The present volume collects five presentations of the Cours specifically dedicated by Jean Kellens to the subject of Avestan hymnology, with the additional inclusion of three other of his most pertinent articles regarding the Avestan Yašts. As explained in the Avant-Propos (pp. 5–7), these five lectures belong to different periods: the first three were delivered during the years 1997–2000 (De la naissance des montagnes à la fin du temps: le Yašt 19 plus the two entitled Promenade dans les Yašts à la lumière de travaux récents), while the last two were presented in 2008–09 (La notion d’âme préexistante) and 2010–11 (Le panthéon mazdéen). The choice to include the article Caractères différentiels du Mihr Yašt (1978) is fully justified for the objective reason that this contribution, although in part to be revised and updated (as noted by Kellens himself, p. 5) has opened a new debate on this literary genre. The other two articles (La saisons de rivières [2001] and Les Fravaši [1989]) offer a more finely balanced representation of the continuous evolution of Kellens’ approach to Young Avestan studies. I must also remark that Kellens has been and is still a most original scholar, and has contributed in an original and independent way to a deep transformation of ancient Iranian studies, in particular to the field of Old and Young Avestan. Although, as is to be expected, on some occasions we have not shared the same interpretations, his advice and doctrine have represented a point of reference and orientation, so that this new collection of a few of his articles is certainly a welcome gift for any Orientalist.

The temporal hiatus placed between the two periods covered by the articles selected for this volume has seen an enormous transformation in the methodological approach to the critical evaluation of the whole Avestan corpus, the role of the textual intercalations, and in particular the central function of the liturgical dimension. To a certain extent some general problems concerning the definition of the theological dimension in which the category of ancient Zoroastrianism must be placed have been differently framed, so that we must observe that the debate has become more technical and less polemic. I must also observe that the most crucial philological points concerning the editorial difficulties of the Avestan liturgies are less relevant for the practical edition of the Yašts, whose manuscript tradition does not present the same complications emerging in the case of the so-called “longer Liturgies”, such as that of the Wispered and of the Widēwdād, where the structurally different redactions (with and without Pahlavi, Persian or Sanskrit/Gujāratī translations) compel Avestan philologists to command new skills and observe a high number of technical caveats. The Pahlavi or Sanskrit translations of the Yašts, in reality very few and of limited philological relevance, bring to light other problems, which are less significant from the point of view of textual criticism.

The book is well edited and presents a general bibliography of the quoted works in all the articles. We have to thank Dr Céline Redard for her great care in the technical organization of the volume. A brief, but very useful index (pp. 189–92) closes the volume and helps the reader in the identification not only of the pertinent Avestan passages, but also of the most important notions and subjects. In this way the volume will be very useful to scholars interested in comparative religions and the history of Zoroastrianism, and not just to specialists in Avestan philology. The material here selected is very dense and of extreme importance. For this reason the realization of a compact edition of these different Cours and of related articles results in great value. Furthermore, it helps specialists in Iranian studies to reflect on the extraordinary evolution of the field, and on the progressive transformation of the internal debate, which has strongly increased and transformed in the last fifteen years.

Some foundational problems of Avestan (and Mazdean) studies constitute a recurrent subject along the pages of this volume as the x^varənah-, the frauuaṣ̌i-s, the role of the Saošiiaṇt- (as a single or as a group of sacrificers), plus a number of other dramatically debated subjects, such as those concerning the different articulations of Zoroastrian mythology and its Pantheon. The fil rouge of the text strictly concerns the problem of Avestan mythology, a subject that has an absolute importance in the comprehension of the Old Iranian cultural and religious world, and which has not always been considered in its proper significance. In particular, we must observe that among many other scholarly merits, Kellens has fittingly emphasized the antiquity of the Mazdean millenarian cycle, thus confirming the close links between this pattern and certain mythological allusions scattered in the Young Avestan sources, and in particular in the Yašts. In the framework of this reflection, the approach to the definition of the cosmological role of the Frauuaṣ̌i-s, who, as Kellens has shown here (see pp. 91–3, 160), took an essential part in the process of initial motion of the world, i.e. underpinning the phase that later Pahlavi sources will define as the gētīg period of 6,000 years, is very important. This observation shows the tremendous importance of a general reconsideration of the intellectual originality developed by ancient Iranian thought, generally considered less independent in these para-philosophical aspects. Actually, various recent research concurs to demonstrate that the Iranian speculations on “time”, in its different aspects, as limited and/or eternal, have assumed an intellectual insight so deep in earlier historical phases, and in spite of the limited competence of these civilizations for technical astronomy.

In conclusion, the present book offers many interesting subjects for discussion and critical debate, which cannot be analysed here, but that certainly confirm the enormous impact of Kellens’ contribution to Avestan philological and religious studies.