Bactrian Timeline: 2500 BC - 870 AD

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2300 BC......."The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (or BMAC, also known as the Oxus civilization) is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilisation of Central Asia, dated to ca. 2300–1700 BCE, located in present-day northern Afghanistan, eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus River)....In the Early Bronze Age the culture of the Kopet Dag oases and Altyn-Depe developed a proto-urban society..... Pottery was wheel-turned. Grapes were grown. The height of this urban development was reached in the Middle Bronze Age c. 2300 BC..... It is this Bronze Age culture which has been given the BMAC name."

2000 BC....."Balkh is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from the North of Amu Darya, between 2000 – 1500 BC. The Arabs called it Umm Al-Belaad or Mother of Cities due to its antiquity...Bactria in ancient times was renowned for its grapes, oranges, water lilies and later sugar cane.....several natural trade routes intersect at Balkh. From there, caravans could follow the well-watered foot of the mountains westward towards Herat and Iran, or across the Oxus to Samarkand and China and all the routes across the Hindu Kush......the greatness of Balkh owes even more to those distinctive people who promoted craftsmanship and trade, created cities and wrote poetry all across the Iranian world. On the down side, Balkh was usually rich rather than powerful, and became the envy and the prize of more warlike neighbors."......http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/afghanistan/balkh.html

Click on the map to enlarge

1800 BC........"Shenrab Miwo......"The teacher who transmitted Bon into Tibet from Shang Shung (or Tazik) reportedly in 1800 BC. The Berlin manuscript of the Zermig has several unusual representations of Shenrap."......The Bon Religion of Tibet: The Iconography of a Living Tradition...by Per Kvaerne

1700 BC......Zarathustra......"Controversy over Zaraϑuštra's date has been an embarrassment of long standing to Zoroastrian studies. If anything approaching a consensus exists, it is that he lived no later than 1000 BC, give or take a century or so, though reputable scholars have proposed dates as widely apart as 1750 BC and '258 years before Alexander'."........http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarathustra#cite_note-10

1600 BC......"The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BC), and the Andronovo culture, which flourished ca. 1800–1400 BC in the steppes around the Aral sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The proto-Indo-Iranians were influenced by the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, from which they borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800-1600 BC from the Iranians, whereafter the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Levant and north-western India.".....Anthony, David W. (2007), The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World,

1600 B.C......."In the Rig Veda, we read that the initial relationship between the Aryan religious groups... asuras (ahura) and deva was one of coexistence. This relationship would gradually change to one of competition....The story of the differences between the asuras and devas were of course a reflection of the differences and the violent conflict between the deva and asura worshippers. While the Hindu scriptures do not directly refer to Mazda worshippers, the Zoroastrian and Persian texts talk about the conflict as one between the deva and Mazda worshippers.....Periodically, one group would win dominance over the other. Nevertheless, until, their separation into the nations of Iran and India, they did coexist....At the time of Zarathushtra's birth, Asura/Mazda worship had lost ground to Deva worship....The conflict eventually resulted in the deva worshippers living in the Central Asian kingdom, leaving or being pushed south through the Hindu Kush mountain passes into the upper Indus valley.....The Indus Valley was called Hindu (Hind or Ind) in the Avesta." ....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/religion2.htm

1500 B.C...."....The weather change in Airyana Vaeja, that pollen and tree ring analysis indicates the Chang Tang plateau in Western and Northern Tibet had a far more liveable environment than it has today - one that supported a primordial civilization - until, starting around 1500 BC, the climate become colder and drier. The climate change would have caused the population to migrate out of the northern plateau. This type of climate change from temperate to cold, and the resulting changes in the environment from comfortable and verdant to harsh and rocky, is similar to the Zoroastrian stories of a climate change during the reign of legendary King Jamshid."....http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/7621

1000 B.C.......The I Ching (Chinese: 易經; pinyin: Yìjīng; [î tɕjə́ŋ]), also known as the Classic of Changes or Book of Changes in English, is an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics. Possessing a history of more than two and a half millennia of commentary and interpretation, the I Ching is an influential text read throughout the world, providing inspiration to the worlds of religion, psychoanalysis, business, literature, and art. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC),

900 B.C..........."The King of Shambhala, King Suchandra (sometimes wrongly Sanskritized as "Chandrabhadra," Tib. Dawa Sangpo), was the one who requested teaching from the Buddha. In response to his request, the Buddha gave the first Kalachakra root tantra in 900 to 876 BC. Note: the Kalachakra calculations put quite a bit earlier than the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha (563 or 566 B.C.)"

600 B.C.......Zoroastrianism....one of the world's oldest religions, "combining a cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism in a manner unique... among the major religions of the world." It was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) in ancient Iran approximately 3500 years ago. It was the official religion of Persia (Iran) from 600 BC to 650 AD.".....

604 B.C........Lao-Tzu (Lao-Tze)........c.604 - c.521 BC...Laozi of the Daoist school urged: "Man follows earth, earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Way, and the Way follows nature."

551 B.C.........Confucius (c. 551 – 479 BC)....... a Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period of Chinese history....Confucius's principles had a basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong family loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children and of husbands by their wives....Confucius said more about "human affairs" and less about "the Mandate of Heaven." Nonetheless, he also believed that "what the saint says" is in keeping with "the Mandate of Heaven."....The Mandate of Heaven is an ancient Chinese belief and philosophical idea that tiān (heaven) granted emperors the right to rule based on their ability to govern well and fairly. According to this belief, heaven bestows its mandate to a just ruler, the Son of Heaven."...Jiang, Yonglin (2011). The Mandate of Heaven and The Great Ming Code (Asian Law Series). University of Washington Press.

563 B.C......."Shakyamuni Buddha.....In 563 or 566 B.C., a prince was born to a noble family of the Shakya clan, in a very beautiful park called Lumbini Grove, which lay in the foothills of the Himalayas (in present-day southern Nepal). This beautiful park was not far from the capital city of the Shakya kingdom, Kapilavastu. The prince’s father, King Shuddhodana, named his son Siddhartha. He was a member of the Kshatriya, or royal warrior caste, and his clan lineage, the Gautamas, was ancient and pure. His mother was Mahamaya or Mayadevi, daughter of a powerful Shakya noble, Suprabuddha."...http://kagyuoffice.org/buddhism/shakyamuni-buddha/

329 B.C..........."Alexander took Bactria in 329 B.C., and made it his base for conquest and amalgamation of the Greek and Iranian civilizations.....After Alexander the Great’s victory over King Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC, he had to contend with small rebellions that broke out across his empire. In the summer of 328 BC, one such rebellion occurred in the eastern satrapy of Bactria, a rebellion that would lead to a chance meeting with the beautiful Roxanne, the sixteen-year-old daughter of Oxyartes, the satrap of Bactria .....The marriage between Roxanne of Balkh and Alexander the Great took place in 327 BC."

304 B.C......."Emperor Ashoka the Great (Aśoka) lived from 304 to 232 BC and was the third ruler of the Mauryan Empire."

129 B.C......Bactria.....annexation by the Kushans (129 B.C.), whose large and powerful empire stretched from Central Asia deep into India. Balkh flourished at the crossroads as a depot and trans-shipment point for the world’s luxuries. “ From the Roman Empire the caravans brought gold and silver vessels and wine; fom Central Asia and China rubies, furs, aromatic gums, drugs, raw silk and embroidered silks; from India spices, cosmetics, ivory and precious gems of infinite variety” With the merchants came monks preaching the new religion of Buddhism, and Balkh became a center of worship and learning, famous for its Buddhist temples and monasteries."...http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/afghanistan/balkh.html

216 A.D......Mani (Middle Persian Māni and Syriac Mānī, Greek Μάνης, Latin Manes; also Μανιχαίος, Latin Manichaeus, from Syriac ܡܐܢܝ ܚܝܐ Mānī ḥayyā)....... c. 216–274 A.D.), of Iranian origin....the prophet and the founder of Manichaeism, a gnostic religion of Late Antiquity which was once widespread but is now extinct.... In 240–41 A.D. , Mani travelled to "India" (i.e. to the Sakhas in modern-day Afghanistan), where he studied Hinduism and was probably influenced by Greco-Buddhism. Al-Biruni says Mani traveled to 'India' after being banished from Persia. Returning in 242 A.D., he joined the court of Shapur I, to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan. Shapur was not converted to Manichaeanism and remained Zoroastrian."....Marco Frenschkowski (1993). "Mani".

630 A.D......."By the time the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (formerly spelled Hsuan Tsang) passed through Balkh (630 A.D.) on his way to the fountainhead of Buddhism in India, the city had become part of the Sassanian empire. The bazaars were still humming with trade, the countryside fertile and the great temples impressed him with their magnificence. But Xuanzang noted laxness among the monks, and the rise of Zoroastrianism. There was strife with the Turki nomads across the Oxus, and the Arab incursions were just fifteen years ahead."...http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/afghanistan/balkh.html

633 A.D....."Parsis.....According to the Qissa-i Sanjan, Parsis migrated from Greater Iran to Gujarat and Sindh between the 8th and 10th century AD to avoid the persecution of Zoroastrians by Muslim invaders who conquered Iran....When Islam became the predominant religion of areas including such present-day countries as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman, the Muslim invasion of Persia, launched by the Rashidun Caliphate in 633 AD, became a huge event in the history of the region. During these conquests, buildings and books were destroyed....Due to this persecution, Zoroastrians became refugees in India."...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism_in_India

650 A.D......"Iranian-Aryan Relations with the Tibetan Empire....The Tibetan empire established by Songtsen Gampo soon grew in power that extended beyond its borders....The Yarlung dynasty appears to have continued the collaborative relationship the Zhang Zhung had with the Iranian Aryans. The relationship continued even after the Arabs had conquered the Persian empire. Since it is the Tibetans who had become the dominant eastern power in the seventh century CE, it is they who provided the Persians and Sogdians sanctury.....As they fled east, the Persians first took refuge in Sugd (Sogdiana) and their presence there has been recorded on Sogdian inscriptions in Panjakand and Paykand. Then as the Persians and Sogdians continued east into China...... the rise of Tibetan power was because of the assistance of Persian refugees fleeing from the Arab invasion of Persia in the 650s AD. According to Nikitin, when the Persians arrived in the Tibetan court, they trained the Tibetans in the art of imperial warfare. According to another author Beckwith, a Chinese source describes the Yarlung Tibetan warriors and horses as being completely clad in armour in the Sassanian fashion. An important military technological advance and advantage for the Tibetans was their newly acquired ability to produce chain mail for armour.".....http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/7621

674 A.D......."Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad (Arabic: عبيد الله بن زياد‎) was an Umayyad general and the governor for the Umayyad Caliphate in Kufa, in what is now Iraq during the reign of Yazid I.....In 674 he crossed the Amu Darya and defeated the forces of the ruler of Bukhara in the first known invasion of the city by Muslim Arabs.

870 A.D......."In 672 an Arab governor of Sistan, Abbad ibn Ziyad, raided the frontier of Al-Hind and crossed the desert to Gandhara, but quickly retreated again. The Arab General Obaidallah (Ubayd Allah) crossed the Sita River and made a raid on Kabul in 698 only to meet with defeat and humiliation. Vincent Smith, in Early History of India, states that the Turkishahiya dynasty continued to rule over Kabul and Gandhara up until the advent of the Saffarids in the ninth century. Forced by the inevitable advance of Islam on the west, they then moved their capital from Kapisa to Wahund on the Indus, whence they contin­ued as the Hindushahiya dynasty. This was in 870 A.D. and marks the first time that the Kingdom of Shambhala actually came under Moslem domination.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/biographies/historicalsaints/lord-padmasambhava.htm#eightcentury

870 A.D......."The Kabul Shahi dynasties also called Shahiya ruled the Kabul Valley (in eastern Afghanistan) and the old province of Gandhara (northern Pakistan and Kashmir) during the Classical Period of India from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century A.D. They are split into two eras the Buddhist-Shahis and the later Hindu-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870.A.D."....Sehrai, Fidaullah (1979). Hund: The Forgotten City of Gandhara

"The times that followed were turbulent ones in Central Asia. Balkh changed hands repeatedly among Arab, Persian and Turki rulers, and was sacked more than once, yet it continued to flourish. The Arab geographers Yaqubi and Moqaddasi (9th and 10th centuries) depict Balkh as it was under Samanid rule, whe Bukhara was the center of power. A large and prosperous city of mud brick some three square miles in area, it held perhaps 200,000 persons. It was surrounded by mud-brick walls pierced by seven gates. A splendid Friday Mosque occupied the center, and many more mosques were scattered among the dwellings. The fire temple in the suburbs, which Xuanzang had admired when it was a Buddhist monastery, was still noteworthy. The city was home, not only to Persians and Turks but also to communities of Jews and Indian traders. It nourished poets and scholars, lawyers and even geographers and astronomers. But peace was a sometime thing; even when Balkh came under Seljuk rule for over a century, the nomads were never far away."......http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/afghanistan/balkh.html

("Catastrophe struck in 1220 A.D., when Ghengis Khan chose to make an example of Balkh, perhaps as punishment for an uprising. One hundred thousand Mongol horsemen embarked on an orgy of slaughter and destruction that left nothing standing; a few weeks later they returned to pick off the survivors of the carnage. Balkh remained in ruins for a century.".....http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/afghanistan/balkh.html

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January 2016

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Uttarakuru and Uttaramadra in the Aitareya Brahmana (c.1000 BC)

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"Uttarakuru (Sanskrit: उत्तर कुरु) is the name of a dvipa ("continent") in ancient Hindu and Buddhist mythology......Uttarakuru country and its people are sometimes described as belonging to the real world, whereas at other times they are mythical or otherworldly spiritual beings.....Aitareya Brahmana makes first reference to Uttarakuru and Uttaramadra as real-life Janapadas. According to Aitareya Brahmana, these two nations lay beyond the Himalayan ranges (Hindukush). The Aitareya Brahmana adduces these two people as examples of republican (vairajiya) nations, where whole Janapada took the consecration of rulership.......Aitareya Brahmana again notes that Uttarakuru was a deva-kshetra or divine land......Uttarakuru also finds numerous references in Buddhist literature, sometimes as a real land and other times as a mythical region.....Ramayana testifies that the original home of the Kurus was in Bahli country. Ila, son of Parajapati Karddama was a king of Bahli, where Bahli represents Sanskrit Bahlika (Bactria)....Bahlika or Bactria may have constituted the Uttarakuru. Mahabharata and Sumangalavilasini also note that the people of Kuru had originally migrated from Uttarakutru. Bactria is evidently beyond the Hindukush.....".....Geographical Data in Early Puranas, 1972, Dr M. R. Singh

"Uttara Madra is a kingdom grouped among the western kingdoms in the epic Mahabharata. It is identified to be located to the northwest of eastern Madra with Sagala as its capital. It was situated along the ancient route called Uttarapatha extending from Vanga Kingdom in the eastern sea shore through the Gangetic Plain, Punjab, mountain passes of the Western Mountains, to the city of Balkh in Afghanistan and to the far western countries. In some parts of the epic, Uttara Madra and Bahlika are considered as the same country. Arjuna collected tribute from Uttara Madra during his northern military campaign for Yudhishthira's Rajasuya sacrifice."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttara_Madra_Kingdom

"The Aitareya Brahmana (Sanskrit: ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण) is the Brahmana of the Shakala shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns.....The Aitareya Brahmana is dated variously from 1000 BC to 500 BC."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aitareya_Brahmana

"Jean Przylusky has shown that Bahlika (Balkh) was an Iranian settlement of the Madras who were known as Bahlika-Uttaramadras....The Kambojas, the neighbors of the Uttaramadras, here obviously refers to the Parama-Kambojas branch the Kambojas located in Trans-Hindukush regions."....An Ancient People of Panjab, The Udumbras, Journal Asiatique, 1926, p 11, Jean Przylusky showing that Bahlika (Balkh) was an Iranian settlement of the Madras who were known as Bahlika-Uttaramadras.

"The Uttaramadra was the northern branch of the Madra people who are numerously referenced in ancient Sanskrit and Pali literature. In Aitareya Brahmana (VIII.14), the Uttarakuru and the Uttaramadra tribes are stated to be living beyond Himalaya.

"Since Uttarakuru of the Aitareya Brahmana is said to lie beyond Himalaya, the Bahlika or Bactria is also beyond Hindukush (i.e ... Kurus, the Madras were also originally a people living in/around Bahlika as is suggested by Vamsa Brahmana of the Sama Veda which text refers to one Madragara Shaungayani as ... In Aitareya Brahmana, the Uttarakurus and Uttaramadras are stated as living beyond Himalaya (paren himvantam) ..."....http://www.liquisearch.com/what_is_aitareya_brahmana

"The Ramayana seems to localize the Uttarakurus in Bahlika country. According to it, Ila, son of Prajapati Karddama, king of Bahli (Bahlika) country, gave up Bahli in favor of his son Sasabindu and founded the city of Pratisthana in Madhyadesa. The princes of the Aila dynasty (which is also the dynasty of Kurus) have been called Karddameya. The Karddameyas obtained their names from river Kardama in Persia and therefore, their homeland is identified with Bahlika or Bactria. This indicates that Bahlika or Bactria was the original home of the Kuru clans.... According to Jean Przylusky, the Bahlika (Balkh) was an Iranian settlement of the Madras who were known as Bahlika-Uttaramadras...in the remote antiquity (Vedic age), the (Iranian settlement of) the Madras was located in parts of Bahlika (Bactria)--the western parts of the Oxus country. These Madras were, in fact, the Uttaramadras of the Aitareya Brahmana (VIII/14). However, in 4th c BC, this Bahlika/Bactria came under Yavana/Greek political control and thus the land started to be referenced as Bahlika-Yavana in some of ancient Sanskrit texts..".....http://www.liquisearch.com/bahlikas/kurus-bahlikas-kambojas-madras_remote_connection

".... the Uttarakurus, Uttaramadras and Kambojas-- all were located beyond the Himalaya/Hindukush ranges. Probably, the Uttarakurus were located in the northern parts of Bahlika, the Uttaramadras were in the southern parts of it and the Kambojas (=Parama Kambojas) were to the east of Bahlika, in the Transoxiana region. The ancient Bahlika appears to have spanned a large expanse of territory. The commentator of Harsha-Carita of Bana Bhatta also defines the Kambojas as Kambojah-Bahlika-Desajah i.e. the Kambojas originated in/belonged to Bahlika. Thus, it seems likely that in the remote antiquity, the ancestors of the Uttarakurus, Uttaramadras and the Parama Kambojas were one people or otherwise were closely allied and had lived in/around Bahlika (Bactria)."............http://www.liquisearch.com/bahlikas/kurus-bahlikas-kambojas-madras_remote_connection

"Astronomy played a significant role in Vedic rituals, which were conducted at different periods of a year. The Aitareya Brahmana (4.18) states the sun stays still for a period of 21 days, and reaches its highest point on vishuvant, the middle day of this period...".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aitareya_Brahmana

"This work, according to the tradition, is ascribed to Mahidasa Aitareya.".....Arthur Berriedale Keith (1920). Rigveda Brahmanas: The Aitareya and Kausitaki Brahmanas of the Rigveda. Mot

"The Aitareya Aranyaka is undoubtedly a composite work, and it is possible that the Aitareya Brahmana also had multiple authors."

"The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda: Translation, edited by Martin Haug...(1827-1876)..... Oriental scholar and one of the founders of Iranian studies. His contributions to Old and Middle Iranian studies remained influential well into the twentieth century....His intimate, cordial, and affable manner of communicating with Hindu brahmans and Parsi priests (dasturs) enabled him to obtain the most extended and accurate information concerning their beliefs, rites, and customs ever vouchsafed to any European....He also bought Avesta, Pahlavi, and Vedic manuscripts for his own private collection.....His lectures on Indo-Iranian philology, linguistics, and Oriental studies....Haug published his Essays on the Sacred Language, Writings and Religion of the Parsis (Bombay, 1862), which offered the first grammatical description of the Avestan language in comparison with Sanskrit.....Haug argued that Zarathushtra taught a pure, ethical monotheism and a philosophical dualism, that there was no evidence for rituals in the Gathas, and that the prophet’s teachings were corrupted by later generations."...http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/haug-martin

The Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda: Translation, edited by Martin Haug.....http://www.wilbourhall.org/pdfs/vedas/aitereya/the_aitareya_brahmanam_of_the_rigveda__s.pdf

Studies in Vedic and Indo-Iranian Religion and Literature....by Kshetresh Chandra Chattopadhyay.... 1978....The University of Virginia

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January 2016

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Paradesha, Parádeisos, Chahar Bagh: Royal Walled Gardens of Kalapa

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"The mythical paradise of Shamballa, sometimes thought to be in a parallel world or dimension , is a land of a thousand names. The Hindus call it "Paradesha" (Paradesa: Sanskrit) (Paradise....Persian: پردیس,.....High Land).....or "Aryavarsha", the land from which the Vedas came from; the Buddhists "Shambala"; the Chinese know it as " Hsi Tien", the Western Paradise of Hsi Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West; the Russians knew it as "Belovodye" and "Janaidar", the Christians and the Jews the "Garden of Eden". In the esoteric literature it has become known as "Shangri-La", "Agarttha" or "the Land of the Living".It has the name of "Forbidden Land"; "the Land of White Waters"; the "Land of Radiant Spirits"; the "Land of Living Fire"; the "Land of the Living Gods" and the "Land of Wonders".....Vedic society... the ancient civilization was Arya-Varsha......Taoist mythology calls it Tebu...Beneath the land of Shambhalla lies a cavernous underworld.. Its summit aligns to the wheeling constellation of Ursa Major, the Seven Stars that circle the Pole. .... The Japanese also have a Shambhalla which they have named ‘Island of the Congealed Drop’. It is situated ‘on the top of the globe' but at the same time 'at the center of the earth'. Its first roof-pillar was the earth's axis, and over it was the pivot of the vault of heaven.......The Chinese actually describe their idea of Shambhalla as the Center of the Earth, directly under Shang-te's heavenly palace, declaring it to be in the polestar. They also call it, ‘The Palace of the Center’. "....IN SEARCH OF SHAMBHALA........Mary Sutherland 2003

A Brief History of the Kalachakra....by John R. Newman....https://collab.itc.virginia.edu

"The word "paradise" entered English from the French paradis, inherited from the Latin paradisus, from Greek parádeisos (παράδεισος), from an Old Iranian *paridayda- "walled enclosure". By the 6th/5th century BC, the Old Iranian word had been adopted as Assyrian pardesu "domain". It subsequently came to indicate walled estates, especially the carefully tended royal parks and menageries. The term eventually appeared in Greek as parádeisos "park for animals" in the Anabasis of the early 4th century BC Athenian Xenophon. Aramaic pardaysa similarly reflects "royal park"."

"Paradise....The word's etymology is ultimately derived from a PIE root *dheigʷ "to stick and set up". It is reflected in Avestan as pairi-daêza-. The literal meaning of this Eastern Old Iranian language word is "walled (enclosure)", from pairi- "around" and -diz "to make, form (a wall), build". The word is not attested in other Old Iranian languages (these may however be hypothetically reconstructed, for example as Old Persian *paridayda-)."

"Sanskrit: paradise: नन्दन nandana .....Paradesa (Sanskrit) [from para beyond, above + desa region, country] The region above or beyond; said to be the highlands to which the first Sanskrit-speaking people have supposedly been traced. More truly, the cradleland of the first thinking man. It is also the sacred land in Central Asia inhabited by the Dragons of Wisdom or initiates, and in this sense is synonymous with Sambhala. .....'paradise' is believed to have probably come from the Sanskrit word 'paradesa' परदेश meaning 'foreign' land."

"Vedic society of the ancient civilization was Arya-Varsha - a civilization (not just a national culture or people). Arya Varsha translates roughly to 'enlightened world' ......Arya Varsha referred to morally developed regions......Within Arya Varsha, was Bharatha Khanda (Basically South asia), and within that Jambu Dwipa (Indian region), and within that many kingdoms and states......Arya Varsha extended all the way to Ireland the legend goes. South India was definitely part of it......Archeology suggests that there was an advanced Indus valley civilization around the saraswathi river, and at some point there was a massive drought and most cities had to be abandoned, and the population got dispersed. Then when the climate improved, people from the western areas came and settled there. As they settled, they absorbed much of the beliefs and culture of the prior people, and that became the modern system."....https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-advanced-developed-Vedic-Society-in-India-like-Was-there-a-parallel-culture-in-south-India

"Arya (Sanskrit, also ārya; Pāli: ariya) is a term frequently used in Buddhism that can be translated as "noble", "not ordinary", "valuable", "precious",[a] "pure", etc. Arya in the sense of "noble" or "exalted" is frequently used in Buddhist texts to designate a spiritual warrior or hero.....In Chinese Buddhist texts, ārya is translated as 聖 (approximately, "holy, sacred", pinyin shèng, on'yomi sei)......

THEORIES OF PARADISE........"The west first heard of Shambhala in 1627 after Catholic missionaries travelled to Tibet and heard stories about it. Some Buddhists associate it with the mythical land of Olmulungring, an invisible kingdom dating back to the 17th century BC, when its king travelled to Tibet to bring enlightenment. Some scholars think Shambhala is simply a remembrance of earlier civilisations of Central Asia which were known to exist, and had contact with Tibet. Many other scholars and traditions place Shambhala in a variety of locations. Taoist mythology calls it Tebu, a secluded land between Tibet and Szechwan. Blavatsky thought it existed somewhere in the Gobi Desert. Whilst historian Geoffrey Ashe suggested it might be in the remote Altar mountains between Russia and Mongolia. However, other traditions give a more esoteric location, explaining the mythology concerning its disappearance."

"From the time of the Achaemenid Dynasty the idea of an earthly paradise spread through Persian literature and example to other cultures, both the Hellenistic gardens of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies in Alexandria. The Avestan word pairidaēza-, Old Persian *paridaida-, Median *paridaiza- (walled-around, i.e., a walled garden), was borrowed into Ancient Greek: παράδεισος parádeisos, then rendered into the Latin paradīsus, and from there entered into European languages, e.g., French paradis, German Paradies, and English paradise. The word entered Semitic languages as well: Akkadian pardesu, Hebrew pardes, and Arabic firdaws."....Fakour M., Achaemenid Gardens

Pairidaēza....."The central "royal garden" at Pasargadae was designed to reflect this new empire. Recent international collaborative archaeological fieldwork incorporating surface, geophysical, and aerial survey has modified earlier ideas about this formally laid out, irrigated area. Excavations in the 1960s uncovered a system of limestone channels, 25 cm wide and punctuated with a deep square basin every 13 or 14 m, thus dividing the area into two rectangles. The channels probably sat flush with the ground surface. At the edges of this garden were three structures: Palace P, and two smaller pavilions. The main portico of Palace P opened directly onto the garden; a stone throne was fixed at its center, giving the ruler an uninterrupted view over the area. Some scholars have assumed that the central placement of the throne implies a second axial division of the garden into four quadrants. Recent work now indicates that this space may have incorporated a much greater area, including both a pool-like construction crossed by a bridge as well as other monumental structures. In this scenario, the pool would have acted as a channel, whose embankments were also lined with stone, drawing water from the nearby Pulvar River. The classical historian Arrian, writing in the second century a.d., left a snapshot of the park in his description of Cyrus' tomb: located approximately 1 km from the palaces, it was set in a "royal park at Pasargadae, and around it a grove of all kinds of trees had been planted. It was also watered by a stream, and high grass grew in the meadow" (Anabasis, 6.29)."....http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/features/2013/pasargadae

"Charbagh or Chahar Bagh (Persian: چهارباغ, chahār bāgh, "Four Bāghs") is a Persian-style garden layout. The quadrilateral garden is divided by walkways or flowing water into four smaller parts. In Persian, "Chār" means 'four' and "bāgh" means 'garden'.....Was there a connection between the proposed four quadrants and the "four quarters" of Cyrus' empire, to which he referred in the Cylinder text quoted above, as has been suggested by some scholars? Is the royal garden with the fourfold design, or chahar bagh, the earliest example of a feature that became a dominant characteristic of Persian garden design in the ensuing centuries?.......Chahrbagh originated from the time of Achaemenid Persia. Greek historians, such as Herodotus and Xenophon, give extensive accounts of Cyrus the Great's palatial city of Pasargadae and his four-gardens..... The tradition of paradise garden originated among the Mughals, originally from Central Asia, which is found at Babur's tomb, Bagh-e Babur, in Kabul.....

"On a recent trip to Kalapa Valley, Eva Wong, our esteemed feng shui master, felt that this valley held the secret command of the Shambhala vision and that it would affect the energy and spirit of all of our centers. Even though many of us have not seen the land, by receiving it now, Kalapa Valley will have a positive effect on all of our activities. It will have a unique role in our community since it will not be built up into a major practice center. Rather, it will have a pavilion for the practice of the sacred Werma sadhana and sacred gardens for practitioners to visit."....http://kalapavalley.shambhala.org/about/

"HAŠT BEHEŠT ....The description of a palace in the Hašt behešt of Amir Ḵosrow, with four pavilions on the cardinal points around an octagonal basin in a luxuriant garden, represents the clearest literary reconstruction of this model in Persian literature....This cosmological concept is closely connected to Islamic eschatology, in which paradise is conceived as having eight gates and eight spaces, each one decorated with a special precious stone or material. The description of paradise was further elaborated by the philosophers and Sufis who considered the eighth paradise to be the highest garden, that is, the Garden of Eden"....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/hast-behest-2

"Genesis describes the Garden of Eden as being "in the east, in Eden" (Gen 2:8). In the Assyrian inscriptions idinu (Accadian: edin) means "plain" and it is from this that the Biblical word is probably derived. The Garden is described as having "all kinds" of trees growing in it....As with many passages in Genesis, there is debate among Christians whether or not the story of the Garden of Eden should be taken literally or metaphorically......The traditions of its location somewhere in central Asia are numerous and persistent, and naturalists have in the past pretty generally fixed upon the portion of Central Asia stretching east from the Himalayas - often referred to as the roof of the world and from which flow four great rivers: the Indus, the Tarim, the Sur Daria (Jaxartes), and the Ainu Daria (Oxus) - as the original cradle of mankind."....http://www.conservapedia.com/Garden_of_Eden

"Professor S.H. Buchanan, a Biblical scholar during the late 19th century, was one of those believers, who put down in his work The World and the Book:......“Thus everything invites us to place the Eden of the Semites (Aryans) in the mountains of Belurtag, at the point where this chain unites with the Himalaya, toward the Plateau of Pamir... We are conducted to the same point, according to Brunoff, by the most ancient and authentic texts of the Zend-Avesta. The Hindu traditions also contained in the Mahabbarata and the Puranas, converge to the same region. There is the true Meru (Ararat) (of the Hindus), the true Albordj (of the Persians), the true river Arvanda, from which all rivers take their source, according to Persian tradition. There, according to the opinions of almost all the populations of Asia, is the central point of the world, the umbilici, the gate of the universe. There is the Uttarakura; ‘the country of happiness,’ of which Magesthanes writes. There is, finally the point of common attachment of the primitive geography, both of the Semitic and the Indo-European races.” ......The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus also hinted that the Garden of Eden had a central Asian location"......http://www.conservapedia.com/Garden_of_Eden

"Uttarakuru (Sanskrit: उत्तर कुरु) is the name of a dvipa ("continent") in ancient Hindu and Buddhist mythology......Uttarakuru country and its people are sometimes described as belonging to the real world, whereas at other times they are mythical or otherworldly spiritual beings.....Aitareya Brahmana makes first reference to Uttarakuru and Uttaramadra as real-life Janapadas. According to Aitareya Brahmana, these two nations lay beyond the Himalayan ranges (Hindukush). The Aitareya Brahmana adduces these two people as examples of republican (vairajiya) nations, where whole Janapada took the consecration of rulership.......Aitareya Brahmana again notes that Uttarakuru was a deva-kshetra or divine land......Uttarakuru also finds numerous references in Buddhist literature, sometimes as a real land and other times as a mythical region.....Ramayana testifies that the original home of the Kurus was in Bahli country. Ila, son of Parajapati Karddama was a king of Bahli, where Bahli represents Sanskrit Bahlika (Bactria)....Bahlika or Bactria may have constituted the Uttarakuru. Mahabharata and Sumangalavilasini also note that the people of Kuru had originally migrated from Uttarakutru. Bactria is evidently beyond the Hindukush.....".....Geographical Data in Early Puranas, 1972, Dr M. R. Singh

"The Aitareya Brahmana (Sanskrit: ऐतरेय ब्राह्मण) is the Brahmana of the Shakala shakha of the Rigveda, an ancient Indian collection of sacred hymns.....The Aitareya Brahmana is dated variously from 1000 BC to 500 BC."

"The Persian Garden......exemplify the diversity of Persian garden designs that evolved and adapted to different climate conditions while retaining principles that have their roots in the times of Cyrus the Great, 6th century BC. Always divided into four sectors, with water playing an important role for both irrigation and ornamentation, the Persian garden was conceived to symbolize Eden and the four Zoroastrian elements of sky, earth, water and plants. These gardens, dating back to different periods since the 6th century BC, also feature buildings, pavilions and walls, as well as sophisticated irrigation systems. They have influenced the art of garden design as far as India and Spain....They reflect the flexibility of the Chahar Bagh (Four Gardens), or originating principle, of the Persian Garden, which has persisted unchanged over more than two millennia since its first mature expression was found in the garden of Cyrus the Great's Palatial complex, in Pasargadae...The word Paradise entered European languages from the Persian root word "Pardis", which was the name of a beautiful garden enclosed behind walls. .".....UNESCO » Culture » World Heritage Centre » The List » World Heritage List......http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1372

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January 2016

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Polaris, Ursa Major, the Saptarishi Mandala and Yungdrung

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"In the Puranas, connected with the Kali-Yuga and Kalki Avatara prophecies, computations utilizing the cycle of the Big Dipper (The Great Bear, in Sanskrit, the Seven Rishis (Saptarsi)....revolving around the circle of the 27 asterisms....staying in each of them for 100 years....this cycle is strikingly similar to the one hundred year reigns of the Kings of Shambhala."...Page 9....Kalachakra Research Publications...No.1...Feb 1986

"The North Pole Star is called Dhruva Nakshatra in Sanskrit literature. Saptarishi are seven stars of the Big Dipper named "Vashista", "Marichi", "Pulastya", "Pulaha", "Atri", "Angiras" and "Kratu". There is another star slightly visible within it, known as "Arundhati" who is the wife of Vashista. This Pole is the center of Kalachakra around which Saptarishi Mandala revolving around a fixed centre on clockwise direction because of a geocentric understanding of an astronomical phenomenon called axial precession....The Vedas postulate that ‘Svastika’ represents it as the Universe in our own spiral galaxy in the fore finger of the creator. Swastika is a geometric pattern in the sky representing the north ecliptic pole. This carries most significance in establishing the creation of the Universe and the arms as 'kal' or time"...It is a very sacred and auspicious symbol of Kalachakra."...http://sivkishen.wikia.com/wiki/File:Swastika.jpg

"YungDrung Bön is Tibet's oldest spiritual tradition, and the founder of the Bön religion is Buddha Shenrab. He is said to have been born in the mythical land of Olmo Lung Ring, whose exact location remains something of a mystery. The land is described as dominated by Mount Yung-drung Gu-tzeg (Edifice of Nine Swastikas), which many identify as Mount Kailash in western Tibet. Due to the sacredness of Olmo Lung Ring and the mountain, both the counter-clockwise swastika and the number nine are of great significance in the Bön religion.".....http://www.sherabchammaling.com/index.php/tibetan-bon-3.html

Svastika (Sanskrit Language, sva + asti, auspicious)
Yungdrung (Tibetan/Zhangzhung Language, ever-lasting)...The yungdrung is the principal symbol of the Bon Religion, also known as the Yungdrung Bon, Ever-lasting Truth.

"Svastika is a Sanskrit word: Swastika. (Tibetan is g.yung drung གཡུང་དྲུང་ ).... It is a composite word consisting of su+ asti +ka. The word ‘su’ means "good, well" and “asti “being"; the suffix “ka” either forms a diminutive or intensifies the literally verbal meaning as "that which is associated with well-being," corresponding to "lucky charm" or "thing that is auspicious. It is lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote auspiciousness, or any piece of luck or well-being. It is a symbol that generally takes the form of an equilateral cross, with four legs its four legs bent at 90'°. It is a very sacred and auspicious symbol of Kalachakra, Yuga Dharma and Chaturpada represents seasons as well....Swastika is a symbol of calendar system and is clearly visible at Asthapada Parvata on the west side of Mount Kailash. This is a Kala Chakra or Time Cycle."....http://sivkishen.wikia.com/wiki/File:Swastika.jpg

Asthapada Parvata on the west side of Mount Kailash

"Vedas postulate that ‘Svastika’ represents it as the Universe in our own spiral galaxy in the fore finger of the creator. Swastika is a geometric pattern in the sky representing the north ecliptic pole. This carries most significance in establishing the creation of the Universe and the arms as 'kal' or time, a calendar that is seen to be more advanced than the lunar calendar symbolized by the lunar crescent common to Lord Shiva. The 4 arms of the Svastika represent 4 aspects of nature -the sun, wind, water, and soil. Its 4 arms are four seasons, where the divisions for 90-degree sections correspond to the solstices and equinoxes. The luni-solar solution for correcting season drift was to intercalate an extra month in certain years to restore the lunar cycle to the solar-season cycle......North Pole Star is called Dhruva Nakshatra in Sanskrit literature. Saptarishi are seven stars of the Big Dipper named "Vashista", "Marichi", "Pulastya", "Pulaha", "Atri", "Angiras" and "Kratu". There is another star slightly visible within it, known as "Arundhati" who is the wife of Vashista. This Pole is the center of Kalachakra around which Saptarishi Mandala revolving around a fixed centre on clockwise direction because of a geocentric understanding of an astronomical phenomenon called axial precession......The seven Rishis in the next Manvantara will be Díptimat, Gálava, Parasurama, Kripa, Drauńi or Ashwatthama, Vyasa and Rishyasringa."....https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/svastika-swastika-sivkishen-lionlinked-gmail-com?forceNoSplash=true

"Saptarshi is the name of a constellation near celestial pole and also the collective name of the seven sages who carries forward the secret of Kalachakra. This constellation also plays a role in the movement of the wheel of time as some of the stars in it becomes the pole-star due to the precessional movement. It is known as Big Dipper and Ursa Major (Great Bear) in western astronomy. The names of the seven sages differ based on the source text. Popular list include Bhrigu, Atri, Angirasa, Marichi, Pulastya, Pulalaha and Kratu. Sometimes Marichi is replaced by Vasistha and either Atri or Kratu replaced by Agastya.....The Saptarishi (from saptarṣi, a Sanskrit dvigu meaning "seven sages") are the seven rishis who are extolled at many places in the Vedas and Hindu literature. The Vedic Samhitas never enumerate these rishis by name, though later Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas and Upanisads do so. They are regarded in the Vedas as the patriarchs of the Vedic religion.....In some parts of India, people believe these are seven stars of the Big Dipper named "Vashista", "Marichi", "Pulastya", "Pulaha", "Atri", "Angiras" and "Kratu". There is another star slightly visible within it, known as "Arundhati". Arundhati is the wife of Vashista."....In Hindu astronomy the seven stars of the Saptarshi Mandal or Big Dipper or Ursa Major....At the end of every four ages there is a disappearance of the Vedas and it is the province of the seven Rishis to come down upon earth from heaven to give them currency again."....http://ancientvoice.wikidot.com/article:kalachakra

"The Vedas, Epics and Puranas of ancient India describe an interesting concept of time called Kaalachakra, the wheel of time. This wheel of time is conceived as having twelve spokes indicating twelve points of time measurement on the wheel of time. Close examination of the imagery reveals that this concept is related to the Yuga System and used for various kinds of time measurements in ancient India.".......http://sivkishen.wikia.com/wiki/File:Swastika.jpg

"The mythical paradise of Shamballa, sometimes thought to be in a parallel world or dimension , is a land of a thousand names. The Hindus call it "Paradesha" (Paradesa: Sanskrit) (Paradise....Persian: پردیس,.....High Land).....or "Aryavarsha", the land from which the Vedas came from; the Buddhists "Shambala"; the Chinese know it as " Hsi Tien", the Western Paradise of Hsi Wang Mu, the Royal Mother of the West; the Russians knew it as "Belovodye" and "Janaidar", the Christians and the Jews the "Garden of Eden". In the esoteric literature it has become known as "Shangri-La", "Agarttha" or "the Land of the Living".It has the name of "Forbidden Land"; "the Land of White Waters"; the "Land of Radiant Spirits"; the "Land of Living Fire"; the "Land of the Living Gods" and the "Land of Wonders".....Beneath the land of Shambhalla lies a cavernous underworld.. Its summit aligns to the wheeling constellation of Ursa Major, the Seven Stars that circle the Pole. .... The Japanese also have a Shambhalla which they have named ‘Island of the Congealed Drop’. It is situated ‘on the top of the globe' but at the same time 'at the center of the earth'. Its first roof-pillar was the earth's axis, and over it was the pivot of the vault of heaven.......The Chinese actually describe their idea of Shambhalla as the Center of the Earth, directly under Shang-te's heavenly palace, declaring it to be in the polestar. They also call it, ‘The Palace of the Center’. "....IN SEARCH OF SHAMBHALA........Mary Sutherland 2003

"Sanskrit: paradise: नन्दन nandana .....Paradesa (Sanskrit) [from para beyond, above + desa region, country] The region above or beyond; said to be the highlands to which the first Sanskrit-speaking people have supposedly been traced. More truly, the cradleland of the first thinking man. It is also the sacred land in Central Asia inhabited by the Dragons of Wisdom or initiates, and in this sense is synonymous with Sambhala. .....'paradise' is believed to have probably come from the Sanskrit word 'paradesa' परदेश meaning foreign land."

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January 2016

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Sīta, Sītā, Śīta, Shita, Sita: Daughter of the Earth Goddess Bhūmi

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Sita:.......Sanskrit......सित ....sita .....(adj.) 1. white....... 2. depending on; attached. (nt.), a smile. || sīta (adj.), cool; cold. (nt.) coolness; cold. sītā (f.) a furrow...... Sīta, Sītā, Śīta, Shita, Sita. .... Source: BuddhaSasana: Concise Pali-English Dictionary

"White Tārā is also known as Sita Tārā - the Sanskrit sita simply means white or pure, and is also a name for the planet Venus."

Sita (Nepali:सीता, also spelled Sîta, Seeta or Seetha.....is the central female character of the Hindu epic Ramayana.....She is the consort of the Hindu god Rama (avatar of Vishnu) and is an avatar of Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and wife of Vishnu. She is esteemed as a paragon of spousal and feminine virtues for all Hindu women. Sita is known for her dedication, self-sacrifice, courage and purity......Sita is described as the daughter of the earth goddess Bhūmi and the adopted daughter of King Janaka of Mithila and Queen Sunayna. In her youth, she marries Rama, the prince of Ayodhya."

"Chitral is drained by the Kunar River which flows southward, through Afghanistan, to meet the East flowing Kabul River, which in times past, was known as the Sita, or White River.".....http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library/essays/uddiyana.htm

"The Sita of the Ramayana may have been named after a more ancient Vedic goddess Sita, who is mentioned once in the Rigveda as an earth goddess who blesses the land with good crops. In the Vedic era, she was one of the goddesses associated with fertility. A Vedic hymn (Rig Veda 4:57) recites:
“Auspicious Sita, come thou near;
We venerate and worship thee
That thou mayst bless and prosper us
And bring us fruits abundantly."
Rig-Veda Samhita (c. 1200 BC) is the oldest of the four vedas and consists of 1028 hymns praising the ancient gods.

"In the Harivansha Purana, Sita has been invoked as one of the names of goddess Arya:
“ O goddess, you are the altar's center in the sacrifice,
The priest's fee
Sita to those who hold the plough
And Earth to all living being.

"The Ramayana tells the story of Prince Rama who was sent into exile in the forest with his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshamana......Sita was abducted by the evil demon Ravana but ultimately rescued by Prince Rama with the help of the Monkey God, Hanuman......The story is written in 24,000 couplets, a Sanskrit epic poem ascribed to the Sanskrit poet Valmiki.....It is regarded as one of the two great works of Indian literature, along with the Mahabharata.....The story's original version in Sanskrit is known as Valmiki Ramayana, dating to approximately the 5th to 4th century BC....The names of the characters (Rama, Sita, Daśaratha, Janaka, Vashista, Vishwamitra) are all known in late Vedic literature. "

SitaRamJPG

Mount Sikaram (aka: Sita Ram) is a mountain in the Spin Ghar range on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border south of the Kabul River and Khyber Pass. At 4,755 m (15,600 ft),it is the highest peak of the Spin Ghar......Mount Sikaram ... Safed Koh Range, Hindu Kush Mountains (aka: Caucasus Indicus).........Nearby towns: Khost, Gardez, Baraki Barak.........Coordinates: 34°2'18"N 69°54'8"E......

Click on the map to enlarge

Click on the text to enlarge

"Safēd Kōh (Persian: سفید کوه‎‎, Urdu: سفید کوہ‎, "White Mountains"; also known as Spin Ghar (Pashto: سپين غر‎, "white mountain", the Indian Caucasus as late as the 19th century, the Safīd Mountain Range and as the Morga Range), is a mountain range in eastern Afghanistan and expanding well to North-Western Pakistan.......Its highest peak, straight and rigid Mount Sita Ram (aka: Sikaram), towers above all surrounding hills to 4,761 m (15,620 ft) above mean sea level. The Kabul River cuts a narrow trough through the Safēd Kōh mountains to flow eastward into the Indus River; otherwise, the range connects directly with the Shandur Top offshoot of the Hindu Kush mountain system.....The Khyber Pass crosses a spur of the Safēd Kōh range. The closest city near the Safed Koh is Parachinar of Pakistan.....Forests of pine and deodar cedar thrived on the main range."..........http://www.eosnap.com/tag/mount-sikaram/

"The basin of the Kabul river is enclosed at the head by the Paghman range, an offshoot of Hindu Kush, which divides the Kabul valleys from the Helmand. Up the head-waters of the stream that passes Kabul, leads the chief road to Turkestan, crossing for a brief space into the Helmand basin by the easy pass of Unai (11,320 feet), and then over the Koh-I-Baba, or western extension of Hindu Kush, by the Hajjigak passes (12,190 and 12,480 feet), to Bamian.......The most conspicuous southern limit of the Kabul basin is the Safed Koh, Spin-gar of the Afghans (White Mountain," not to be confounded with the western Safed Koh already named), an alpine chain, reaching, in its highest summit, Sita Ram, to a height of 15,622 feet, and the eastern ramifications of which extend to the Indus at and below Attok. Among the spurs of this range are those formidable passes between Kabul and Jalalabad in which the disasters of 1841-42 culminated, as well as the famous Khybar passes between Jalalabad and Peshawar. This southern watershed formed by the Safed Koh is so much nearer the Kabul river than that on the north, that the tributaries from this side, though numerous, are individually insignificant."

There are 49 cosmic hymns in the Rig and the Yajur Vedas whose meanings have not been explained. But one particular hymn from Vedanga Jyotish informs us that the longest day of the year, or summer solstice, comprised 18 periods of daylight and 12 of night. Day and night are of equal length on the Equator; in the higher latitudes, summer days are longer than nights.......The latitude at which the proportion of daylight and darkness is 3:2 is 34 degrees North. It is worth noting that the cities to be found around this latitude today are Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan. In other words, the place and time of the composition of the Vedanga Jyotish is the same as that of Vedic Afghanistan and Iran. This second piece of evidence offered by Rajesh Kochhar further strengthens the perception of the location and time of the Rig Veda......In search of the rivers.......Kochhar has deconstructed the Rig Veda in search of the Saraswati and the Sarayu, the two rivers also mentioned in the Ramayana. Here too our current history has come in the way.....Kochhar believes it is the 650-km river known as the Hari-Rud in Afghanistan, whose source is in the Hindu Kush mountains. It flows past the city of Herat and then for 100 km along the Iran-Afghanistan border before disappearing in the Karakom desert of Central Asia.....http://scroll.in/article/723351/was-the-ramayana-actually-set-in-and-around-todays-afghanistan

"In other Zoroastrian Pahlavi texts the White Xyōn are named among the enemies of Wištāsp who are doomed to final destruction because of their wickedness...... they may have been the people referred to as the White Huns......for parallels from Indian litera­ture: śveta-hūṇa or sita-hūṇa = White Huns, hala-hūṇa = dark, or Red, Huns).".....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/chionites-lat

Sita or Seetha Rivers:
In Western Ghats of India in Karnataka state, near Hebri......
The Tarim River (Mandarin Tǎlǐmù Hé, 塔里木河; Uyghur: تارىم دەرياسى), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā is the principal river of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China.......
Kabul River, or Kabal River (Persian: دریای کابل), is a river that rises in the Sanglakh Range in Afghanistan...."The marauder Obaidallah crossed the Sita River and made a raid on Kabul in 698 AD........"
"Tibetan texts mention that the Kingdom of Shambhala is located north of the river Sita…"

Shweta (hindi : श्वेता) is a Hindu/Sanskrit Indian feminine given name, which means "fair", "fair one", "lovely" and "white"......

"Sita Ram is that form of the Shila where Lord Ram is present with Sita Mata. ....Ram and Sita represent an ideal pair with immense love, affection, feeling of sacrifice for each other and respect for each other existence."

"Goddess Sita Maa is the consort of Lord Rama, the seventh avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. Sita is the one of the most popular goddesses of Hindu religion. Devi Sita is regarded as the incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi.....There are two places named identically as Sitamarhi. One is in Bihar where Sita, the wife of Lord Rama sprang to life out of an earthern pot, when Raja Janak was ploughing the field somewhere near Sitamarhi to impress upon Lord Indra for rain. It is said that Raja Janak excavated a tank at the place where Sita emerged and after her marriage set up the stone figures of Rama, Sita and Lakshman to mark the site. This place is in Bihar near Nepal Border.......The other place is one where Sita Maa goes underground after spending the life in forest in Valmiki Ashram after the Ramayana war in Uttar Pradesh ."......http://www.ghumakkar.com/sitamarhi-sita-samahit-sthal/

Hindu Kush Mountains....."Kusha or Kush (Sanskrit: कुश)......and his twin brother Lava, were the children of Lord Rama and his wife Sita, whose story is recounted in the Hindu epic Ramayana. He was the elder of the two and is said to have wheatish complexion like their mother, while Lava had black complexion like their father....Ramayana by Valmiki says Sita gave birth to both Lava and Kusha at the same time. The line of kings which ruled Kashi and the Mauryan dynasty, an empire that ruled the Indian sub-continent from 320 BC to185 BC claimed descent from Kusha. Kusha belongs to Ikshvaku clan or Suryavansh Dynasty of Kshatriyas in Vedic civilization"....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusha_%28Ramayana%29#cite_ref-1

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October 2015

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Shukla Yajurveda & the Vedic Age (c. 1500–500 BC)

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"The Vedic period (or Vedic age) (c. 1500–500 BC) was the period during which the Vedas, were composed....The people who were responsible for the evolution of this civilization called themselves Aryas or Aryarns......Arya’ literally means the man of ‘noble character’, and the “free-born”.........The Aryans appeared a little earlier than 1500 B.C. The earliest Aryans settled down in eastern Afghanistan, Punjab, and fringes of Uttar Pradesh......Many of the rivers of Pakistan and Afghanistan are mentioned in the Rig Veda. The Sanskrit word later changed to Kābul......The Kubha is the modern Kabul River (aka Sita River).'

"There are four Vedas:
Rigveda...(Sanskrit: ऋग्वेद ṛgveda, from ṛc "praise, shine" and veda "knowledge") is an ancient collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns.....1700 BC (the Rigvedic period)....
Yajurveda..... (Sanskrit: यजुर्वेद, yajurveda, from yajus meaning "prose mantra" and veda meaning "knowledge") is the Veda of prose mantras.....
"Samaveda.....(Sanskrit: सामवेद, sāmaveda, from sāman "melody" and veda "knowledge"), is the Veda of melodies and chants......
"Atharvaveda.....The Atharvaveda (Sanskrit: अथर्ववेद, Atharvaveda from atharvāṇas and veda meaning "knowledge") is the "knowledge storehouse of atharvāṇas, the procedures for everyday life"....

"Yajurveda........ (Sanskrit: यजुर्वेद, yajurveda, from yajus meaning "prose mantra" and veda meaning "knowledge") is the Veda of prose mantras.....An ancient Vedic Sanskrit text, it is a compilation of ritual offering formulas that were said by a priest while an individual performed ritual actions such as those before the yajna fire......The exact century of Yajurveda's composition is unknown, and estimated by scholars to be around 1200 to 1000 BCE, contemporaneous with Samaveda and Atharvaveda.

.... "The Yajurveda is broadly grouped into two – the "black" (Krishna) Yajurveda and the "white" (Shukla) Yajurveda. The term "black" implies "the un-arranged, unclear, motley collection" of verses in Yajurveda, in contrast to the "white" (shukla) which implies the "well arranged, clear" .....

"White" (Shukla) Yajurveda.....Shukla (Sanskrit: शुक्ल) is a word of Sanskrit origin that means "white". .....Shukla paksha refers to the bright lunar fortnight or waxing moon in the Hindu calendar. .......Bala Kanda (Sanskrit bālakāṇḍa, the book of the childhood) is the first book of the Valmiki Ramayana, which is one of the two great epics of India(the other being the Mahabharata).... Bāla-kāṇḍa or Ādi-kāṇḍa

"Samhita (Sanskrit: संहिता, saṁhitā) literally means "put together, joined, union" and "a methodically, rule-based combination of text or verses".....Samhita also refer to the most ancient layer of text in the Vedas, consisting of mantras, hymns, prayers, litanies and benedictions......"

"A treatise on Mithra, forming part of a study on the Shambala Kingdom and Bala Khanda. This is from the Zoroastrian point of view that also touches on Mitra to the Romans and beyond."

Text: Shukla Yajurveda (Vajasneya Samhita) with One Commentary.
Language: Sanskrit
Commentator: Mahidhara
Researched by: Dr. Albert Weber (in 1852)
Republished by: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi.
Year of Republishing: 1972.

"Mahīdhara ("earth-bearing") was a 16th-century commentator of the Vedas. His treatises include the Mantramahodadhi (mantra-uda-dhí, "great ocean of mantras") of ca. 1588, and the Vedadipa (veda-dīpa, "light of the Vedas"). The latter concerns the Vajasaneyi-samhita of the White Yajurveda......Mahīdhara's namesake is a legendary mountain described in the Mahabharata, which is also an epithet of Vishnu....He is assumed to have composed his commentary, the Vedadipa on the Mādhyandina Samhitā of the Śukla Yajurveda around A. D. 1587. Mahidhara was a resident of Kāśī.....In his commentary, he has been influenced by Uvaṭācārya (11th century A. D.) an earlier commentator on the same work to a great extent. However, his explanations are more detailed. He quotes profusely from the śrautasutras. He was also the author of the work entitled Mantramahodadhi, which discusses the tantras....It is very difficult to understand the Vedas not only because of their archaic language but also because they are closely associated with a system of rituals with which we are not at all familiar. "....http://www.hindupedia.org

"The Yajur veda Samhita has two well known recensions or versions namely Krishna and Shukla. ...This book is the first part of one recension of shukla Yajur veda known as vajaseneya madhyanadina....The focus here is on the inner yajna which takes place in our subtle body. Of course there is close correspondence between the inner yajna involving the offering to the fire in the altar of ghee, fuel, soma juice along with the recitation of the rik and saman mantra.....Sanskrit is a rich language in which several completely different meaning are possible for the same verse.....Many of the translator of Yjaur veda have forced their own meanings on the verses implying animal sacrifice and other unseemly features. ....we do not claim the meaning we have assigned to each verse is only the true one.....The entire VS book has been rendered into English by R.T.H. Griffith in 1899.... all the principal gods and goddesses such as Agni Indra, Surya are invoked one by one to manifest in the body of the aspirant and thus render the being whole of complete......One usually assumes that Veda-s are ritualistic and hence it is assumed that no question are posed. It is said that the habit of posing question appears only in the Upanishad.......This book contains the text and translation of all the 949 verses in the chapter 19t hrough 40 of the shukla Yajur veda Vajasaneya samhita".....Yajur Veda: Vajasaneyi Samhita....by R.L. Kashyap (2012) ...http://www.exoticindiaart.com

"The Yajurveda is two-fold......
1. The White (or Pure) Yajurveda
2. The Black (or Dark) Yajurveda
Yajyavalkya prayed to the Sun, who came to him in the form of a horse i.e. Vaji ) and gave him back the Yajush. Hence this Yajurveda was named Shukla or Vajasaneyi."......http://ignca.nic.in/vedic_heritage_intro_yajurveda.htm

"The Vedic period (or Vedic age) (c. 1500–500 BC) was the period during which the Vedas, were composed....The people who were responsible for the evolution of this civilization called themselves Aryas or Aryarns......Arya’ literally means the man of ‘noble character’, and the “free-born”.........The Aryans appeared a little earlier than 1500 B.C. The earliest Aryans settled down in eastern Afghanistan, Punjab, and fringes of Uttar Pradesh. The Rig-Veda mentioned the names of some rivers of Afghanistan such as the river Kubha, and the river Indus and its five branches....The word Kubhā (कुभा ) which is the ancient name of the river is both a Sanskrit and Avestan word. Many of the rivers of Pakistan and Afghanistan are mentioned in the Rig Veda. The Sanskrit word later changed to Kābul......The Kubha is the modern Kabul river which flows into the Indus a little above Attock and receives at Prang the joint flow of its tributaries the Swat (Swastu) and Gauri "...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigvedic_rivers

"Grammatically there is little difference between the languages of the Avesta and the Vedas.....Words such as devá have the meaning of god in the Vedas have the meaning of devil in the Avesta. Likewise some names for Vedic gods show up in the Avesta as evil spirits. This is likely due to the ancestors of the migrants to North India being a competing tribe of the tribe responsible for the creation of the Avesta."....http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sanskritavestan.htm

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

October 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Sogd to Bactria Migration (4500 BC)

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"ARIA, Herat, -also called Heri, and the river which it stands is called Heri-rud. ... According to Ch. Bunsen, the migration from Sogd to Bactria, took place about 5000 BC...When the climate was altered by some vast disturbance of nature, the Arians migrated....Sogdiana in Samarkand......home of the Fire Worshippers......the River Sogd.....The second settlement was in Margiana (Merv)....the River Margus.....Third settlement was Bokhdi (Bactria/Balkh).....Bactria of the lofty banners was the seat of the Empire...The fourth settlement was Nisaya on the upper Oxus...."......Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia....by Edward Balfour - 1871 - ‎India....https://books.google.com/books?id=i39RAAAAcAAJ

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The homeland of the Aryans, or Aryan lands was called Airyana Vaeja or Airyanam Dakhyunam in the Avesta and Arya Varta in the Vedas.......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/images/maps/vendidadnations.jpg

"Balk is named Amu-I-Balad.....the mother of cities. It is said to have been built by Kaismurz of Persia. It was conquered by Alexander....Shams are said to worship the Sun (Shams) Pers..."...(Page 139).....Rivers: Amu (A Mu) or River Oxus, Sir or Jaxartes, Kohik or Zar-Afshatn, and the river of Kurshi and Balkh...."....Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia...by Edward Balfour - 1871 - ‎India

3102 BC - Beginning of Kali Yuga as per the Vedas....Human civilization degenerates spiritually during the Kali Yuga,which is referred to as the Dark Age......Towards the end of this yuga, Kalki will return riding on a white horse .........In the Kalachakra tradition, Kalki is brandishing a brilliant sword in his left hand, eradicating the decadence of Kali Yuga. Lord Kalki will remove the darkness of kali yuga and establish a new yuga (age) called Satya yuga (Age of Truth) on the earth...Lord Kalki will appear in the home of the most eminent brahmana of Shambhala village......"

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"Sogdiana (/ˌsɔːɡdiˈænə, ˌsɒɡ-/) or Sogdia (/ˈsɔːɡdiə, ˈsɒɡ-/; Old Persian: Suguda-; Ancient Greek: Σογδιανή, Sogdianē; Persian: سغد‎ Soġd; Tajik: Суғд, سغد Suġd; Uzbek: Sugʻd; Chinese: 粟特, Mandarin: Sùtè)......the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Achaemenid Empire, eighteenth in the list on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana is "listed" as the second of the "good lands and countries" that Ahura Mazda created. This region is listed second after Airyanem Vaejah, "homeland of the Aryans", in the Zoroastrian book of Vendidad, indicating the importance of this region from ancient times.......The Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centered on the main city of Samarkand. Sogdiana lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), embracing the fertile valley of the Zeravshan (ancient Polytimetus). ".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia

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Achaemenid Provinces during the rule of Darius the Great ..... third Achaemenid king of kings (r. 522-October 486 B.C.)......Darius sent a naval reconnaissance mission down the Kabul river (aka Sita) to the Indus.....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/darius-iii

"The Iron Gate is a defile between Balkh and Samarkand. It breaks up the mountains which extend from the Hisar range south towards the Amu Darya. In ancient times it was used as the passage between Bactria and Sogdia and was likely of great importance to any power in the region. Its name comes from the belief that an actual gate, reinforced with Iron, stood in the defile. It is located to west from Boysun, Surxondaryo Province."...... Alexey V. Arapov. "Boysun. Masterpieces of Central Asia". Retrieved 2014-03-25. "The Iron Gates were located on the old road in the canyon of Dara-i Buzgala-khana 3 km to northwest from Shurob kishlak."

"The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC, also known as the "Oxus civilization") is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia, dated to ca. 2200–1700 BC...About 1800 BC, the walled BMAC centres decreased sharply in size."

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"The early Greek historian Ctesias, c. 400 BC (followed by Diodorus Siculus), alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus (2189 BC) had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in c. 2140 BC, or some 1000 years before the Trojan War. ( 1194–1184 BC).....Known as Bactra to the ancient Greeks, Balkh is found in northern Afghanistan and is descibed as the 'Mother of Cities' by Arabs. It reached its peak between 2,500 BC and 1,900 BC prior to the rise of the Persian and Median empires. "

"The Avesta's Farvardin Yasht - the five nations mentioned are Airyana Vaeja (called Airyanam Dakhyunam in the Yasht) as well as four neighbouring lands. These four lands neighbouring Airyana Vaeja are Tuirya, Sairima, Saini and Dahi. Since -nam is a usual ending for many Avestan nouns, the nations are also named as Airyanam, Tuiryanam, Dahinam, Sairimanam and Saininam....Kava Vishtasp, Kava being a title of the Kayanian kings of Bakhdhi / Balkh, is mentioned in the Farvardin Yasht....Bakhdi is listed as a nation in the Vendidad but not in the Farvardin Yasht. These later texts also tell us that Zarathushtra died in Bakhdi/Balkh, killed by a Turanian.......Balkh is directly south of Samarkand over an eastern spur of the Pamir mountains. The predecessors of present day Samarkand and Balkh are among the first nations listed in another (and later) book of the Avesta - the Vendidad. ...".....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/airyanavaeja.htm

"Migration of the Aryans.....Before the era of legendary King Jamshid, see (Aryan Prehistory and Location of Aryan Homeland), the original Aryan homeland in the Avesta, Airyana Vaeja, could not have been very large. However, starting in the Jamshidi era and continuing up to the establishment of the Achaemenian Persian empire under Darius the Great, the Aryan lands did grow considerably in size.....The Zoroastrian Avesta, the Hindu Vedas and other texts tell us that the Aryans migrated out of Airyana Vaeja and that the lands associated with the Aryans increased in size for the following reasons:
1. An increase in population during the Jamshidi era.
2. Climate change to severe winters and short summers.
3. Trading with neighbouring lands and settlement of significant populations in these lands.
4. Establishment of kingdoms through settlement or conquest. A federation of these kingdoms during the Feridoon Era / Pishdadian dynasty. 5. Inter-Aryan wars. The schism between the Aryan religious groups, the Mazda-Asura worshippers and the deva worshippers...... cf. reign of King Vishtasp and life of Zarathushtra.
6. Establishment of the Persian empire that included the original federation of kingdoms as well as additional lands. "....
http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/airyanavaeja.htm

"Hara Berezaiti, the Hara Mountains.....The Mehr Yasht at 10.13 and 14 states that the Aryan abode (airyo-shayanem) was "where the high mountains (garayo berezanto), rich in pastures and waters, yield plenty to the cattle", and that when the Sun rises above the taro (peaks - see further discussion below) of the Hara, it casts its golden rays down on the abode of the Aryans......."Hara Berezaiti". The modern word Alburz is said to be derived from Hara Berezaiti....the Alburz (Hara) mountains......The one mountain range that fits this description very well is the Hindu Kush....."As recently as the 19th century, a peak in the northernmost range in the Hindu Kush system, just south of Balkh, was recorded as Mount Elburz in British army maps (i.e. the western arm of the Hindu Kush (Sanskrit as Pāriyātra Parvata and in Ancient Greek as the Caucasus Indicus)." The same mountains are also called the Aparsen (likely Gk. Paropamisus) in the Bundahishn. We are also given to understand that the highest peak of the Caucasus is also called "Elbrus". The poet Ferdowsi's references to the Alburz in his epic, the Shahnameh, lead us to the environs of Hind, perhaps meaning the mountains of the Upper Indus, the Hindu Kush, Pamirs, Karakorum and Himalayas - the Alburz or Hara Berezaiti of old. Strabo would call the Hara Berezaiti the Taurus Mountains, a string of mountains that ran from Turkey to the boundaries of China...Mary Boyce informs us that when the Khotanese Saka became Buddhists, they referred to Mt. Sumeru of Buddhist legends as Ttaira Haraysa, the peak of Hara. ."....... http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/location.htm#mountains

"Pre-Achaemenid period. Before the arrival of Iranian peoples in Central Asia, Sogdiana had already experienced at least two urban phases. The first was at Sarazm (4th-3rd m. BC), a town of some 100 hectares has been excavated, where both irrigation agriculture and metallurgy were practiced (Isakov). It has been possible to demonstrate the magnitude of links with the civilization of the Oxus as well as with more distant regions, such as Baluchistan. The second phase began in at least the 15th century BCE at Kök Tepe, on the Bulungur canal north of the Zarafšān River, where the earliest archeological material appears to go back to the Bronze Age, and which persisted throughout the Iron Age, until the arrival from the north of the Iranian-speaking populations that were to become the Sogdian group. It declined with the rise of Samarkand (Rapin, 2007). Pre-Achaemenid Sogdiana is recalled in the Younger Avesta (chap. 1 of the Vidēvdād, q.v.) under the name Gava and said to be inhabited by the Sogdians.

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

September 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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The Vedas, Upanishads, the Avesta & Proto-Indo-Iranic Languages (2100 BC)

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"Grammatically there is little difference between the languages of the Avesta and the Vedas. Both languages underwent systematic phonetic change. However, according to Thomas-Burrow, in his book, The Sanskrit Language: ' It is quite possible to find verses in the oldest portion of the Avesta, which simply by phonetic substitutions according to established laws can be turned into intelligible Sanskrit.' ....The languages of the Avesta and the Vedas shared some vocabulary that is not shared with the other Indo-European languages....."...http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sanskritavestan.htm

"The Vedas are perhaps the oldest written text on our planet today. They date back to the beginning of Indian civilization and are the earliest literary records of the whole Aryan race. They are supposed to have been passed through oral tradition for over 100,000 years. They came to us in written form between 4-6,000 years ago......The Vedas are divided into four groups, Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda and Atharvaveda. Each group has an original text (Mantra) and a commentary portion (Brahmana).....The Brahmana again has two portions, one interpreting ritual and the other the philosophy. The portions interpreting the philosophy of the original texts constitute the Upanishads......There are also auxiliary texts called Vedangas. Vedic literature refers to the whole of this vast group of literature. The whole of Rgveda and most of Atharvaveda are in the form of poetry, or hymns to the deities and the elements......Samaveda is in verses that are to be sung and Yajurveda is largely in short prose passages. Both Samaveda and Yajurveda are concerned with rituals rather than philosophy - especially Yajurveda."....http://www.crystalinks.com/vedas.html

"The Vedic forms of belief are one of the precursors to modern Hinduism. Texts considered to date to the Vedic period are mainly the four Vedas, but the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and the older Upanishads as well as the oldest Shrautasutras are also considered to be Vedic.....The rishis, the composers of the hymns of the Rigveda, were considered inspired poets and seers (in post-Vedic times understood as "hearers" of an eternally existing Veda, Śrauta means "what is heard")."

"The Upanishads are regarded as part of the Vedas and as such form part of the Hindu scriptures. They primarily discuss philosophy, meditation, and the nature of God; they form the core spiritual thought of Vedantic Hinduism. Considered as mystic or spiritual contemplations of the Vedas, their putative end and essence, the Upanishads are known as Vedanta ("the end/culmination of the Vedas"). The Upanishads do not belong to a particular period of Sanskrit literature. The oldest, such as the Brhadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads, may date to the Brahmana period (roughly before the 31st century BC; before Gita was constructed), while the youngest, depending on the canon used, may date to the medieval or early modern period......The word Upanishad comes from the Sanskrit verb sad (to sit) and the two prepositions upa and ni (under and at). They are sacred tests of spiritual and philosophical nature. Vedic literature is divided into karmakanda containing Samhitas (hymns) and Brahmanas (commentaries), and gyanakanda containing knowledge in the form of the Aranyakas and Upanishads. Thus each Upanishad is associated with a Veda, Isha-upanishad with Shukla Yajurveda, Kena-upanishad with Samaveda, and so on.......The earliest Upanishads may have been composed between B.C. 800 and 400.........There have been several later additions, leading to 112 Upanishads being available today. But the major Upanishads are ten, Isha, Kena, Kattha, Prashna, Mundaka, Mandukya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Shwetashwatara, Chhandogya and Brihadaryanyaka. The teachings of the Upanishads, and those of the Bhagavat Gita, form the basis of the Vedanta philosophy......The Isha-upanishad emphasizes the identity of the human soul with the divine soul. The Kena-upanishad discusses the qualities of the divine essence (Brahman) and the relationship of the gods to the divine essence. The Katha-upanishad, through the story of Nachiketa, discussed death and the permanence of the soul (Atman). The fairly long Chhandogya-upanishad develops the idea of transmigration of souls. The rihadaryanaka -upanishad, the longest of the Upanishads, bears the message of the completeness of the divine essence, and the associated peace. As literary remnants of the ancient past, the Upanishads - both lucid and elegant - have great literary value. ".....http://www.crystalinks.com/vedas.html

“Avesta” is the name the Mazdean (Mazdayasnian) religious tradition gives to the collection of its sacred texts. The etymology and the exact meaning of the name (Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾk/abestāg) can not be considered established...... The twenty-one nasks “books” of the Avesta, which were created by Ahura Mazdā, were brought by Zaraθuštra to king Vištāspa....... The Avestan texts can not be dated accurately, nor can their language be located geographically.....Avesta is the collection of texts in Avestan, and Zand their translation and commentary ..... The interest of the book of Avesta is twofold; on the one hand, it transmits to us the first Mazdean speculations and, on the other hand, it contains the only evidence for Avestan, an Old Iranian language which together with Old Persian constitutes the Iranian sub-division of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. The Avesta is a compilation of ancient texts, which we owe to the collaboration of the Mazdean priesthood and the Sasanian political power, but of which, unfortunately, only a fraction has been transmitted to us by the Parsi communities of India and Iran, which still remain true to the old religion. The corpus which Western scholarship has reconstituted is found in manuscripts that all date from this millennium; the most ancient dates from A.D. 1288."....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avesta-holy-book

"The languages of the two scriptures, the Zoroastrian Avesta and Hindu Rig Veda, are similar but not identical, indicating that at the time of their composition, the people of the Avesta and the Rig Veda were related and close neighbours - in a fashion similar to two provinces within one country - provinces where the people spoke two dialects of the same language.....The following is an example of the closeness of the Avestan Old Iranian and Rig-Vedic (Sanskrit) languages:
Old Iranian/Avestan: aevo pantao yo ashahe, vispe anyaesham apantam (Yasna 72.11)
Old Indian/Rig Vedic: abade pantha he ashae, visha anyaesham apantham
Translation: the one path is that of Asha, all others are not-paths.
...At the time the earliest sections of the Avesta and Rig Veda were composed, the Aryans were residents of the Aryan lands or Aryan nation, called Airyana Vaeja or Airyanam Dakhyunam in the Avesta and Arya Varta in the Hindu scriptures. In the Avestan and Hindu texts, Airyana Vaeja or Arya Varta was a beautiful but mysterious mountainous land..... While the precise location of the original Aryan homeland is lost to us, we have been left with ample clues which allow us to draw reasonable conclusions about its likely location, the mountain regions of Central Asia.......The name Airyana Vaeja was contracted over the years to Airan Vej, Iran Vej (in Middle Persian texts) and finally to Iran.......The two Indo-Iranian Aryan groups eventually ceased to be close neighbours. They separated and migrated to present day India and Iran, becoming Indians and Iranians in the process.".......http://heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/index.htm

"Indo-Iranian migrations.......The Indo-Iranian language and culture emerged in the Sintashta culture (c. 2100–1800 BCE), where the chariot was invented. The Indo-Iranian language and culture was further developed in the Andronovo culture (c. 1800–1400 BC), and influenced by the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (c. 2300–1700 BC). The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800–1600 BC from the Iranians,[ whereafter Indo-Aryan groups moved to the Levant (Mitanni), northern India (Vedic people, c. 1500 BC), and China (Wusun)..... Thereafter the Iranians migrated into Iran.."....Anthony, David W. (2007). The Horse The Wheel And Language. How Bronze-Age Riders From the Eurasian Steppes Shaped The Modern World. Princeton University Press.

Mipham's commentary on the Shambhala sections of the Kalachakra Tantra......Page 9......https://www.scribd.com/doc/220888297/Mipham-Commentaries-About-Kalachakra-Tantra#scribd

"The Rigdens other than Rigden Raudrachakrin are of the Asura family because of bestowing fear. If one thinks this explanation is not suitable, Palden Raudrachakrin having a short spear bestows fear in the asura family. So it is taught.... The linguistic history indicates that the Aryans ("Indo-Europeans"....."Iran") originally formed a single people until the beginning of the 2nd millenium BC when the Deva worshipping Indian Aryans and the Asura worshiping Iranian Aryans went separate ways....... ... The Kalachakra discusses the expulsion of the Deva worshippers from Shambhala and refers to the Rigden kings as Asura." (Ehsan Yarshater: 1987..pg 684..... Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. III/2, 1987. ) .....Ehsan Yarshater is the founder and director of The Center for Iranian Studies, and Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University. He is one of the 40 editors of the Encyclopædia Iranica.

"Sir William Jones reveals his admiration for the eldest son of Shah Jahān, the scholar prince Dārā Šokōh, who had inherited the syncretic mantle of his great-grandfather, Akbar, composing a Persian text entitled Majmaʿ al-baḥ-rayn (The Mingling of the Two Oceans) that maintained that the fundamental tenets of Hinduism were essentially monotheistic and identical with those of Islam. Jones also followed Dārā Šokōh’s lead in being drawn to the late Vedas, the Upanishads. Dārā Šokōh had assembled a team of pandits from Benares to translate the Upanishads into Persian, producing in 1657 the Serr-e akbar (The Great Secret). Jones also loved revealing great secrets and, although Anquetil-Duperron had translated four of the Upanishads from the Serr-e akbar into French in 1787, and later published the influential Oupnek’hat (1802) which included the entire fifty-one Upanishads of the Serr-e akbar, Jones’s Isa-Upanishad was the first direct translation of an Upanishad from the Sanskrit into a Western language....." Sir William Jones (1746-1794), orientalist and judge, noted for his enduring commitment to a syncretic East-West synthesis and unshakeable belief in cultural pluralism.

"The Vedic period (or Vedic age) (ca.1750–500 BC) was the period in Indian history during which the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed.....During the early part of the Vedic period, the Indo-Aryans settled into northern India, bringing with them their specific religious traditions. The associated culture (sometimes referred to as Vedic civilization) was initially a tribal, pastoral society centred in the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent; it spread after 1200 BC to the Ganges Plain, as it was shaped by increasing settled agriculture, a hierarchy of four social classes, and the emergence of monarchical, state-level polities.....The end of the Vedic period witnessed the rise of large, urbanized states as well as of shramana movements (including Jainism and Buddhism) which challenged the Vedic orthodoxy.".....Samuel, Geoffrey (2010), The Origins of Yoga and Tantra. Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge University Press

"Stephanie W. Jamison and Michael Witzel in Arvind Sharma, editor, The Study of Hinduism. University of South Carolina Press, 2003, page 65: "... to call this period Vedic Hinduism is a contradiction in terms since Vedic religion is very different from what we generally call Hindu religion - at least as much as Old Hebrew religion is from mediaeval and modern Christian religion. However, Vedic religion is treatable as a predecessor of Hinduism."

"Rishi (Sanskrit: ṛṣi, Devanagari: ऋषि) originates from the ancient Hindu culture of the Indus region earth-based cultures. Rishis were the scribes of the large body of nature hymns and spiritual science known as the Vedas….A Rishi (or rishika, when referring to female rishis) is a sage of insight, one who practices self-cultivation as a Yogini or Yogi and attains asamprajñata Samadhi. ....…In the Kalachakra…..there is an event which shows that this country was not entirely free of historical conflict. This concerns the protest of a group of no less than 35 million (!) Rishis (seers) led by the sage Suryaratha ("sun chariot”). As the first Kulika king, Manjushrikirti, preached the Kalachakra Tantra to his subjects, Suryaratha distanced himself from it, and his followers, the Rishis, joined him. They preferred to choose banishment from Shambhala than to follow the “diamond path” (Vajrayana)…….The Rishis worshipped only the sun. For this reason they also called their guru the “sun chariot” (suryaratha). But the Kulika king had as Kalachakra master and cosmic androgyne united both heavenly orbs in himself. He was the master of sun and moon." ….. (Bernbaum, 1980, p. 234).

Map of northen India in the later Vedic Period

"The Upanishads are sometimes referred to as Vedanta, variously interpreted to mean either the "last chapters, parts of the Veda" or "the object, the highest purpose of the Veda". The concepts of Brahman (Ultimate Reality) and Ātman (Soul, Self) are central ideas in all the Upanishads......The Upanishads are the foundation of Hindu philosophical thought and its diverse traditions. Of the Vedic corpus, they alone are widely known, and the central ideas of the Upanishads are at the spiritual core of Hindus.......More than 200 Upanishads are known, of which the first dozen or so are the oldest and most important and are referred to as the principal or main (mukhya) Upanishads. The mukhya Upanishads are found mostly in the concluding part of the Brahmanas and Aranyakas and were, for centuries, memorized by each generation and passed down verbally. The early Upanishads all predate the Common Era, some in all likelihood pre-Buddhist (6th century BC), down to the Maurya period. Of the remainder, some 95 Upanishads are part of the Muktika canon, composed from about the start of common era through medieval Hinduism. New Upanishads, beyond the 108 in the Muktika canon, continued to being composed through the early modern and modern era, though often dealing with subjects which are unconnected to the Vedas."....

"The Upanishads (Sanskrit: उपनिषत्, IAST: Upaniṣat, IPA: [upəniʂət̪]; plural: Sanskrit: उपनिषदः) are a collection of texts in the Vedic Sanskrit language which contain the earliest emergence of some of the central religious concepts of Hinduism, some of which are shared with Buddhism and Jainism."

"Avestan language.....Avestan /əˈvɛstən/, formerly also known as "Zend", is an Iranian language of the Eastern Iranian division, known only from its use as the language of Zoroastrian scripture, i.e. the Avesta, from which it derives its name. Its area of composition comprised ancient Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana, corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta.....Avestan's status as a sacred language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language.".....Witzel, Michael. "THE HOME OF THE ARYANS" Harvard University. "Since the evidence of Young Avestan place names so clearly points to a more eastern location, the Avesta is again understood, nowadays, as an East Iranian text, whose area of composition comprised -- at least -- Sīstån/Arachosia, Herat, Merw and Bactria."

Click on the map to enlarge

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

May 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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