Avesta of particular manuscripts. A pre-Sasanian history of the Avesta, if it had one, is in the realm of legend and myth. The oldest surviving versions of these tales are found in the ninth to 11th century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (i.e. in the so-called "Pahlavi books"). The legends run as follows: The twenty-one "nask"s ("books") of the Avesta were created by Ahura Mazda and brought by Zoroaster to his patron Vishtaspa ("Denkard" 4A, 3A). Supposedly, Vishtaspa ("Dk" 3A) or another Kayanian, Daray ("Dk" 4B), then had two copies made, one of which was stored in the treasury, and the other
Phenomenology of religion the authentic sources: writings and images by the believers themselves. This procedure compelled him to reduce the field of his research - he had to profoundly master all relating languages and writings in order to be able to understand his sources in a way as they would have wanted to be understood themselves. Consequently, he reduced his field of research to the phenomena in religions living around the origin of Christianity: during the millennia before and the centuries after Christ, in Iran (Avesta), Babylonia and Assyria, Israel, Egypt, Greece and Rome. The required knowledge of speeches, also, is one of