Editing Avesta (section)

===Early Western scholarship===
Texts of the Avesta became available to European scholarship comparatively late, thus the study of [[Zoroastrianism]] in Western countries dates back to only the 18th century.{{sfn|Boyce|1984|p=x}} [[Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron]] travelled to [[India]] in 1755, and discovered the texts among Indian Zoroastrian ([[Parsi]]) communities. He published a set of French translations in 1771, based on translations provided by a Parsi priest. Anquetil-Duperron's translations were at first dismissed as a forgery in poor [[Sanskrit]], but he was vindicated in the 1820s following [[Rasmus Rask]]'s examination of the Avestan language (''A Dissertation on the Authenticity of the [[Zend#misnomer|Zend]] Language'', Bombay, 1821). Rask also established that Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts were a fragment of a much larger literature of sacred texts. Anquetil-Duperron's manuscripts are at the {{Lang|fr|[[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]|italic=no}} ('P'-series manuscripts), while Rask's collection now lies in the [[Royal Library, Denmark]] ('K'-series). Other large Avestan language manuscript collections are those of the [[British Museum]] ('L'-series)<!-- the [[East India House]] collection is now also there-->, the K. R. Cama Oriental Library in [[Mumbai]], the Meherji Rana library in [[Navsari]], and at various university and national libraries in Europe.

In the early 20th century, the legend of the [[Parthian empire|Parthian-era]] collation engendered a search for a 'Parthian archetype' of the Avesta. According to the theory of [[Friedrich Carl Andreas]] (1902), the archaic nature of the Avestan texts was assumed to be due to preservation via written transmission, and unusual or unexpected spellings in the surviving texts were assumed to be reflections of errors introduced by Sasanian-era transcription from the [[Aramaic alphabet]]-derived [[Pahlavi scripts]].{{refn|For a summary of Andreas' theory, see {{harvp|Schlerath|1987|pp=29–30}}.|group="n"}} The search for the 'Arsacid archetype' was increasingly criticized in the 1940s and was eventually abandoned in the 1950s after [[Karl Hoffmann (linguist)|Karl Hoffmann]] demonstrated that the inconsistencies noted by Andreas were actually due to unconscious alterations introduced by oral transmission.{{sfn|Humbach|1991|p=57}} Hoffmann identifies{{sfn|Hoffmann|1958|pp=7ff}} these changes to be due,{{sfn|Humbach|1991|pp=56–63}} in part, to modifications introduced through recitation;{{refn|For example, prefix repetition as in e.g. ''paitī ... paitiientī'' vs. ''paiti ... aiienī'' (''[[Yasna|Y.]]'' 49.11 vs. 50.9), or [[sandhi]] processes on word and syllable boundaries, e.g. ''adāiš'' for ''*at̰.āiš'' (48.1), ''ahiiāsā'' for ''ahiiā yāsā'', ''gat̰.tōi'' for ''*gatōi'' (43.1), ''ratūš š́iiaoθanā'' for ''*ratū š́iiaoθanā'' (33.1).{{sfn|Humbach|1991|pp=59–61}}|group="n"}} in part to influences from other Iranian languages picked up on the route of transmission from somewhere in eastern Iran (i.e. Central Asia) via Arachosia and Sistan through to Persia;{{refn|e.g. irregular internal ''hw'' > ''x<sup>v</sup>'' as found in e.g. ''harax<sup>v</sup>ati''- 'Arachosia' and ''sāx<sup>v</sup>an-'' 'instruction', rather than regular internal ''hw'' > ''ŋ<sup>v</sup>h'' as found in e.g. ''aojōŋ<sup>v</sup>hant''- 'strong'.{{sfn|Humbach|1991|p=58}}|group="n"}} and in part due to the influence of phonetic developments in the Avestan language itself.{{refn|e.g. YAv. ''-ō'' instead of expected OAv. ''-ə̄'' for Ir. ''-ah'' in almost all polysyllables.{{sfn|Humbach|1991|p=61}}|group="n"}}