Avesta people. The term "Avesta" is from the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition in which the word appears as Zoroastrian Middle Persian "abestāg", Book Pahlavi "ʾp(y)stʾkʼ". In that context, "abestāg" texts are portrayed as received knowledge, and are distinguished from the exegetical commentaries (the "zand") thereof. The literal meaning of the word "abestāg" is uncertain; it is generally acknowledged to be a learned borrowing from Avestan, but none of the suggested etymologies have been universally accepted. The widely repeated derivation from *"upa-stavaka" is from Christian Bartholomae ("Altiranisches Wörterbuch", 1904), who interpreted "abestāg" as a contraction of a hypothetical reconstructed Old Iranian
Is Theosophy a Religion? Is Theosophy a Religion? "Is Theosophy a Religion?" is an editorial published in November 1888 in the theosophical magazine "Lucifer"; it was compiled by Helena Blavatsky. It was included in the 10th volume of the author's "Collected Writings." According to Arnold Kalnitsky, in the article it is about the problems of religion from the Theosophical point of view. Kalnitsky wrote in his thesis that by studying this Blavatsky's work, we can find out the relation of the Theosophists to religion. It begins with the statement (the author has reproduced it repeatedly elsewhere) that there is "a general sense of confusion"