Literary Figures in Gāthic Texts

Introduction        Gāthic texts are a collection of religious songs of Zarothustra who lived about 1200 BC. Of the seventy two hāts (stanzas) of Yasna (one of the five chapters of Avesta), seventeen hāts belong to five Gāthas. These seventeen hāts 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 of speech, so explication de text is used to analyze the translation of Gāthas.   Discussion        Fourteen 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 Gāthas are addressed to Ahura Mazdā invoking and glorifying him, and communicating with him about both spiritual and worldly subjects, such as the elimination of evil in the world and the freedom from evil in the after-world. The nature of the Gāthas is mystical but formal poetry plays an essential part in them. The fifth Gātha shows the nature of Gāthas as didactical poetry.