1This handy volume presents the 19^th chapter of the Vidēvdād in a concise form and convenient for self-study or within a course of Avestan. In preparing the book, the author could profit from her unpublished PhD thesis (defended in 2010) on the same text.

2Vidēvdād 19 treats the battle between Zaraθuštra over Aŋhra Maińiiu (roughly: evil spirit) and the victory of the former over the latter, interspersed with an imagined dialogue in which Zaraθuštra interrogates Ahura Mazdā about ritual matters. The parts describing the battle likewise include ritual elements. Like all Avestan texts, Vidēvdād 19 belongs within a ritual context, of which the Introduction (pp. 9-34) outlines the structure, the theological and liturgical framework and the manuscript tradition.

3The main part (pp. 35-88) presents the text of Vidēvdād 19; each section first gives the Avestan text (in transcription) followed by short comments about the text or individual word forms, and the translation. The latter is given again on pp. 129-137 for the convenience of readers who wish to have an easy access to the contents without being bothered by the original text (for a list of previous translations see p. 10).

4As the author states (p. 35), this is not exactly a new edition of Vidēvdād 19, as the text is essentially that of the standard (if outdated) edition by Karl Friedrich Geldner 1886-1896, omitting his apparatus. The text does include a few changes based on the author’s consultation of several manuscripts, and applies the orthography of Avestan manuscripts from Iran (which were largely inaccessible to Geldner), thus e.g. ŋhr instead of ŋr. In fact, the author notes that a new edition “would be very interesting in terms of phonetics and the transmission of the text, but the text itself would not change significantly” (p. 17).

5The Avestan text of each section is divided into units based on the Middle Persian translation that is intercalated in the Avestan text in the manuscripts, so that the lines a, b, etc. in the present edition are not identical to the a, b etc. division in Geldner’s edition (which is partially syntactical, partially attempting to render the assumed metrical pattern).

6The glossary (pp. 89-128) will be of great practical value to readers, as it lists the lexical items occurring in the text including grammatical information and references to the occurrences. The volume concludes with the references cited in the comments (pp. 139-150).