Avesta Avesta The Avesta is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the otherwise unrecorded Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the liturgical group is the "Yasna", which takes its name from the Yasna ceremony, Zoroastrianism's primary act of worship, and at which the "Yasna" text is recited. The most important portion of the "Yasna" texts are the five Gathas, consisting of seventeen hymns attributed to Zoroaster himself. These hymns, together with five other short Old Avestan texts that are also part of
Sociology of Religion (book) Sociology of Religion (book) Sociology of Religion is a 1920 book by Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist. The original edition was in German. Max Weber studied the effects of religious action and inaction. He views religion by simply categorized different religions in order to fully understand religion's subjective meaning to the individual ("Verstehen"). By viewing religion strictly in the scientific sense, Weber was striving for objectivity, attempting to ignore value judgments, and to understand religion as those human responses that give meaning to the inescapable problems of existence, such as birth, death, illness, aging, injustice, tragedy, and suffering.