SUMMARY

The Avestan socio-spatial ordering system comprised of four levels is discussed as a socio-ritual ordering system in this paper. It is proposed that its correspondence to the time ordering system, the watches of the day, in the Young Avestan texts is not according to the order of watches of day but is based on some ritual realities from this period. Furthermore, it is shown that the there is no evidence for a shift in the sequence of the watches of the day as it has been proposed so far. The evidence only suggests a change in the watch of the Yasna celebration from Ušahina watch to the Hāuuani watch.

Social space is one of the significant categories of space in different cultures. In Zoroastrian, Young Avestan texts, it is mostly represented as a hierarchical structure comprising four levels nmāna-, vīs-, zaṇtu- and daŋ́hu-. In this paper, the structure of Young Avestan social space as a socio-ritual ordering system is discussed and it is proposed that its correspondence to a time ordering system in the Young Avestan texts is based on some ritual realities from this period.

The Young Avestan Religious Leadership Structure

The Avestan socio-spatial ordering system comprised of four levels is attested in Old Avestan texts: The four levels are designated either as nmāna-, vīs-, šōiϑra- and dax́iiu- or as xvaētu-, vərəzə̄na-, airiiamna- and dax́iiu-. From Old Avestan records, it arises, firstly, that Old Avestan society already had a socio-spatial ordering structure which was made up of four levels.

The Young Avestan socio-spatial structure appears to have acquired political connotations, with a representative for each social unit: nmānō.pati-, vīspati-, zaṇtupati- and daŋ́hupati-. Parallel to this, a hierarchy of (prototypical) religious leaders with five levels is testified in Young Avestan including nmāniia-, vīsiia-, zaṇtuma-, dāx́iiuma- and zaraϑuštrō.təma-. In the opening sections of the Yasna and in the Gāhs, this hierarchy of the prototypical religious authorities is set in correspondence to a time ordering system. The time ordering system which is used in these equivalents is one that divides the day into five watches (see table 1). In the following, the list of the equivalents of the (prototypical) religious authorities of the socio-spatial units on the one hand and the watches of the day on the other hand will be called the matrix of the watches-ratus.