Limo in Zand

Zend or Zand (Middle Persian: 𐭦𐭭𐭣) is a Zoroastrian complex term for exegetical glosses, paraphrases, commentaries and translations of the Avesta’s texts. The term zand is a contraction of the Avestan language word zanti (𐬰𐬀𐬌𐬥𐬙𐬌, meaning “interpretation”, or “as understood”).

Zand glosses and commentaries exist in several languages, including in the Avestan language itself. These Avestan language exegeses sometimes accompany the original text being commented upon, but are more often elsewhere in the canon. An example of exegesis in the Avestan language itself includes Yasna 19–21, which is a set of three Younger Avestan commentaries on the three Gathic Avestan ‘high prayers’ of Yasna 27. Zand also appears to have next existed in a variety of Middle Iranian languages, but of these Middle Iranian commentaries, the Middle Persian zand is the single-handedly one to survive fully, and is for this explanation regarded as ‘the’ zand.

With the notable exception of the Yashts, almost all surviving Avestan texts have their Middle Persian zand, which in some manuscripts appear alongside (or interleaved with) the text being glossed. The practice of including non-Avestan commentaries to the side of the Avestan texts led to two substitute misinterpretations in western scholarship of the term zand; these misunderstandings are described below. These glosses and commentaries were not expected for use as theological texts by themselves but for religious opinion of the (by then) non-Avestan-speaking public. In contrast, the Avestan language texts remained sacrosanct and continued to be recited in the Avestan language, which was considered a sacred language. The Middle Persian zand can be subdivided into two subgroups, those of the permanent Avestan texts, and those of the in limbo Avestan texts.

A consistent exegetical procedure is evident in manuscripts in which the native Avestan and its zand coexist. The priestly scholars first translated the Avestan as literally as possible. In a second step, the priests later translated the Avestan idiomatically. In the pure step, the idiomatic translation was complemented following explanations and commentaries, often of significant length, and occasionally in imitation of different authorities living thing cited.

Several important works in Middle Persian contain selections from the zand of Avestan texts, also of Avestan texts which have past been lost. Through comparison of selections from directionless texts and from long-lasting texts, it has been feasible to distinguish in the middle of the translations of Avestan works and the commentaries on them, and fittingly to some degree reconstruct the content of some of the directionless texts. Among those texts is the Bundahishn, which has Zand-Agahih (“Knowledge from the Zand“) as its subtitle and is crucial to the covenant of Zoroastrian cosmogony and eschatology. Another text, the Wizidagiha, “Selections (from the Zand)”, by the 9th century priest Zadspram, is a key text for harmony Sassanid-era Zoroastrian orthodoxy. The Denkard, a 9th or 10th century text, includes extensive summaries and quotations of zand texts.