INDO-IRANICA ET ORIENTALIA

COLLANA DIRETTA DA ANTONIO PANAINO E VELIZAR SADOVSKI

II

La Serie è pubblicata presso il Dipartimento di Beni Culturali

dell’Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Campus di Ravenna, Italia
Questo volume è stato realizzato con un contributo del Dipartimento di
Beni Culturali dell’Università di Bologna.

L’attività di ricerca del dott. Andrea Gariboldi è stata supportata per il

2016 dalla Soudavar Memorial Foundation.

L’attività di ricerca del dott. Paolo Ognibene è stata supportata per il

2016 dalla Soudavar Memorial Foundation e dalla Fellow Traveller
Foundation.

MIMESIS EDIZIONI (Milano – Udine)

www.mimesisedizioni.it
mimesis@mimesisedizioni.it

Isbn: 9788857547817

© 2018 – MIM EDIZIONI SRL

Via Monfalcone, 17/19 – 20099
Sesto San Giovanni (MI)
Phone: +39 02 24861657 / 24416383
STUDI IRANICI RAVENNATI
II
a cura di Antonio Panaino, Andrea Piras
e Paolo Ognibene

MIMESIS
 COMITATO SCIENTIFICO

Prof. Dr. Michael Alram (Wien)

Prof. Garnik Asatryan (Erevan)
Prof. Alberto Cantera (Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Touraj Daryaee (Irvine)
Prof. Dr. Bert Fragner (Wien)
Prof. Frantz Grenet (Paris)
Prof. Alexander Lubotsky (Leiden)
Prof. Maria Macuch (Berlin)
Prof. Dr. Oswald Panagl (Salzburg)
Prof. James R. Russell (Harvard)
Prof. Rüdiger Schmitt (Laboe)
Prof. Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem)
Prof. Rahim Shayegan (Los Angeles)
Prof. Dr. Oktor Skjærvø (Harvard)
Dr. Yuri Stoyanov (London)
Prof. Dr. Giusto Traina (Paris)
 INDICE

Prefazione 7

An Indo-Iranian Initiation-Based Masculine Society?

Amir Ahmadi 9

Tradizione classica e cultura sudarabica. Osservazioni sulla statua bronzea

di Lady Bar’at
Fabio Eugenio Betti 35

Chess and geometric progressions: a link between Dante and the Persian tradition
Stefano Buscherini 55

Находки бухархудатских, сасанидских и омейядских монет в Таджикистане

и история их изучения
Davlatkhoja Dovudi 71

La comunità diasporica curda del Monte Amiata: rapporto con le origini e col territorio
Anna Michieletto 125

Studi sull’epos dei Narti. Il ruolo dell’elemento magico nella struttura fantastica del racconto
Paolo Ognibene 149

Alcuni spunti di riflessione sui Maga Brāhmaṇa

Martina Palladino 159

Vecchie e Nuove Considerazioni sul Millenarismo iranico-mesopotamico ed il Chiliasmo

giudaico-cristiano
Antonio Panaino 183
Spandyād’s lance and message. Some Remarks about the Imagery of
Shooting Weapons
Andrea Piras 231

La tentation de Zaraθuštra
Céline Redard 243

duruj-, drauga-, draujana-: dallo studio delle valenze semantiche attestate

all’individuazione della triade iranica nella lingua antico persiana
Micol Scrignoli 259

К вопросу об иранских влияниях на Центральном и Северо-Восточном

Кавказе (на примере бронзовых птицевидных пряжек «типа Исти-Су»)
Вольная Г.Н. 271

The Souls of women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

Antonio Panaino 293

Conoscenze mediche sulla fisiologia della gravidanza nel mondo iranico

di età tardoantica
Paolo Delaini 307

La dottrina di Mazdak tra influssi “occidentali” e religioni orientali

Andrea Gariboldi 327
 THE SOULS OF WOMEN IN THE ZOROASTRIAN
AFTERLIFE1

Antonio Panaino

The Avestan doctrine of the post mortem has received a certain attention
about the turn of the last century. In particular, it was Jean Kellens in the
framework of a very important contribution2 to underline some aspects, which
can be considered, at least on metaphorical grounds, erotic and “hierogamic”3.
According to the description attested in the Hāδōxt Nask 2,4 when a man
dies, his soul, Av. uruuan-, m., separates from the body and abides three nights
near the head of the corpse. At the end of the third night the soul of the
righteous man (auuan-) in­spi­res a sweet perfume brought by the South wind5,
and then, can see his own daēnā-, f.,6 or “the soul-vision”, in the aspect of a
fifteen-years-old extraordinarily beautiful maiden. At this point, the uruuan-
asks to the daēnā- who is she, because he never saw in his life a so beautiful and
pretty maiden. Then, the daēnā- explains that she is “the soul-vision” of his
own indeed, namely his visible representation, which in that beauty embodies
the good thoughts, good words and good deeds performed by the dead person
in life.7

1  This article is an English up-to-date version of an earlier contribution of mine that

appeared in Italian, with the title “nāirikā- e jahikā- nell’aldilà zoroastriano”, in the volume Bandhu.
Scritti in onore di Carlo Della Casa, vol. II, Alessandria 1997, pp. 831-843. Part of the present study was
read and discussed during a talk I gave at the Institut für Iranistik of the Freie Universität Berlin,
on the 6th June 1997. I want to thank in par­ticular my colleagues and friends, Prof. Maria Macuch,
the late Prof. Werner Sundermann, Dr. Dieter Weber, and Prof. Alberto Cantera, for their kind and
useful comments, and Mr. Farrokh Vajifdar for his advice in the English translation of the text.
2  Kellens 1995.
3  The term “hierogamy” is here used in a broad sense without any strict reference to the
same Semitic institution and the related problems.
4  Avestan and Pahlavi text with translation in Haug - West 1872: 267-316; Avestan text
in Westergaard 1852-54: 294-295 (Yasht-Fragment XXI, 1-17), 296-298 (Yasht-Fragment XXII,
1-18), 298-299 (Yasht-Frag­ment, 19-36). Andrea Piras has dedicated a PhD thesis (1995) to the
Avestan text of the second chapter of the Hāδōxt Nask, which has been published (together with
the Pahlavi version) for the Rome Oriental series (IsIAO), Rome 2000.
5  On this subject cf. Kellens 1994; Gnoli 1994.
6  Lankarany 1985.
7  Colpe 1961: 117-131; 1981: 59-77; Widengren 1983; Sundermann 1992; Gnoli, 1994.
293
 Antonio Panaino

Kellens has rightly noted8 that, when the daēnā- appears, she is firstly
called kai­nīn-, f.,9 or “young maid, maiden unmarried and virgin”, whilst, when
she answers the uruuan-, she is called carāitī-, f.,10 or prolific woman, but not
necessarily unmarried and virgin. In fact, the stem carāitī- is attested in some
passages where the woman to be men­tio­ned is doubtless pregnant11 or has
awaited a child for a long time.12 Furthermore, Kel­lens has stressed another
evidence, i.e. that, in her turn, the daēnā- calls the questioning uruuan- as yum
(< *yuuuəm), vocative of yuuan-, m.,13 “young man”.
Thus, we can infer that the uruuan- assumes, in this framework, an ideal state
of youth and, as a young bachelor, he can finally meet with his female “double”,
who firstly appears as a kainīn-,14 but who, immediately after, is declared to
be a carāitī-. Kellens has rightly insisted on the character “potentiellement
matrimonial de leur rencontre”, and re­calls that the terminology of the Hāδōxt
Nask is reproduced in Vr. 3, 3,15 where a young ba­chelor, who becomes the

8  Kellens 1995: 38-44; see also Piras 1995: 61-62.

9  Bartholomae 1904: 439-440: “(unverheiratetes) Mädchen”; it would be better “virgin”,
or, more precisely “fresh (girl)”; the stem kainīn- (< Proto-Indo-Ir. *kanian- / *kanīn-) is made on
the I.E. *koni- “Frische, Ent­ste­hung, Anfang” (Hoffmann 1976: 381-382; cf. also Mayrhofer 1988;
I, 4: 297: Ved. kanyā-, Gr. καινός “neu, un­erhört”, Lat. re-cens “frisch, jung”. kainīn- frequently
occurs in contexts like Yt. 17, 55 [...] kainina anu­paēta maiiānąm “the maidens, who have not been
touched by men (i.e. “the virgins)”, or like Yt. 17, 54 mā kai­nina anupaēta maiiānąm “let not (have
a share of these libations) a maiden, who has not been tou­ched by men”. As Piras also notes (1995:
61-62; 2000: 93), the expression kainīnō kəhrpa srīraii “in the body of a beautiful maid” occurs in
Yt. 5, 64, 78, 126 [said of Anāhitā] and in Yt. 13, 107 [said of A�i Vaŋvhi]; Piras rightly writes that
the frequency of this word is quite abundant, and desi­gnates the young women without husband
who invoke Anāhitā in order to have one (Yt. 5. 87: jaidiiṇte taxməmca nmānō.paitīm).
10  Bartholomae 1904: 581, n. 1, remarks that carāitī-, in two passages from Widēwdād 3 and
Yašt 5, has not the sense of “Mädchen”, but that of “junge Frau”; see now Pirart 1997: 510, n. 37.
x
11  Yt. 5, 87: θβąm kaininō vaδre ... jaiδiiṇte taxməmca nmānō.paitīm, θβąm carāitiš zīzanāitīš
jaiδiiṇte huzāmīm ... “sin­gle maidens (vaδre) will implore you (i.e. Anāhitā) ... for a strong
householder, the (young) women (who are on the point of) bringing forth will implore you for a
good childbirth”. Cf. Geldner 1899: 95; Wolff 1910: 176; Lommel 1927: 39; Malandra 1983: 126; see
Pirart 1997: 509-511 who proposes a new analysis of the strophe and in particular suggests the
reading +vaδre.yaona “propria para ser cortejada”.
12  Cf. Vd. 3, 24 nōi zī īm z  yā darəγa akaršta saēta yā karšiia karšiuuata aibiš ta vaŋhə̄ uš aiβi.
šōiθna iδa carāiti hu­raoda yā darəγa apuθra aēiti aibiš ta vaŋhə̄ uš aršānō “Indeed unhappy is the land
that rested unsown for a long time, and which has to be sown by the farmer; it (is) longing for
this good: dwelling places (or “in­ha­bi­tants”); thus it is the well-shapen girl, who goes childless
for a long time, longing for this good: a male (child?)”. Cf. Kellens 1974: 8-13.
13  Bartholomae 1904: 1305; cf. Hoffmann 1976: 382-383; Piras 1995: 64-65.
14  In AWN 4. 9, 10 dēn is called kanīg, while uruuan- is said ǰuwān.
15  Geldner 1889: 9; cf. Kellens 1995: 40.

294
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

pater familias through a consan­guineous marriage, is referred to.16 After this

introductory investigation, Kellens deduced that “la réunion du ruvan-jeune
homme et de la dayanâ-jeune fille fournit au mariage in­cestueux un important
fondement spéculatif ”.17 I think he is right, but it is not my intention to
investigate more in details this aspect, which I have studied in ano­ther work
of mine.18 What I desire to fo­cus on concerns another problem, and precisely
the one of the post mortem judgement of women, which Kellens has dealt with
in the fra­mework of the same contribution, but only in a brief note19 and
without offering a de­fi­nitive solution. More recently, and wi­thout knowledge
of my previous work on the subject, Fr. Grenet20 has briefly dealt with the same
problem, leaving open the final solution, although he pru­dently suggests that
the daēnā- should have been attributed to women as well. As I had already
assumed, also Grenet21 has seen in a “sexual knot” the main prob­lem for this
evident textual silen­ce, but he has supposed that a clerical embarrass would
have been directed against a po­ten­tial “inversed” hierogamy, in which a female
soul (i.e., that of a dead woman) would ha­ve been wished by a beautiful man. In
my opinion this solution contains a good intuition, but misses the target and
goes towards a misleading direction, as I will try to show.
The subject is actually very intricate and escaping. At first sight, the
Avestan con­ception seems to be strictly manly orien­tated. In the Hāδōxt Nask
and in the Ardā Wīrāz Nā­mag as well, only the Himmels­reise of a man is described
(indifferently with respect to his being auuan- or druuaṇt-), while we do not
apparently find any precise information about the events concerning the
destiny of any deceased woman. But the presence of women in the Mazdean
paradise is surely testified in the whole Zoro­as­trian literature in Avestan,
Pahlavi and New Persian, and we do not find reasons to postulate that this
eschatological prize was not given to them. As supportive elements, we may
mention, for instance, par. 18 of the se­cond chapter of the Hāδōxt Nask, chapter
13 of the Ardā Wīrāz Nāmag, and a few pas­sa­ges from the Persian Revāyats22. These
evidences allow us to focus on ano­ther relevant problem: in Hāδōxt Nask 2, 18,
a pious dead woman is clearly referred to; she is called nāirikā-, f.,23 “woman,

16  Duchesne-Guillemin 1978: 173-177; Herrenschmidt, 1994 with additional biblio- graphy.
17  Kellens 1995, 41.
18  See Panaino 2013, and Panaino in the press.
19  Kellens, 1995, 40, n. 50.
20  2003: 159.
21  Ibidem.

22  According to this tradition, a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, go without any distinction
to paradise. Cf. Dha­bhar 1932: 70.
23  Bartholomae 1904: 1065-1066. Cf. nāirī- (Ved. nrī-) “woman, wife” (Bartholomae 1904:

295
 Antonio Panaino

wife” (etymologically a feminine deriva­tive stem in -kā- with a vr̥ddhi in the

first syllable, thus meaning “belonging to a man [nar-]”). The re­le­vance of the
female social condition is confirmed in the above quoted passage from the Ar­
dā Wīrāz Nāmag. In this source the righteous Wīrāz actually declared: «Then, I
saw the souls of those wives (women) of “many good thoughts”, of “many good
words” and of “many good deeds” [...]» (u-m dīd ruwān awēšān nārīgān ī frāy-
humat ī frāy-hūxt ī frāy-huwaršt [...]).24 It is clear that the stem nāirikā- attested
in the Hāδōxt Nask cor­res­ponds to nārīgān of the Pahlavi text, as confirmed also
by the Pahlavi tran­slation of H.N. 2, 18, where nāirikā- is literally translated
as nārīg.25 The same conclu­sion can be inferred in the case of the attributions
concerning other pious women, which precisely correspond with those attested
in the Hāδōxt Nask. Then, it seems that the destiny of a woman was that of re­
maining, in paradise too, not an independent person (whereas the man again
becomes yuuan-), but a person subjected to her hus­band.
We know that, according to the Zoroastrian tradition, the spiritual or
im­material part of any human being is divided at least into five different
elements;26 only the first two of these components are connected with the
material existence, while the other three are immortal. They are:

baoδah-27 (Pahl. bōy) “perception, sense”;

uštna-28 (Pahl. uštān)29 “autonomous mobility, animation”;
uruuan-30 (Pahl. ruwān) “soul (which separates from the body)”;
daēnā-31 (Pahl. dēn) “soul-vision”;
frauuai-32 (Pahl. frawahr) “soul-preference (pre-existent and
protective)”.

1065); see also nāi­ri­θβana-, n. “Stand der (Ehe)frau, Ehestand” (Bartholomae 1904: 1066) or
“condition de l’épouse” (Ben­ve­ni­ste 1963: 51).
24  Haug – West 1872: 35-36; Gignoux 1968: 233; 1984: 62-63; 165-166; Vahman 1986: 106-
109; 198-199.
25  Cf. Haug – West 1872: 293; Piras 1995: 82-83.
26  Duchesne-Guillemin 1962: 327-331; Widengren 1968: 36-39; Bailey 1971: 78-119; Kellens
1989b; Kellens 1995: 21-25. See also the important contribution of Gignoux 1996.
27  Bartholomae 1904: 919; Bailey 1971: 97-99, 101, 107, 117.
28  Bartholomae 1904: 418-419; on the etymological problems cf. Kellens 1995: 22, n. 7.
29  Kellens 1995: 22, n. 7 assumes that uštna- has no cognate in Pahlavi, but see Bailey
1971: 99, n. 4; Mac­Kenzie 1971: 85.
30  Bartholomae 1904: 1537-1541; Bailey 1971: 112-118. Kellens (1995: 24, n. 13) prudently
suggests the inter­pre­­­tation of Av. uruuan- as a nomen agentis in -an- connected with the Skt. root
ru : ráuti / ruvánti, to say “ce­lui qui bruit (dans la nuit)”.
31  Bartholomae 1904: 662-667; Bailey 1971: 115; Lankarany 1985; Gnoli 1993.
32  On the etymology of Av. frauuai- and its mythological importance cf. Bar- tholomae
1904: 992; Malandra 1971; Dumézil 1953; Narten 1985; Gnoli 1986; Kellens 1989b.

296
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

No Zoroastrian source authorises us to suspect that this basic subdivision

was on­ly fitting for males; for instance, in Yašt 13, we have the confirmation
that the fra­uuai-s belong to men and women as well.33 We can also quote the
Zoroastrian formula tə̄m aāunąm frauuaīš narąmcā nāirinąmcā yazamaidē, “we
worship him (i.e. Ahura Maz­dā) with34 the frauuai-s of the righteous ones, men
and women (as well)”, attested in Yasna Hap­taŋhāiti 37, 3.35 The same statement
can be noted for the uruuan- after Y.H. 39, 2: aāu­nąm āa urunō yazamaidē kudō.
zātanąmcī narąmcā nāirinąmcā [...] “we worship the souls of the righteous ones,
men and women (as well), wherever they were born [...]”.36
At this point of our discussion we can observe that, according to the Zoroas­
trian system, women were surely given the frauuai- and the uruuan-, and we
must verify if there are sound arguments against the inevitable inference that,
with all these faculties, the other three ones should have been attributed to
them as well. In reality, the assump­tion that women would have been imagined
as without baoδah and uštna- seems to me im­plausible, because this conclusion
would transform female identity in a sub-human category, according to a vision
of the feminine unfitting with respect to the whole Maz­dean tradition. For the
same reason, the absence of the daēnā- should be only the fruit of a sort of
taboo, but not the witness of a real inexistence. The rest of the present article
will try to analyse this problem and explain the reasons behind the silence of
the sour­ces.
What do we gain from the assumption that women too were given with a
proper daēnā-, and why this faculty was not directly mentioned with them?
Actually my interpretation implies that, when a woman dies, “her” uruuan-
will meet with “her own” daēnā-, because the sexual metaphor placed behind
such an ani­mi­cal meeting does not strictly pertain to the sex of the deceased
human being.37 In other words, the uruuan- should remain masculine even in

33  The frauuai-s of the pious women are listed in Yt. 13, 139-142 (Geldner 1889: 201; cf.
Lommel 1927: 128; Malandra 1971: 148-149).
34  Normally considered acc. pl. f., frauuaīš is interpreted as instrumental pl. by Kellens
and Pirart (1990: 269; 1991: 141, with bibliography and discussion of the problem). It is to be
noted that, according to the pre­sent interpretation, the syntactical position of frauuaīš exactly
corresponds to that of the instru­men­tals in the parallel sentence: yazamaidē tm ahmākāiš
azdəbīšcā uštānāišcā “we worship him with our bones and our souls” (Y.H. 37, 3). See now Hintze
2007: 170-186.
35  Humbach (1991, 1: 146) proposes an expunction of this sentence, but J. Narten (1986:
42, 180-181) and Kel­lens – Pirart (1988: 136) accept it.
36  Cf. Narten 1986: 44; Kellens-Pirart 1988: 138; Humbach 1991, 1: 148.
37  This seems to be the modern interpretation among the Parsis, as we can deduce
from the essay of J. Rose [1989: 28, with reference to the Persian Revāyats (Dhabhar 1932: 170)],
who suggests that the exclusive re­fe­ren­ces to the men in the afterlife judgement should be

297
 Antonio Panaino

the case of a woman, while, in her turn, the daēnā- must remain female for a
man and a woman as well. The re-composition in the post mortem of all of the
components of the soul, firstly of the uruuan-, with the daēnā-, then, with the
resumption of the baoδah- and of the uštna- (according to Kel­lens),38 boldly
defines the state of beatitude, which belongs both to pious men and wo­men,
who have followed the Mazdean religion. The fact that the male component
of the soul, the uruuan-, was represented like a young bachelor, yuuan-, while
the daēnā- pas­sed from the state of kainīn- to that of carāitī-, does not change
the inner sense of these after­life events. The dynamics of the meeting should
happen in the same way for men and wo­men, the main problem ha­ving been
that of the union of the male part of the soul with his female corresponding
one, and not that of the deceased man with a young girl, as frequently but
mistakenly we use to presume. Of course, we must remark that such a wrong
(but strongly seducing) association was and is still due to the special kind of
sym­bo­lic representation adopted in the impressive representa­tion of this
central event hap­pe­ning in the afterlife. In fact, its dynamics was strongly based
on a masculine point of view, and corresponded to a perception of the reality
strongly oriented according to a mas­culine (of course hetero)-sexual drive. It
is difficult to ima­gine that a common wo­man (not lesbian, for instance) would
like to imagine the prize for, – and the represen­tation of –, her good deeds in
life, in form of a beautiful maiden. From this point of view, we must observe
that this Mazdean kind of afterlife hierogamy functionally correspon­ded to
and satisfied an unconscious masculine phantasmatic material.
Another aspect of considerable interest is the fact that in Hāδōxt Nask 2, 18
the dead woman is called nāirikā- and that her state of submission to her own
husband re­mains unchanged.39 In this context, the pious man is called yuuan-,
just like his uruuan-. But we have to reconsider this problem. With respect to
the stem nāirikā-, it is necessary to note that, according to Bartholomae,40 this
word was used in direct op­posi­tion41 to ja­hi­kā-, f.,42 “bad woman”, sometimes

interpreted as generic. Rose’s contribution is un­for­tu­nately superficial on this subject, because

she does not try to penetrate the complex symbolism of the soul in the Zoroastrian afterlife, and
simplistically considers the daēnā- as the archetype of feminine, a sta­te­ment that is not wrong,
but insufficient.
38  Kellens 1995: 22.
39  On the juridical implications of marriage in the Indo-European milieu cf. Ben- veniste
1969, I: 239-244.
40  1904: 1066, n. 1.
41  On the double language in Avestan cf. Güntert 1914; Gray 1927; Benveniste 1931;
Panaino 1986; 1990: 139-141; Kellens 1989a: 54-55.
42  Bartholomae 1904: 606-607. Cf. Emmerick 1993: 52. In AWN 17, 9, the dēn who

298
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

“prostitute”, a stem which in Hāδōxt Nask, 2, 36 quali­fies the loose and impious
woman, in a context wholly parallel with that attested in H.N. 2, 18. On the
other hand, in the case of the deceased male, the pious and the impious men
are both called yuuan- (2, 18; 2, 36):

H.N. 2, 18:43 xvarəθanąm hē bərətąm zarəmaiiehe raoγnahe ta asti yūnō humanaŋhō
huuacaŋhō huiiaoθnahe hudaēnahe xvarəθəm pasca para.iristīm.
ta nāirikaiiāi frāiiō.humataiiāi frāiiō.hūxtaiiāi frāiiō.huuarštaiiāi huš.hąm.sāstaiiāi
ratuxšaθraiiāi aaoniiāi xvarəθəm pasca para.iristīm.

«To him let there be brought as nourishment some of the spring-time-butter:

this is the food of the youth of good thoughts, of good words, of good deeds
(and) of the good daēnā af­ter death. This is, the food of a woman of very
good thoughts, of very good words, of ve­ry good deeds, well-instructed (i.e.
“submissive”), “ruled by a master” (i.e. “obedient to her master”), and pious
after death».

H.N. 2, 36:44 xvarəθanąm hē bərətąm xvišaiiāaca viš.gaiṇtaiiāaca ta asti yūnō

dušmanaŋhō dužuuacaŋhō duš.iiaoθnahe duždaēnahē xvarəθəm pasca auua.mərəitīm.
ta jahikaiiāi frāiiō.dušmataiiāi frāiiō.dužūxtaiiāi frāiiō.dužuuarštaiiāi duš.hąm.
sāstaiiāi aratuxšaθraiiāi druuaitiiāi xvarəθəm pasca auua.mərəitīm.

«To him let there be brought as nourishment a poisoned and foul-smelling

(substance); this is the food of a youth of evil thoughts, of evil words, of evil
deeds (and) of evil daēnā af­ter death. This is the food of a prostitute of very evil
thoughts, of very evil words, of very evil deeds, ill-instructed (i.e. “non-docile”),
not ruled by a master (i.e. “dis­obe­dient”), and wicked after death».

This asymmetrical qualification can be explained as a new confirmation

of the fact that, also in the afterlife, we still find a manly-oriented social
conception, which con­ferred upon the man the state of a fifteen-years-old
young man, yuuan-45, while, con­tra­riwise, for the woman only that of a non-

approaches the sinner, is cal­led zan ī ǰeh “prostitute”. See now the discussion of de Jong (1995),
who remarks that the original mean­ing of jahī-, jahikā-, is uncertain; in any case he confirms
that this designation is sometimes attested for wo­­men, whose behaviour was sexually suspicious
(1995: 28-31). See also Panaino 2011.
43  Westergaard 1852-54: 298; Haug – West 1872: 292-293; Lankarany 1985: 124; Piras 1995:
35, 2000: 55 (Av. text and translation), 67, 71 (Pahl. text and translation).
44  Westergaard 1852-54: 299; Haug – West 1872: 299; Lankarany 1985: 122; Piras 1995: 39-
40; 2000: 58 (Av. text and translation), 64, 68, 72 (Pahl. text in transcription, transliteration and
translation).
45  In this age, represented as the ideal period of life in the Avestan texts, young men
were officially in­tro­du­ced into the community of adults; they take part in religious rites, can

299
 Antonio Panaino

independent nāirikā-.46 This representation exalts, in the case of the woman,

her matronly state of married person,47 a condition di­rec­tly opposed to that,
socially disqualifying, proper of a jahikā-. This idea results in ag­ree­ment with
Zo­roastrian social ethics, which despises sterility and “non-life”, but also cri­
ticises moral disorder. The state of yuuan- in the post mortem confirms the
idealisation of a youthful age, which is not only sexually characterised, but
also evokes a kind of he­roic condi­tion.48 Furthermore, it is interesting to note
that such a state does not im­me­diately dis­tin­guish the final destiny of the man.
Indeed, yuuan- befits both the righteous and the wicked man. The distinction
and separation between them is introduced only by the fact that a series of
adjectives is introduced in order to qualify or disqualify the yuuan-, which
appears in him as a theologically “neutral” stem, not distinguished accor­ding
to Zo­roastrian dual­istic patterns. Thus, the good yuuan- is so, because “of good
thoughts, of good words, of good deeds (and) of good daēnā-”, while the bad
one results “of evil thoughts, of evil words, of evil deeds (and) of evil daēnā-”.
In the case of the woman, contrariwise, the state of beatitude or damnation

wear the belt (kustīg) and the sa­cred shirt (called in Dārī sedra), and they are allowed to marry.
This moment is a real “passage” to a new li­fe; this aspect is clearly expressed by the fact that
the Parsis call the ceremony of initiation naojot, to say “re­birth” or “new birth” (Pers. *nauzāδ <
Ir. *naazāta-), as stressed by A. Perikhanian 1983: 643, n. 1. Then it is at the age of this “rebirth”
that the uruuan- and the daēnā- manifest themselves in the afterlife. It is to be noted that while
among the Parsis the initiation is anticipated at the age of seven or eight years, in the Ira­nian
villages it is performed about the age of twelve or fifteen years (Boyce 1989: 236).
46  Grenet (2003: 159) suggests that the dead woman (nairikā-) would have as her own dēn
that of his hus­band, but I do not see any compelling evidence for this explanation.
47  The Sasanian law, where older traditions were mingled with later and
contemporary institutions, con­firms a legal status of the woman, which results in
being a juridical object (substantially subordinate to the fa­ ther or the husband) and
not an independent subject; see, for instance, Bartholomae 1924: 7, who wrote: “Nach
altüberkommenem Recht war die Frau im Sasanidenreich nicht Subjekt, sondern Objekt des
Rechts, nicht Person, sondern Sache, also streng genommen rechtlos”. Of course in the Sasanian
period some ri­ghts were acquired, as remarked by Perikhanian (1983: 647-648). As for the problem
here discussed, the fa­ther or the legal tutor had the duty to find a husband for a single maiden,
otherwise they committed a great sin, because procreation is a function not only legitimate but
sacred. See Bartholomae 1924: 10-11; Chris­­tensen 1944: 322-331, in particular p. 327. It seems
to me therefore that the position of the pious wo­man in paradise represents an ideal juridical
condition, as attested in Sasanian law, but probably more ar­chaic, because strictly connected to
the matrimonial right and procreation. In this context, we can recall that, among the Iranian
Zoroastrians the boys’ initiation is given a noteworthy importance, while, to the con­­trary, that
of the girls is less significant for the community (Boyce 1989: 240).
48  See Yt. 15, 40; Y. 9, 10; 57, 13.

300
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

is im­mediately stated through the marked opposition between nāirikā- and

jahikā-, and not only through the series of adjectives and epithets they were
given.
On the basis of these facts we can offer the following conclusions: the
nāirikā-condition for a pious woman and the jahikā-one for a wicked woman
reflect a cultural conception and a kind of sharp social prejudice,49 in which
the best juridical state for a woman was that of being married, diligent and
obedient to her master-husband (huš.hąm.sāstaiiāi ratuxšaθraiiāi). The fact that
the deceased males, indifferently with res­pect to the judgement they have
obtained, all become young bachelors belongs to a simi­lar vision of the afterlife,
which psychologically can be defined as strictly “manly”. This point of view
seems to be very archaic and perhaps pre-Zoroastrian in the fact that the re­
turn to a state of youthfulness is not based on, or connected to, any ethical
(and/or ritual) decision as­su­med in life.
On a different ground it should be considered the mythological mytheme of
the sacred union between the uruuan- and the daēnā-. This, in fact, is common
to men and wo­men. As I noted above, it is clear that the representation of the
uruuan- as a yuuan- and the transformation of all of the men (good ones or bad)
in yuuan- in the afterlife di­mension only testifies that the main pattern of this
system was imagined and developed ac­­cording to a masculine perspective.50
This, perhaps, could explain why we have no des­cription of any Himmelsreise
of women, or better, descriptions of the journey of the ur­uuan- belonging to
any woman, and why only the yuuan- in the post mortem was called hu­daēna-51
or duž.daēna-52, while these two compounds are never attested in the case of
wo­­men. Thus, we can observe a contradiction: on the one hand, Mazdean
anthropology, at least in its original structure, did not offer arguments for the
supposition that women were not given the same components of the souls like

49  In this sense the presence of feminine Pahlavi names like Dēnag does not constitute
a positive evidence for the existence of a dēn of the women (as presumed by Grenet 2003: 159),
because the name Dēnag simply cor­responds to a representation of a lady as a desirable female,
as the beautiful dēn should be.
50  Obviously only an heterosexual perspective can be here taken into con- sideration,
because, according to Zo­­roastrian morality, homosexuality is a great sin. See, e.g., Vd. 8, 26-32;
AWN 19.
51  Bartholomae 1904: 1823; Lankarany 1985: 123-124. Notwithstanding hudaēna- is usually
registered as hu­daē­n-, feminine occurrences are not attested [in Vr. 3, 3; H. 2, 11, 12, 18; Vyt. 17;
P. 32 (33) said of yuuan-; in Yt. 19, 95 of Asuuaṭərəta; in Yt. 4, 9 of the pious believer]. The same
consideration works for duž.daēn- too (in Y. 49, 11 said of the drəguuaṇt-s; see also Y. 65, 7; in H.
2, 36 said of yuuan-; in FrW. 4, 2 of Aŋra Mai­niiu; in Yt. 19, 47, 49 of Aži Dahāka; in Yt. 5. 109 e Yt.
9, 31 of Tąθriiāuuaṇt).
52  Bartholomae 1904: 757; Lankarany 1985: 122-123; Gnoli 1993: 81.

301
 Antonio Panaino

men or that their own judgements in the afterlife and during the following
events were different from those well known for men. On the second hand, the
sources are unanimously silent over this second part, as if the open description
of the union of an uruuan- belonging to a dead woman with her own daēnā-
were considered, so to say, peculiar or indecent. It is probable that this pa­tent
contradiction, assuming that we have not lost other pertinent texts, was very
old. This “hierogamic” image was arranged according to a male point of view,
as I noted be­fore. But the Zoroastrians placed this union at the dimension of
the souls, which, at least on logical grounds, was not strictly related to the sex
of the dead. We cannot avoid, ho­we­ver, the possibility that within the Mazdean
tradition (later?) prevailed a sort of su­per­position or confusion of the sexual
identity of the male dead with his own uruuan-, with the consequence that only
men were considerable as hudaēna- or duž.daēna-. In such an overlapping, again
according to a male perception, of these two different levels, that of the gētīg
body and, thus, of its sexual determination, and that of the practically bi-sex­
ual soul (in the sense that both aspects are represented through the uruuan-
and the daē­nā-), appears, perhaps, as a sort of psychological embarrassment.
It was probably dif­fi­cult to separate so strongly the normal daily level of the
sexual sphere from that very ab­stract and theological representation of the
whole soul with its two main components, the male and the female one, which
was the same for men and women. In this fact, I as­su­me, we can see the main
reason for the embarrassing silence of the sources about the daēnā-, which goes
to meet the uruuan- of a woman.
In any case, I suggest that we cannot doubt that the earliest Mazdean
tradition de­nied to women the full possess of an uruuan- and of a proper daēnā-.

302
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

Bibliographical References

Bartholomae, Ch. (1904) Altiranisches Wörterbuch. Strassburg.

Bartholomae, Ch. (1924) Die Frau im sasanidischen Recht. Rede gehalten beim
Stiftungsfest der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften am Mai 11.
1924. (Kultur und Sprache. 5. Band). Heidelberg.
Bailey, H. (1971) Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books. (Ratanbai Katrak
Lectures). Reprinted with a New Introduction. Oxford.
Benveniste, E. (1931) Une différenciation de vocabulaire dans l’Avesta. In Studia
Indo-Iranica. Ehrengabe für W. Geiger. Leipzig, pp. 219-226.
Benveniste, E. (1963) Expressions indo-européenne du “mariage”. In A Pedro
Bosch-Gimpera en el septuagésimo aniversario de su nascimiento. Mexico City, pp.
49-52.
Benveniste, E. (1969) Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes. 2 vols. Paris.
Boyce, M. (1989) A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (based on the Ratanbai
Katrak Lectures, 1975). New York – London.
Christensen, A. (1944) L’Iran sous les Sassanides. (Deuxième édition revue et aug-
mentée). Copenhagen.
Colpe, C. (1961) Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule. Darstellung und Kritik ihres Bildes
vom gnostischen Erlösungsmythus. Göttingen.
Colpe, C. (1981) Daēnā, Lichtjungfrau, zweite Gestalt. In Studies in Gnosticism and
Hellenistic Religions, presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday.
Herausgegeben von R. van den Broek und M.J. Vermaseren. London, pp. 59-
77.
de Jong, A. (1995) Jeh the Primal Whore? Observations on Zoroastrian Miso-
gyny. In Female Stereotypes in Religious Traditions. Ed. by R. Kloppenborg – W.J.
Hanegraaff. Leiden, pp. 59-77.
Dhabhar, B. N. (1932) The Persian Rivayats of Hormazyar Framarz and Others. Their
Version with Introduction and Notes. Bombay.
Duchesne-Guillemin, J. (1962) La religion de l’Iran ancien. Paris.
Duchesne-Guillemin, J. (1978) Opera Minora. Vol. III. Iran - Grèce - Israël - etc.
Téhéran.
Dumézil, G. (1953) Víṣṇu et les Mārūt à travers la réforme zoroastrienne. Journal
Asiatique 241, pp. 1-25.
Emmerick, R.E. (1993) “Boys” and “Girls” in Khotanese. Bullettin of the Asia Insti-
tute. Iranian Studies in Honor of A.D.H. Bivar. New Serie, Vol. 7, pp. 51-54.
Geldner, K.F. (1889) Avesta, the Sacred Books of the Parsees. Vol. II. Vispered and
Khorda Avesta. Stuttgart.
Gignoux, Ph. (1968) L’enfer et le paradis d’après les sources pehlevies. Journal

303
 Antonio Panaino

Asiatique 256, 2, pp. 219-245.

Gignoux, Ph. (1984) Le Livre d’Ardā Wīrāz. Translittération, transcription et traduc-
tion du texte pehlevi. Paris.
Gignoux, Ph. (1996) The Notion of soul (ruwān) in the Sasanian Mazdaeism. In
K.R. Cama Oriental Institute. Second International Congress Proceedings (5th to 8th
January 1995). Bombay, pp. 23-35.
Gnoli, G. (1986) Le “Fravaši” e l’immortalità. In La mort, les morts dans les sociétés
anciennes. Sous la direction de Gh. Gnoli et de J.-P. Vernant. Cambridge - Par-
is, pp. 339-347.
Gnoli, G. (1993) A Sassanian Iconography of the Dēn. Bullettin of the Asia Institute.
Iranian Studies in Honor of A.D.H. Bivar, New Series, Vol. 7, pp. 79-85.
Gnoli, G. (1994) Über die Daēnā: Hāδōxt nask 2, 7-9. In Tradition und Translation.
Zum Probleme der interkulturellen Übersetzbarkeit religiöser Phanömene. Fest-
schrift für Carsten Colpe zum 65. Geburtstag. Herausgegeben von C. Elsas. Ber-
lin, pp. 292-298.
Gray, L.H. (1927) The “Ahurian” and “Daevian” Vocabularies in the Avesta. JRAS,
pp. 427-441.
Grenet, Fr. (2003) Conférence de M. Frantz Grenet: Religions du monde iranien
ancien. École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des sciences religieuses. Annu-
aire, Tome 112 (2003-2004), pp. 157-162.
Güntert, H. (1914) Über die ahurischen und daēvischen Ausdrücke im Awesta. (Sit-
zungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophi-
sch-historische Klasse, 1914, Abhandlung 13). Heidelberg.
Haug, M. – West, E.W. (1872) The Book of Arda Viraf. Bombay - London (reprint:
Amsterdam 1971).
Herrenschmidt, C. (1994) Le xwêtôdas ou marriage «incestueux» en Iran ancien.
In Épouser au plus proche. Inceste, prohibitions et stratégies matrimoniales autour
de la Méditerranée. Éd. par P. Bonte. (Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en
Sciences Sociales 89). Paris, pp. 113-125.
Hintze, A. (2007) A Zoroastrian Liturgy. The Worship in Seven Chapters (Yasna 35-41).
Wiesbaden.
Hoffmann, K. (1976) Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik. Herausgegeben von J. Narten. Wi-
esbaden.
Humbach, H. (1991) The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts. 2
vols. Heidelberg.
Kellens, J. (1974) Les noms-racines de l’Avesta. Wiesbaden.
Kellens, J. (1984) Le verbe avestique. Wiesbaden.
Kellens, J. (1989a) Avestique. In Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Herausgege-
ben von R. Schmitt. Wiesbaden, pp. 32-55.
Kellens, J. (1989b) Les fravaši. In Anges et démons. Actes du colloque de Liège et de
Louvain-la-Neuve, 25-26 novembre 1987. Éd. par J. Ries et H. Limet. (Homo reli-

304
 The Souls of Women in the Zoroastrian Afterlife

giosus I, 14). Louvain-la-Neuve, pp. 99-114.

Kellens, J. (1994) La fonction aurorale de Miθra et la Daēnā. In Studies in Mithra-
ism. Ed. by J. R. Hinnells. Roma, pp. 165-171.
Kellens, J. (1995) L’âme entre le cadavre et le paradis. Journal Asiatique 283, pp.
19-56.
Kellens, J. – Pirart, E. (1988) Les textes vieil-avestiques. Vol. I. Introduction, texte et
traduction. Wiesbaden.
Kellens, J. – Pirart, E. (1990) Les textes vieil-avestiques. Vol. II. Répertoires gramma-
ticaux et lexique. Wiesbaden.
Kellens, J. – Pirart, E. (1991) Les textes vieil-avestiques. Vol. III. Commentaire.
Wiesbaden.
Lankarany, F.-Th. (1985) Daēnā im Avesta, eine semantische Untersuchung. (Studien
zur Indologie und Iranistik - Monographie 10). Reinbek.
Lommel, H. (1927) Die Yäšt’s des Awesta übersetzt und eingeleitet. Göttingen –
Leipzig.
MacKenzie, D. N. (1971) A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London.
Malandra, W.W. (1971) The Fravaši Yašt: Introduction, Text, Translation and Com-
mentary. (University Microfilms). Ann Arbor.
Malandra, W.W. (1983) An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion. Minneapolis.
Mayrhofer, M. (1988) Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen. (Band I/4).
Heidelberg.
Narten, J. (1985) Avestisch frauuai-. Indo-Iranian Journal 28, pp. 35-48.
Narten, J. (1986) Der Yasna Haptaŋhāiti. Wiesbaden.
Panaino, A. (1986) Un’espressione avestica per indicare il linguaggio rovesciato
degli adoratori dei daēva. Atti del Sodalizio Glottologico Milanese, 26 (1985), pp.
20-24.
Panaino, A. (1990) Tištrya. Vol. I. The Avestan Hymn to Sirius. (Serie Orientale
Roma LXVIII,1). Rome.
Panaino, A. (2011) The Frog Prince and the Whore. In Studi Iranici Ravennati I.
A cura di A. Panaino – A. Piras. (Indo-Iranica et Orientalia. Series Lazur, 1).
Milano – Udine, pp. 17–82.
Panaino, A. (2013) Mortality and Immortality: Yama’s /Yima’s Choice and the Primor-
dial Incest (Mythologica Indo-Iranica, I). In V. Sadovski – A. Panaino, Dispu-
tationes Iranologicae Vindobonenses, II: 1. (Sitzungsberichte der ÖAW. Philoso-
phisch-historische Klasse, 845. Band / Veröffentlichungen zur Iranistik, Nr.
65). Wien, pp. 47-221.
Panaino, A. (2014) Yima ed il “rifiuto” della daēnā-. Ovvero dell’incestualità, del-
la beatitudine e della morte tra ambigui ostacoli e seducenti trasparenze. In
Démons iraniens. Actes du Colloque international organisé par l’Université de Liège
les 5 et 6 février 2009 à l’occasion des 65 ans de Jean Kellens.. Éd. par Ph. Swennen.
Liège, pp. 97-123.

305
 Antonio Panaino

Perikhanian, A. (1983) Iranian Society and Law. In The Cambridge History of Iran.
Volume 3 (2) The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods. Ed. by E. Yarshater.
Cambridge, pp. 627-680.
Pirart, E. (1997) Subordinadas avésticas desconoscidas. In Berthold Delbrück y la
sintaxis indoeuropea hoy. Actas del Coloquio de la Indogermanische Gesellschaft.
Madrid, 21-24 de septiembre de 1994, editadas por E. Crespo y J. L. García Ramón.
Madrid – Wiesbaden, pp. 501-526.
Piras, A. (1995) Il Testo Avestico del Hādōxt Nask 2. Tesi per il conseguimento del
Dottorato di Ricerca in Studi Iranici. VI Ciclo. IUO. Napoli.
Piras, A. (2000) Hādōxt Nask II. Il racconto zoroastriano della sorte dell’anima.
Edizione critica del testo avestico e pahlavi, traduzione e commento. (Serie
Orientale Roma LXXXVIII). Roma.
Rose, J. (1989) The Traditional Role of Women in the Iranian and Indian (Parsi) Zoroas-
trian Communities from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century. (Journal of the
K.R. Cama Oriental Institute. No. 56). Bombay.
Sundermann, W. (1992) Die Jungfrau der guten Taten. In Recurrent Patterns in
Iranian Religions: from Mazdaism to Sufism (Societas Iranologica Europaea. Pro-
ceedings of the Round Table held in Bamberg, 30th September - 4th October 1991).
Sous la direction de Ph. Gignoux. (Studia Iranica, Cahier 11). Paris, pp. 159-
173.
Vahman, F. (1986) Ardā Wirāz Nāmag. The Iranian ‘Divina Commedia’. London
and Malmö.
Westergaard, N.L. (1852-54) Zendavesta or The Religious Books of the Zoroastrians.
Copenhagen.
Widengren, G. (1968) Les religions de l’Iran. Traduction de l’allemand par L.
Jospin. Paris.
Widengren, G. (1983) La rencontre avec la daēnā, qui représente les actions de
l’homme. In Iranian Studies. Ed. by G. Gnoli. (Orientalia Romana. Essays and
Lectures 5. Serie Orientale Roma LII). Roma, pp. 41-79.
Wolff, F. (1910) Avesta, die heiligen Bücher der Parsen. Strassburg.

306