Poets, priests, scribes and (e-)librarians. The transmission of holy wisdom in Zoroastrianism
Salamanca, 2nd -5th September 2009
In the frame of the ADA the Conference Poets, priests, scribes and (e-)librarians. The transmission of holy wisdom in Zoroastrianism will be held in Salamanca between the 2nd and 5th September 2009
Aim of the Conference is to deal with the transmission of the Avesta through its history covering it oral composition and transmission, the invention of the Avestan script, the constitution of the different types of manuscripts between the invention of the script and the first manuscripts, the relations between manuscripts and the stemmata of every type of manuscript, manuscripts not used by K. F. Geldner for his edition and generals about the written and oral transmission.
It intends also to offer an overview and description of the different collections of manuscripts all over the world, its catalogues, state of preservation and accessibility.
One of the main interests of the work with the Avestan manuscripts (although not the only one) is the edition of the Avestan texts transmitted. Therefore, we would like to address the question about the necessity of a new edition of the Avesta after the edition of K. F. Geldner. Accordingly, a deep analysis of Gedlner's method and edition is strongly needed. We hope also that the conference could provide an overview about the different Avestan texts that are being edited in the actuality and which are considered the main desiderata in this field.
Although the main focus of the conference is the transmission of the Avesta, we would like also to cover the transmission of other Zoroastrian texts, especially the Pahlavi books, since they share some of the problems of the Avesta transmission. It will provide also an overview of the different Pahlavi words that are going to edited in the actuality.