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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsA ninth-century fragment from Dunhuang, China, preserves part of the Zoroastrian prayer Ashem vohu. It is an important early witness to Zoroastrian literature, but it is not a complete scripture or a copy of the entire Avesta. The distinction matters: the prayer is Avestan, while the surviving fragment is written in Sogdian script.
What was found in China?
The object is a paper manuscript fragment held by the British Library as Or.8212/84. The International Dunhuang Programme describes it as a rare example of Zoroastrian literature in Sogdian. Its opening lines preserve part of the Ashem vohu, a Zoroastrian prayer.
Smarthistory characterizes the Dunhuang item as the oldest extant Zoroastrian manuscript, while the International Dunhuang Programme identifies it as a rare Sogdian example. The “oldest” description needs qualification: this is a fragmentary witness to a prayer, not the oldest complete Avesta or the oldest surviving manuscript written in Avestan script.
Why are the language and script different?
Avestan is the language of the prayer; Sogdian script is the writing system used to record it in this manuscript. The British Library record also describes the first two lines as part of the prayer in a fossilized Old Iranian language, which it says predates standard Sogdian and standard Avestan. It suggests that this linguistic material might date back to Achaemenian times. That possibility concerns the language’s ancestry, not the date of the surviving paper fragment.
In other words, the text’s linguistic history and the physical manuscript’s history are separate questions. A prayer can be much older than the surviving copy that preserves it.
How old is the fragment, and when was it found?
The International Dunhuang Programme and Smarthistory date the surviving fragment to the ninth century. Smarthistory says it predates surviving Avestan manuscripts by about 300 years; that is a qualified comparison of surviving witnesses, not an exact date for the composition of the prayer.
Aurel Stein is reported to have discovered the fragment at the Mogao caves in 1907. That modern discovery date should not be confused with the manuscript’s estimated ninth-century date. Dunhuang was an important site on the Eastern Silk Roads. Cave 17, often called the Library Cave, held manuscripts and other materials associated with several religious traditions, including Zoroastrianism. This single fragment, however, does not establish the size of a Zoroastrian community at Dunhuang.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does it mean the oldest Zoroastrian scriptures came from China?
It means that a notable early surviving Zoroastrian manuscript witness was found in China. More precisely, the fragment preserves part of an Avestan prayer in a Sogdian-script context and is dated to the ninth century. It does not show that Zoroastrianism began in China, that the prayer was composed there, or that a complete Avesta was discovered there.
The claim is therefore about where this surviving fragment was found and what kind of evidence it preserves. It is not a claim that the whole Zoroastrian scripture collection was found in Dunhuang.
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