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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MUYA (The Multimedia Yasna)

Teaser

Summary

The Multimedia Yasna (MUYA) examines the performance and written transmission of the core ritual of the Zoroastrian tradition, the Yasna, whose oldest parts date from the second millennium BCE. Composed in an ancient Iranian language, Avestan, the texts were transmitted orally and not written down until the sixth century C.E. The oral tradition continues to be central to the religion and the daily Yasna ceremony, the most important of all the rituals, is recited from memory by Zoroastrian priests. The interpretation of the Yasna has long been hampered by out-dated editions and translations of the text and until now there has been no documentation and study of the performance of the full ritual. The project MUYA examines both the oral and written traditions. It films a performance of the Yasna ritual and creates a critical edition of the recitation text examining the Yasna both as a performance and as a text attested in manuscripts. The two approaches are integrated to answer questions about the meaning and function of the Yasna in a historical perspective.

Combining models and methodologies from digital humanities, philology and linguistics, the project produces a subtitled, interactive film of the Yasna ritual, an online platform of transcribed manuscripts and editorial tools together with print editions, translations and commentaries of the Avestan Yasna. Information which was formerly restricted to students of Iranian philology and practising Zoroastrians will now become accessible to a world-wide audience through digital humanities.

The project, based at SOAS, University of London and funded by the European Research Council, runs from October 2016 to September 2021. It is headed by Professor Almut Hintze and includes an international team of researchers in the UK, Germany, India and Iran.

Work performed

1. Film. In November 2017, the MUYA team made two films of the Yasna ritual. The ritual was performed by two Zoroastrian ritual experts from Mumbai, Ervad Asphandiarji Dadachanji and Ervad Adil Bhesania, for MUYA at the Dadar Athornan Institute in Mumbai and was filmed by MUYA\'s film team, Chouette films. The ritual was filmed in two-dimensional format with two cameras and in Virtual Reality using a spherical camera. By the end of March 2019 (i.e. the period covered by this report), MUYA\'s film-team have edited the two-dimensional film and provided it with fixed time codes. The film has a running time of almost 5 hours and a digital volume of 27GB. The film is now ready to be segmented and annotated by the SOAS team using the software ELAN.
2. Editorial tools. The adaptation of the Online Transcription Editor (OTE) to transcribe liturgical manuscripts of the Aveesta has been completed and is now being used by the MUYA team to transcribe manuscripts.
3. Print publication. The print publications will be published by the publisher Brill. Supported by MUYA team member Dr Martin Sievers (Trier), MUYA\'s SOAS team is going to produce camera-ready copies using the software LaTeX, which is the software used by Brill. The tools in LaTeX have been developed, including macros and a Zotero database Team members are working on their commentaries of difficult words.

Final results

1. Film. The full-length two-dimensional film now exists in fully edited form and with fixed time codes. It lasts almost 5 hours and has a volume of 27GB. Using ELAN, the MUYA team is now segmenting the film into clauses and words and each segment will be translated and commented on. This will create the database which will then be used to supply the multimedia platform and create the subtitles for the publication of the video. We expect that the sub-titled video will be ready by October 2021. It is planned to publish the video as a static stand-along output in order to ensure that it can be used and watched for many years to come.
2. The Yasna ritual in Virtual Reality (VR). The film of the Yasna ritual in Virtual Reality is an additional output produced by MUYA. The film was made in November 2017 and it has a length of just under three hours. The difference in length in comparison to the two-dimensional film is due to the fact that the priests recited faster when performing the ritual for the VR film. We expect that MUYA\'s film team will have completed the editorial work on the VR film by summer 2020 at the latest. The VR film can be watched by using special VR glasses. It provides an experience of the ritual by full immersion into the world of the ritual. The VR film provides a wealth of data not previously available and will be useful for both scholars, the general public and the Zoroastrian community.
3. MUYA\'s film team is also planning to produce a documentary on Zoroastrianism in National Geographic style for greater outreach and impact, using footage produced during their stay in Mumbai in November 2017.
4. Electronic editorial tools. By the end of the project in October 2021, MUYA expects to have developed and used a suite of electronic editorial tools suitable for the edition of Avestan texts. The Online Transcription Editor (OTE) is already in good working order and we are currently working on the Collation tools. Using the transcriptions in XML produced with the Transcription Editor, we are now examining and comparing manuscript readings in different manuscripts using the tools developed by MUYA\'s project partner Dr Catherine Smith (Birmingham). By the end of the MUYA project, we expect to have the Collation tools in good working order. From autumn 2019 MUYA is going to start working on further evaluating manuscript readings by means of the Coherence Based Geneaological Method (CBGM) in collaboration with MUYA project partner Dr Klaus Wachtel (Muenster).
5. Print editions. In collaboration with MUYA partner Martin Sievers (Trier), the SOAS team is producing print editions of parts of the Avestan Yasna using the software LaTeX. The outputs will be camera-ready to be published by Brill. The LaTeX macros and bibliographical database have been developed and SOAS MUYA team members are working on their individual editions, which are expected to be completed by the end of the MUYA project in October 2021.