On Editing the Avesta Almut Hintze “… nor should any text be sacred, unless it has irst been perfectly emended.” Bartolomeo Perazzini 1775, p. 56 To the present day Avestan Studies largely rely on two monumental works, both published more than a hundred years ago: Karl Friedrich Geldner’s edi- tion of the Avesta of 1889–1896 and Christian Bartholomae’s Altiranisches Wörterbuch of 1904. Attempts have been made to replace the latter, but so far none has come to fruition. Thus, for instance, Bernfried Schlerath’s Avestan dictionary project came to a standstill, although two volumes of Vorarbeiten, listing secondary literature and textual parallels, were published (Schlerath 1968). In addition, a related enterprise, Sonja Gippert-Fritz’s transliteration both of Geldner’s Avesta and of Avestan texts not included in his edition, has been electronically available since 1996 on the website of Jost Gippert’s TITUS project at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Moreover, within this project, Michiel de Vaan and others have supplemented the text of the Yasna with variant readings of manuscripts some of which Geldner did not use, most notably the Iranian Pahlavi Yasna Mf 4. The website thus not only provides the romanised text but also a database of variant readings which may serve as a tool for investigating “the consistency of readings and the interdependency of manuscript classes”.1 1. Westergaard and Geldner’s Avesta editions Editiors of the Avesta usually start from Geldner’s work, supplemented by Gippert’s electronic version.2 The authority which Geldner’s edition later ac- quired, however, greatly exceeded his own estimation of its scope. For in spite 1 Gippert 2002, pp. 177–180. On the texts omitted in Geldner’s edition, cf. also Schmitt 1993, VIII f. 2 Some editors, including myself, indicate Geldner’s editorial decisions by including a bold G alongside the manuscript readings in the textcritical apparatus. Such practice is intended as a mere convenience for the reader and does not of course mean to imply that Geldner is treated as a manuscript. Not infrequently, however, the form edited by Geldner is the product of conjecture on his (or Westergaard’ s) part. Hintze_Salamanca_On editing the Avesta.indd 419 14.09.2012 11:31:05