Iran And India

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-19-2006, 01:33 PM by Husky.)

Post 60:
Persian influence on Roman Mithraism was not minor at all.
The third highest grade of the Mithraic initiation was Perses (Persian). Above this were the positions of Messenger of the Sun and the highest of all, which was Father (Pater). Head of all Paters was the Pater Patrum, from which derives Pope.
In Persia's Mithraism, Mithra was born of their Goddess Anahita from the frozen seed of Zoroaster. Three Magis followed a star to visit the cave (a rock - Petra in Latin) where he was born. Zoroaster had predicted Mithra's birth, who was seen as the Saoshyant (World Savior) by the Mithraists among the Persians. (See The Legend Of Mithras by Cumont)
This entered Rome, where it got enhanced by and mixed with the similar lives of other Roman deities, and ended up as a somewhat different-looking religion. But it kept the basics given above. Today these are, along with the rituals of Roman Mithraism, wrongly thought to be elements of Christianity (particularly the Catholic variety).

About Zalmoxes, he appears to be multi-dated similar to Zoraster: 600bce, 1200bce - any 6000bce too, perchance? And you say he's a religious reformer associated with something similar to Mithraic religion? Is Zalmoxes merely the western transplanting of Zoroaster?

QUOTEsee on wikipedia MIthraismI don't trust wikipedia any more than I trust a monkey that can type. Actually, that's not true - I'd trust the monkey more (it can type!)
It's a user-contributed encyclopaedia, which means I can go there now and delete everything and overwrite it with whatever I want and then refer to it as "an article from an Encyclopaedia".
Most articles about India and our history there are totally skewed towards the missionary or Islamist or communist or Eurocentric-Indology sides (depending on the topic) because they have a large lobbying group and their persistence and sheer determination to have their version accepted pays off.

For how wrong a Wikipedia article can be, see Post #20 of another thread for a few glaring mistakes I found in just one article of theirs (other members here can find more errors). And this sort of (at times purposefully) shoddy work is supposed to be considered reliable enough to refer to?
At least one Wikipedia entry referred to an article on a known terrorist propaganda site (known for supporting BinLadin) as if the latter was reliable. One wonders who the authors of that wikipedia entry could possibly be...

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-07-2006, 09:21 AM by dhu.)

QUOTEThe third highest grade of the Mithraic initiation was Perses (Persian). Above this were the positions of Messenger of the Sun and the highest of all, which was Father (Pater). 

Perseus should be connected to the Indic Gorgon as another example of a dual iranian-indic influence in greece. Although Kak is a little too direct in his exposition, here is a sample:

http://www.indiastar.com/kak5.htm :

Although the Kirttimukha, a guardian of the threshold, is dated somewhat late in Indian art, its basis is squarely within the Indian mythological tradition. Zimmer (1946) argued that the image of the Gorgon must be viewed as an intrusive Indic idea or a Greek interpretation of the Kirttimukha assimilated atop a different legend. Napier (1986, 1982) provides powerful new support for this idea. He suggest that the forehead markings of the Gorgon and the single-eye of the cyclops are Indian elements.

He suggests that this may have been a byproduct of the interaction with the Indian foot soldiers who fought for the Persian armies. But there were also Indian traders in Greece. This is supported by the fact that the name of the Mycenaean Greek city Tiryns-- the place where the most ancient monuments of Greece are to be found-- is the same as that of the most powerful Indian sea-faring people called the Tirayans (Krishna 1980).

Napier shows that the Perseus-Gorgon story is replete with Indian elements, especially the connection of the myth with Lycia.

``This ancient kindgom figures predominantly in Greek mythology as the location of the exotic: a place of ivory, peacocks, and `many-eyed' cows; a place to which Greeks went to marry and assimilate that which to the pre-classical mind represented everything exotic... [In the British Museum] we find a Lycian building, the roof of which is clearly the descendant of an ancient South Asian style. Proof of this hypothesis comes not only in what may appear to be a superficial similarity, nor in the many `Asian' references with which Lycia is associated, but in the very name of the structure which dates to the mid-fourth century B.C.. For this is the so-called `Tomb of the Payava' a Graeco-Indian Pallava if there was one. And who were the Tirayans, but the ancestors of two of the most famous of ancient Indian clans, the Pallavas and Cholas?'' (Napier 1998)

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-07-2006, 10:53 AM by dhu.)

Gorgon: http://www.asianart.com/articles/murray/6.html
Gorgon figure taken from an early Corinthian vase
ca. 5th century BC.
Note the characteristic encircled eyes, large teeth and
long fangs all to be found in the Lakhe masks of Nepal.
Drawing after Napier, Masks, Transformation and Paradox, 1986, pl.46.

http://www.asianart.com/articles/murray/index.html
Lakhe's appearance, however, is undeniably linked with Indra Jatra, the annual festival associated with the classical Hindu god, Indra. Readers will note that Indra (4) and Lakhe bear similar markings on their foreheads.

The East to west gradient is emphatic:

I would suggest that these masks are the expression of an ancient pan-Asian mask culture which was still in evidence at the beginning of the 20th century not only in the Himalayas, but also among Indonesian islanders such as the Batak of Sumatra (9) and the Atoni of Timor, as well as among the tribal people of India, the shamans of Siberia (14) and others.
.....
Animal Art origin in SEASia with an Altaic - S. Chinese difussion. Cremation and exposure of remains is also part of the SEA/ Himalayan cultural complex. Probably Scythian is a Himalayan-SEAsian / indo-Afghan hybrid.

The Tibetan cultural historian, R.A. Stein draws attention to "the sets of minhirs and tombs arranged in stone circles in the lake region on the southern fringes of the Changthang [the northern portion of the Tibetan plateau]; and the 'animal style' in the decoration of metal objects (knives, stirrups, buckles, etc.) practised at Derge and in Amdo [in eastern Tibet], which is similar to that of the Ordos bronzes and the 'Scythian' art of the steppes"(15).[9]

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-08-2006, 11:05 AM by dhu.)

http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/ahura.htm
Dr. Kalyan:
QUOTEMithras as the constellation Persius killing Taurus the bull; Mithras is accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raven, and a scorpion, is shown in the act of killing a bull url "Dating from around the 15th century BC, Mithraism emerged in ancient Persia. 'Mihr' (the Persian form of Mithras) was the word not only for the Sun but also for a friend; and that seems to be how this pagan god was originally worshipped - as both supreme sun god and god of love." [Quest for the Past]See the Cosmic mysteries of Mithras by David Ulansey "During...the 'Age of Taurus,' lasting from around 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the celestial equator passed through Taurus the Bull (the spring equinox of that epoch), Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion (the autumn equinox): that is, precisely the constellations represented in the Mithraic tauroctony (bull-slaying)."Â url

07-08-2006, 08:42 PM

[quote=Husky,Jul 6 2006, 08:58 PM]
Post 60:
Persian influence on Roman Mithraism was not minor at all.
The third highest grade of the Mithraic initiation was Perses (Persian).

I did not say that persian religion didnt have any influence.I was meaning that in greco-roman world,the MIthra cult was mixed whit other religions.This is call sincretism.
Zalmoxis religion wasnt Zarathustra religion.
In zalmoxianism is no duality betwin good and bad like in parsi religion.
The funerary ritual was incineration whit the ashes put in urn or trown in a river ,while parsi practice exposure of body to birds.
Zarathustra was seen as a profet ,while Zalmoxes was profet,priest,king,god or even the suprem god,although the greek Strabon aserte that the suprem god of thracians have no name and no califications(atributes).
Zalmoxianism have a reincarnation concept while parsi have the uni-life concept.
His teachings are more similar whit pythagorean ones.In fact in many ways are identical.Also his teachings are link whit the thracian Orfeus the priest of god Dionyssos and the mistery cults.The main teaching was about obtaining the imortality.
The first grek mistery cults have base in the thracian cult of Dionissos.The Dionisos adepts(and similar zalmoxis adepts) beliving that they become one whit their god if they drink the sacred wine or others toxic plants and eating the flesh of a sacrificed animal.
Also was a human sacrifice call trei-sule(three spears)ritual ,in which the most pure man was trow and kill in 3 spears beliving that he was send as mesager to god.Later this practice was abandoned.

I find wikipedia a good and easy source of information even i so some wiki(wierd) things.fOr exemple it say that Zalmoxis lost cave is in Bucegi mountain.This hypothesis have no base.Is base by a suposition that the bUcegi Sfinx is a representation of Zalmoxis.The cave is more probable in the Surian mountains near holy river Sarmisegetusa.

In Iliad writed by Homer we find living in north Balkans a population call abioi(people whitout life).They are described as vegetarians,non-violent,whit boll heads(they shave their heads of course),whit no womens.The action of Iliad,the trojan war was in 1200BC,so we find monks similar whit buddhism monks but 600 years before the birth of Buddha.

When i was reading the book 'dacian religion'by Dan Oltean ,i find this amaizing similarites betwin mithraism and zalmoxian cult reformed by the great priest Dekaneios during the rule of king Burebhista.
The gods like Apollo,Ares,Dionissos are certain thracian gods borow by the greeks,and this is posible also for Zeus.To belive that the most numerous people in the world,exept the indians,acording to Herodot,living no influence on the greeks,especialy when they share the border whit them?
The greeks didnt need to look to the far east for pythagorean doctrines,when thay have thracians nearby.

07-08-2006, 08:55 PM

The gorgones are find in all the world including pre-columbian america.
The lydian arhitecture is older then south indian temples.See this link
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/arc/ind/lycia/liki_eng.htm

Also as a counter exemple see this link'
http://www.boloji.com/architecture/00003a.htm

07-09-2006, 05:18 PM

Diodor from Sicly say that indeed "Zarathustra make to belive that a good god give his laws;to the so cal getae that belive they are imortals,Zalmoxis sustain that him enter in conection whit the goddes Hestia" .
The essenians from Judeea are compare by jew historian Joseph Flavius whit the ktistai and pleistoi monks ,adepts of Zalmoxis.
Is intersting that zoroastrian religion is more similar whit the semitic religions then whit IE religions.

07-11-2006, 02:57 PM

Post 62 (Dhu):
I'm fine with the Gorgon being possibly Indic.
But do you think there is any real connection between Perses (Latin, perhaps also Greek for Persian) and the name Perseus?

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-11-2006, 03:43 PM by Husky.)

Post 65 (Romani):
QUOTEThey are described as vegetarians,non-violent,whit boll heads(they shave their heads of course),whit no womens.The action of Iliad,the trojan war was in 1200BC,so we find monks similar whit buddhism monks but 600 years before the birth of Buddha.I don't understand why you assume that only Buddhists were non-violent vegetarians with bald heads and no women.
For instance, much of these descriptions fits certain classes of Jain monks. And more importantly, all brahmana communities then were vegetarian (that they had been non-vegetarian is a recent invention, thanks to the communists for that) and as a general rule did not ever practise warfare. Many brahmana communities tended to shave most of their heads but had a tiny pigtail at the back and a few groups amongst them did not lead a married life. Even as it is, in the brahmachari and sannyasin stage common to all brahmana communities (the latter also available to all Varnas as far as I am aware) they would not get married either.
You forget or might be unaware of the fact that it was wholly brahmanas from whom came the initial Buddhists. This is why early Buddhism was entirely filled with the practises of brahmanas: including the vegetarian diet (some Chinese Buddhists do not feel they need to become vegetarian as they believe Buddha died of eating pork - it was a Hindu brahmana custom to be vegetarian), yoga (according to tradition, Buddha attempted and abandoned yoga as impractical), dress, hair 'style'.
In short, there were definitely brahmanas in 1200bce and before.

By the way, Buddhism's date might also have been affected by AIT. This thread, Post 3 (final paragraphs) discusses this a little.

QUOTEZarathustra was seen as a profet ,while Zalmoxes was profet,priest,king,god or even the suprem god,You do not distinguish between the main religion of Persia (Zoroastrianism) and some smaller religions based on it like Persian Mithraism. These were related, by minor traditions on the side. In the Mithraism of Persia, Zoroaster was regarded both profet/priest and an incarnation of the supreme God's spirit. That is why his frozen seed harboured his Divine, indestructible Spirit, to be given a new body: that of Mithra, the Saoshyant recognised as such by the Persian Mithraists. From what I've read, according to them, Zoroaster himself had fulfilled his prediction: which was that his own spirit itself would be reborn as the Saoshyant, seen as an incarnation of the great God.
Though Mithra as the Saoshyant and as the re-emergent divine might not have been recognised as such by the mainstream Persians (Zoroastrians), it was nevertheless what the Mithraist minority among the Persians believed.

QUOTEin Parsi religion.QUOTEparsi practice You're use of Parsi is sometimes confusing. Parsi is the language (Arabized to Farsi since Arabic doesn't have a 'p') - I make this mistake too at times. However you refer to Parsees and Zoroastrians as if they were the same. However, the former is a proper subset of the latter.
Parsee is a Zoroastrian Indian who escaped from Persia seeking refuge in India from the Islamic Jihad in circa 1400ce. There are other Iranian Zoroastrians who came to settle in India many centuries later - they have also always been Zoroastrians, but are not called Parsee (because they fled an Iran which was no longer called Persia after Islam had taken over).
There are non-Parsee Zoroastrians: besides the more recent Iranian Zoroastrian refugees in India, the people of ancient Persia were all Zoroastrians (Persians). The Parthians seem to have been of this religion as well. Therefore, speak of Zoroastrian religion.

dhu · (This post was last modified: 07-13-2006, 05:30 PM by dhu.)

QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 11 2006, 02:57 PM)Post 62 (Dhu):
I'm fine with the Gorgon being possibly Indic.
But do you think there is any real connection between Perses (Latin, perhaps also Greek for Persian) and the name Perseus?
[right][snapback]53408[/snapback][/right]


Husky,

Neither the mycenean founder Perseus nor the Goddess Persephone is derivable in the Greek languge, without the usual linguistic special pleadings and acrobatics. Given their intimate asscoiation with the Gorgons, Pomegranates and a whole host of other asiatic motifs, it is quite natural to derive them from the names of the founding Persian tribes. Pomegranates are used as a substitute for Homa in Avestan rites for the dead. we do not get a clear picture of their ritualistic significance if we go only by the disjointed greek narrative of persephone. We should not be surprised at such assocations- eg the entire collection of Aesop's is derivable from the Jatakas. Probably we should be looking for a devolution origin of the myceneans from mideastern persians as well as the hittites.

Perseus' connection to Persia was also polemically pointed out by the ancient Persians themeselves when they sought to subdue their peripheral greek extensions.

Talageri: http://www.voi.org/books/rig/ch9.htm

âGreek and Sanskrit share many complex grammatical features: this is why many earlier linguists were misled into regarding them as examples of the most archaic stage of Proto-Indo-European. However, the similarities between the two languages are now regarded as innovations that took place during a late period of PIE , which we call stage III. One of these Indo-Greek innovations was also shared by Armenian; all these languages it seems, existed in an area of mutual interaction.â64

Thus we get: âGreek Armenian, Phrygian, Thracian and Indo-Iranian. These languages may represent a comparatively late form of Indo-European, including linguistic innovations not present in earlier stages. In particular, Greek and Indic share a number of distinctive grammatical featuresâ¦â¦â65

The following are some of the innovations shared only by Indic, Iranian, Greek and Armenian (Thraco-Phrygian); features which distinguish them from the other branches, particularly the other living branches:

a. âThe prohibitive negation *mE is attested only in Indo-Iranian (mA), Greek (mE) and Armenian (mi); elsewhere, it is totally lackingâ¦ and there is no difference in this respect between the ancient and modern stages of Greek, Armenian or Persianâ;66 or, for that matter, sections of Indic (eg. the prohibitive negation mat in Hindi).

b. âIn the formation of the Perfect also, there is a clear âdistinctionâ between Indo-Iranian and Armenian and Greek on the one hand, and all of the other languages on the other.â67

c. The âIndo-European voiceless aspirated stops are completely attested only in Indo-Iranian and Armenianâ¦ Greekâ¦ clearly preserves two of the three voiceless aspirated stops whose existence is established by the correspondence of Indo-Iranian and Armenian.â68 All the other branches show âcomplete fusionâ69 of these voiceless aspirated stops.

d. âThe suffix *-tero-, *-toro-, *-tro- serves in bell Indo-European languages to mark the opposition of two qualities, but only in two languages, Greek and Indo-Iranian, is the use of the suffix extended to include the formation of secondary adjectival comparativesâ¦ This development, by its very difference, points to the significance of the Greek and Indo-Iranian convergenceâ¦ Armenian, which has a completely new formation, is not instructive in this regard.â70 But, âLatin, Irish, Germanic, Lithuanian and Slavic, on the other hand, borrow their secondary comparative from the original primary type.â71

e. âThe augment is attested only in Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek; it is found nowhere else.â72 And it is âsignificant that the augment is not found in any of the other Indo-European languagesâ¦ The total absence of the augment in even the earliest texts, and in all the dialects of Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic, is characteristic.â73

Hence, âthe manner in which Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic eliminated the imperfect and came to express the preterite presupposes an original, Indo-European, absence of the augment throughout this group of languages. We thus have grounds for positing two distinct Indo-European dialect groups.â74

f. The division of the Indo-European branches into two distinct groups is confirmed by what Meillet calls the Vocabulary of the Northwest: âThere is quite a large group of words that appear in the dialects of the North and West (Slavic, Baltic, Germanic, Celtic and Italic) but are not found in the others (Indic, Iranian, Armenian and Greek)â¦ their occurrence in the dialects of the North and West would indicate a cultural development peculiar to the peoples who spread these dialects.â75

07-13-2006, 10:29 AM

Post 70:
The extensive explanation is appreciated.
QUOTEPerseus' connection to Persia was also polemically pointed out by the ancient Persians themeselves when they sought to subdue their peripheral greek extensions.This is most interesting indeed.

Your reference to linguistics quotations seem to indicate that there is a separate division, besides the usual one of Shatem and Centum.
If I understand it correctly, this new division puts the Indian, Iranian, Armenian and Greek languages together in one group whilst placing the other IE languages in another group.
Whereas the Shatem/Centum division had Indian and Iranian languages in the Shatem group with the Centum group lumping Greek together with other European languages?

Is this new division (Gr, Arm, Ir, In vs other IE) well-known and widely accepted? If so, it shows that different classification schemes of the same languages are possible and that things are actually far-less black-and-white than the Indologists make it.

07-16-2006, 04:58 PM

]You do not distinguish between the main religion of Persia (Zoroastrianism) and some smaller religions based on it like Persian Mithraism. Though Mithra as the Saoshyant and as the re-emergent divine might not have been recognised as such by the mainstream Persians (Zoroastrians), it was nevertheless what the Mithraist minority among the Persians believed.

QUOTE
The only ting that conect Zalmoxis cult whit Iran is the zalmoxian priests use cannabis indica ,because euro-cannabis dont have halucinogen effect.
The ascetic practice was wide spread(the most noumerous ascets from europe) in Romania until 1600.This tradition go back for an least 3000 years.
But can i ask you ,this small zoroastrian sects also belive in dualism as the main zoroastrism? The dualism wasnt a main expresion of zalmoxian belive.
The main god of zalmoxe was the Gebeleizis,the dragon slayer,while Ahura mazda didnt have such atribute.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-19-2006, 01:58 PM by Husky.)

Dhu,
Not in special reference to any particular post here, but somewhat related to your last few posts in this thread.
I have tracked down the following site again:
http://mythologia.8m.com/ - about Greek Mythology.
On the main page there's some text that automatically scrolls, which states in the middle:QUOTEWE WILL TRACE THE ROOTS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY TO FARAWAY INDIA AND TRY TO COMPARE IT WITH MYTHOLOGIES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD.The above was linked off an Australian Greek Religion site (the real Greek religion, not Christianity). So there you have it. More than the Gorgon appears to be of Indian origin, according to this site which has been approved by a Traditional Greek Religion site ( http://ethnikoi.org/links.html ).

07-19-2006, 09:42 PM

QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 13 2006, 10:29 AM)
If I understand it correctly, this new division puts the Indian, Iranian, Armenian and Greek languages together in one group

they could not have put all indian languages in the same group as iranian. some indian languages have nothing in commen with parsi/farsi/avestan.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-20-2006, 05:15 AM by Husky.)

Post 74,
QUOTEsome indian languages have nothing in commen with parsi/farsi/avestan.Parsi (or Farsi as it is now called) is derived from ancient Avestan, though today's Farsi might have some Arabic influences.
All the Indian languages that are grouped as Indo-Aryan are basically derived from Samskrit. And Samskrit is clearly related to Avestan. Therefore whether present-day Bengali or Hindi sounds like present-day Farsi or not, they all belong in the Indo-Iranian group together.

Thus if a classification did group Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages together with Greek and Armenian - it would appear to include all the Indo-Iranian languages (all Iranian + all Indo-Aryan).

07-20-2006, 11:42 AM

QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 20 2006, 05:08 AM)Post 74,
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEsome indian languages have nothing in commen with parsi/farsi/avestan.Parsi (or Farsi as it is now called) is derived from ancient Avestan, though today's Farsi might have some Arabic influences.
All the Indian languages that are grouped as Indo-Aryan are basically derived from Samskrit. And Samskrit is clearly related to Avestan. Therefore whether present-day Bengali or Hindi sounds like present-day Farsi or not, they all belong in the Indo-Iranian group together.

[right][snapback]54138[/snapback][/right]
</div>
i know that bit. what i was trying to say, is that though languages that derive from sanskrit (hindi, bengali, oriya, gujrati, marathi, punjabi) indeed have a lot in common with parsi (no surprise there), even in its present arabificated form, munda, santali, telugu, tamil etc dont share similar grammar, or root words or even the property of inflexion with farsi and arnt cognate at all.

07-20-2006, 11:44 AM

QUOTE(Husky @ Jul 20 2006, 05:08 AM)
All the Indian languages that are grouped as Indo-Aryan are basically derived from Samskrit.
[right][snapback]54138[/snapback][/right]

i would love to see proof of how tamil comes from sanskrit. same with munda. i know all indian scripts are in small or great measure, derived from brahmi - the original script of sanskrit. but language?

Husky · (This post was last modified: 07-20-2006, 12:00 PM by Husky.)

QUOTEi would love to see proof of how tamil comes from sanskrit. same with munda.South Indian languages and Munda are not shown to be derived from Samskrit. Hence not classified as Indo-Aryan. What do S Indian or Munda languages have to do with this discussion at all?

I get it, you're being pedantic about my statement QUOTEIf I understand it correctly, this new division puts the Indian, Iranian, Armenian and Greek languages together in one group where I wrote 'Indian' as a shorthand for 'Indo-Aryan', thinking that the person I was writing to - that is dhu, not you - would understand that I meant the Indo-Aryan languages. These were the only Indian languages that were in question here; S Indian or Munda were not brought up at all in any of the recent posts I think.
But here, I'll correct it for you:QUOTEIf I understand it correctly, this new division puts the Indo-Aryan languages, Iranian languages, Armenian and Greek languages together in one group

Husky · (This post was last modified: 01-24-2007, 05:08 AM by Husky.)

Post 69, myself:
QUOTEThe Parthians seem to have been of this religion (Zoroastrianism) as well.Came across something about Parthians yesterday. It wasn't terribly interesting or new, but it made me start thinking about who they were. I looked them up in Encarta Encyclopaedia, and filtered out the Aryan nonsense.
So far I thought they had migrated to Babylon/Iraq/Mesopotamia on the Tigris-Euphrates rivers, after having left western India long ago. But it seems that their actual home kingdom was not established in Mesopotamia, though they did build many major cities there, but was much closer to home: western Afghanistan to eastern Iran.

QUOTETopic: Parthia
Parthia, ancient empire of Asia, in what are now Iran and Afghanistan. The Parthians were of Scythian descent, and adopted Median dress and Aryan speech. They were excellent horsemen and archers. In battle, mounted Parthians often discharged their arrows back toward the enemy while pretending to flee; this is the origin of the phrase âa Parthian shot.â

Parthia was subject successively to the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, and Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and Seleucids. About 250 bc the Parthians succeeded in founding an independent kingdom that, during the 1st century bc, grew into an empire extending from the Euphrates River to the Indus River and from the Oxus (now Amu Darya) River to the Indian Ocean. The main Parthian cities were Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Hecatompylos. After the middle of the 1st century bc Parthia was a rival of Rome, and several wars occurred between the two powers. In ad 224 Parthia was conquered by Ardashir I, king of Persia and founder of the Sassanid dynasty.

MicrosoftÂ® EncartaÂ® Encyclopedia 2002. Â© 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Topic: Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon, city of ancient Mesopotamia, on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, opposite Seleucia. Ctesiphon was the winter residence of the Parthian kings and later the capital of the Parthian kingdom. When the Arsacid dynasty of Parthian rulers was overthrown, about ad 224, the city became the capital of the Sassanid dynasty of Persian kings. Plundered by the Arabs in 637, the city was abandoned when the Abbasid caliphs made their capital at nearby Baghdad. The ruins of Ctesiphon, in modern Iraq, are noted for the remains of a great vaulted hall of the Sassanian period.

MicrosoftÂ® EncartaÂ® Encyclopedia 2002. Â© 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Topic: Mesopotamia
After Alexander the Great's conquest in 331 bc, the Greek dynasty of Seleucus I held Mesopotamia. A dozen cities were foundedâSeleucia on the Tigris being the largestâbringing Hellenistic culture, new trade, and prosperity. A major new canal system, the Nahrawan, was initiated. About 250 bc the Parthians (see Parthia) took Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. The Parthian rulers (the Arsacids) organized their empire so that several autonomous vassal states developed, in which Greek and Iranian (Persian) ideas mingled. After rebuffing Roman attacks, the Parthians fell (ad 224) to the Sassanids (see Persia), whose domain extended from the Euphrates to present-day Afghanistan. Effective government with a hierarchy of officials and improved irrigation canals and drainage brought prosperity. Intermittent conflict in the northwest with the Roman province of Syriaâpart of the Eastern Roman (later Byzantine) empire after 395âand with Arabs in the desert border areas led to disaster when insurgent Arab tribes destroyed Sassanian Persia in 641, bringing with them a new religion, Islam. Despite this defeat, the Sassanid dynasty lasted until 651, when the last Sassanid ruler died.

MicrosoftÂ® EncartaÂ® Encyclopedia 2002. Â© 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.(1) First, about the statement in red above:
The Parthians were of Scythian descent, and adopted Median dress and Aryan speech.
Ignoring any triumphant Oryan (Scythian) lilt to Encarta's statement here (the encyclopaedia does this often, I wonder who writes their articles):
- Does Encarta mean 'Indo-Aryan' speech? So far I have only read that Parthians spoke Iranian, not Indian. Or do they mean 'Aryan speech' as in 'Indo-European' speech? Why the obfuscation, when they know enough to be more specific and can write that the Parthians spoke an Old Iranian language? Even were they Scythians, all Scythians known to history spoke an Old Iranian language anyway.

- Encarta writes that Parthians were of Scythian descent, but what if it was the other way around: that the Scythians (wild tribes) were of Parthian descent? That is, even if the country wasn't yet called 'Parthia' at the time some tribes took off from the W-Afghan region and community which would later to be called Parthia and Parthians, the ethnic origins of these emigrating tribes (who'd become the Scythians of C-Asia later on) would actually have been of the same ethnicity as the Parthians-to-be from whom they'd split earlier. That is, Scythians in that case would have been ethnically-Parthian.

It would make sense as to why the Scythians spoke Iranian, and would be consistent with why the people of the later Parthian empire are described as of 'Scythian descent', since they are related, even if the relationship might originally have been in the opposite direction and even if the Scythians re-entered Afghanistan in later times, in time for the Partian empire to form.

(2) My actual questions.
- So far, I was of the opinion that the Parthians would have been Zoroastrian, as they were long under the Zoroastrian empire of Persia. However, if they were not always Zoroastrian, would their religion have been something between Hinduism and Zoroastrianism or just another version of having the many Gods which had long been common to India and Iran. (Though the fact that W-Afghanistan is the birth-place of Zoroastrianism makes me still think the Parthians might have been Zoroastrian at the time of their Empire.)

- The Kalash Kafirs stuck in Pakistan - are they in any way related to the Parthians and could their religion have been the Parthian religion? I read somewhere on IF that it was a lot like Hinduism. If so, they might have been either driven eastwards during the course of history, into what is now called Pakistan, or maybe they were the easternmost remnants of the Parthians?

- Are the Pathans in anyway related to the Parthians (who would then also have been driven more east-wards during the ages)? Of course, language erosion need not have taken place in such an obvious way as to make 'Parthian' turn into 'Pathan', but couldn't help noticing that when written in the Roman alphabet, these two words have a lot of letters common.

Just to clarify: the above are questions, not statements of fact. Even if there's lots of speculation in there. But then, IE Studies does far more speculating using infinitely less logic and evidence, so I think I have all the right to draw some straight lines between points that may be random and may be aren't.

dhu · 03-30-2007, 03:58 AM

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