Maharashtra HSC Avesta-Pahlavi (MSBSHSE) common mistakes
Maharashtra HSC Avesta-Pahlavi (MSBSHSE) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Transliterating Avestan words by sound alone, writing e.g. 'zaraθuštra' as 'zarathushtra' and merging the distinct letters θ, ð, and t, or writing š for the Avestan s/c pair, in answers and translations.
Candidates learn the Avestan alphabet visually but rely on Latin habit for production; the Avestan script has separate letters for dental and interdental fricatives and for the sibilants, and examiners expect the standard transliteration scheme used in the prescribed textbook.
What to do instead
Keep a one-page transliteration chart (a ā, i ī, u ū, e ē, o ō, k x g γ, c j, t θ d ð, p f b β, s š z ž, h, ŋ, n m, y v r l) and transliterate ten lines of Yasna 27 or the Ahuna Vairya from the printed Avestan every day for two weeks, checking each symbol against the chart rather than against pronunciation.
Confusing the Pahlavi letters that share shapes and misreading words such as those using y, d, and g, or failing to resolve the common Aramaeogram (huzvarishn) readings, so a Pahlavi passage is translated word by word as if it were phonetic.
Pahlavi's small alphabet of about fourteen distinct letter shapes forces many polyphonic values, and the heterographic (huzvarishn) system means some written words must be read as their Iranian equivalents; candidates who have only seen transcription do not recognise this.
What to do instead
Build a personal list of the most frequent huzvarishn (e.g. those for 'and', 'that', 'king', 'say', 'do') with their Iranian readings, and practise reading short Pahlavi passages in transcription first, then in the original script, marking every heterogram before translating.
Treating the Gathas as ordinary narrative and paraphrasing them loosely, instead of identifying the Gathic dialect forms (e.g. distinctive genitive and instrumental endings, Gathic verb endings) and giving a close rendering that respects the metre and the disputed vocabulary.
The Gathas are linguistically archaic and contain hapax forms; candidates memorise published translations and then cannot justify a rendering when a verse is set for comment, losing marks on grammar-based explanation.
What to do instead
For each of the prescribed Gathic stanzas, prepare a word-by-word grammatical analysis (case, number, tense, stem) and note at least one alternative scholarly rendering with the reason for preferring one; practise the Ahunavaiti metre by scanning the verse aloud.
Answering questions on the Yasna as if it were a single prayer, instead of describing its structure (the 72 chapters, the place of the Gathas within it, the Gahambars and the Yasna of the seven chapters) and the role of the zaotar and the ritual sequence.
Textbook summaries compress the liturgy into a definition; candidates learn the label 'chief liturgy' without the internal order, so they cannot answer sequencing or identification questions.
What to do instead
Draw a numbered map of the 72 Yasna chapters from memory, marking the Gatha groups (27-34, 43-51, 53), the Staota Yesnya, and where the Haoma and water ritual actions fall; then explain the map aloud in five minutes without notes.
Mixing up the Avestan and Pahlavi stages of the tradition when dating or attributing a text, e.g. calling the Denkard an Avestan text, or attributing the Bundahishn to the Avestan period, or describing the Vendidad as originally written in Pahlavi.
Later Pahlavi books preserve and comment on Avestan material, so content overlaps; candidates remember content and forget the language and date of the surviving witness.
What to do instead
Keep a three-column table (text, surviving language, approximate date and genre) covering the main works: Gathas, Yasna, Vendidad, Visperad, Khordeh Avesta, Bundahishn, Denkard, Menog-i Khrad, Ardā Wirāz Nāmag, and fill it from the prescribed sources, not from memory.
Describing Zoroastrian dualism as two coequal eternal powers, or reducing the religion to a simple good-versus-evil story, when explaining Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu, the Amesha Spentas and the ethical triad.
Popular summaries and online material use loose formulations; the Gathic and later Pahlavi accounts differ in emphasis, and candidates blend them without noticing.
What to do instead
Write two short accounts, one based only on Gathic vocabulary (e.g. the two primordial spirits of Yasna 30) and one based on Pahlavi cosmogony (Ohrmazd and Ahriman, the limited time of the struggle), and state explicitly where the sources differ and why the later account is not identical with the Gathic one.
Confusing ritual terms and their functions, e.g. using dakhma, atashkadeh, agiary, and fire temple interchangeably, or muddling the barashnom, the sedreh-pushi, and the navjote, or misdescribing the role of the mobed and the dastur.
Several terms come from different languages (Avestan, Pahlavi, Persian, Gujarati) and different periods; candidates learn them as a vocabulary list without the ritual context.
What to do instead
Make a ritual glossary with four columns (term, language of origin, what it denotes, when or by whom it is used) and rehearse it by explaining one full lifecycle ritual and one purification ritual in sequence, using only the glossary terms correctly.
Giving a vague migration narrative for the Parsi community, without the key dates, places, and documents (the move from Khorasan and Hormuz to Sanjan, the Sanjan legend and the Qissa-i Sanjan, the dates around the 8th to 10th centuries, later internal divisions such as the Kadmi and Shehenshahi calendars and the Rivayat correspondence).
The community history is taught through stories; candidates remember the story but not the chronology, and confuse the calendar dispute with the migration itself.
What to do instead
Build a timeline from roughly the 7th century to the 19th century with entries for the migration, the Sanjan settlement, the Rivayats, the Kadmi-Shehenshahi split, and the Parsi Panchayat, and attach one primary or traditional source to each entry.
Translating Pahlavi passages literally without recognising the idiom of the commentary genre, so that phrases introducing an explanation (e.g. formulas meaning 'it is said' or 'that is,') are rendered as content, and the distinction between quoted Avestan and the Pahlavi gloss is lost.
Zand texts interleave Avestan quotation with Pahlavi explanation; candidates translate the whole passage as one voice and therefore misrepresent the argument.
What to do instead
When preparing a Zand passage, mark up the text first: underline Avestan quotations, bracket Pahlavi glosses, and circle discourse markers; then translate only after the markup, and add one sentence stating what the gloss is doing (defining, expanding, or allegorising).
Answering comprehension questions in general prose without quoting or citing the Avestan or Pahlavi form asked about, so that marks for language evidence are lost even when the general sense is right.
Candidates prepare content knowledge and treat language questions as content questions; the paper rewards pointing to the actual form, its grammar, and its meaning.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed answer pattern for language items: cite the form, parse it (root or stem, case or tense, number, person), give the contextual meaning, then add the comment asked for; practise this on ten past-style items until the pattern is automatic.