e.g., Schmidt (forth- one. The opening phrase vispa ta is an almost perfect
anagram of the name which answers such questions
coming, also 1991: 223-25); Humbach (1959: II: 86,
89, 91; 1991: 221, 227, 231). The rhetorical strategy is
elsewhere, Viftaspa.4 I submit that the poet of Y 51
obvious, but powerful in its effect. twice (vss. 4, 11) asks-and answers-the question of

One other verse in Y 51 also consists of a series of where Zarathustra will find support. The first answer

questions, vs. 4 earlier in the hymn. The hymn contains (vs. 5) is immediate, but phonetically scrambled; the

no other questions. second (vs. 16) postponed but straightforward. In each

kuOrd droi? a fsdratus? kuOra mdrdzdikdi axstat
kuOri yas5.x'iiin a4dm kui spdnta drmaitif
kuOri manc3 vahisvtm kuOrd Ofld xsaOrd mazda
(Y 51.4)
case it is Vistaspa.
Support for my interpretation comes from the fact
that, as it stands, vispz t0 is syntactically anomalous.
The adjective vispa- 'all' almost never occurs at the be-

3 It is of course true that all these terms are almost tediously

2 The syntactic arrangement of the various elements in the common in the Gdthas. This is why I emphasize the ordering
last question has been rendered in a number of ways; I follow as well as the repetition.
here the interpretation of Schmidt 1991: 223. See also Schmidt 4 Though not isosyllabic, since in all four occurrences the
forthcoming. name must be read as vista-aspa-.

This content downloaded from

49.251.6.234 on Mon, 20 May 2024 00:56:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 JAMISON: An Anagram in the Gzthas: Yasna 51.4-5 289
ginning of a verse line in the Gathas. Though it is not
uncommon immediately after the caesura (verse-line in-
line in each case.)
ternal),S I have found line-initial vWspa- only three times
(out of the nearly forty occurrences of the stem).6
Moreover, except for our passage, whenever a coref-
erential demonstrative is found with vispa-, it always
5 Post-caesura vispa- in Y 28.8, 34.3, 43.2, 44.7, 45.4, 45.6,
51.20. Three of these (43.2, 44.7, 45.6) involve the genitive pl.
vispanqm followed by its governing word, where the phrase
occupies the entire second half of the verse line (e.g., 43.2
vispanqm vahistdm). The normal Indo-Iranian order of geni-
tive-head may have imposed itself here.
6 Namely,
33.10 vispac stii hujita ii ya zi acUharj ya'sca hdnti
43.2 vispi aiidra "for all the days"
44.11 vispang aniiang "all the others"
The last two occupy the entire half-line. It is perhaps note-
worthy that these two, of the three verse-initial examples,
and four of the seven post-caesura examples are found in the
Usftauuaiti Githi (Y 43-46), with its tight metrical scheme
(4+7), where the half-line is often entirely filled with pre-made
syntactic units. In 44.11 another factor may also be in play. As
I have shown elsewhere (Jamison 1997: 114), in the Rig Veda
the expression "all the other(s)" invariably has the order viiva-
(.. .) anyd-, and in fact anyd- cannot take first position in this
expression.
I have no explanation for 33.10, and this example is also
the only one that opens the verse; 43.2 and 44.11 are both in
the last line of their respective verses.
REFERENCES
Humbach, H. 1959. Die Gathas des Zarathustra, Band I: Ein-
leitung, Text, Ubersetzung, Paraphrase; Band II: Kommen-
tar. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Humbach, H., in collaboration with J. Elfenbein and P. 0.
Skjaerv0. 1991. The Gathas of Zarathushtra and the Other
Old Avestan Texts, part I: Introduction-Text and Transla-
tion; part II: Commentary. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Insler, S. 1975. The Githas of Zarathustra. Acta Iranica, ser.
3, vol. 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Jamison, S. W. 1997. Vedic anyd- 'another, the other': Syntac-
tic Disambiguation. In Sound Law and Analogy: Papers in
Honor of Robert S. P. Beekes on the Occasion of His 60th
Birthday, ed. A. Lubotsky. Pp. 111-18. Leiden Studies in
Indo-European, vol. 9. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
This content downloaded from
49.251.6.234 on Mon, 20 May 2024 00:56:52 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
precedes the vispa-.7 There are only four examples, but
their testimony is unanimous. (I quote the entire half-
Y 34.10 tica vispi ahura
Y 43.14 mat tdi? vispdiff
Y. 46.10 fro5 tdi?v vispW?s
Y. 49.5 taikva vlspW?s
In fact, for Kellens/Pirart (1991: 255) the unusual order
of 51.5 makes the entire passage suspect: "L'ordre des
mots inusuel vispa t ... incite 'a la plus grande pru-
dence: aucune analyse syntaxique de cette strophe ne
peut etre consider6e comme sure."
I would like to turn the Kellens/Pirart observation on
its head: rather than doubting the passage because of its
opening phrase vispa ta, we should take it instead as
another demonstration of the verbal ingenuity of the
poet of the Gathas, whoever he may have been, and as
another example of the traditional Indo-Iranian poetic
habit of using verbal play in the service of messages of
high seriousness.
7 Note also that a form of the ta-demonstrative several times
opens a verse line containing the verbfras 'ask'. Cf. Y 31.14 ti
OfiL pardsi ahuri "I ask you about these (things), Ahura" and
especially the first nineteen verses of Y 44, each of which be-
gins tat Ofid pardsi "I ask you about this." The participle pard-
sqs of our verse might be expected to conform to this pattern.
Kellens, J. 1976. L'Avesta comme source historique. Acta Anti-
qua Academiae Scientarium Hungaricae 24: 37-49.
Kellens, J., and E. Pirart. 1988-91. Les textes viedi-avestiques,
vol. 1 (1988): Introduction, texte, et traduction; vol. II (1990):
Re'pertoires grammaticaux et lexique; vol. III (1991): Com-
mentaire. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag.
Schmidt, H.-P. 1991. Gathic maga and Vedic maghd. In Pro-
ceedings of the K. R. Cama Oriental Institute Interna-
tional Congress (5th to 8th January, 1989). Pp. 220-39.
Bombay: K. R. Cama Institute Press.
. Forthcoming. ZaraOustra and His Patrons.
Skjaerv0, P. 0. Forthcoming a. Zarathustra: First Poet-Sacrificer.
. Forthcoming b. Rivals and Bad Poets: The Poet's
Complaint in the Old Avesta.