Piotr
> The Avesta was probably written down in the 5th c. BC, under the
Sassanid dynasty. Zarathustra lived ca. 630-550, so the oral
composition of the Avesta can be dated at the first half of the 6th
c.
BC.
>
> The oldest (and linguistically most archaic) hymns of the Rigveda
are dated at ca 1200 BC, give or take a century or two (based on
educated guessing rather than any real evidence). The remaining
Samhitas were added one by one over the centuries, and the collection
achieved its present form about the 3rd c. BC. To answer Dr.
Kalyanaraman's question, the OLDEST Vedic is older than Avestan, but
parts of the Vedic matter must have been composed contemporarily with
the Avesta, and the latest compositions of the Vedic period (the
Aranyakas, the Sutras) are even younger.
You are right with the dates for Zarathushtra, as much as one can be,
but wrong with the Dynasty. The Sassanids were a Middle Persian
dynasty, deriving their name from Sassan, "lord" of Fars under the
Parthian Arsacids. The first Saasnid Shahanshah (King of Kings) was
Ardashir who reigned from 220's to 240 CE, about 700 years after
Zarathushtra.
Piotr, I think you were meaning the Archaemids, who ruled Persia from
Cyrus (Kurush) II (559-530 BCE) until the death of Darius III
Codomannus (336-330 BCE) at the time their empire was incorporated
into that of Alexander. The Achaemenids take their name from
Achaemenes (Greek for the Iranian Hakhamamish) the tribal ancestor of
the people of Persis. They can be traced in the movement down from
Armenia at the time of Sargon of Assyria, moving down the backbone of
the Zagros mountains, under pressure from the more warlike Scythians
from the north.
Zarathushtra lives slightly before Cyrus. Although later tradition
asserted his homeland was Azerbaijan, the geographic horizon of the
Avesta is limited to the Airyana Vaejah - the later province of
Hariava under the Achaemenids. It seems that the confederacy built
up
by his protector, King Vishtaspa extended into Khurasan, and a
medieval tradition has Zarathushtra, born in Rayy, and fleeing east
in
his hegira to find a place free from pursecution. There is also a
tradition that he died in Bactria.
Zarathushtra in the Gathas, the oldest core of the Zoroastrain
corpus,
wrote in a language even more conservative than Avestan. This Gatha
dialect was probably the idiom of the Herat area, and appeared to be
more poetic and "lofty" than the Avestan idiom used elsewhere by
Magian priests parying to Mithra or the other divinities of the
Iranian pantheon (similar in the way in which King James English
appears more religious to many Christians than does the contemporary
idiom). Thus Gathic and Avestan, as two separate dialects, spoken in
Eastern and Western Iran respectively.
Of the two dialects, Gathic was closest to Sanscrit, both
geographically and linguisticly.
Regards
John