Kellens 2006: 21, 56, 69, 89.

Kellens 2006: 78.

Bartholomae 1904: 220.

Bartholomae 1904: 224.

Wolff 1910: 8.

Wolff 1910: 12.

Kellens 2006: 21.

Kellens 2006: 39.

Dhabhar 1949: 19. Cf. Mills 1906: 699–700.

Dhabhar 1949: 26.

Renou 1950; 1978: 74. Cf. Bielmeier 1992: 24–26. About r̥tá- (and r̥tú-) in Vedic and in general in the Indo-Iranian and Indo-European framework, see now Massetti (2013–2014) and most recently Jurewicz (2016).

See Kellens 2012: 475, and Kellens, in print.

Bartholomae 1904: 1567.

See Kellens 1996: 76–79; but cf. now Kellens 2012: 475.

Bartholomae 1904: 1566, 1567; cf. Kellens 2012: 475.

See Beekes 2010, II: 1682.

Derksen 2008: 151–152.

Panaino 1990: 77, 139–141.

See also Kellens 2012: 472.

1904: 1567, in note: “eig. Adj. ‘auf das Jahr bezüglich’ ”. It is to be noted that Schindler (1972: 66) excluded the existence of Av. sarəδā-, “gelidus”. On this subject see Bielmeier 1992: 29–30, in particular note 30.

Schmitt 2014: 258.

Cf. Raffaelli 2014. But we must consider that the thirty days were also in direct relation with the ratu-s as aiiara-.

Cf. Bielmeier 1992: 57.

Kellens 2006: 16–17, 34–35.

Benveniste 1935: 79, 98; Frisk 1960: 643; cf. also Schulze 1966: 839.

Cf. also Nussbaum 1986: 48–49, 190.

Beekes 2010, I: 131–132.

Bartholomae 1904: 548–549, n. 1 with reference to V. 4,45 e Yt. 5,15.

See Schulze 1966: 824–825; Mayrhofer 1996 (= EWAII): 447. About rā́trī- cf. now Kulikov 2010.

Humbach 1991, I: 168, 185; II: 177, 220; cf. also West (2013a: 121: “those Oxen of Days”, 151: “the light of the Sun, the potent Ox of Day”), who assumed that it was a “traditional poetic phrase meaning ‘new dawns’ ” (121, n. 7); see also West 2007: 224. Contrariwise, Insler (1975: 264–265) maintains that the two occurrences of asnąm attested in the Gāθās should be attributed to the stem asman-/asan-/ašn- “heaven”. He justifies this solution by asserting that “the difference in treatment between asnąm here and yAv. gen. sg. ašnō also appears in vasnā ‘according to wish’ and OP. vašna, etc.” (1975: 264). Insler thus translates (1975: 81, 101) both passages as “the bulls of the heavens” (Y. 43,3), “the lights of the sun, the bright bull of the heavens” (Y. 50,10), supposing that this expression was a metaphor for Ahura Mazdā and his powers. Insler’s suggestion remains very speculative from a grammatical point of view, and his solution is ad hoc, because the comparison between Old Persian and Avestan is not compelling for this particular case. As already Campanile (1986: 28) rightly observed, Insler’s solution is not convincing, because it contradicts the standard morphological rules of Avestan, where the weak case of asan- “heaven” has only -šn-, never -sn-. On the other hand, the possibility that a deliberate game of words was introduced in the verse-lines or that in the synchronic sensibility the phrase immediately evoked of a similar parallel expression should seriously be taken into consideration. It is also interesting to recall that in Y. 32,10b the vision (with daēvic eyes [ašibiiā]) of the “ox” or the “cow” (gąm) and the “sun” (huuarəcā) is at the centre of a demoniac action. In my opinion, the Avestan reference to the “the bull(s) of the day” cannot be separated from intriguing passages like Y. 32,10,a/b: vaēnaŋhē […] gąm ašibiiā huuarəcā […], or Y. 9,29: […] mā gąm vaēnōit̰ ašibiia “may he not see the cow with [his] malignant eyes”, on which the bibliography is enormous and the interpretation controversial (cf., e.g., Lommel 1962; Gershevitch 1975; Schwartz 2006a; 2006b; Kellens—Pirart 1991 [= TVAIII]: 88–89; and most recently Ahmadi 2015: 348–351). I suspect that the reference to the vision of the ox/cow and the sun (or the “non-vision of them”) could be connected with an early morning ritual, if the “cow” represents the “dawn” announcing the sun. It is important to remind that beside the image of “the bulls of dawn” there is a “female” version expressed by the notion of the “cows” of the sisters Night-and-Dawn, which sometimes are a metaphor for the goddesses themselves (already as Indo-European motif; see Oberlies 2012: 206), and sometimes function as their companions or characteristic attributes (Oberlies 2012: 201, notes that “the secret name of the cows is Dawn”). From the voluminous literature on this subject, cf. Renou 1942: 36–30; 1957 [= EVPIII]: 1–104; 1962 [= EVPX]: 27 (R̥V. 2,34,12); 1966 [= EVPXV]: 70 (R̥V. 10,67,4); Hillebrandt 1899, II: 35–39; 1927, I: 45–49; Bergaigne 1878: 241–250; Oldenberg 1917: 52, 145, 147, 153, 353; Oberlies 2012: 172, 364, n. 52; Pinault 2014; cf. also Nobel 1957 [= Geldner RV, IV]: 130a; 131,a (with reference to 4,52,5).

See also Humbach—Faiss 2010: 133: “the bulls of the days/rosy dawn”; 186.

See Hintze 1995: 81; cf. Piras 1996.

Campanile 1986: 26–27; cf. Piras 2003.

Email of September 9, 2016.

1879: 360–361; Bartholomae 1904: sub xšapan-, “als Zeit von Sonnenuntergang zu Sonnenuntergang ‘Tag und Nacht’, ‘Tag’;” cf. also Devoto 1962 = 2005: 264.

See Darmesteter 1892, II: 282–283, n. 9.

Cf. Kellens 2006: 13–15; Humbach—JamaspAsa 1969: 60–61, in the note to par. 99 of the Vaeθā Nask.

Cf. Kellens 2006: 31–34.

Kellens 2006: 13.

Kellens 2006: 13–14.

Kellens 2006: 14.

Kellens 2006: 14–15.

Kellens 2006: 15–16.

Dhabhar 1949: 6. Cf. Mills 1906: 689.

Dhabhar 1949: 6. Cf. Mills 1906: 691.

Dhabhar 1949: 6–7. Cf. Mills 1906: 691.

Dhabhar 1949: 7. Cf. Mills 1906: 691.

Dhabhar 1949: 7–8. Cf. Mills 1906: 693.

Kellens 2006: 31.

Kellens 2006: 32.

Kellens 2006: 32–33.

Kellens 2006: 33.

Kellens 2006: 33–34.

Dhabhar 1949: 13.

Dhabhar 1949: 14.

Dhabhar 1949: 14–15. The translation seems to be inspired by the Avestan and Pahlavi texts of Y. 1,5.

Dhabhar 1949: 15.

Dhabhar 1949: 16.

Kotwal 1966: 36, 60.

Humbach—JamspAsa 1969: 50.

Reichelt 1900: 212; 1901: 142; Klingenschmitt 1968: 245–246; Bartholomae 1904: 50, 763–764.

See Klingenschmitt 1968: 245–246, with reference to the Bundahišn 25,5 (Pakzad 2005: 285): ⟨mahist⟩ rōz ī hāmīnīg dwāzdah hāsa r ud šab šaš hāsa r. ⟨mahist⟩ šab ī zamestanīg dwāzdah hasa r ud rōz šaš hāsa r. “The ⟨greatest⟩ summer day takes on twelve hours and one night six hours; the ⟨greatest⟩ winter night takes on twelve hours and one day six hours”.

See Bartholomae 1904: 158.

See Bartholomae 1904: 220; asniia, for instance, was considered by Mills (1906: 689) to mean “Holy Times”.

On this subject see Panaino 2017a and 2017b. For similar patterns in Vedic India cf. Deshpande 2016. Cantera (2017: 57–58) suggests that sarəδa- might concern the ritual year in its twelve months, because the year as a unit would not be considered a liturgical time. Although this interpretation is not impossible, I rather think that with the introduction of the millenarian perspective in the Young Avestan liturgy, the years too were given liturgical status, and consequently became worthy of worship lato sensu. It is to be noted that we do not have any text explicitly dedicated to the Avestan ritual for the festival of the end of the year and the beginning of the new one, with the exception of the short liturgy dedicated to the Gāhānbār of Hamaspaθmaēδaiia, which was strictly connected with the Frawardīgān. We can presume that a special solemn ceremony concerned the Nowrūz since earliest times. If we consider that in Young Avesta the time and the millennia received a new relevance, and that the temporal cycles should be protected against the action of the demons trying to delay or block the regular course of time (see Panaino, in print c), it is reasonable to think that the year as a unit deserved ritual support and dedicated worship.