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Notes on Avestic Asha "Truth'
Helmut Humbach
As is well-known, numerous phrases found in the Avesta have parallels in the Rgveda, both the Iranian and the Indian branch of the Aryan languages and literatures having inherited them from the Proto-Aryan period. Thus OAv. Y33, 5 erezūš pavo corresponds with RVI, 41, 5 ṛjūnā pathā 'straight path', and YAv. Y10, 4 zam perevẞim corresponds with RV1, 67, 5 kṣām prthivim 'broad or spacious earth'.
A few of these phrases, Gavic as well as Yound Avestic, show the term aša-/rta - 'truth' as one of their two members:
Y 31, 22 ašem hapti = RV5, 68, 4 ṛtam sapantā 'observe / hold truth'; Y 49, 9 aša.yuxta-(stem yuxti-) = RV10, 61, 10 ṛtayukti - 'yoking together with truth'.
Y 10, 4 așahe xã = RV2, 28, 5 Khām ṛtasya 'source of truth';
Yt 10, 86 ašahe....pantam-RV5, 45, 8 ṛtasya patha 'path of truth'.
In the unspoken view of most scholars of Indo-Iranian, such correspondences justify the assumption that the meaning of Av. așa-exactly agrees with that of Ved. rta-, both of them continuing the meaning of their joint Proto-Aryan predecessor without any change. Yet this view seems to me too superficial, at least as far as the Avesta is concerned. The phrases just quoted are nothing but a sort of petrefacts from which only limited information can be drawn regarding the meaning of așa- in the entirety of its Avestic occurrences. As a matter of fact, there can be no doubt that the position of așa- in its semantic field and environment has undergone some notable changes in the Gāvās of Zarathushtra, and some more in the Younger Avesta.
