Some idea of the character of the Avesta as it now exists may be derived from the following sketch of its contents and from the illustrative selections presented:--
1. Yasna (sacrifice, worship), the chief liturgical work of the sacred canon. It consists mainly of ascriptions of praise and of prayer, and corresponds nearly to our idea of a prayer-book. The Yasna comprises seventy-two chapters; these fall into three nearly equal parts. The middle, or oldest part, is the section of Gathas below described.
The meaning of the word yasna as above gives at once some conception of the nature of the texts. The Yasna chapters were recited at the sacrifice: a sacrifice that consisted not in blood-offerings, but in an offering of praise and thanksgiving, accompanied by ritual observances. The white-robed priest, girt with the sacred cord and wearing a veil, the paitidana, before his lips in the presence of the holy fire, begins the service by an invocation of Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) and the heavenly hierarchy; he then consecrates the zaothra water, the myazda or oblation, and the baresma or bundle of sacred twigs. He and his assistant now prepare the haoma (the soma of the Hindus), or juice of a sacred plant, the drinking of which formed part of the religious rite. At the ninth chapter of the book, the rhythmical chanting of the praises of Haoma is begun. This deified being, a personification of the consecrated drink, is supposed to have appeared before the prophet himself, and to have described to him the blessings which the haoma bestows upon its pious worshiper. The lines are metrical, as in fact they commonly are in the older parts of the Avesta, and the rhythm somewhat recalls the Kalevala verse of Longfellow's 'Hiawatha.' A specimen is here presented in translation:--
At the time of morning-worship
Haoma came to Zoroaster,
Who was serving at the Fire
And the holy Psalms intoning.
"What man art thou (asked the Prophet),
Who of all the world material
Art the fairest I have e'er seen