Farvardigan

The tradition & historical record

Frawardigan is a ten-day period at the end of the Zoroastrian religious year during which the souls of the dead are commemorated. The name frawardigan is a Zoroastrian Middle Persian (𐭯𐭫𐭥𐭫𐭲𐭩𐭪𐭭) allusion to the fravashis, which—among other aspects (including the souls of the living and the not-yet born)—also include the souls of the dead. The practice is however much older than this name, and it is already attested in the Avesta, specifically Yasht 13.49, where it is called Hamaspathmaidyem in Avestan, of uncertain meaning. In modern times the festival is also called mukhtad or panji, and in English "all souls" festival. Like all other Zoroastrian festivals, Frawardigan was originally a one-day festival, in this case observed on the last day of the religious year. That day, the last day of the religious year, is now known as Pateti, from patet, "confession", a day of self-reflection prior to the celebration of Zoroastrian New Year's Day. As is also the case for other Zoroastrian festivals, the calendar reforms initiated during the 3rd or 4th century resulted in the one-day observance being extended to a five-day observance, in this case during the last five days of the twelfth month.

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Frawardigan”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.

Farvardigan is zoroastrian calendar period, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ¹

The source record links this tradition to 3 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ¹