Ashem Vohu

[2] Together with the Ahuna Vairya, the Yenghe hatam, and the Airyaman ishya; the Ashem vohu forms the four manthras that enclose the Gathas in the Yasna.

[5] It repeatedly uses the words aṣ̌a (truth, order), vohū/vahištā (good/best), astī (is) and uštā (desire); showing the centrality of these terms.

[3] Prayer aṣ̌əm vohū vahištəm astī uštā astī uštā ahmāi hyat̰ aṣ̌āi vahištāi aṣ̌əm IPA Transliteration: aʂəm vohuː vahiʃtəm astiː uʃtaː astiː uʃtaː ahmaːi hjat aʂaːi vahiʃtaːi aʂəm The text poses a number of challenges for a grammatical analysis.

In the latter case it acquires the meaning of possession, comparable to the English noun good in the sense of item of merchandise.

[13] In the early 20th century, several thousands documents were discovered by the Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu in the Library Cave at Dunhuang.

In these documents, a Sogdian version of the Ashem Vohu was discovered in the 1970 and translated by Nicholas Sims-Williams.

[14] Sogdian 𐼺𐼴𐼶𐽁𐽂 𐼺𐼷𐽁𐽂𐼰𐼷 𐼴𐽁𐽂𐼰𐼰𐼷 𐼰𐽁𐽂𐼴𐼶𐼺𐼰𐼷 𐽂𐼴𐽀𐽂𐼰𐼷 𐼰𐼶𐼴𐽁𐽂𐼰𐼷𐽀𐽂𐼺‎ Reconstruction in Old Sogdian[note 1] urtam wahu wahištam ištī uštā istī uštā ahmāi yat urtāi wahištāi urtam This version shows some phonological and linguistic peculiarities compared to the extant Avestan version.

Combined with the fact that it contains no specific Zoroastrian beliefs, Gershevitch concluded that the manthra should be considered to be pan-Iranian.