JamaspAsa manuscript J104

This record is a digital method proof-of-concept, presenting initial research using this manuscript and evaluating new repository functionality providing native International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) and Web Annotation Data Model (WADM) services. The present record presents an annotated subset of page imagery: a complete digital version of ms.J104 is available in an AIIT InvenioRDM repository which is compatible with Zenodo (please contact info@indiran.org for access). WADM annotations originated using Data Futures Annostor are currently identified using Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) fragments, which are referenced in the following report. These GUID annotation IDs will be replaced with PIDs as this research is extended to make the annotations citable.

Manuscript J104 is an Indian manuscript from the Jamaspji JamaspAsa collection held at the Ancient India and Iran Trust (AIIT) in Cambridge. The manuscript contains the Zoroastrian treatises Hērbedestān (H) and Nērangestān (N), using the Avestan and Pahlavi languages, which address religious instructions and ritual matters. It consists of 162 folios, marked with Persian numbers. The first 40 folios are not in good physical condition, with worm and/or insect damage and bleed-through suggesting storage in high humidity or water damage. 

The creation date of ms.J104 is yet to be determined, but comparison with other manuscripts containing the same  Hērbedestān and Nērangestān texts is instructive. There are two major recensions of H and N, i.e., Iranian ms.TD belonging to Ērbad Tahmurasp Dinshahji Anklesaria (fascimile edition available in Kotwal & Boyd 1980) and Indian ms.HJ belonging to Dastur Hoshangji Jamaspji (fascimile edition in Sanjana 1894). The original ms.HJ is dated to A.Y.1097 (1727 C.E.) according to its Pahlavi colophon on fol.195, shortly after it was brought from Iran to India by Dastur Jāmāsp Vilāyati (cf. Sanjana 1894:6). Several copies of ms.HJ, made in the 19th century, are known and Ms.J104 is likely to be one of these. Another ms. which is important in this respect is ms.HJ which includes ms.Cod.Zend.53 (Haug 8) preserved at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (cf. Bartholomae 1915:100–103), written in A.Y.1177 (1808 C.E.) or A.Y.1167; this manuscript was further copied by E.W.West in 1893 in his Notebook 9 at the Royal Asiatic Society. 

Ms.J104 shares the same structure with ms.HJ and its other copies. It contains a nērang wars poxtan (‘nērang on the cooking of haōma-filter’) text on fol.1v–2r, l.4 (see annotation ID BA50A29A in this record), a Persian and Pahlavi colophon on fol.2r, l.4–8, which refers to A.Y.840 (1470 C.E.) as the date when the prototype of ms.HJ was copied by Šāpur Jāmāsp Šahryār (annotation ID 297D57BE, EAD86A18, BCDD3229). These precede the Pahlavi benedictory preface common to ms.HJ and ms.TD (annotation ID 0F40B90B). Like all manuscripts derived from ms.HJ, the text of Hērbedestān is incomplete in ms.J104, breaking off at the word MNDʿM (tis) of the Pahlavi commentary of H 3.5 in fol.5r, l.13, and resuming from ʾMT (ka) in the Pahlavi commentary of H 6.5 (annotation ID DB7C0457, 72AE443D). 

This manuscript J104 is valuable as it is not merely a copy of ms.HJ but also deviates from it in certain readings. These deviations are often intentional corrections rather than scribal errors. For instance, on fol. 4r, l. 11, the copier does not follow the reading of ms.HJ (fol. 4v, l. 12) YḤWWN-yt' (bawēd), but deletes it by overdots and corrects it to YMRWN-yt' (gōwēd), see annotation ID E0EA372A. Additionally, while the date in the first colophon common to ms.HJ and its derivatives is written as 84, it is correctly written as 840 in ms.J104 (annotation ID BCDD3229). Another significant correction involves the benedictory preface common to both ms.HJ and ms.TD, where we find a personal name, presumably the commentator of Hērbedestān and Nērangestān. In ms.HJ, the name is written as ‹pyšsl› or ‹pyšdyl/pyšgyl›, and in ms.TD as ‹pyšksl› or ‹pyškdyl/pyškgyl›. The latest critical edition (Kotwal & Kreyenbroek 1992: 26–27) edits the name as Pēšag-sar. While the precise reading of the first element (pēš or pēšag) is not discussed here, ms.J104 disambiguates the possible readings ‹pyšsl› or ‹pyšdyl/pyšgyl› in ms.HJ by adding diacritic marks, identifying it as ‹py̤šg̈y̤l›, which can be transcribed as Pēš-dil (‘foremost deliberation’).