Avesta other general. The following categorization is as described by Jean Kellens (see bibliography, below). The "Yasna" (from "yazišn" "worship, oblations", cognate with Sanskrit "yajña"), is the primary liturgical collection, named after the ceremony at which it is recited. It consists of 72 sections called the "Ha-iti" or "Ha". The 72 threads of lamb's wool in the "Kushti", the sacred thread worn by Zoroastrians, represent these sections. The central portion of the Yasna is the "Gathas", the oldest and most sacred portion of the Avesta, believed to have been composed by Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) himself. The "Gathas" are structurally interrupted by the
The Sacred Band of Stepsons by only one letter from Abaris, a priest from the North said by Herodotus (Book IV) to have visited Greece. In Tempus's Band, heterosexual Stepsons and Sacred Band pairs fight side by side. There is no requirement to be part of a couple to serve among the Stepsons, and single mercenaries initially outnumbered the Sacred Band pairs. The Stepsons are principally a cavalry (hippeis) squadron, not heavy infantry (hoplites) as the Theban Sacred Banders primarily were. While the three-hundred-strong Theban Sacred Band was constituted by Theban law-givers and maintained by the Theban state (according to Plutarch's "Life" of Pelopidas), the