The book contains 21 contributions to a colloquium held in March 2006 in honour of W. Sundermann and dealing with various aspects of the literatures in the Middle Iranian languages. Texts and motifs and their origins and developments in Middle Persian, Parthian, Saka and Sogdian texts and in the unique Manichaean Bactrian fragment are discussed and presented together with a depiction of Avestan, Aramaic, Mandaic and even Celtic motifs.