What's new

Contribution of Persia to the World Civilization

An absolutely fascinating piece, though sadly fundamentally flawed in many respects.

Please bear in mind, in reading my observations below, two points:

  1. I strongly subscribe to the linguistic analysis which proposes a Proto-Indo-European as the root language in deep antiquity of a number of languages spoken today;
  2. There are two diametrically opposed theories, the AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) and the OOI (Out Of India Theory), the latter having come into being about forty or fifty years ago, and being heavily patronised by the Sangh Parivar, while the former represents the consensus of European and Indian Marxist and liberal thought, and i belong to the AIT school.

What follows are only short answers.

There are also some very interesting questions in the posts that follow, and I would like an opportunity to discuss those later.


A rather interesting note I found on the Internet...

There are some spelling and grammatical errors which I have chosen not to go through in view of keeping the text in it's original form (or at least the form in which I found it)
----------------------------------------------------------

Contribution of Persia to the World Civilization
Compiled by:
Prof. M.S. Tajar
University of the Philippines
March 2004

"Persia" is the Greek name of Pars, a province of modern day Iran. Meanwhile, the name Iran (==Land of the Aryans) is derived from the Aryan people, who first moved from Central Asia, and settled in what is now Iran, some 30,000 years ago. And here are some of the most important contributions of the people of Persia or Iran, to the world civilization:

Quite unlikely. The more likely dates are about 3,000 to 2,500 BC. The direction of travel is also not certain. There is reason to believe that there may have been movement to the east, as far east as the Valley of Ferghana, and then movement in two or three waves, one of which, to the south-west, may have landed up in Media.

1. The first human civilization - - The Persian Civilization (==Eilam); It was ahead of Egypt by 500 years, of India, by 1,000 years, and of China, by 2,000 years, of Greece by 3,000 years, and of Rome, by 4,000 years! According to Professor Arthur A. Pope, the famous Orientalist (A.H. Saidian, Iran: Land and the people, Tehran 2001 P. 358).

No, please, no. The Elamites were well after the Sumerians, and they well after the Egyptians. It is likely that the Chinese too were earlier than the Elamites.

Professor Pope also believes that the world owes its greatest industrial developments, in the early stages, to the Persian Civilization! (Ibid).

Another Orientalist, the French Professor Kalamar of the Sorbonne University of Paris believes that: The Persian Civilization is the mother of all civilizations. (Ibid).

These are emotional sentiments, gush, not scientific determinations.

2. The first empire in the world, the Persian Empire (from the Indus River down to the Danube River in Europe and up to the Nile River in Africa; Central Asia, present day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Macedonia, Cyprus, Lydia and up to the borders of Greece. It stretched from Ethiopia to India, with 127 provinces and 28 different nationalities).

Perfectly true. Although calling it as widespread as the good professor does is probably a wild exaggeration, it was the first empire, and inspired a lot of flattering imitations.

"The Greeks and Romans later copied the best features of the Persian Method of Governing the Empire. (World History, Philip Groisser, New York, 1970, p. 17).

Some adoptions did happen. It is grossly exaggerated to depict this as wholesale adoption.

3. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylonia, Assyria, Media and India; His son Cambodia (any influence on the Cambodian People?)

By India is meant the right bank of the Indus.

Strangely there may be a connection between Cambyses and Cambodia. Anyone interested may please indicate his interest.


added Egypt later, and for the first and the last time in history, all the governments of the known world were ruled under one color!

I don't understand what this is supposed to mean.

4. Insurance by Government was started during Cyrus the Great of Persia.

Do not know.

5. Weight, Money and Measurements were standardized in Persia, for the first time, some 2, 500 years ago

Hopelessly wrong.

6. Sanskrit, which is the mother of all modern languages, was born in Iran, before it went to India

From Proto-Indo-European, there was a two-way split, one which spawned five streams flowing west at different times: from south to north, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Germanic and Tocharian. This stream, which included the Centum languages, included the ancestorsmost of the European languages of today.

The other set of people wandered from the steppe land between the Black Sea and the Caspian to the land between the Caspian and the Aral Sea, or perhaps even further east. One school of thought thinks that the turning point was the Valley of Ferghana. This set spoke the Satem languages. Somewhere between Ferghana/Caspian Sea-Aral Sea and the Hindu Kush mountains, there was another split.

One branch travelled south west, into Elam; they spoke the ancient Avestan one among four others, including east Iranian, which was the language of the Sakas, the Scythians.

The other branch travelled south east, across the Hindu Kush into the Peshawar, Kabul and Swat regions. They spoke the language which was later, nearly 1,000 years later, codified as Sanskrit, the 'polished tongue'. Together these two were called the Indo-Iranian branch of the Proto-Indo-European language.

It is stretching things to state that Sanskrit originated in Iran, but not absolutely false.

7. The Stone Age, which dates back some 70, 000 years ago, was started in Iran, the cradle of the earliest human civilization!

Thundering rubbish. Neither part of this compound sentence is true.

8. In Iran today, there are 1.2 million historical sites, discovered so far, with some 70,000 historical moulds (Gardeshgari, July 2000).

No comment.

9. The first accounting tools were found in Iran, belonging to 9,000 years ago.

in the highest degree unlikely. The works of Marija Gimbutas have pushed these dates much further back than anticipated

10. The first brick invention took place in Iran.

Highly unlikely. Egypt is supposed to be the origin of sun-dried bricks.

11. The world's greatest masonry work is Perspolis, Iran.

Possibly. I have no idea.

12. The architecture of castles originated in Persia thousands of years ago.

13. Iranian tales/legends are some 20, 000 years old.(Ibid)

There are bound to be the remnants of folk tales in the written stories of Iran, but it is unlikely that any survive for such periods of time.

14. According to the Shah-Namah of Ferdausi, the first caesarian operation (actually Persian-Birth) was done in Persia, some 5,000 years ago upon the birth of Rustom from his mother--- Rudabeh.

No information.

15. According to the Persian Holy Books--- Avesta, the first anesthesia was practiced in Persia 1,000 B.C.

According to some Hindu holy books, flight was discovered by epic kings. both these beliefs can be safely left at home.

16. According to Professor Griffith Taylor of Australia, the homo sapiens (Caucassians) were originated from the Iranian Plateau, also known as the Land of Mahd(the Medes?) and scattered throughout the world some 17,000 years ago (15,000 B.C.)Gardeshgari, Iran, Jan. 2001.

No wonder, the famous Orientalist, Professor Arthur Pope said: "Western world has a vast unpaid debt to the Persian civilization!"
Also Hegel, the great German Philosopher, wrote: The beginning of evolution of man starts with the history of Persia (Hegel, Philosophy of History p. 174)

No comment.
.
17. Some paintings in Lorestan caves in Persia, that show a horse-riding man, are 17,000 years old! (15,000 B.C.)

Similar Cro-Magnon paintings exist in other parts of the world, and roughly have the same age. This is meaningless.

18. The original homeland of the Chaldeans (Father Abraham?) was Susa, Iran. The word Chaldean comes from Khald, which comes from Kurd (Kurdish) who were originally Tajiks (Gradeshgari, Iran, Sep. 2000).

Completely untrue. The Semites and the Aryans were two different, two groups. There was little in common between them.

19. According to the Encyclopedia Britanica, "It may well be proved eventually that the human race evolved in Central Asia or Iran"

Doubtful, the consensus at the moment is that Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa up to 200,000 years ago and reached the Near East around 70 millennia ago. From the Near East, these populations spread east to South Asia by 50 millennia ago, and on to Australia by 40 millennia ago, when for the first time H. sapiens reached territory never reached by H. erectus. Europe was reached by H. sapiens around 40 millennia ago, replacing the Neanderthal population. East Asia was reached by 30 millennia ago.

20. According to the Indian Professor, Mereji Baba Kolka: A group of Iranian migrants were settled along the Nile River and founded the Egyptian civilization, thousands of years ago!

Very unlikely. No support for this in mitochondrial findings, or in genetic similarities, or in linguistic analysis.

21. Sumerians were originally Iranians from Kurdestan. So were the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Achadians; All of them spoke Chaldean, as their original language.

The origins and growth of Sumerian civilisation, and its distinct characteristics, are very well known. There is no connection with Iran, except insofar as their original place of migration many thousands of years later became part of what a new ethnic group called after themselves Iran. Chaldean, as a Semitic language, has no connection with Persian, or Iranian earlier than that, or Indo-Iranian, or Indo-European, or Proto-Indo-European. Neither did any of the other languages cited.

22. According to Professor Filder Petry : The civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia are actually branches of the older Culture of Eilam (Persia), which dates back to 6-10 thousand years ago!

Must have been a particularly bad day at the office for the old chap. Flinders Petrie was a great scholar and archaeologist, but things have moved on a bit since his days. Quite a bit, from this example.

23. The Turkish People are a result of the mixture of the early Iranians, and the Chinese; Semites and Egyptians, Palestinians and Arabs, are the mixtures of Iranians and Africans; while the Indians are a mixture of Iranians (Brahman) and the native blacks of India, Dravidians.

The second category is a shocker. This is terrible, straight out of Nazi genetics, this is the Houston Chamberlain/ Arthur de Gobineau recipe book. In fact, the bit about Semites and Egyptians, Palestinians and Arabs is straight de Gobineau.

However, there is more truth in the Indian part; it is probable that Indians today are genetically much the same as the Indians of 40,000 BC, but speaking various Aryan languages rather than their original languages (Koli-Mundari, Dravidian for the most part).

It is also a reasonable description of Turkish origins, although admixture of Caucasians and Mongoloids is a better way of putting it.

24. The history of first people of Persia goes back some 30,000 years ago (28,000 B.C.)

Nope.

Closer to 70,000, like all other men. No difference, in fact, from all other men; there was unlikely to have been a proto-Iranian language earlier than 10,000 BC, at best; but 2,500 to 3,000 BC is better.

25. The oldest rock relief in the world is the Bistoon rock relief in Persia some 2,500 years old.

No comment. I don’t know.

Perhaps a few hours before the next 25?
 
It is good that Iranians are conscious of their ancient heritage, and that should be appreciated by both Pakistanis and Indians.

However Sanskrit originated in South Asia rather than Persia. Almost all Pakistani and North Indian languages are still very close to Sanskrit.

Absolutely agree with you, one should always be conscious as well as protective to their heritage, and when it comes to Iran, present day India-Pak had civilization link with Persia, so its more fascinating to me to know more about Persian civilization. However article is written more on emotion but research and there are many inaccuracies as pointed out by Joe Shearer.
 
What I meant was that the change of name in the international context was well intended-- that Iran was to forge itself anew.

Oh, thats good then. Iran should assert itself but it has a long way to go. I personally think Iran should be given full membership in SAARC.
 
What would you put the numbers of practicing Zoroastrians in modern Iran at? Are there any census figures for the same?

It is difficult to ascertain what members of a denomination actively practice a faith when compared to those to hold its title as an identity. Census are present but the veracity of the information they purport depends on the source in question. All studies though put the number of those who identify themselves as Zoroastrian within Iran at a very tiny number-- 98 percent of the population identifies itself as Muslim. The remainder is made of of different faiths including Christianity (various sub groupings) and Bahi-- amongst whom Zoroastrianism accounts for a smaller fraction (numbers in thousands).

Are they allowed to have their own agyaris and atash behrams (fire temples) there? Is Zorastrianism recognised by the state as a de facto religion, albeit a now-minority one?

Yes.

What sort of "protection" are you talking about?

The constitution labels minority religious groups as being protected in the sense that their rights are to be ensured which includes the practice of religion. Difference between the stated text and actual practice is a subject of debate.

Equally importantly, are these Zoroastrians remanants of the religion who somehow survived over a thousand years of Islamic conversions, or are there many amongst them who are neo-Zoroastrian re-converts?

The remnants are largely made up of those who have survived or withstood the stated conversions. As for converts from other faith within Iran into Zoroastrianism, no figures are available. Amongst the Iranian diaspora, many associate themselves with Zorostrianism as a means to distance themselves from the current ruling authorities of Iran-- i.e more as a means of an identity then actual active religious practice.


This was especially seen as the last straw coming on the back of the ouster of the Shah who was to an extent seen as someone who had somewhat of a soft corner (or tolerance?) for the Zoroastrians, as also was a lot more progressive and western in his outlook towards politics and life in general.

The former Shah being progressive is debatable. During the pre-Revolution period, religion was deemed a secondary matter in terms of state policies and political alignment. Hence, it would be improper to say that he had a soft corner for a certain religious segment, rather it could be said that there was more indifference to the matter.

So my question, in as unambiguous a form as possible, is this. Post the Iranian mullas and their form of Islam, how does the Iran and Iranians of today look at their Zoroastrian heritage of the past.

I say heritage and not just religious faith, because as an Iranian you would no doubt agree that Zoroastrianism was not just your early religious faith, but the entire culture and identity of your people, be it science, literature, architecture, theology, language, or politics.

You have answered much of the question yourself so I will refer to certain details alone. Zoroastrianism was indeed closely affiliated and had massive undeniable influence on past Iranian culture but not all aspects of Iranian culture were tied down with it-- the same stands for politics, architecture and science. Certain Zoroastrian ethics though do influence many aspects of Iranian culture today although they are more closely related to Islam because of their mutual importance in both faiths-- there is commonality in many aspects of Zoroastrianism with Islam. Under-valuing the lasting impact of Zoroastrianism on Iran's past and it's cultural values would however be a grave error in all respects.
 
The two things that I found wrong are:

The invention of ships to cross waters.

The first time ships were used as a bridge over water ( when Darius went to Egypt after crossing Nile).

Ships were common even 2-3 thousand years even before the dates mentioned for the above event.

And the very first ever written clay tablets.

The first clay tablets belong to Ancient Egypt surely not under Persian rule and that was roughly 10,000 years from now or 8,000 BC.

Couldn't keep up the reading. Its a lot of propaganda mixed with original stuff.

No doubt Persian civilization has made great contributions to the human evolution but this material seems to be part of the same propaganda which is under discussion in other threads regarding Iran's military developments.
 
We all came from Africa.

535px-Humanevolutionchart.png
 
seems i need to start a separate thread giving some sense to the likes of pasban.

I am very sorry to see such anger directed at our friend, Pasban, who has brought an extremely interesting and topical piece to our attention. What is written there is not authored by him; he has merely cited somebody else's writing.

I dedicate my answers here, although many of them as speculative as those that they replace, to Pasban, and to our Iranian brethren, the closest to us outside the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, the Nepalis, the Bhutanese and the Lion Race.

my god... i dont have comments to fathom the stupidity of this line.

You are commenting that you have nothing to comment on this. Quite right. It is best to be clear about these things. Very good practice.

Well, Iranians are as susceptible as some Indians who believe that everything that was ever invented or created was already done or found by our ancient ancestors

This rather menacing paragraph really made me think a lot before proceeding further. However, in the rather forlorn hope that some kind souls may tell Bang Galore NOT to shoot the pianist, let us try our luck.

Towards the noble objective of self-preservation, may I point out that I found little really to differ with Bang Galore; there were nuances I would have preferred, but nothing show-stopping. My comments sometimes read as expansions of Bang Galore; perhaps it is best to leave it at that.

Pray for me, please.

"Persia" is the Greek name of Pars, a province of modern day Iran. Meanwhile, the name Iran (==Land of the Aryans) is derived from the Aryan people, who first moved from Central Asia, and settled in what is now Iran, some 30,000 years ago. And here are some of the most important contributions of the people of Persia or Iran, to the world civilization:

1. The first human civilization - - The Persian Civilization (==Eilam); It was ahead of Egypt by 500 years, of India, by 1,000 years, and of China, by 2,000 years, of Greece by 3,000 years, and of Rome, by 4,000 years! According to Professor Arthur A. Pope, the famous Orientalist (A.H. Saidian, Iran: Land and the people, Tehran 2001 P. 358).

Well, that would put egyptian civilisation at around 29,500 years old, the Indian civilsation at about 29,000 years,the Greeks at 27,000 & the Romans at 26,000 years ago. since none of these civilisations claim anything like that, we would probably have to rewrite the whole of recorded history.

These claims are truly fantastic. Let’s take them one by one, in order not to have our brains jump out of our skulls and run squeaking about on the floor, desperately looking for a hole to hide in.

3. Cyrus the Great conquered Babylonia, Assyria, Media and India; His son Cambodia (any influence on the Cambodian People?) added Egypt later, and for the first and the last time in history, all the governments of the known world were ruled under one color!

Would be interesting if Cambodians were at anytime Zoroastrian, unfortunately for the argument, they were Hindus & then Buddhist.

That doesn’t follow.

Zoroastrianism wasn’t the ancestral religion of the Indo-Iranians; that may have closely resembled Vedic cosmogony, except that their concept of the descent of Devas and Asuras may have been reversed: as has been pointed out elsewhere, whereas in the Avesta, Daiva is the devil, and Ahura Mazda is the one, supreme god, in the Vedas, it is the opposite (NB: the Iranians tended to aspirate their ‘s’, so, Asura=Ahura, Sapta Sindhu = Hapta Hindu, etc.).

Zoroaster was in all probability a prophet of a period not clearly known to us. We can only conjecture. His date is probably after 2000 BC, although Parsis prefer a figure of 6000 BC, and current historical sentiment is for between 1800 to 1000 BC.

By then, the Parama Kamboja were already positioned in the Ferghana Valley region. They are known to the immigrant tribes of North India as the Parama Kamboja, the further Kamboja, as distinct from their cousins closer to the Punjab. Legend says, and this is not cited as historical evidence, that they fought in the battle of Kurukshetra, on the Kaurava side. They are described as very tall, very fair and brilliant horsemen with outstanding horseflesh; Kamboja horses were much sought after. Their war-leader was commander-in-chief after a succession of Kaurava commanders-in-chief died in battle; I think he came after Dronacharya, but am not sure. They were expert blanket makers, and their gifts to North Indian Aryans often had a component of blankets in it, apparently greatly appreciated by all fortunate recipients.

In history, they are associated with the Sakas, or Scythians, horse-people on the steppes, who ranged far and wide, from the Takla Makan in the East, bounded by the Indo-European Tocharians (how these Indo-Europeans got here, nobody has a clue), on the west by the Gothic nations.

Another poster has already mentioned Darius’ desperate expeditions after them, in the Danube region, which flailed around in the air and came back achieving nothing except blisters and saddle-sore backsides among the expedition.

Part of their tribe was pushed down south and east by the fleeing Tocharians, otherwise known to the Chinese as the Yueh Chi, the chandravanshi clan (I am using the word to explain to readers that this Sun-descended, Moon-descended, Fire-descended business may have come from the Tocharians), one of five ruling the bigger tribe, or the Kushana, the Tocharian word for moon clan. The Kamboja found themselves pushed into Gilgit and Kashmir. Their names are still to be found widely across Afghanistan and Pakistan and India; one version is Kamboh. Tibetan records show that one branch of the tribe was pushing east into Tibet around the beginning of the first millennium AD.

It is SO tempting to speculate that this eastward-pushing tribe managed to make their way across, intact, to the Burma – South China region, and then further into South East Asia to become the Cambodge there. To tell the truth, this HAS been speculated, but it is such a long shot that we should leave it at that, unless better evidence from Tibetan records, or from genetic analysis crops up.
Incidentally the Cambodians were not intrinsically Hindu, they became Hindu due to conquest. The story of Indian penetration into South East Asia is another completely separate, mind-bendingly spectacular history with its own value.

So it is far-fetched but with a possibility that leaves it at the level of tempting speculation.

6. Sanskrit, which is the mother of all modern languages, was born in Iran, before it went to India
Very interesting! Did it go lock,stock & barrel since it seems to have left no traces in Iran? seems the Iranians/Persians forgot the mother of all languages completely. Very poor show from them - forgetting the mother !!

Please, please, please….

That was rather bitter; whatever for? :-)

The combined common tongue, Indo-Iranian, was prevalent apparently up till the time that the tribesmen got to the steppeland between Caspian and Aral Seas. Here they gradually separated from each other, doctrinal rifts occurred, their common cosmogony reversed direction, and one branch went down south east over the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, the other went south west over into Balkh and Khurasan. Ancient Khurasan is more Iran than modern Persia is.

The Indo-Iranian that the south eastern branch spoke was gradually separated out. The hymns composed in that now-dead language were later formed into four books, the Vedas, and the language continued to develop into what Panini codified as Sanskrit. There is a distance between Panini’s codified language and the language of the Vedas, and LESS of a distance between the Vedas and the Avesta!
So the Iranians did not forget the mother of modern INDIAN languages, they carried with them a sister of that mother language, which was the mother language for the Persians, as Persian, the Azerbaijanis, the Tajik, and the Afghans, among others, in both Dari and Pushto versions.

7. The Stone Age, which dates back some 70, 000 years ago, was started in Iran, the cradle of the earliest human civilization!
So, do Iranians/Persians claim ancestory from them or the Aryans?

Leaving aside the good Professor Tabra’s lucubrations, this date relates to the exit of Homo Sapiens from Africa. We all claim descent from that band of about 1,500 people. They seem to have followed the sea-coast into Arabia, then Iran, then modern-day Pakistan, then India, finally down to Australia and Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia (remember that the seas they faced were at the outset nearly 50 m. less in depth, and over the centuries, gradually deepened).

Another band, settled in the Levant, sent off offshoots into the Mediterranean and into Europe. Then the group in the Levant was the group from which a very large group broke away and traveled north, up through Asia Minor and through an undetermined route, to the steppe-lands around the Black Sea.

It was from HERE, according to current consensus, from what I can make out from my readings, that there was the domestication of the horse; the design and development of the horse-drawn chariot, perfect for a rolling steppe-land; and, in due course of time, after millennia, a two-way split, between the Centum languages and the Satam languages.

The Indo-Iranians were the Satam languages; they therefore are descended from the original African band of migrants, but at that time, had forgotten their own history, and knew nothing of Africa and of migrating from there. Instead, as they traveled east, they developed the habit of describing the nobles and members of the war-band among them as the ‘Arya’, the nobles. The Arya were not the people, they were the king and the close relatives of the king and the members of the war-band. Today, they do not exist; in India, they have been diluted so thoroughly that there is for practical purposes no genetic variation among Indians. Instead, the word Arya is used to describe a group of languages which were brought in by the migrants from the north west (and the western) passes, and which finally became Sanskrit.

9. The first accounting tools were found in Iran, belonging to 9,000 years ago.
Possible. This article is an outcome of some very creative accounting.:p:

This is wholly untrue.

The accounting tools found 9000 years ago were tools developed by Stone Age people, nothing to do with the Iranian migrants whatsoever. The juxtaposition is misleading.

16. According to Professor Griffith Taylor of Australia, the homo sapiens (Caucassians) were originated from the Iranian Plateau, also known as the Land of Mahd(the Medes?) and scattered throughout the world some 17,000 years ago (15,000 B.C.)Gardeshgari, Iran, Jan. 2001.
Contradicts the first statement which said that the Aryans came from central Asia & Caucasians( those who originated in the Caucuses) are not the only examples of Homo Sapiens. If they scattered only 17,000 years ago, how did they mange to build all those civilisations that is claimed to be have been built(according to #1) between 29,500 & 25,000 years ago.

No, it is bunkum, but not quite in the way that you have described it.

Around 17,000 years ago, the Indo-Iranians would have been part of their parent body on the steppes behind the Black Sea. Medea was still some 15,000 years in their future, and a curving, right-handed traverse through many thousands of miles away, from the Black Sea steppes to the banks of the Caspian, then to the banks of the Aral Sea, possibly further east. There they were stopped by the Tocharians, who presumably had turned right instead of turning left into Europe like the other Indo-Europeans, and had landed up at a point where they could go no further without irritating the East Asians who had landed up there around 30,000 years earlier, the Indo-Iranians spread out south and west. Some south and east.

[Personal Message to Bang Galore]
Now hear this!

There was NO US Senate until there was a US; therefore these Caucasians did NOT come from Caucuses.

Nor did they come from the Caucasus Mountains. In this context, this is a term referring to blonde and brunette white-skinned folks. That includes Spaniards, south Italians and Greeks; Maltese, Semitic as they are, don't belong.

23. The Turkish People are a result of the mixture of the early Iranians, and the Chinese; Semites and Egyptians, Palestinians and Arabs, are the mixtures of Iranians and Africans; while the Indians are a mixture of Iranians (Brahman) and the native blacks of India, Dravidians.

The middle one is the joker. The first and third are accepted widely


( Even Sanskrit itself was born in Persia, before it reached India, some 7,000 years ago!). ( Even Sanskrit itself was born in Persia, before it reached India, some 7,000 years ago!).
Pity it didn't like the place of its birth and washed its hands completely of that country.

74. The origins of all the Indo-European languages, including Indian, German, English, Greek, Spanish, French and many other European languages today, are Iranian. (Gardeshgari, Iran, Sep. 2002) So, it should be called Irano-European, not Indo-European!

Bull’s wool.

Proto-Indo-European
Proto-European
Greek
Latin

(Spanish)
(French)
Celtic
(English)
Germanic
Indo-Iranian
Iranian
Farsi
Azerbaijani
Tajik
Dari
Pushto
Pali
Prakrit/Sanskrit
Punjabi
Sindhi
Hindi
Marathi
Gujarati
Maithil
ABU
Assamese
Bengali
Udiya



:rofl: There's a town called Singapur in the Indian state of Andra Pradesh. What conclusions are you going to draw from that?

That there is a town called Town of the Lions. That there could be many towns of the lions, where the same language is spoken (there was extensive cultural exchange with the Malay Peninsula, and South-East Asia in general, and the traces are still broad and wide). That there could be even a country of the lions – Sinhala – claiming descent from Vijaya Singha. That the word Singha seems to have been widely known across a large swathe of territory.

113. The world's most educated (100% highly educated) Community is that of the Parsis (the Persian Zoroastrians) who live mostly in Iran, India, Pakistan and England. They are also one of the most financially successful communities in the world. (They established the first Cancer Hospital, and many other educational and Social Centers, including some of the oldest and biggest libraries in India - -see International Herald Tribune, April 24, 2003).

Incidentally, the most well known poet of the Gujrati language in India is a Parsee by the name of Khabar-Dar.

And they all fled Iran for India. Not very nice of you, was it?

Not all. As the resident fire-worshipper has been hinting madly, there is a residual population of Fire-worshippers in Iran. National Geographic covered them once.

They are tolerated and allowed to worship, as People of the Book. Their main centre is Yezd.

116. In the fields of Religion and Philosophy: The oldest living religion in the world, is Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Persia, (Philippine Star, Jan. 26, 2002).
Would be believable if Zarathushtra, the founder did not reverse the belief that existed & claim that the Devas(Hinduism anyone?) were the false gods & the Ahuras(Asuras anyone?) were the real gods.

No, this is not precisely correct. The religious split seemingly occurred before Zarathustra. Zarathustra's religion, from existing accounts, was radically different, was monotheistic (there was no God but Ahura Mazda) and had to fight for its acceptance. The monotheism in Zoroastrianism is qualified by the existence of Yazatas = Angels, of whom Mithra is the supreme (earlier, he had been next only to Ahura Mazda).

Zoroastrianism is ONE of the oldest prophetic religions; they must compete with Israel for the oldest title. Hinduism had no prophets in 1800 to 1000 BC that we know of today, the earliest being around 600 BC. Perhaps between 1500 BC and 1000 BC, there was the figure of Krishna, but contemporary accounts of Krishna soon gave way to a deified version.

Many Christian traditions as well as some of its Philosophy are actually the adaptations from the Zoroastrianism and Mithraism, the Persian Religion of Sun god worshipping. Here are some examples:

1. The Christmas is, in reality, the Birthday of Mithra the Sun-god (Not the Son of God!) which was born on December 25, after the Saturnalia Festivals).
2. Virgin Mary (mother of Baby-god Jesus) resembles Anahita, the Persian goddess, The Mother of gods!
3. Sunday (the Christians Holiday) is actually dedicated to Sun-god or Mithra, the Persian god.

Probable except that Mithra was a pre - Zoroastrianism deity who was popular enough to be incorporated within Zoroastrianism even though he was one of the Devas. BTW, you can find his mention as a minor god in the Rig Veda (Hinduism)where he always accompanies Varuna.

Since you have gone so far, you might as well go further and check out Boghaz Kuei, the Hittites, the Mitanni, Varun=Ouranos=Uranus, Mitra=Mithra (that &#8216;h&#8217; again?) and the Nasatyas. All members of the divine war-band riding behind Indra the thunderbolt-wielder. In European cosmogony of the incoming Indo-Europeans, he became Zeus, from the earlier steppe divinity Dyaus Pitar = Sky Father, or Jupiter <= Du Pitar <= Dyaus Pitar; so, Zeus&#8217; divine thunderbolt, so effectively demonstrated throughout Greek mythology.


123. Special respect for the animals, particularly cows and bulls, which was very popular among the early Egyptians and the Indians today, has an Aryan (Iranian) origin. It's because of those animals' great roles in agriculture and human sustenance. (And considering that the early Egyptians and the Brahmans of India, were actually the emigrants from the Land of Arya, the connections becomes more evident).
The only problem with the land if the Arya/n is that one of India's early names which finds mention in all its major epics is Aryavarta - the abode of the Aryans.

Please let us not get confused. Both groups, the Indo- and the &#8211;Iranian, remembered and carried along the word Arya, noble, war-lord, great one. Exactly the way it is used in Classical (Paninian) Sanskrit. Both named their territories after their chiefs. It was not out of Iran into India; it was out of Scythia into Iran and into India.


In the end, I would like to point out that I have nothing but the greatest of respect for what ancient Persians achieved & for the richness of their culture.
There is no need to cook up facts or to quote silly lies to try & embellish one of the greatest civilisations to have ever existed on earth. There is far too much greatness in the truth itself.

I could salute that sentiment.
 
@Joe Shearer

Don't disagree with anything you said ( okay, maybe a little). Don't want to go into a point by point explanation. Hope it would suffice to say that all my statements in my post were not meant to be fact by fact rebuttals & should be read in the context of the claims of the original article(cambodia, sanskrit, Arya..etc.).

To some other matters then;

I am very sorry to see such anger directed at our friend, Pasban, who has brought an extremely interesting and topical piece to our attention. What is written there is not authored by him; he has merely cited somebody else's writing.

Absolutely no anger against "our friend" Pasban but that's a very slippery slope argument that you are making. Don't want to take it further here, I am sure you understand what I'm getting at.


You made an earlier point of the out of India theory which you said came into existence 40-50 years ago and you made a pointed reference to the Sangh Parivar who I gather are not good friends of yours. In my opinion, this reference was quite unnecessary and needlessly condescending. The marxists are as guilty of revisionist history as the right wingers.You could even blame them for starting the trend. The OOI theory was originally proposed in the late 18th century and not by the Sangh Parivar. With the knowledge of linguistics not as advanced as now, this was proposed (incorrectly) as a means to explain the connection between Sanskrit & European languages. It's also one of the reasons for the word "Aryan" to be used to describe Europeans(again incorrectly).

Their war-leader was commander-in-chief after a succession of Kaurava commanders-in-chief died in battle; I think he came after Dronacharya, but am not sure.

Karna came after Drona.

I also saw that you threw a lot of names at me(possibly to frighten me :D)
Since you have gone so far, you might as well go further and check out Boghaz Kuei, the Hittites, the Mitanni, Varun=Ouranos=Uranus, Mitra=Mithra (that &#8216;h&#8217; again?) and the Nasatyas

Don't you think that the Mittani are especially interesting considering that they ruled over what is modern day Iraq & Syria & yet seem to be connected with the Indo Aryans specifically & not Indo-Iranians?

How did they get there? When did they get there? That would be important because they ruled around 1500 B.C. and their main deities were also the Gods of the Rig Veda(Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) ) . This is important only because marxist historians like to keep bringing down the date of the Rig Veda to below that level.The dating of the Sanskrit language also becomes important because the Mittani used many words closer to Sanskrit than to the earlier common Indo Iranian tongue. Lots of questions & not enough answers.

Plenty to continue to learn in history Sir( a lot for me, maybe a little less for you).
 
Last edited:
Just to correct some very common misconceptions, apparently even afflicting resident non-Mazdiyasni self ordained experts on the Zoroastrian faith:

Parsis and Irani Zarathushtis are NOT Fire Worshippers as is commonly and wrongly believed.

We worship Ahura Mazda as our God, and the Atash or the consecrated holy fire as his creation. Zarathushtra is our Prophet.

Atash &#8211; The Son of Ahura Mazda Parsis, Iranis, Zarathushtis &#8211; ALL Under One Roof

Secondly, our evil counterpart of Ahura Mazda is Ahriman or Angra Mainyu. Not the Daevas as has been fallaciously put forth as a comfortable yet verily simplistic role reversal of Hindu mythology. The Daevas are minor side kick villains of the piece as far as the ancient Gathas and later the Khordeh Avesta go.

Angra Mainyu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheers, Doc
 
Oh, dear! I had so hoped that this wouldn't turn out to be a Roland for your Oliver kind of issue.

@Joe Shearer

Don't disagree with anything you said ( okay, maybe a little). Don't want to go into a point by point explanation. Hope it would suffice to say that all my statements in my post were not meant to be fact by fact rebuttals & should be read in the context of the claims of the original article(cambodia, sanskrit, Arya..etc.).

Your statements were never thought to be rebuttals; to be honest, I seized the opportunity to avoid the dreary task of going through the remaining 106 statements made by the good professor, the same way that the first 25 were dealt with. So I am mystified at the divergence, other than the divergence that should naturally appear when two people express their respective opinions.

Second, I presume you were citing that remark in order to make the general point that the messenger was not a target, but could not avoid injuries due to glancing blows. In that case, it is appropriate; otherwise not, as it was addressed not to you but to the gentleman (or lady) who revels in the nick of Brain_dead.

To some other matters then;



Absolutely no anger against "our friend" Pasban but that's a very slippery slope argument that you are making. Don't want to take it further here, I am sure you understand what I'm getting at.

I presume that my second paragraph would deal with this adequately.


You made an earlier point of the out of India theory which you said came into existence 40-50 years ago and you made a pointed reference to the Sangh Parivar who I gather are not good friends of yours. In my opinion, this reference was quite unnecessary and needlessly condescending. The marxists are as guilty of revisionist history as the right wingers.You could even blame them for starting the trend.

Only in the Indian context. Not one of my sources happens to be the Romila Thapar/ Irfan Habib school, at least not in this paper, not in this instance. I have referred to them elsewhere, mainly in the context of the Muslim invasions of India, and the entire Hindu-Muslim issue. But not here.

This is a clarification, not a rebuttal.

The OOI theory was originally proposed in the late 18th century and not by the Sangh Parivar. With the knowledge of linguistics not as advanced as now, this was proposed (incorrectly) as a means to explain the connection between Sanskrit & European languages. It's also one of the reasons for the word "Aryan" to be used to describe Europeans(again incorrectly).

I must admit that I had completely lost sight of the racist school that promoted this in the 18th century and onwards; presumably you are referring to de Gobineau and Chamberlain. The reference is to 'Aryan' to describe Europeans; as you cannot have failed to notice, this epithet has been explained to the point of putting off the reader. The reason for saying this is to illustrate that these racist theoreticians are a blind spot and were not considered when taking this into account.

The OOI theory makes me more and more tense, as things were settling into a welcome groove earlier; web-sites like (from memory) bharatvani.org, run by a Dutch professor with a very Dutch refusal to accept whatever is not airtight, really unsettle me. He is so obviously not a Sangh parivar member that his arguments have an impact that others, Frawley, Rajaraman, Talageri, normally don't (please don't tell me you are Talageri or someone like that behind your nick; from his name, Talageri should be a fellow-citizen). If you read the Dutchman's site, things get very tense; he even has a reason explaining some linguistic features, and the rational geographical spread that the tribes achieved which fit the OOI theory.

Not a happy state of affairs.
Karna came after Drona.

I also saw that you threw a lot of names at me(possibly to frighten me :D)

Would I DO such a thing? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Actually, I didn't intend to, and if that was the effect produced, it is sad. Could you point out where I did such a silly, immature thing? I would like to make sure it doesn't get projected similarly again.


Don't you think that the Mittani are especially interesting considering that they ruled over what is modern day Iraq & Syria & yet seem to be connected with the Indo Aryans specifically & not Indo-Iranians?

How did they get there? When did they get there? That would be important because they ruled around 1500 B.C. and their main deities were also the Gods of the Rig Veda(Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) ) . This is important only because marxist historians like to keep bringing down the date of the Rig Veda to below that level.The dating of the Sanskrit language also becomes important because the Mittani used many words closer to Sanskrit than to the earlier common Indo Iranian tongue. Lots of questions & not enough answers.

Plenty to continue to learn in history Sir( a lot for me, maybe a little less for you).

No, no, too much from too little.

First, the Mitanni are an unsettling factor, just like the Tocharians are. Both are thousands of miles away from where they should be.

My own pet theory, totally not provable, is that they are a branch of the Indo-Aryans, who peeled off on the trek eastward, and made their way due south, between the Black Sea and Aral Sea, across the Caucasus Mountains that are so dear to you, and down to the regions where they ruled (I am assuming an area bounded by Cappadocia on one side, by Mesopotamia on the other, by the Levant on the third).

If you look at the dates, if we assume that the Indo-Iranians (taking the AIT as a paradigm for the moment) reached their Ferghana destination about 2,500 BC, the Mitanni must have broken away about 500 years prior to that, c. 3,000 BC, and made their way across the Caucasus thereafter. Could they have reached where they did in 1,500 years of travel across the Caucasus? Would it have taken them that long? Were they a small tribe in the mountains, dormant for centuries, before they burst out and conquered the high country immediately to their south? I don't know, but I think the time lines are reasonable, and fit such a hypothesis. A discovery of Mitanni remnants in the Caucasus, dateable to earlier than 1,500 BC, would do the trick, I think.

That, of course, does not deal with the linguistics issues, and that is one of the issues on which our Flying Dutchman makes hay. I don't have a clue what happened, and how they got where they did.

There is another bizarre possibility, but I will save that for later.

In sum, I agree: the Mitanni are a mystery, and not entirely for reasons that you have adduced. It would be nice to get a handle on them, but I think their track is buried too deep to be uncovered now.
 

Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Pakistan Affairs Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom