The zīndag ruwān ceremony in historical perspective

Abstract

Abstract The Pahlavi syntagm zīndag ruwān (NP zende/zinde ravān), literally “living soul / soul of the living”, designates a Zoroastrian funerary ceremony to be performed by priests on behalf of a person in his/her lifetime for the benefit of his/her own soul. It is particularly ordered by that person as a pre-emptive means to ensure that the funerary prayers will be recited, even if relatives are unable to do so, and to guarantee the protection of the god Sraoša in the passing away to the afterlife. In this contribution, I discuss the most relevant aspects of this Zoroastrian ceremony that can be extracted from the Pahlavi literature, and consider that its changes from older periods until modern times are due to diachronic, diatopic and socio-economic variables.