Proto IndoAryans (T Burrow 1973)

THE PROTO-INDOARYANS

By T. BURROW

IT IS NOW GENERALLY agreed by most authorities on the subject that the Aryan linguisticvestiges in the Near East are to be connected specifically with Indo-Aryan, and not withIranian, and also that they do not represent a third, independent Aryan group, and arenot to be ascribed to the hypothetically reconstructed Proto-Aryan. This conclusion isincorporated in the title of M. Mayrhofer's bibliography of the subject, Die Indo-Arier imalten Vorderasien (Wiesbaden, 1966), and it can now be taken as the commonly acceptedview. It is based on the fact that where there is divergence between Iranian and Indo-Aryan,and where such elements appear in the Near Eastern record, the latter always agrees withIndo-Aryan. Such items are aika "one" and suriyas "sun", and the colour names parita-nnuand pinkara-nnu which correspond to Sanskrit palita- "grey" and pingala- "reddish". Theevidence of vocabulary is supported by that of the four names of gods appearing in theHittite-Mitanni treaty, where the Vedic gods Mitra and Varuna, Indra, and the Nasatyascan be clearly recognized. This combined evidence is sufficient to establish the conclusionsof Mayrhofer and others beyond reasonable doubt, and the arguments of A. Kammenhuber,who later attempted to resuscitate the theory that the Aryans of the Near East were Proto-Aryans, cannot be said to have been successful.1

One of the most important contributions to this conclusion was P. Thieme's study ofthe divine names in the Mitanni treaties published in I960.2 This article provided the finaldemonstration that the gods of the Mitanni treaties are specifically Vedic gods, and thatthey cannot be Proto-Aryan, a conclusion that was first argued by Sten Konow.3 Some ofThieme's conclusions will be examined below and criticized, since his article is the mainstarting point of the present investigation, but the main principle which he formulates isdeserving of whole-hearted approval: "We cannot reconstruct Proto-Aryan religiousterms—and much less Proto-Aryan religious ideas—by simply and naively projectingRigvedic data into Proto-Aryan times. A reconstruction can be attempted only by a carefulconfrontation of Vedic and Avestan terminology". The assumption which Thieme criticizes,that the Vedic religion has faithfully preserved the Proto-Aryan religion, has indeed beencommonly held, and this is due to three reasons: the greater antiquity and better state ofpreservation of the Veda as opposed to the Avesta, the undoubted fact that Zoroaster wasthe founder of a new religion whereas no such revolutionary change occurred in ancientIndia, and the fact that the Proto-Aryan period was conceived of as being not very muchearlier than the Vedic period. In spite of all this, however, as Thieme demonstrates, thereare matters in which the Veda shows innovation, and the Avesta is more original.

A case in point is the relationship between the terms Varuria and Asura (> Ir. ahura-).It has been commonly assumed that Varuria was an original Proto-Aryan deity out of whomthe Iranian Ahura Mazda eventually emerged. There is however no trace of Varuna in theIranian record, while on the other hand Asura/Ahura is common to both traditions, and

1 A. Kammenhuber, Die Arier im vorderen Orient, Heidelberg, 1968.2 P. Thieme, "The 'Aryan' gods of the Mitanni treaties", JAOS, 60, I960, 301-317.8 Sten Konow, The Aryan gods of the Mitani people, Christiania, 1921.

124 THE PROTO-INDOARYANS

consequently it appears to be reasonable to assume that the dvandva combinationMidra-AhuralAhura-MiOra of the Avesta is more original than the Mitrd-Varurid of theVeda. There are some passages in the Rgveda, though not many, where a god Asura,distinguished from, but occasionally working with Mitra and Varuna, is mentioned, andthis god is to be traced back to Proto-Aryan times. The same conclusion as regards thesedivine names was later adopted by I. Gershevitch (JNES, XXIII, 1964, 12), although earlier,in the introduction to his Avestan hymn to Mithra (Cambridge, 1959), he had been preparedto assume an Iranian * Vouruna.

Thus the Indo-Aryan nature of the "Aryan vestiges in the Near East" is established bothon the basis of language and religion, but the material is still remarkably small. The reasonfor this is, as Mayrhofer observes (op. cit, 11), that it all originates from outside the Mitannikingdom itself, and if ever the archives of that state are uncovered, then a great increaseof such material is to be expected. In view of the large amount written on the subject notmuch more can be extracted from what is already available, but the name of the capital ofthe Mitanni state, Wassukanni, seems to be capable of explanation in terms of Old Indo-Aryan, even though none of the proposals registered by Mayrhofer is satisfactory. Sincethe interpretation should be from Indo-Aryan, we should see in the first member a nounvasu "wealth", and not an adjective vasu- meaning "good" as in Iranian (Av. vohu-).4

In this case the second element is obviously khani- "mine", the whole meaning "mine ofwealth (i.e. precious metals)", and this explanation provides the motive which attractedthose Proto-Indoaryans to this region. It was an age when prospecting for metals, preciousor otherwise, was being actively pursued, and the Aryans were as much interested in thisactivity as anybody else. It is understandable that when it came to their knowledge that anew and large deposit of such materials had been found, it would stimulate them to attemptto get control of that territory. It will be seen later that they need not have been situatedvery far away, so that any such information would soon reach them.

It is a noteworthy fact that the conclusion that the Aryans of the Near East are to beconnected with the Indo-Aryans can be founded on such a small amount of linguisticmaterial. In this connection a pertinent remark of Mayrhofer is worth quoting (op. cit., 23):"Die Abweichungen der beiden arischen Dialekte voneinander in Einzelheiten der Wort-wahl, Wortbildung und Semantik werden infolge des tiberwaltigenden Eindruckes ihrerAhnlichkeit oft nicht geniigend wahrgenommen". The differences between the two halvesof the Aryan language-group are particularly noticeable in the case of vocabulary, and theresult is that it needs only a small amount of such material to make it clear whether thelanguage involved belongs to Indo-Aryan or Iranian.

Since the "Aryan" of the Near East is to be connected with Indo-Aryan it follows thatthe division of Proto-Aryan into two branches, Indo-Aryan and Iranian, must have takenplace before those languages were established in their eventual homes, and not merely bedue to developments which took place within each of the two groups after the Indo-Aryanshad settled in India and the Iranians in Iran. This conclusion could only be shown to bewrong if it could be shown that the Vedic Indians, having migrated all the way to the

'According to L. Renou (£tudes vidiques et panineennes, 9, Paris, 1961, 91) vasu- in the Rgveda is usedas a neuter (sg. and pi.) in the sense of "wealth, riches" and in the masculine as the name of a classof gods, but not as an adjective meaning "good".

THE PROTO-INDOARYANS 125

Punjab from their earlier home, had then retraced their steps and undertaken yet anothermigration in the direction of the Near East. Konow was prepared to believe this, but thereis no evidence for it, and it seems that a theory involving such complication can be safelyignored. Such an early separation of Indo-Aryan and Iranian has often been envisaged(e.g. M. Haug, whose opinions will be noted below), but it is only this Near Eastern evidencewhich renders it certain. A further conclusion following from this is that the date of thePro to-Aryan period must be pushed back further than has often been thought, and probablyit cannot be brought down below 2000 B.C. at the latest. This will also leave ample timefor innovations in the Vedic religion of the kind referred to above.

It is not quite satisfactory to use the term Indo-Aryan for the Aryans of the Near Eastand their language if, as assumed above, those Aryans were never in India, and consequentlythe term Proto-Indoaryan has been adopted in the title of this paper. In doing so it hasbeen necessary to give the term a wider sense than it would have if it were used in a purelylinguistic sense. Linguistically, Proto-Indoaryan refers to that stage of the language existingbefore the migrations into India and after the separation from Iranian. Its phonology canbe partially reconstructed by a comparison of Indo-Aryan and Kafiri (which is not to beregarded as a separate branch of Aryan, but as descended from this Proto-Indoaryan),and it can be seen that to a large extent it had not altered from Proto-Aryan. Typicalchanges that may be assumed to have taken place between this stage and Vedic are thechange of the short diphthongs ai and au to e and o, development of h from jh and zh,emergence of the cerebrals, simplification of final consonant groups, and so forth.5 Onthe other hand the term Proto-Indoaryan as used in this paper refers not only to the pre-migration Indo-Aryans, but also to all those who did not make the migration to India, ormigrated elsewhere, and their descendants. Among these descendants are the Proto-Indo-aryans of the Near East whose language had, as is well known (cf. satta "seven" < sapta),evolved beyond the Proto-Indoaryan stage.6

The identification of the Aryan traces in the Near East as Proto-Indoaryan has, inThieme's words, "considerable historical implications". The problem is also broughtconsiderably nearer to a solution by this identification, inasmuch as the range of possibilitiesis now narrowed down. On the basis of what has been said it is possible to improve on thestatement made by R. A. Crossland on this subject: "The Indo-Iranian branch of theprehistoric Indo-European-speaking people, or part of it, must have thus been living in anarea close to northern Mesopotamia, probably in northern Iran in the fifteenth centuryB.C. at the latest" (CAH, I, 2, 838). The first of the two possibilities can be excluded, and the"part" can be identified as a section of the Proto-Indoaryans. It is likely that before thetake-over of the kingdom of Mitanni, Proto-Aryans were settled in northern Iran, andevidence in support of this will be provided later in this article.

Mayrhofer briefly refers (op. cit., 40, n.) to the historical problem raised by the presenceof Proto-Indoaryans in the Near East, and mentions the three possibilities that have figuredin the discussion. The first of these—that the Aryans of the Near East, after they had

6 Further examples in my The Sanskrit language, London, 1955, 33.* In view of this admitted ambiguity of the term Proto-Indoaryan an alternative would be to speak of

Western Indo-Aryan but unless much more material turns up in the Near East there is no urgency tosettle the terminology.


left or been driven out of Mitanni, proceeded eastward to colonize North-West India—he rightly excludes as being out of the question. The theory, dismissed above, that the Aryansof the Near East had actually come from India, does not appeal to him very much, thoughhe does not go so far as to exclude the possibility. The third alternative, which he considersto be the most likely, is that the migrating Indo-Aryans had separated, probably in Iran,into the two groups. This theory, which, as Mayrhofer says, is much the most likely,is the one adopted by I. M. Diakonov.7 He considers (as many have done before him)that Central Asia was the original habitat of the Indo-Iranians, and notes in passing thatSoviet archaeologists usually connect the Proto-Indo-Iranians with the Andronovo cultureof Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia. He proposes that the Indian tribes moved first fromthis region and that some sections of them moved into Iran and from there to the Near East,while the main mass migrated to India.

This is the most likely account of the events that led to the appearance of the Indo-Aryans in North-West India, and of their close relations in the Near East, at roughly thesame time. Nevertheless certain modifications of this statement are needed, principallybecause it does not envisage the possibility of intermediate settlement. The colonizationof North-West India by the Indo-Aryans was an extensive operation, lasting over genera-tions, which could only have been carried out on the strength of an extensive populationbase immediately outside the sub-continent. That is to say that before these migrationsProto-Indoaryans must have been in occupation of large tracts of eastern Iran and westernAfghanistan (such as Bactria, Areia (Haraiva), Arachosia, and Drangiana), which onlyat a later period came into the possession of the Iranians. One would also not expect thatthe migrations into India left these countries empty of Proto-Indoaryans, but rather thatthis was a movement of the surplus population, so that when the Iranians took controlof this territory they would find the Proto-Indoaryans settled there, and that in due courseof time the latter would be absorbed into and merged with the later-coming Iranians.

A slight trace of the earlier home of the Indo-Iranians has been preserved in someriver names which were transferred by them from the old to the new country. This is howthe relationship between the Indian Sarasvati and Iranian haraxvaiti- is to be explained.There is not, as Bartholomae suggests, a common inheritance from Proto-Aryan sarasvatihere, since, as pointed out above, this region was not the home of the Proto-Aryans. Onthe contrary Sarasvati is in the first place the Proto-Indoaryan name of the river in Iran,which after the migration was transferred to the river in India. The Iranian name is a loan-word from Proto-Indoaryan, with a substitution of h- for s-, occurring also in hindu-,which will be discussed below. Another case is the river name sarayu-, which was transferredfirst from Iran {haraiva-1haroyu-) to a river in North-West India, and then again from thereto a tributary of the Ganges in eastern India.

The name of the Oxus is of interest from this point of view. The name occurs inSanskrit (yaksu-) in the Mahabharata and Kalidasa, in Greek from the period of Alexander,and in Iranian only on Kushana coins. In a more general sense Khotanese bassa "streams"is compared (H. W. Bailey, Khotanese texts, VI, Cambridge, 1967, 231). The stem vaksu-can be derived from the root vah- in the sense of "to flow" with the suffix -su; cf. ddksu-

7 1 . M. Diakonov, htoriya Midii, Moscow, 1956, 124-125.


(dhdksu-). If so the word is Indo-Aryan, since the combination -ks- representing palatalfollowed by s is a specifically Indian development. It has been thought that vaksu- mightbe derived from vaks- "to increase", but though this might suit the Oxus, it does not fitthe meaning "stream" of the related Khotanese word, and so the derivation from vah- isto be preferred. If so the name must have been given to the river by the earlier Indo-Aryanpopulation of Bactria, and taken over from them by the local Iranian population afterthey had immigrated there. It does not, however, seem to have gained very wide currencyin Iranian.

It is, however, in the sphere of the religious history of Iran that the presence there ofProto-Aryans as forerunners of the Iranians can be most clearly demonstrated. In thisconnexion it will be necessary to look again at some of Thieme's conclusions in the articlereferred to above. Although he reconstructs a Proto-Aryan god Asura, Thieme does notgive any precise idea about the exact nature of this deity. An understanding of this god'snature can, however, be obtained if we accept the conclusions reached by P. von Bradkein the most detailed study of the term asura- that has been made.8 According to von Bradkethe nature of the god Asura corresponds to the meaning of the word asura-, which is"lord, overlord, sovereign" (equivalent to the later Sanskrit isvara-), and the position ofAsura among the Proto-Aryan gods was that of sovereign ruler of those gods. Since theword asura- is further found combined with Dyaus in the Veda, von Bradke goes furtherand traces the Aryan sovereign god Asura back to the original Indo-European sky god,who occupies a similar position in the related mythologies. This account seems to fit thefacts very well and it has the advantage of defining the concept of Asura, which otherwiseis not done. Having this meaning Iranian Ahura could very appropriately form part of thecombined name Ahura Mazda, which Zoroaster coined to express his conception ofthe supreme deity when he founded the Mazdayasnian religion. On the other hand, in theVeda Asura as a god had almost become obsolete, except in a few turns of phrase, and theepithet asura- in the sense of "lord" could be applied to any great god whose power wasemphasized, even though it was most commonly used of Mitra and Varuna. In this usealso the term became obsolete by the end of the Rgvedic period.

In these discussions much confusion has been caused by assuming a connection betweenasura- "lord" and asu- "life" (particularly when the latter is rendered "spirit"). These twoshould be kept clearly apart, as was pointed out long ago by J. Darmesteter,9 and hasrecently been emphasized by B. Schlerath.10 On the one hand there is asu- "life", a straight-forward derivative of as- "to be", and on the other hand Skt. asura-JAv. ahura- "sovereign,lord", with which is connected further Av. ahu- "lord". Apart from its use as a divinename, or in connection with names of gods, it is commonly used in Avestan as "lord" inthe ordinary human sense (Bartholomae's ahura-*), and also occasionally in the Veda.11

The Proto-Aryan word was at an early period borrowed into Finno-Ugrian; cf. Mordv.

8 P. von Bradke, Dyaus Asura, Halle, 1885.• J. Darmesteter, Ormazd el Ahriman, Paris, 1877, 47; cf. also P. von Bradke, op. cit., 85.

10 B. Schlerath, "Altindisch asu-, Awestisch ahu- und ahnlich klingende W6rter", in Pratidanam (KuiperFestschrift), ed. J. C. Heesterman et al, The Hague, Paris, 1968, 142-53. For the other (in my opinionuntenable) view, cf. H. Guntert, Der arische Weltkonig undHeiland, Halle, 1923,102, and J. Duchesne-Guillemin, TPS, 1946, 81.

11 cf. W. Neisser, Zum Worterbuch des Rgveda, Leipzig, 1924-, I, 139-40.


azoro, azor "lord, master". The other connexions in Indo-European are with Hitt. hassu-"king" and Lat. ems "master".

Of the four divine names mentioned in the Mitanni treaty one, Mitra, is common tothe Vedic and Iranian traditions, one, Varuna, is unknown to the latter, and two, Indraand Nasatya, do appear in the Iranian tradition, but only as demons. A list of principaldaevas in the Vendidad (10.9; 19.43) contains the names Indra, Na??hai#ya (= Nasatya),and Saurva (Vedic l§arva; AB, VS.). Professor Thieme is prepared to allow these to havebeen originally Iranian gods later demonized, but if that were so they would also have beenProto-Aryan gods, as being common to the two traditions, and this would weaken theargument against the gods of the Mitanni treaty being Proto-Aryan, since of the three onlyVaruna would remain exclusively Vedic, and even he might have been lost only at a latertime in the Iranian tradition. There is, however, no reason to believe that Indra andNasatya ever belonged to the Iranian religious tradition. These three principal daevas of theVendidad should be classed, along with the gods of the Mitanni treaty (to which two outof the three correspond), as Proto-Indoaryan deities. They are gods which were beingworshipped by the Proto-Indoaryans in eastern Iran when the Iranians took over thecountry, and it is these gods, and others of which the names are not preserved, which werecondemned by Zoroaster. It has never been possible to account for the fact that the Iraniangods, if they had been so uncompromisingly condemned by Zoroaster, should after a veryshort time have been accepted back into the Mazdayasnian fold without any reservations;or why, when this was done, the anti-daeva ideology should have remained just as strongas ever, with these same gods in the forefront of the war against daevas. If, on the otherhand, we assume that the daevas who were condemned were the gods of the Proto-Indo-aryans, then there is no question of the Iranian gods having somehow come back intofavour, since they were never condemned, and there is no contradiction between thecontinuing intense hostility shown by the Mazdayasnian region towards daevas and theworship of those Iranian gods.

There has been a long discussion of the fact that the Proto-Aryan terms daiva- andasura- ended up having different meanings in Indian and Iranian (Ind. deva- "god", asura-"demon", as opposed to Iranian daeva- "demon", ahura- "(supreme) lord") and it hasusually been assumed, though wrongly, that the same reason should account for the changeson both sides. Martin Haug12 assumed a schism between the Iranians and the BrahmanicAryans before their migration to India. If we substitute for this a "schism" between theIranians and those Proto-Indoaryans who were left behind in eastern Iran after the Indo-Aryans had migrated to India, Haug's explanation fits very well as regards the degenerationof the word daeva-. It does not, however, account for the change of meaning of the Sanskritword asura-, since this change took place in India at a time considerably later than themigration, and there was no connexion between this and what happened in Iran to theword daeva. Darmesteter13 opposed Haug's theory and asserted that there had been nochanges in the nature of the Indian or Iranian gods but merely an alteration in the usageof words. As far as the history of the word asura- in Sanskrit is concerned, what he said is

12 M. Haug, Essays on the sacred language, writings, and religion of the Parsees, Bombay, 1862, 248 ff.13 Daramesteter, op. cit., 261 ff.


perfectly true, but he was wrong about the daevas since those principal daevas mentionedabove are undoubtedly ancient gods who have been turned into demons.

The theory that prevails nowadays, and has prevailed for some considerable time, isquite different. According to this theory the Proto-Aryans had two sorts of gods, onedenoted by the term asura- and the other by the term daiva-, between whom there wasopposition. The result of this was that in Iran the daivas and in India the asuras wereeventually reduced to the state of demons. The theory is thus expounded by H. S. Nyberg:14

"Das arische Altertum kannte asura (= iranisch ahura) als eine Klasse von Gottwesen, dieeiner andern Klasse mit dem Namen daiva (indisch deva, iranisch daeva-) nebengeordnetwar. In der religiosen Geschichte der Arier haben diese beiden Gottergruppen um dieHerrschaft gekampft. Die Entwicklung ist so verlaufen, dass in Indien die Devas siegtenund die Asuras zuerst zuriickdrangten, spater verdrangten, und auf die Stufe der Damonenherabdruckten, wahrend dagegen in Iran die Ahuras den Sieg davontrugen und die Daevaszu Damonen herabdruckten". This theory is accepted by Thieme (op. cit., 311), and by alarge number of other scholars,15 but it is false from beginning to end, and even a cursoryexamination of the Vedic evidence shows it to be wrong. The theory is false because, asDarmesteter pointed out long ago in his argument with Haug,16 no ancient Indian godwas ever turned into a demon. The Vedic gods who are considered to have belonged to theasura class are Varuna, Mitra, and the Adityas, so the theory would imply that the Adityasbecame demons, which is contrary to the facts. It is absurd to assume that a class of godscalled Asuras were relegated to the status of demons while every individual member of thatclass remained a god. It is also wrong to speak of a class of gods known as Asuras sincethe term is never so used. It is used of gods mainly in the singular as an epithet meaning"lord", but in the plural, denoting a class, only of demons, and this not until the closingphase of the Rgveda. On the other hand the term deva is used in the Veda and later of allthe gods, and there is no trace of its being restricted to any particular class.

Just as the Vedic gods always remained gods, so the Asuras were always demons, andso Darmesteter's view must be accepted, that it was only the meaning of the word whichwas changed. This change became possible because the word asura- "lord" fell into disusein the ordinary language, though remaining familiar from the sacred texts. In particular thephrase asurasya mdyd seems to have contributed to this change of meaning. It meantoriginally the creative power of the supreme lord, but since mdyd in the sense of "magicalpower" had been commonly spoken of in connexion with various individual demons, theterm was interpreted to mean "the magical power of the demon", and a new term asura-,meaning the whole class of demons hostile to the gods, was invented.17

Since the deva-god and asKra-god theory can be disproved on the Indian side, itobviously cannot be used to explain developments in Iran. There is, of course, from thisside no evidence for it, since by definition it applies to the prehistoric period, and not to thesituation found in the Avestan texts. The Avestan literature provides us with the names of a

14 H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Iran, Leipzig, 1938, 96."e.g. E. Benveniste, The Persian religion, Paris, 1929, 40; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion de I'lran

ancien, Paris, 1962, 189; R. C. Zaehner, The dawn and twilight of Zoroastrianism, London, 1961, 36;J. Gonda, Change and continuity in Indian religions, The Hague, etc., 1965, 168.

16 J. Darmesteter, op. cit., p. 269.17 cf. A, A. Macdonell, Vedic mythology, Strassburg, 1897, 156.


large number of the pre-Zoroastrian deities of Iran, both those celebrated in the YaSts andthose otherwise referred to, so much so that it seems reasonable to assume that we have amore or less complete inventory of the original Iranian pantheon. Among these divinitiesthere is no sign of any such classification as that into Devas and Asuras, and since the listof gods retained by the Mazdayasnians is so large and complete there is hardly room for anadditional lot who were condemned as daevas. It has been suggested that tribal differencesmight be involved,18 but when this aspect is considered, the names of the three principaldaevas, corresponding to Vedic deities, show that the other tribe concerned was that of theProto-Indoaryans.

There is another reason why the daevas condemned by Zoroaster cannot have beenIranian gods, and that is that the Proto-Iranian and pre-Zoroastrian Iranian word for"god" was not daiva- but baga-. This can be posited on the strength of the distribution ofthe word in the various Iranian languages: OPers. baga-, Av. baya-, Sogd. /?y-, etc. Referencewas made above to the extent to which the Iranian and Indo-Aryan vocabularies differfrom each other, and the case of the word for "god" is one of the most important instances.The antiquity of this usage is demonstrated by the fact that it also appears in Slavonic(OS1. bogii "god", etc.), and this Slavonic word is not considered to be a loanword fromIranian.19 The use of bhaga- "assigner, apportioner" (in Sanskrit the name of a particulardeity) as an alternative word for "god", must, therefore, go back to an early period, andit is characteristic that Indian and Iranian should diverge in this respect.

In the Avesta the usual word for "god" is not baya-, but yazata-, and it is not difficultto see what the relationship of these two terms is. As Duchesne-Guillemin has pointedout,20 yazata- (originally an epithet "adorable" = Skt. yajata-) can be regarded as havingbeen invented by the Zoroastrians as a substitute for baga-. It cannot, of course, have been asubstitute for daeva-, since daevas were utterly condemned, and this fact provides furtherconfirmation that the Iranian word for "god" was only baga-. The reason for the substitutionwas, no doubt, to indicate the changed status of the old Iranian gods, who were to occupya more subordinate position in the new religion of Ahura Mazda. In the event this was notquite how things turned out, since the old bagas and new yazatas, not having been con-demned by Zoroaster, as were the daevas of the Proto-Indoaryans, continued to be lookedupon by their worshippers as having much the same status as before, and to a large extentthe old name also was retained. On the other hand, where derivatives of yazata- occur(e.g. NPers. Izad/yazddn, Saka, Khot. gyasta-, Tumsuq jezda-), these must, if the abovetheory is correct, be traced back to this Zoroastrian coinage.

If one were to rely merely on a reconstruction from later forms in the various Iranianlanguages, and no other information was available, then one would without hesitationreconstruct a Proto-Iranian daiva- "demon", since the representatives of this word areeven more widely distributed in the Iranian languages than are the words descended frombaga-. But such a conclusion would be mistaken, since it was Zoroaster who first declaredthe daevas to be evil powers. This fact is vouched for not only by the tradition of theZoroastrians (cf. Yt. 13.89-90), but also by the nature of Zoroaster's own preaching against

19 Nyberg, Die Religionen, 339, ascribed Indra, etc., to the Medes." cf. M . Vasmer, Russisches etymohgisches Worterbuch, Heidelberg, 1950-8 ,1 , 98.20 La religion, 166.


the daevas. It is generally agreed that in his references to daevas Zoroaster is not simplysaying that demons are bad—this would have been unnecessary, since everyone wasagainst demons—but that he is condemning certain deities who were being worshipped assuch, and who as a result of his propaganda were turned into demons. The fact that daiva-"demon" is represented throughout Iranian can be taken as an indication of the widespread of Zoroastrian teaching among the early Iranians.

Although the daevas were in origin the dethroned deities of the Proto-Indoaryans, andthis remained so for some time, eventually the term came to stand for a whole host ofdemons, monsters, and evil spirits (some pre-Zoroastrian in origin), as well as for personi-fications of vices, diseases, calamities, etc. The result is that not a great deal of informationis available about the dethroned gods, and only the three above mentioned can be identifiedwith certainty with Vedic gods. To these we may possibly add, with Nyberg,21 buti- whichwould correspond to Skt. bhiiti- "prosperity" (also personified and equated with Laksmi).

The demonizing of the Proto-Indoaryan gods was rendered possible by the fact that somany of them, and particularly the important ones, had nothing corresponding to them inthe Iranian pantheon, and vice versa. Thus Indra, Varuna, Nasatya, and 3arva, which wecan say for certain were Proto-Indoaryan gods, had no correspondences in Iranian, andthere are other Vedic gods, who may also have been worshipped by the Proto-Indoaryans,such as Visnu, Savitr, Pusan, etc., of which the same can be said. Thus in spite of certaincorrespondences, such as Mitra/Mi#ra, etc., it could easily appear to the Iranians and toZoroaster that the daevas, taken as a whole, were a different set of gods from their own. Inthe case of Mitra/Mi#ra, this god is so much more important in the Iranian scheme ofthings than in the Vedic (and presumably Proto-Indoaryan), that the correspondence couldbe ignored. Only in the case of the god Vayu, who occupied a place of similar importanceand similar character in both religions, does a genuine dilemma appear to have arisen,and this has resulted in a good Vayu- and a bad Vayu-, a god and a demon, existing sideby side in the Mazdayasnian system.

That Av. daeva- should be a loanword from Proto-Indoaryan is well accounted for bythe circumstances which existed in Zoroaster's time and in the time preceding it. To theIranians coming down from Central Asia the regions of Eastern Iran were an area of recentoccupation, and still largely populated by the Proto-Indoaryans who had preceded them.To judge by their close relations in Vedic India the priestly organization of the latter islikely to have been well developed and sophisticated, probably more so than that of theincoming Iranians. It also seems clear, from the difficulties which Zoroaster had to over-come, that the Iranian princes in this area respected the old religion and its representatives,and to a large extent adopted those cults. Since he reacted so strongly against it, it is likelythat Zoroaster was brought up in this environment, though there is also the possibility thatwhen these regions were incorporated in Iran, the Proto-Indoaryan priesthood had alsoinfiltrated into old Iranian territory.

In addition to the word daeva- there are some other words in Avestan which can beregarded as loans from Proto-Indoaryan. One certain case is usig-, a priestly title correspond-ing to Vedic usij-, which must originally have been a Proto-Indoaryan word for a certain

" H. S. Nyberg, op. cit., 340.


class of priest. Some other terms used in this context, namely kavi- and karapan-, are moreproblematical. The term kavi- could, in certain contexts, have a reference to the Proto-Indoaryan priesthood, but since it is also used of Iranian princes, it is simplest to take itin this sense everywhere. The bad sense of the word kavi- is then due to the fact that theearlier Iranian rulers had as a general rule supported the Proto-Indoaryan religion. It had,however, also to have a good sense, since it was also the title of Zoroaster's patron Vistaspa-,and also of the kings of the Kayanian dynasty, who were too illustrious to be lumped to-gether with the kavis in general. Even though it may have been used only of Iranian princes,it is a notable fact that this word occurs nowhere else in Iranian except in Avestan in thisone context, and it is not out of the question that this may have been a title taken over bythe incoming Iranians from their predecessors.

The term karapan- was connected by Bartholomae with Skt. kalpa- "rite", and in thatcase it could well have been taken over from Proto-Indoaryan. On the other hand it hasbeen proposed to see in this a derogatory term meaning "mumbler" derived from anIranian karp- "to mumble" (cf. Skt. krp-).22

A small number of Proto-Indoaryan words in Avestan can be identified with someprobability among the "daevic" words which are a curious feature of that language. Thesewords were studied from this point of view by L. H. Gray in an article published in 1927.23

Gray noted that not all the antitheses involved in the two vocabularies are to be explained inthe same way, but nevertheless he made it clear that when the two vocabularies are examinedfrom an etymological point of view, a significant pattern emerges, namely that the "ahurian"words as a general rule are the ones that have the widest representation throughout theIranian languages, while the "daevian" words have in many cases either no other cognatesin Iranian, or are represented only in a few marginal dialects. A good example of thisstate of affairs is found in the daevian word karana- "ear". In Iranian the IE word for"ear" is well preserved, and in Avestan (us-) it counts as an ahurian word. Beside it there isAv. gaosa-, etc., which is a special development of Iranian, and which is used in Avestanwithout any such differentiation. The third Avestan word karana- is a daevian word whichoccurs nowhere else in Iranian and it corresponds to Skt. karna- "ear". This word in Avestancan be accounted for as a loanword from Proto-Indoaryan, and its use as a daevian word isdue to the fact that it belonged to the language of the Joeva-worshippers. The same isprobably the case with daevian as(i-) "eye", as opposed to ahurian doiOra- and neutralcasman-, although the root appears in Avestan (aiwydxS-). Of the two words for "son" inIndo-Aryan, sunu- and putra-, Iranian has only preserved the second, with the exception of theAvestan daevian word hunu-. Here again we can see a loanword from Proto-Indoaryan. Theinitial h- of Avestan presents a problem here, as it does in the river names haraxvaiti- andhindu-. A possible explanation would be that the Proto-Indoaryan language of eastern Iran(or part of it) in this period had undergone a change of s- to /?-, similar to that in Iranian.There is a parallel common change in the development of / to r which is shared by theRgvedic dialect of Old Indo-Aryan and Iranian. Another example of this change in Gray'smaterial is found in gah- "to eat" (daevian) corresponding to Skt. ghas-. Another loanwordfrom Proto-Indoaryan is no doubt to be seen in garaSa "house" (daevian, as opposed to

" W. B. Henning, Zoroaster, Oxford, 1951, 45.83 L. H. Gray, "The 'Ahurian' and 'Daevian' vocabularies in the Avesta", JRAS, 1927, 427-41.


ahurian nmdna-), derived from Proto-Indoaryan *grdha- in a more original form than thatseen in Skt. grha-.

Although many of the daevian words originate quite differently (e.g. zbarada- "foot"is a derogatory term derived from zbar- = Skt. hvar- "to go crookedly"), there is no doubtthat there is a nucleus of these words which is to be explained, following Gray, as above,and this constitutes another proof of the existence of a Proto-Indoaryan population in theterritories of eastern Iran controlled by the Iranians. In these territories a bilingual situationmust have prevailed for some time, with two languages current which were to a considerableextent mutually intelligible. Although they form only a part of the daevian vocabulary itis possible that the Proto-Indoaryan words of the type illustrated above formed a startingpoint for the system of the two opposing vocabularies.

The historical conclusions reached by Gray on the basis of this material are in essencethe same as those expressed in the present article, and so it is appropriate to quote therelevant part of his article (op. cit., 439):

"From Central Asia, through the open reaches east of the Caspian which have givenaccess to the Iranian plateau to conqueror after conqueror, there came at an undatableperiod an invasion (or a series of invasions) of a people who spoke an Indo-Iranian dialectwhich represented the Indo-European hard sibilant by s, and who termed their deities*deivos. In their turn these invaders were gradually driven south by another invasion (orseries of invasions) by a kindred people (or peoples) who had changed the hard sibilants to h, who called their divinities ahuros, and who had, as kindred peoples often have,somewhat different vocabularies. These /j-peoples (the later Iranians) gradually expelledthe ^-peoples until the latter finally made their way to India.

"In their contacts the /j-peoples adopted some of the words of their j-enemies, butsince they already had corresponding terms of their own (e.g. us- as contrasted with karna-,ahura- as opposed to deva-, etc.) they had no need to add them to their vocabulary exceptas referring to their foes. Hence, these terms of the s-peoples, expelled or conquered,formed no real part of the vocabulary of the A-peoples, as they did of the word-stock of thei-peoples, and the former employed them only in a derogatory sense, applying them solelyto beings, human or superhuman, whom they hated and despised as hostile and malign".

This statement needs correction only in three points. In the first place, as already pointedout, the Iranian word for god was not ahura- but baga-. Secondly it has to be insisted thatthe prime responsibility for the Proto-Indoaryan daivas coming to be regarded as evil wasZoroaster's, and it was not just some natural impersonal development. The third pointis the idea that the Indo-Aryans migrated to India because they were driven out of theirformer habitat by the Iranians. That migration, which is associated with the destructionof the Indus civilization, is far too early for such a theory to be plausible, and such apowerful programme of invasion and conquest could only have been undertaken from asecure base. This means that the Iranian occupation of eastern Iran is to be ascribed to aperiod after those extensive migrations had been completed, and the "5-Aryans" whom theIranians came across were those who had remained in the territories from which thosemigrations took place.

The Avesta has no ethnic term to denote the Proto-Indoaryans, which is not surprisingsince both they and the Iranians called themselves Aryans and spoke closely related languages.


The opposition between the two sides is always spoken of in religious terms betweenthe Mazdayasnas, worshippers of Ahura Mazda and followers of Zoroaster on the onehand, and the Daevayasnas (which can include Iranians following the daeva religion) onthe other. The conflict is one which is to be terminated by the defeat or conversion of thelatter. Opposition to daevas and daevayasnas is ascribed in the Yasts even to ancient andlegendary kings such as Yima and Haosyarjha. On the other hand references to wars againstdaevayasnas undertaken by Vistaspa (Yt. 5.109, 113; 9.30-31), Jamaspa (Yt. 5.68-70), andVistaru of the Naotara family (Yt. 5.76-77) are likely to have a historical basis.

In spite of the efforts at conversion on the part of the Mazdayasnians the worship ofthe daevas continued to exist for a considerable period, much as later the Mazdayasnianreligion itself continued to exist in Islamic times. Christensen24 has drawn attention to anumber of passages in the Vendidad which make this clear, and which also illustrate thedisadvantaged position in which such communities of daevayasnas were placed. Thus thefaithful are encouraged to take possession of the lands, waters, and harvests of the daevayas-nas (Vd. 19.26). In another passage (Vd. 7.36^0) it is laid down that one wishing to practisethe art of medicine should first try out his skill on the daevayasnas, and if they survive hisattentions, he should then be allowed to practise on Mazdayasnians.

The survival of the cfa/va-religion over a long period is also attested by the daiva-inscription of Xerxes. There has been much speculation as to identity of the daivaddnawhich he had destroyed, but in view of the very precise meaning of the word daiva {daeva)in the Iranian Zoroastrian tradition, namely that of gods so named by their worshippers,it is best to adopt the opinion of Christensen26 that the old gods of the daevayasnas arereferred to. The identity of the daivaddna concerned, which would have been very interesting,is unknown but it is of great importance in attesting the continued existence of the con-demned religion in Iran so long after Zoroaster.

The Avestan evidence so far discussed concerning the Proto-Indoaryans has dealtwith eastern Iran, but iii view of the appearance of Proto-Indoaryans in the Near East,one would expect that they had also a base, or bases, in western Iran from which theinvasion of the Hurrian country was mounted, just as their migration to India dependedon their base in eastern Iran. The geographical horizon of the Avesta is almost exclusivelyeastern Iranian, but it does have some references which indicate the presence of Proto-Indoaryans in northern central Iran, bringing them within striking distance of the NearEast. These are the references which occur from time to time in the Avesta to the Mazaniandaevas. The adjective in question (jndzainya-) is derived from *mdzana-, the name of a coun-try which happens not to occur as such in the Avesta, but whose location is indicated bythe fact that it has always been known to be connected with the country later known asMazandaran, i.e. the territory between the southern shore of the Caspian sea and theAlburz mountain range. In the later tradition this figures prominently as a region hostileto the Iranians and as a notorious home of Devs. The presence of daevas in Mazana indicatesthe presence of daeva-worshippers, and since we have seen that the daeva-worshippers werethe Proto-Indoaryans, we can conclude that the Avestan references to Mazanian daevasindicate their presence also in this region.

14 A. Christensen, Essai sur la demonologie iranienne, Copenhagen, 1941, 37 ff.11 op. cit., 46.


Although the names Mazana and Mazandaran are connected, they are not identical,since the latter contains an additional element not present in the former. It has beensuggested that this extra element is to be connected with NPers. dar "door", but a morelikely explanation is got, in view of the mountainous nature of the country, if we see in itIranian dara- "ravine" (for which see H. W. Bailey, op. cit., 115). This distinction enablesus to give to Mazana a wider sense than that of Mazandaran, since before the Iraniansmoved westward, we would expect the Proto-Indoaryans who were in control of centralnorthern Iran to have occupied also that territory to the south of the Alburz mountain rangewhich later became Media.

The Mazanian daevas are sometimes mentioned by themselves in the Avesta, but moreoften they are coupled with the dn//-adherents {drvant-) of Varana. For instance Haosya^haprays (Yt. 5.22) that he may slay two thirds of the Mazanian daevas and of the Varanian</rw/-adherents (ya9a azam nijandni dva drisva mdzainyanqm daevanqm varanyanqmcadrvatqm). In this case (as opposed to the case of mdzainya-) the basic word varana- doesoccur in the Avesta as the name of a country (Yt. 5.33; Vd. 1.17), but there has beenconsiderable doubt about its identification. This problem seems now to have been satis-factorily solved by W. B. Henning (BSOAS, XII, 1947-8, 52-3), who, basing himself onthe order in which this name appears in the list of countries in Vd. I, has identified it withSkt. Varnu- and Gk. "Aopros (Buner). This conclusion is of great interest, since it enablesus to see what is the precise significance of the juxtaposition in the Avesta of the Mazaniandaevas and the Varanian <//-w/-adherents. We may take Varana to refer (as pars pro toto)to the Indo-Aryans in general to the east of Iranian-occupied territory, and Mazana to thestill unconquered Proto-Indoaryans to the west. Between these two, who would originallyhave formed a continuum, a broad wedge of territory has been taken over by the Iranians,who now have two hostile frontiers separating them from their enemies, the worshippersof the daevas. This is the significance of the above mentioned cliche concerning the Mazaniandaevas and the Varanian drvants, and since drvant- is by definition one who worshipsdaevas, the two terms refer in effect to the same thing.

Whereas Mazana, under the alias of Mazandaran, continued to be famous in Iranianlegend and tradition, Varana was eventually forgotten, so much so that the adjective cameto be connected with Pahl. Varan, the demon of concupiscence. Even some modern inter-preters have taken it in this sense, but the clear parallelism with mdzanya- in the passageswhere the two are mentioned together shows that the name of the country must be referredto.

The earlier history of the Zoroastrian religion was confined to eastern Iran as delimitedby the above-mentioned frontiers, but eventually the defences of the Proto-Indoaryans tothe west were overcome, and this was followed by massive Iranian immigration into centraland western Iran. In view of the extreme hostility of the Iranians towards the "Mazaniandaevas" this westward movement is not likely to have taken the form of a gradual andpiecemeal infiltration, but of a deliberately organized military campaign and crusadeagainst the heathen, and it is not unlikely that a reflection of these events is to be seenin the later legendary account of the wars against Mazandaran in the Shahnamah, eventhough these have been set back in time to the reign of Kai Kaiis. As a result the Medesbecame masters of central northern Iran, and instead of Mazana we hear in the future only


of a truncated Mazandaran occupying the mountainous territory to the south of theCaspian sea.

The name Mazandaran would indicate that it was to this mountainous region thatthe worshippers of the Mazanian daevas retreated after their defeat by the Iranians. Sinceit is not to be expected that the survivors of Mazana would in a short time disappearaltogether from the scene, the question arises whether they can be identified with any peoplementioned later in the classical sources. The people most likely to be so identified are theMardi (Gk. MdpSoi and "A/jLapSoi) because they are found in possession of that samemountainous territory which is later known as Mazandaran. It was in this region that therewas a clash between the Mardians and Alexander (Quintus Curtius, VI, v, 11 if.). In additionto this region the Mardians are also reported as living in two other regions, namely in thevicinity of the Persians (these are mentioned by Herodotus, I, 125 and Aeschylus, Persae,992) and also in the direction of Armenia.26 This distribution is interesting since it is con-sistent with their having been displaced in various directions as a result of the Iranian advancewestwards. Classical authors have noted the distinction between these people and thePersians (cf. Quintus Curtius, V, vi, 17: Mardorum gentem bellicosam et multum a ceterisPersis cultu vitae abhorrentem), and although their distinctive life style was no doubt largelyconditioned by the mountainous nature of the territories they inhabited, there is probablyalso, from what the classical authors say of them, an ethnic difference involved. As theimmediate neighbours of the northern Mardians have the name Anariacae (Strabo, XI, 8, 8),the Mardi themselves are not likely to have been non-Aryans, and in view of the positionthey occupy, and their distinctness from the Medes and Persians, there exists the possibilityof identifying them as the survivors of the Proto-Indoaryans of central northern Iran.

In dealing with the history of the Proto-Indoaryans as predecessors of the Iranians inIran it is necessary to say something about the date of Zoroaster, partly because the com-monly accepted date, c. 600 B.C., does not fit in with the theories proposed above, andpartly because if the date of the prophet can be roughly ascertained it will provide a chrono-logical framework into which the events described can be placed. As regards the first pointit is obvious that the period of the later Median empire cannot be the time when theIranians first abandoned the cult of the Proto-Indoaryan daevas. This must have happenedmuch earlier, and not too long after the first occupation by the Iranians of eastern Iran.

The usually accepted date of Zoroaster is based on a tradition dating from Sasaniantimes which places him 258 years before Alexander. In spite of the arguments that have beenadvanced against the creditworthiness of this tradition, it has continued to be accepted bythe majority opinion, largely because certain very distinguished and very influential scholarshave adopted it, notably A. Meillet in 1925 and W. B. Henning in 1951.27 Besides this datean even later one has been canvassed, based on the identification of Zoroaster's patronViStaspa with the father of Darius.

On the other hand many scholars have argued for a much earlier date, and the factthat the later Iranian tradition is totally ignorant of the Median empire and almost totallyignorant of the Achaemenians (and what it does know comes from the Alexander Romance)

" Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, XIV, 1650.17 A. Meillet, Trois conferences sur les Gathas de I'Avesta, Paris. 1925; W. B, Henning, Zoroaster.


has justifiably been used as an argument against the reliability of this tradition.28 Whileit is not known how this precise figure came to be adopted, the fact that it is so low canbe attributed to the ignorance of the later Zoroastrians about the history of the period be-tween Zoroaster and Alexander. The authenticity of the later Zoroastrian tradition isobviously not so well established as to outweigh any other arguments that might be adducedin favour of an earlier date.

One argument that has often been advanced in favour of an earlier date is the antiquityof the language of the Gathas, which few would deny to be on the same level as that ofthe Rgveda. The discrepancy between this and the proposed date of Zoroaster about 600 B.C.is somewhat perfunctorily explained away by both Meillet and Henning with the statementthat languages evolve at a different rate. This might have to be accepted if it were known forcertain that Zoroaster lived c. 600 B.C., but it would still be a most remarkable phenomenon,and one difficult to account for. Leaving aside this date the normal conclusion would bethat since the language of the Gathas is comparable in antiquity to that of the Rgveda, itsdate would be expected to be in much the same period.

Although the date c. 600 B.C. for Zoroaster is the commonly accepted view, therehave in recent years been some objections to it in various quarters, and those who do objectpropose an earlier date.29 The question to be decided is how much earlier. The answerto this question can be got by combining the historical information in the Fravardin Yastwith dates available from ancient Near Eastern sources. This Yast contains, in addition tolegendary material, a sort of gazetteer of the names of those individuals who had deservedwell of the Zoroastrian faith during the early period of its history, and these names can betaken as largely historical. At the end of this section (Yt. 13, 143-4) there is a list of thecountries in which the Zoroastrian religion had spread: "We reverence the fravasis of thefollowers of the religion (male and female) belonging to the Aryan, Turian, Sairimian,Sainian, and Dahian lands". This enumeration is very interesting, since it shows that thereligion had spread from the Aryan country in the narrow sense, which we may take toinclude the old Iranian territory, known as Aryana Vaejah, and the territory more recentlyacquired in eastern Iran from the Proto-Indoaryans in a northerly direction, so that it wasalso flourishing among such semi-nomadic and Scythian-type tribes as the Dahae and theSarmatians. On the other hand there is no mention of any expansion to western Iran, orof the Medes and Persians. It cannot be argued that the term airya here might includethose western tribes, since this statement has to be considered in connexion with thatdiscussed above about the Mazanian daevas. In this text also there is a reference to with-standing the Mazanian daevas and the Varanian drvants (Yt. 13, 137), which makes it clearthat as far as this text is concerned central and western Iran are still outside the Iranian andMazdayasnian fold. We can only conclude from this that when this statement was formulated,the Iranians had not yet moved to the West, and that the Median and Persian sections ofthe Iranian nation had not yet been constituted. This conclusion is backed up by the factthat among all the considerable number of geographical references which are to be found inthe old Ya§ts the one solitary reference to central western Iran is the above mentioned adjec-tive mdzainya-. All the other references are confined to eastern Iran or Central Asia, and

28 e.g. by Edward Meyer, KZ, XLII, 1909, 1-2. Cf. also J. Duchesne-Guillemin, La religion, 136.29 For arguments for an earlier date see F. B. J. Kuiper, ///, v, 1961, 43, and the authorities quoted there.JRAS, 1973, 2 11


taking them into account together with the detailed points just mentioned we may concludethat the Iranians had not yet expanded beyond these two areas at the time when not only theFravardin Yast, but also the other principal Yasts were composed in their present form.30

Other points to be considered in this connexion are the fact that many of the geographicalnames mentioned in the Yasts (e.g. Muza,31 Raozdya, etc.) are never heard of again, whichwould be consistent with an early date, and the fact that the majority of the numerousproper names listed in Yt. 13 are not found later in Iranian nomenclature. This wouldbe difficult to account for if the date of this text was towards the close of the Achaemenianempire, as it would have to be on the assumption of c. 600 B.C. for Zoroaster's date. Alsounaccountable would be the almost total absence in this text of Iranian names known tohave been current at that time.

The conclusion that the old Yasts and in particular the Fravardin Yast are to be datedbefore the migration of the Iranians to central and western Iran provides a basis for calculat-ing the date of Zoroaster, since we can begin from the earliest mention of the Medes andPersians in the Assyrian annals, which occurs in the second half of the ninth century B.C.(Parsua 844 B.C., Madai 836 B.C.). As these references are likely to be somewhat later thanthe time of the actual migration itself we would probably not be going too far back if we seta provisional date of c. 900 B.C. for the movement of the Iranians westwards. At some timebefore this the principal old Yasts, including the Fravardin Yast, were composed, and it isthis latter text which provides the basis for further calculation, since it contains informationabout the early history of the Zoroastrian religion. Of course, in general the difference inlanguage between the younger Avestan of the Yasts and GS0a-Avestan implies a consider-able lapse of time, which is not likely to be less than 200 years. But in Yt. 13 we havesome more detailed material to go on, and the large number of names mentioned assupporters of the faith can be held to imply no less a period. The text is particularly in-formative about the family of Saena who was considered to be the most important of thesuccessors of Zoroaster. He himself is said to be the son of Ahum.stut and the names ofthree individuals, representing three successive generations after Saena, are given: Ziyray,Vitkavay, and Utayutay. We thus have five successive generations, which, allowing thirtyyears for a generation, would cover 150 years of the history of the Zoroastrian religionpreceding the Fravardin Yast. Another consideration is the later tradition according towhich Saena lived between the years 100 and 200 of the Zoroastrian religion. That quitea considerable period had elapsed between Zoroaster and Saena is indicated by the statementof the Yast itself (Yt. 13, 97) that Saena was the first teacher of the Zoroastrian religion

30 The interpretation of bawray- in Yt. 5.39 as "Babylon", accepted by Bartholomae, should be abandonedin favour of Nyberg's opinion that the reference is to a "beaver-land", the beaver being an animalsacred to Aradvl Sura Anahita. There is no conceivable reason why this legend, one of the most ancientof the Iranian legends, should be connected with Babylon, and it is unlikely that the Iranians had everheard of Babylon at the time when it arose. A difficulty would occur if the Raya mentioned in theAvesta were the Median Raga mentioned by Darius, but Gershevitch has cogently argued (JNES,XXIII, 1964, 36-7) that ZarathuStrian Raya of the Avesta is to be located in the East, and that MedianRaga was named after it. The process of transferring names from east to west is common, and illustratedby such examples as Hara Baraz applied to the Alburz and Caliasta to lake Urmiya.

31 Possibly to be connected with Skt. Mujavant- (Eilers). This would be a frontier region and it is interestingthat DaStayni, who belonged to this country, appears to have an Indo-Aryan name. The word agni- isforeign to Iranian, and the first member, dasta-, can be interpreted as a past participle passive from theVedic root das- "to worship".


to have a hundred pupils, from which we learn that there had been previous teachers in theperiod since Zoroaster, and the religion must have had a considerable development forsuch a number to be possible. If we take the hundred years between Zoroaster and Saenaand add them to the period represented by the four generations from Saena to Utayutay,we arrive at a period of 200 years at the very minimum between Zoroaster and the com-position of this Yast. Adding this to the date 900 B.C. suggested above as the time of themovement west of the Iranians, we obtain 1100 B.C. as the lowest possible date for thefounding of the Zoroastrian religion. Since, however, the Iranian movement to the westmight have been somewhat earlier than 900 B.C., and since there was probably someinterval between the composition of the Yast and that event, and also in the other directionbetween its composition and the time of Utayutay, the date could be a good deal earlier.The conclusion then is that Zoroaster's date must be at least half a millennium earlier thanthat generally accepted, and quite likely it could be as much as 600 years earlier.

Before Zoroaster a considerable period must have elapsed since the occupation ofeastern Iran by the Iranians, during which the Proto-Indoaryan religion was still respectedby the new rulers. According to later tradition the famous pre-Zoroastrian Kavi dynastywas connected with the region of Seistan, and this would appear to be confirmed by thegeographical details in Yt. 19.65 ff.32 If we allow 150 years for this dynasty as Christensendoes,33 we can get some idea of the length of the period involved, since according to thisevidence they must have been ruling in what was previously Proto-Indoaryan territory.We may conclude the Iranian conquest of eastern Iran was an event that took place notlater than the fourteenth century B.C, and it thus coincided with the period when theProto-Indoaryans had their furthest extension westwards. At this time large numbers ofIndo-Aryans had migrated into India, and as a result of these two migrations the positionof the Proto-Indoaryans in their original base in eastern Iran must have been considerablyweakened, thus providing the Iranians with an opportunity to move in and take over.

The Proto-Indoaryans did not maintain their position in the Near East for very long,and after the period of the Mitanni kingdom they disappear from the record in this region.An indication of their presence in the neighbouring region of Persian Azerbaidjan is perhapsindicated by the name of Lake Urmiya (now Rezaiyeh). Although this name does not occurbefore the Islamic period it is thought to be much more ancient because of the mention in anAssyrian source of a place called Urmieate in its vicinity.34 Since the Proto-Indoaryansmust have been in north-western Iran in order to reach the Mitanni country, it will not beunreasonable to suggest an Indo-Aryan etymology for this name, if one is available. Suchan etymology is available if we compare Skt. urmi- "wave" and urmya- "undulating, wavy",which would provide a suitable descriptive name for the lake. This is a case where thephonology of Indo-Aryan and Iranian have diverged quite widely (cf. Av. varami- "wave")and it is interesting that the name of this lake, if the above etymology is correct, should goso clearly with Indo-Aryan.

The situation in this region in the first half of the first millennium B.C. is one in whichmost of its northern part is under the control of Urartu. To the south-east of the lake lies

32 cf. A. Christensen, Les Kayanides, Copenhagen, 1932, 22-23." op. cit., 34.34 cf. Encyclopaedia of Islam1, IV, 1032.


the kingdom of Manna, the names of whose kings are not of Aryan appearance (or other-wise identifiable). In addition a large number of smaller cities and principalities are men-tioned in Assyrian sources. Among this onomastic material some Aryan names turn up,which could be interpreted as Iranian, but since the Proto-Indoaryans had penetrated sofar west they might also be explained as emanating from this source. Such was the opinionof P. Kretschmer concerning the name of Bagdatti of Uisdis who was defeated and killedby Sargon in 716 B.C.35 If this spelling of the name is reliable it goes better with Indo-AryanBhagadatta- than with Iranian Bagaddta- on account of the double -U-. Another Aryanname from this region, mentioned as early as 827 B.C., is Artasari and this name also may beProto-Indoaryan rather than Iranian. It is not unlikely that among the miscellaneous popu-lation of this region some sections of the Proto-Indoaryans remained at this period, and itis possible that if further documentation becomes available more names of this kind maycome to light.

The presence of Indoaryans, or in the terminology used in this article Proto-Indoaryans,in the Near East was puzzling on account of the later geographical distribution of theIndo-Aryan and Iranian languages, the former being to the east in Northern India, andthe latter to the west in Iran. This distribution resulted from the events sketched above, butat an earlier period the relative distribution of these two moieties of the Aryan languagegroup was between north and south. At this time the north-western part of the Indiansubcontinent was only a part of the territory occupied by the southern half of the Aryans,and from here it stretched into eastern Iran and across the northern part of central andwestern Iran to within striking distance of the Near East. To the north, in Central Asia,lay the Iranians, who, beginning about 1400 B.C., moved south and by degrees took overthe territory previously occupied by the Proto-Indoaryans.

35 KZ, LV, 1927, 100.

Documents

Proto IndoAryans (T Burrow 1973)