The Sacred Books of the East: Pahlavi texts (pt.1), translated by E.W. West

Commissioned by the University of Oxford under the editorship of Max Müller, The Sacred Books of the East series was an ambitious Victorian-era undertaking intended to translate the foundational religious texts of non-Christian traditions into English. Published in the late 19th century, this specific volume contains E.W. West’s translations of Pahlavi texts, which are critical linguistic and religious documents from the Sasanian period of Zoroastrianism. The project aimed to promote comparative religion as a scholarly field, providing Western academics with accessible, standardized versions of texts that were previously difficult to study.

Edward William West, a dedicated scholar of Pahlavi, was chosen for this task due to his specialized ability to interpret the complex and often ambiguous Zoroastrian scripts. The design and presentation of the volume reflect the rigid, academic aesthetic of the Clarendon Press at the time, prioritizing durability and legibility for library and research use. While the series was met with significant praise from the contemporary academic community for its rigorous methodology, some later scholars have noted the limitations of these early translations as linguistic understanding of the Pahlavi language matured in the 20th century.