Zend

Zend or Zand () is a Zoroastrian term for Middle Persian or Pahlavi versions and commentaries of Avestan texts. These translations were produced in the late Sasanian period.

Zand glosses and commentaries exist in several languages, including in the Avestan language itself. These Avestan language exegeses sometimes accompany the original text being commented upon, but are more often elsewhere in the canon. An example of exegesis in the Avestan language itself includes Yasna 19–21, which is a set of three Younger Avestan commentaries on the three Gathic Avestan 'high prayers' of Yasna 27. Zand also appears to have once existed in a variety of Middle Iranian languages, but of these Middle Iranian commentaries, the Middle Persian zand is the only one to survive fully, and is for this reason regarded as 'the' zand.