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
Invading the Sacred Courtright's sexual interpretation of Gaṇeśa." According to Das, criticism of "Freudian psychoanalysis as a surrogate religion" are as old as psycho-analusis itself, and the criticism of "Invading the Sacred" is therefor not surprising. In critique of the book, Das notes a "failure to distinguish properly between academia and public life outside this." Das further notes that Das also notes a lack of academic qualifications, and a lack of scholarly rigor, by the authors of "Invading the Sacred". He raises concerns with the author's inability to use primary materials: Das further notes that "[n]ot only sound analysis of primary sources, but