Avestan Geography: The Mixture of Mythical and Historical Elements

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"AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY......Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border.....the first stumbling-block in the study of Avestan geography is the mixture of mythical and historical elements....it was common among the Indo-Iranians to identify concepts or features of traditional cosmography—mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.—with their concrete historical and geographical situation as they migrated and settled in various places......... the concept of Mount Harā, or Haraitī, barəz/bərəz or bərə-zaitī “high”, and that of Mount Meru, or Sumeru, in Brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jainist cosmography.......the idea of the seven regions of the earth, the Iranian karšvar- (Pahlavi kešwar) and the Indian dvīpa; the idea of a central region, Xᵛaniraθa (Pahlavi Xwanirah) and Jambūdvīpa; the idea of the “Tree of All Seeds” in the Vourukaša sea, south of the Peak of Harā and the Jambū tree, south of Mount Meru.....the great mountain ranges running from the Hindu Kush to the Pamir and the Himalayas could have inspired the various successive identifications of nordic, polar elements with the ancient cosmology and traditional geography of the Aryans......the main Avestan text of geographical interest is the first chapter of the Vidēvdād. This consists of a list of sixteen districts (asah- and šōiθra-) created by Ahura Mazdā.....the sixteen Great Districts, Ṣoḍaśa mahājanapada, in the Buddhist and Jainist sources and the epic poetry of India in the sixth century B.C., which were subject to the Aryan element."

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"1. The first of the sixteen districts, Airyana Vaēǰah....Airyana Vaēǰah (Pahlavi: Ērānwēz), “the area of the Aryans” and first of the sixteen districts in Vd. 1, the original name of which was airyanəm vaēǰō vaŋhuyā dāityayā,...Airyana Vaēǰah is situated in a mountainous region .....

"Airyana Vaēǰah......Airyanem Vaejah lies at the center of the sixteen lands, in the central Afghan highlands....According to Skjærvø, and Gnoli it was situated between the Helmand River and the Hindu Kush Mountains....

"The main Avestan text of geographical interest is the first chapter of the Vendidad (Vidēvdād)......Twenty paragraphs.....paragraphs 2 and 13 deal with Airyana Vaēǰah and Haētumant respectively. The period the text belongs to is uncertain: While the contents and lack of any reference to western Iran suggest that it should date back to the pre-Achaemenian period ( pre 550 B.C.) the form in which it survives would seem to place it in the Parthian period (c. 247 BC) ."

"The Vendidad is a collection of texts within the greater compendium of the Avesta......unlike the other texts of the Avesta, the Vendidad is an ecclesiastical code, not a liturgical manual....some consider the Vendidad a link to ancient early oral traditions..... the writing of the Vendidad began before the formation of the Median and Persian Empires, before the 8th century B.C......"

"This geographical part of the Avesta was intended to show the extent of the territory that had been acquired in a period that can not be well defined but that must at any rate have been between Zoroaster’s reforms and the beginning of the Achaemenian empire. The likely dating is therefore between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C., starting from the period of the domination of the Aryan followers of Ahura Mazdā."

"King Menander I, (c. 165 BC) son of Demetrius was born in Bactria, but brought up in Ariana (the Kabul valley) and in the early years of his rule expanded his father’s kingdom to the Indus valley and beyond, perhaps later establishing his capital at Sàgala. Unlike Bactria, which was predominantly influenced by Greek culture, these new areas were already Buddhist. Menander, then, would have been educated in the Greek traditions but would have had direct contact with Buddhism and no doubt often met monks living in his kingdom."....http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/milinda.pdf

"That the geographical horizon of the Mihr Yašt is located in Central Asia emerges from the countries listed in Yt. 10.14. .....The geographical extension of Mihr Yašt covered the eastern part of the Iranian territory, the central part being occupied by the regions of the Hindu Kush, represented by Mount Harā, Iškata (Kūh-e Bābā?), Paruta (Ḡūr?), the district of Herodotus’s Aparútai or Ptolemy’s Paroûtai or Párautoi....Like all texts of the Avesta, the Mihr Yašt belongs to an oral cul­ture of ritual poetry whose roots reach back to the prehistoric Indo-Iranian civilization...The Yashts (Yašts) are a collection of twenty-one hymns in Younger Avestan. Each of these hymns invokes a specific Zoroastrian divinity or concept.."

"MIHR YAŠT...........the name of the tenth of the 21 Yašts of the Avesta (145 verses)......the hymn of the sixteenth day of the 30-day month of the Zoroastrian cal­endar.....Dedicated to Miθra, a ma­jor Zoroastrian deity, it belongs to the hymnic group of Yašts and is one of the longest and most important hymns of the Avesta....stanzas 1-6: Ahura Mazdā requests that Mithra be worshipped and prayed to as much as he, Ahura Mazdā, himself...Mithra rises at dawn and oversees all Aryan countries.... His chariot is drawn by horses, which are spiritual (mainiiauua-), white, radiant, conspicuous, life-giving (spəṇta), knowing, shadeless, and swift.....Haoma worshipped Mithra on Hukairya, which is the highest peak of lofty Haraitī (ALBORZ)......Mithra’s armor is of silver and gold. ....White racehorses pull Mithra’s chariot with its one golden wheel .... .......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mihr-yasht

"Mount Albarez........The root of the name of this mountain is identical to that of the Alburz in northern Iran and the Elbrus in the Caucasus, and therefore, it is likewise derived from the Old Persian term Bərəzaitī (see Hara Berezaiti), meaning "high," "tall," "of stature." The more proper spelling of the name of this mountain is Albarez. Albarez is of the same construct as the names Alburz and Elbrus. The ancient Iranian peoples seem to have given this name to the tallest mountains in any area that they happened to live (exactly as the Turkic people did when they called all the tallest mountains in their sight, "Qaradağ"/Karadag, with the term qara/kara standing for great/big, as well as color black). In fact, into the early 20th century, the northern portions of the Hindu Kush mountains near Balkh/Mazar-i Sharif was also known as Mt. Alburz, as recorded by the British travelers like Alexander Burnes.".....Travels into Bokhara. Being an account of a Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia. Also, narrative of a Voyage on the Indus from the Sea to Lahore (London: John Murray). 1834. 3 Vols.

"..... the analogy between the Iranian concept of the peak of Harā with the Indian one of Mount Meru or Sumeru. The Manicheans identified Aryān-waižan with the region at the foot of Mount Sumeru that Wishtāsp reigned over, and the Khotanese texts record the identification of Mount Sumeru in Buddhist mythology with the Peak of Harā (ttaira haraysä) in the Avestan tradition.....As for the river of Religious Law.....the most likely hypotheses seem to be those that identify it with the Oxus, or rather the Helmand (The Helmand River rises in the Hindu Kush mountains, about 50 miles west of Kabul)....."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avestan_geography#cite_ref-8

ARACHOSIA. (White India.) Substantially the modern Afghanistan......The Helmand valley region is mentioned by name in the Avesta (Fargard 1:13) as the Aryan land of Haetumant, one of the early centers of the Zoroastrian faith in pre-Islamic Afghan history. But owing to the preponderance of Hindus and Buddhists (non-Zoroastrians), the Helmand and Kabul regions were also known as "White India" in those days.....http://parthia.com/doc/parthian_stations.htm

"The Zamyād Yašt, dedicated to Xᵛarənah, is of very great importance for Avestan geography as it provides a surprisingly well-detailed description of the hydrography of the Helmand region, in particular of Hāmūn-e Helmand. In Yt. 19.66-77 nine rivers are mentioned.....other features of Sīstāni geography recur in the same yašt, like the Kąsaoya lake (Pahlavi Kayānsih) or Mount Uši.δām (Kūh-e Ḵᵛāǰa), both closely bound up with Zoroastrian eschatology, so that with the help of comparisons with Pahlavi and classical sources, mainly Pliny and Ptolemy..... we can conclude that the Zamyād Yašt describes Sīstān with great care and attention. In Avestan geography no other region has received such treatment.....yet another reference to Sīstān is to be found it another passage of the great yašts, Yt. 5.108, in which Kavi Vīštāspa, prince and patron of Zoroaster, is represented in the act of making sacrifice to Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā near Frazdānu, the Frazdān of Pahlavi literature, that is, one of the wonders of Sīstān; it can probably be identified with Gowd-e Zera (Godzareh)....."

"Sīstān (Persian/Baloch/Pashto: سیستان), known in ancient times as Sakastan (Persian/Baloch/Pashto: ساكاستان; "the land of the Saka"), is a historical and geographical region in present-day eastern Iran (Sistan and Baluchestan Province), southern Afghanistan (Nimruz, Kandahar, and Zabul Province), and the Nok Kundi region of Balochistan (western Pakistan).....In the Shahnameh, Sistan is also referred to as Zabulistan, after the region in the eastern part of Iran. In Ferdowsi's epic, Zabulistan is in turn described to be the homeland of the mythological hero Rostam...."

"Arachosia....is the Hellenized name of an ancient satrapy in the eastern part of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Greco-Bactrian, and Indo-Scythian empires. Arachosia was centred on Arghandab valley in modern-day southern Afghanistan, and extended east to as far as the Indus River in modern-day Pakistan. The main river of Arachosia was called Arachōtós, now known as the Arghandab River, a tributary of the Helmand River. The Greek term "Arachosia" corresponds to the Aryan land of Harauti which was around modern-day Helmand. The Arachosian capital or metropolis was called Alexandria or Alexandropolis and lay in what is today Kandahar in Afghanistan. Arachosia was a part of the region of ancient Ariana.....

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/avestan-geography

http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/gonur.htm

Skjærvø, P. O...... The Avesta as a source for the early history of the Iranians. In: G. Erdosy (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, (Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, IPSAS) 1, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter 1995, 166.

Gnoli, G........ Zoroaster's Time and Homeland. A Study on the Origins of Mazdeism and Related Problems. Naples 1980, 227.

Nations of the Vendidad - Aryan Prehistory......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/maps/vendidad.htm

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February 2016

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The Bairam-Ali Manuscript & the Gyaur Kala near Merv

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"Bairam-Ali (aka: Baýramaly, Bayram-Ali, Persian: بایرام علی‎‎) is a city of Turkmenistan, a seat of Baýramaly District within Mary Province. It lies about 27 km east of the provincial capital Mary, along the main railway line from Ashgabat to Tashkent......Close to Baýramaly are the ruins of ancient Merv."

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"....the Bairam-Ali manuscript appears to present the story of Buddhism’s first female adherents with the addition of several new details that reflect the influence of the Mahāyāna......In the Bairam-Ali manuscript, the tale of the first of these women begins on fol. 14b(4).....This section of the manuscript primarily contains tales about female Buddhists. We know of the formation of the Buddhist female community and women’s monasteries since the end of the first centuries A.D., although Buddhist tradition links this fact with permission granted by the Buddha after many requests by Mahāprajāpatī Gautamī (the Buddha Sakyamuni’s aunt, who raised him after his mother’s death) and support from Ānanda.." ......http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/templates/main/images/title_main_new.gif

A New Version of the Gāndhārī Dharmapada and a Collection of Previous-birth ... By Timothy Lenz, Andrew Glass, Dharmamitra

Vorobyova-Desyatovskaya M. A Sanskrit Manuscript on Birch-Bark from Bairam-Ali. II. Avadāna and Jātaka (Part 4) // Manuscripta Orientalia. Vol. 7, No 3, September 2001. P. 9-14.......http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_publications&Itemid=75&pub=1377

"Gyaur-Kala - 'The Fortress of Infidels' .......was built approximately in the 4th century BC. Its ten-metre walls impress with the power. They surround ruins of two citadels that presumably could be a temple and palace constructions. One of citadels could serve as a protective construction and a temple. It is not surprising, as this district is considered the native land of the most ancient texts of Avesta - Gathas, written by Zarathustra. The numerous ruins of the centres are the evidence that inhabitants Gjaur-Kaly were Zoroastrians who worshipped the sacred fire......The fortress continued to function up to arrival the Mongols to the Central Asia in 1220. Genghis Khan’s elder son Temujin ordered to ruin the city to the ground. Subsequently townsmen moved and established a new settlement near to Gyaur-kala remains."......http://www.advantour.com/uzbekistan/karakalpakstan/gyaur-kala.htm

Click on the images to enlarge.....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/images/turkmenistan/gyaurKala1.jpg

http://www.orexca.com/images/fotogallery/img_full/1202910845_1966.jpg

"Erk Kala......The oldest of Merv's ruins, Erk Kala (a modern name meaning citadel castle), date from the 5th century BC. Constructed by the Persian Achaemenians, Erk Kala appears to have been the central city of Margush as it was known to the Achaemenians serving as an important administrative and trading centre. It lay at the hub of the spectacular Silk Roads along which trade between the furthest reaches of the Persian empire flourished. The site is some 12 hectares in size and lies 17 metres below today's surface. Buried under more than 1,500 years of buildings old and new, it is virtually inaccessible to archaeological exploration. Little is therefore known about this enclosure. It is possible that the ruins of an earlier city lie beneath Erk Kala's ruins."......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

"Gyaur Kala......With the defeat of the Achaemenians by Alexander in the 4th century BC, Merv came under Macedonian rule.....Antiochus I (280-261 BCE), began a massive expansion of the city at Merv, constructing a walled city nearly two kilometres across called Antiochia Margiana (today called Gyaur Kala) and covering some 340 hectares. He converted the earlier city of Erk Kala into a citadel that lay within the new walled city. Gyaur Kala was to remain occupied for a thousand years. ....The vitality of the city during these times is reflected in the wealth of archaeological objects recovered from the excavations within Gyaur Kala.....Like Erk Kala, Gyaur Kala also lies buried under a millennium and a half of construction on top of its ruins.."..........http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

"Merv's origins are prehistoric: archaeological surveys have revealed many traces of village life as far back as the 3rd millennium BC and that the city was culturally part of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. Under the name of Mouru, Merv is mentioned with Balkh in the geography of the Zend-Avesta (commentaries on the Avesta). Mouru was among the sixteen perfect lands created by Ahura Mazda."

The Cambridge History of Iran: Seleucid Parthian.....By E. Yarshater

"Merv was renamed Antiochia Margiana by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus Soter, who rebuilt and expanded the city at the site presently known as Gyaur Gala (Turkish Gayur Kala) (Fortress). It was ruled in succession by Bactria, Parthia, and the Kushans after the fall of the Seleucid dynasty. It was a major city of Buddhism learning with Buddhist monastery temples for many centuries until its Islamicization. At the site of Gyaur Kala ......Bairam Ali Buddhism was followed and practised often at the Buddhist stupa."

"In 1221 AD, a Mongol army advanced on Merv and its cavalry rode around the walls for spent six days looking for the weak points. The terrified residents negotiated a surrender which only served to open the gates and allow the Mongols to enter, after which they proceeded to massacre the townspeople and burn the town."..............http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/merv/merv.htm

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February 2016

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Iranian Migration into Eastern Tibet (7th - 9th Centuries AD)

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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 AD, 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

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"Tagzig, Zhang-Zhung, Western Tibet........In Tibet there is a minority religion called Bon that long preceded the coming of Buddhism. Present-day Bon practice allies it with Buddhism. However, the original practice may have been quite different........According to Bon tradition, the founder of the orthodox Bon doctrine was Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche of Tagzig some 18,000 years ago. Tagzig is believed to be a form of Tajik and some writers identify the region with Balkh/Bactria. The name Shenrab has an Iranian sound to it......The Bon religion was spread by Shenrab's disciples and their student-translators to adjacent countries such as Zhang-Zhung (also Zhangzhung, Shang Shung or Xang Xung - a land north of the Himalayas, which contained Mount Kailash in today's Western Tibet), India (northern Indus valley cf. Bru-zha / Gilgit), Kashmir (Kha-che), Western China and eventually Greater Tibet. Tonpa Shenrab is reputed to have visited present-day Tibet once. On that visit he found the people unprepared to receive the entire body of his teachings, but he prophesied that his teachings would flourish in Tibet in the coming ages. The students of his disciples continued his mission and Tibetan Bon scriptures were translated from texts in the language of Zhang-Zhung......The Bon tradition provides a close link between the Aryan and Tibetan cultures. In addition to the place of its origin, the Bon tradition includes additional links to Zoroastrian Aryan culture including what Western writers have labelled as 'dualism' and the myths about the original homeland and its Shangri-La like beauty.......Tagzig is more completely called Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring and is described in Bon as a non-dual (one which resides beyond dualism) spiritual realm. The feature of this non-dual realm is that it was a timeless perfect realm where peace and joy were the very fabric of being and evil was not known.......In legend, Tagzig Olmo Lung Ring is said to have been a fragrant land, coloured by beautiful flora and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It was located west of Mount Kailash.".....ZOROASTRIAN HERITAGE...by K. E. EDULJEE.....http://zoroastrianheritage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/iranian-aryan-connections-with-western.html

"Given that the Zoroastrian and Bon religions may have existed side-by-side in Central Asia, the Pamirs and the northern Himalayan region, it is quite possible that even during the time of the Iranian Sassanian dynasty c. 224 - 649 CE, the relations between the Zoroastrian Iranians and the Tibetan Buddhists was collaborative. There is evidence that that this collaboration survived even after the overthrow of the Sassanians by the Arabs.....The land of Zhang Zhung on its part continued its dominance of the Tibetan plateau until it was annexed by Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century. Songtsen Gampo was the thirty-third king of the Yarlung Dynasty which ruled the Yarlung River (the Brahmaputra in India) and is revered by Tibetans as the founder of the Tibetan state and empire. He is also said to have introduced Buddhism to Tibet.....The Yarlung dynasty appears to have continued the collaborative relationship the Zhang Zhung had with the Iranian Aryans....After the Arab take over of the Sassanian Iranian state, the Yarlung Tibetans fought against the Arabs together with his Turkic allies in order to expel them from Sugd (Sogdiana).....The Yarlung captured Khotan – an Iranian-Tajik kingdom allied with Kashmir and Sugd (Sogdiana). The Tibetan conquest of Khotan was followed by the immigration of many Khotanese Buddhist monks, craftsmen and merchants into Tibet.".......http://iranian.com/posts/view/post/7621

"Amdo and Kham, East Tibet...... is a historical region of Eastern Tibet covering a land area largely divided between present-day Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan province of China.....Chinese linguists and anthropologists refer to Kham as the 'Ethnic Corridor of Southwest China', as its vast and sparsely populated territories are inhabited by over 14 culturally and linguistically distinct ethnic groups......One-third of Kham residents are speakers of Qiangic languages, a family of twelve distinct but interrelated languages that are not closely related to the Khams Tibetan language.....The people of Kham were reputed warriors. They were renowned for their marksmanship and horsemanship...The peoples of Kham have endured a tumultuous past, their sovereignty often encroached upon and marginalized by both Tibetans to the West and the Han Chinese to the East.....The Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but with the fall of the empire the region soon divided into a variety of territories.....Since the collapse of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-9th century, the peoples of Kham had aggressively maintained their independence from invading nations......In historical times, the people of the region were typically non-Tibetan, such as Mongol or Tibetan of foreign origin such as the Hor people.....Tea-Horse Trade Route formed in AD 6th century... the Tea-Horse Trade Route included 2 major branches, which ran separately through Amdo and Kham to connect the hinterland of China and Tibet together. ."

Bon in Central and East Tibet.....Chapter 19.....The Tibetan History Reader.....edited by Gray Tuttle, Kurtis R. Schaeffer

"The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhist kingdom that was located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China). The ancient capital was originally located to the west of modern-day Hotan (Chinese: 和田) at Yotkan. From the Han dynasty until at least the Tang dynasty it was known in Chinese as Yutian (Chinese: 于闐, 于窴, or 於闐). The kingdom existed for over a thousand years until it was conquered by the Muslims in 1006 AD.....According to legend, Kushtana, said to be a son of Ashoka, the Mauryan emperor, founded Khotan when he settled there about 224 BC..... in 640 AD Khotan submitted to the Tang emperor. The Four Garrisons of Anxi was established, one of them at Khotan.......The Tibetans later defeated the Chinese and took control of the Four Garrisons, and the Khotanese helped the Tibetans to conquer Aksu....in the 10th century, the Iranic Saka Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan was the only city-state that was not conquered yet by the Turkic Uyghur (Buddhist) and the Turkic Qarakhanid (Muslim) states....The Islamic conquest of Khotan led to alarm in the east, and it has been suggested it lead to the sealing of Dunhuang's Cave 17, which contained the Dunhuang manuscripts, after its caretakers heard that Khotan's Buddhist buildings were razed by the Muslims, and the Buddhist religion had suddenly ceased to exist in Khotan.....".....Wikipedia

The Tibetan History Reader.....edited by Gray Tuttle, Kurtis R. Schaeffer

http://zoroastrianheritage.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/iranian-aryan-connections-with-western.html

A. Nikitin, G. Roth, "A New Seventh-Century Countermark with a Sogdian Inscription", The Numismatic Chronicle, 155, 1995: 277-279.

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February 2016

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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

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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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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

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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Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Zarathushtra Spitama

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Zarathushtra Spitama

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Primary Source: NIETZSCHE AND PERSIA.....Daryoush Ashouri (2010)......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, like the original Zarathustra according to Zoroastrian tradition, goes to the mountain for meditation when he is thirty years old, and, like him, descends ten years later to convey his message to humanity. The early Zarathustra, at the dawn of the metaphysical history of humanity, after having long dialogues with his God of goodness, descends from the mountain to proclaim the heavenly message that interprets being in moralistic terms of Good and Evil; while the “second” Zarathustra, at the end of this history, descends to announce, first of all, the dreadful news which has immense consequences for human life and thought: the death of God......Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)......Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None.......composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885 and published between 1883 and 1891"........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Zoroaster (Greek Ζωροάστρης Zōroastrēs), also known as Zarathustra (/Persian: زرتشت‎‎ Zartosht), or as Zarathushtra Spitama, was the founder of Zoroastrianism. He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrian thinking. Most of his life is known through the Zoroastrian texts.....Modern scholars of Zoroastrianism generally place Zoroaster as having lived in north-east Iran or northern Afghanistan (Balkh) some time between 1700 and 1300 BC......Avestan, the language spoken by Zoroaster and used for composing the Yasna Haptanghaiti and the Gathas, on archaeological and linguistic grounds, is dated to have been spoken probably in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC.....Zoroaster's death was said to have been in Balkh located in present-day Afghanistan during the Holy War between Turan and the Persian empire in 583 BC..... Jamaspa, his son-in-law, then became Zoroaster's successor... Zoroaster himself hailed from the Airya (Aryan) people but he also preached his message to other neighboring tribes.... the Avesta contains the names of various tribes who lived in proximity to each other: "the Airyas [Aryans], Tuiryas [Turanians], Sairimas [Sarmatians], Sainus [Ashkuns] and Dahis [Dahae]"......Michael Witzel, THE HOME OF THE ARYANS, Harvard University & Encyclopedia Iranica

Click on the map to enlarge

"Tūrān (Persian توران) literally means "the land of the Tur", and is a region in Central Asia. The term is of Persian origin and may refer to a certain prehistoric human settlement, a historic geographical region, or a culture. The original Turanians were an Iranian tribe of the Avestan age........ according to the Shahnameh's account, at least 1,500 years later after the Avesta, the nomadic tribes who inhabited these lands were ruled by Tūr, who was the emperor Fereydun's elder son.....Tur/Turaj is the son of emperor Fereydun in ancient Iranian mythology......Turan comprised five sub regions: Southern Turkmenia, the Atrak Valley, the Eastern Elburz Mountains, the Helmand Valley, and Bactria and Margiana.....Similar to the ancient homeland of Zoroaster, the precise geography and location of Turan is unknown. In post-Avestan traditions they were thought to inhabit the region north of the Oxus, the river separating them from the Iranians.".....Possehl, Raymond (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective

" Artaxerxes II invokes the goddess Anahita and the god Mithra, but as we have already seen above, Zarathustra was not a monotheist; he wrote Yashts for these two gods."....http://www.livius.org/articles/religion/ahuramazda/

"Nietzsche's study of classical philology and his deep immersion in Greek and Latin literature also introduced him to the ancient history of Persia and its culture, conceived as an Asiatic culture embodied in an imperial power in contradistinction to the Greek city-states in its neighborhood. In his collected works, including the voluminous fragments left in his notebooks (Nachgelassene Fragmente), there are many references to the ancient Persians. Nietzsche’s concern with Persia is well reflected in his choice of “Zarathustra” as the prophet of his philosophy and the eponymous hero of his most popular work, Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). He shows no particular interest in Persian history after the rise of Islam..."....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), had studied philosophy and law in Great Britain and received his doctorate 1908 in Munich with a thesis on The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, in which he retraced the development of metaphysics in Persia from Zoroaster to Baha ’ullah, the founder of the Baha’i religion. It is therefore not surprising that he also showed interest in Nietzsche, the poet of Thus spoke Zarathustra and the concept of the overhuman proposed in it......http://www.academia.edu/331812/NIETZSCHE_IN_INDIAN_EYES

"Allama Sir Mohammed Iqbal, the 'muslim of the century' and the first great Persian-language poet in 400 years, stated clearly that Persian Sufism is essentially the same as Tantric Buddhism. Iqbal is highly regarded in the great centres of learning of the muslim world both as a mystical poet and a religious reformer. A Kashmiri lawyer, he lived in Lahore, had a German wife, was knighted by the Brits, and had a great regard for Afghanistan. I have a handmade book of poetry he wrote about his only trip there - he visited a series of famous shrines behind Ghazni - its in Urdu and not so far translated into English."...RA

"Nietzsche’s deepest interest and admiration for the Persians manifest themselves where he discusses their notion of history and cyclical time. This Persian concept of time resembles to some degree his own concept of the circle of the Eternal Recurrence, expressed in a highly poetic and dramatic manner in his Zarathustra. Through this concept Nietzsche emphasizes the cyclical nature of cosmic time and the recurrence of all beings in every “circle”: “I must pay tribute to Zarathustra, a Persian (einem Perser): Persians were the first to have conceived of History in its full extent” (Sämtliche Werke, XI, p. 53). In this fragment Nietzsche uses the Persian word hazār referring to the millennial cycles (hazāra) in ancient Persian religious beliefs, “each one presided by a prophet; every prophet having his own hazar, his millennial kingdom.” In Also Sprach Zarathustra, he speaks of the great millennial (“grosser Hazar”) kingdom of his own Zarathustra, as “our great distant human kingdom, the Zarathustra kingdom of a thousand year,” (“Das Honigopfer”[The Honey Sacrifice,] Part IV).".........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Nietzsche implicitly expresses once more his radical opposition to Greek metaphysical thought, as developed by Socrates and Plato, and its later prevalence in Western world through the supremacy of Greek culture within the Roman Empire. This process ultimately led, at the hands of the Church Fathers, to the integration of the Platonic metaphysics, as developed in Rome by the Neoplatonists, within the theological doctrines of Christianity. Nietzsche considered this whole historical development as constituting an ascetic and nihilistic worldview that denied and reviled the reality of this-worldly existence in the name of an illusory, eternal, and other-worldly life. Therefore, he thought that if the Persians rather than the Romans had been successful in gaining dominance over Greece, the predominance of their positive outlook towards worldly life and time would have prevented such a lamentable event in human history."......http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the Persian Zarathustra. Nietzsche’s proficiency in classical philology, and the insertion of “Zarathustra” as the title of his most popular work, have misled some scholars of Zoroastrian studies to search laboriously for a direct reflection and representation of the ideas of the Persian prophet, or Mazdean texts, in his work (Rose, p. 174ff). Moreover, uncritical admirers of pre-Islamic Iranian history and culture, particularly among Iranians themselves, insist on seeing in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra an exact replica of the original Persian prophet and his teachings. Nietzsche’s sister, Elizabeth, has related that many Persian visitors used to come to her weekly open house in Weimar to express “their gratitude that Nietzsche had chosen a Persian sage to be the prophet of a new and superior race of man” (Rose, p. 186).....However, it is by no means certain that he had ever read Anquetil-Duperron’s translation of Zend Avesta. It could be said that his selection of the name of Zarathustra and allusions to his solitude in the mountains for ten years, and a concept like hazār (see above), testify to a broad acquaintance with Zoroastrian traditions and doctrines. However, by considering the trajectory of his intellectual interests from early youth, it becomes apparent that his historical and philological studies, including his thought-provoking studies on history of Eastern and Western religions and their sacred books, was not a matter of investigative scientific concern, but aimed at a hermeneutical reading from a novel revolutionary philosophical point of view. Moreover, he had a disdainful attitude toward supposedly “objective” scholarship restricted solely to painstaking research in specialized fields in the absence of a broad philosophical view (see, “On Scholars” and “The Leech” in Zarathustra Parts II and IV). Thus, he never intended to merely copy or adopt Zoroaster’s words and ideas uncritically."........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Nietzsche made several references to “Zoroaster” in his early writings. This familiar name in European languages, of Greek origin, was used in his notebooks of 1870-71, about a decade before writing Also Sprach Zarathustra. There he speaks with great admiration of Zoroaster and his religion and, in a short note, as elsewhere (see above), implicitly expresses his sympathy for the historically not improbable possibility that Zoroastrianism could have well triumphed in ancient Greece: “Zoroaster’s religion would have prevailed in Greece, if Darius had not been defeated.” (Sämtliche Werke, VII, p. 106). Also in his posthumously published work of the same period, Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks), he refers to the probable influence of Zoroaster on Heraclitus (Sämtliche Werke, I, p. 806; English tr. P. 29). The name of “Zarathustra,” as such, first appears in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science, fragment 342), published in 1882. Nietzsche inserts here the first fragment of the prologue to Also Sprach Zarathustra, i.e. Zarathustra’s prayer before the sun. This fragment appears in the following year in the published text of the first part of Zarathustra.".........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"One may wonder why Nietzsche abandoned the familiar name of Zoroaster for the original Old Persian form of it, Zarathustra, at a time when only specialists in Indo-Iranian philology were familiar with the original form. As Nietzsche admits himself, by choosing the name of Zarathustra as the prophet of his philosophy in a poetical idiom, he wanted to pay homage to the original Aryan prophet as a prominent founding figure of the spiritual-moral phase in human history."........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Sa‘di and Hafez are the only Persian names of the Islamic era mentioned in Nietzsche’s writings......Hafez provides him with a prime example of “Dionysian” ecstatic wisdom, which he extols so extensively in his writings. There are several references to the poet in Nietzsche’s works. Obviously, Goethe’s admiration for Hafez and his “Oriental” wisdom, as expressed in West-östlisches Divan, has been the main source of attracting Nietzsche to the Persian poet. The name of Hafez, usually in association with Goethe, appears about ten times in his writings. He admires both poets for reaching the zenith of joyful human wisdom. For him Hafez exemplifies the Oriental free spirit who gratefully receives both the pleasures and sufferings of life. Nietzsche commends such an attitude as sign of a positive and courageous valuation of life."...........http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/nietzsche-and-persia

"Yasnas 5 & 105 describe how "Zoroaster prayed to Anahita for the conversion of King Vištaspa", this provides further evidence that Zoroaster resided during the reign of King Vištaspa; which would corroborate a chronology of late-6th century BC.....His wife, children and a cousin named Maidhyoimangha were his first converts after his illumination from Ahura Mazda at age 30. According to Yasnas 5 & 105, Zoroaster prayed to Anahita for the conversion of King Vištaspa, who appears in the Gathas as a historic personage"....Williams Jackson, A.V. (1899), Zoroaster, the prophet of ancient Iran

"Zarathushtra and its derivative, Zoroaster..... The authentic form of Zoroaster’s name is that attested in his own songs, the Gathas, Old Av. Zaraθuštra- (Old Avestan [OAv.] and Young Avestan [YAv.] ....The speculation that Zarathushtra's name had something to do with camels appears to have started with Eugene Burnouf when explained Zarath-ustra as 'fulvos camelos habens' meaning 'having yellow camels' (Comm. sur le Yacna, pp. 12- 14, Paris, 1833). Later he changed his theory and stated that the name meant 'astre d'or' meaning 'golden star'".....http://zoroaster-zarathushtra.blogspot.com/p/etymology-of-name-zoroaster.html

"Nietzsche's original text contains a great deal of word-play. An example of this is the use of words beginning über ("over" or "above") and unter ("down" or "below"), often paired to emphasise the contrast, which is not always possible to bring out in translation, except by coinages. An example is Untergang, literally "down-going" but used in German to mean "setting" (as of the sun), which Nietzsche pairs with its opposite Übergang (going over or across). Another example is Übermensch (overman or superman)."....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch

"Untergang.....Setting of the Sun, Downfall, (Unter: down,below)...Untergang, literally "down-going" but used in German to mean "setting" (as of the sun), which Nietzsche pairs with its opposite Übergang (going over or across). Another example is Übermensch (overman or superman)."...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch

Übermensch.....(Über: going over, across)...." Zarathustra proclaims the Übermensch to be the meaning of the earth...The turn away from the earth is prompted, he says, by a dissatisfaction with life- a dissatisfaction that causes one to create another world in which those who made one unhappy in this life are tormented. The Übermensch is not driven into other worlds away from this one".....The Übermensch (German for "Overman, Overhuman, Above-Human, Superman, Superhuman, Ultraman, Ultrahuman, Beyond-Man") is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also Sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. It is a work of philosophical allegory, with a structural similarity to the Gathas of Zoroaster/Zarathustra.".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Übermensch

"Swastika is the symbol of Mithra, the deity of sun, or sun god, and hence its own religion, Mithraism; not Zoroastrianism. The difference is great although at some point they must have overlapped in certain regions of Iran. Mithraism predates the Iranian race, but Zoroastrianism is a strictly Iranian (in fact even Persian) religion...".....https://www.flickr.com/photos/briansearwar/3184317959

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

December 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Iranian, Persian, Parsa, Persia & Iran: Distinctions

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"The name 'Persia' comes from 'Pers' which is in turn the European version of 'Pars' - an area that is today a province of Iran. .....2,500 years ago, when the present provinces of Iran were kingdoms [at one time Iran (then Airan) consisted of 240 kingdoms], Pars was known as Parsa, and the kings of Parsa established an empire that came to be known in the West as the Persian Empire - the largest empire the world have ever known to that point. In those days, Parsa was the dominant kingdom of all the Iranian or Aryan kingdoms."...http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

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"According to the Kār-nāmag..........Middle Persian 'Book of the Deeds of Ardashir'....... "there were in the territory of Iran two hundred and forty princes" at the beginning of Iranian Parthian Empire (247 BC – 228 AD) .....The dominant kingdom of Iran has at various times been Balkh (Bactria), Mada (Media), Parsa (Persia), Parthava (Parthia) and then Persia again. The king of the dominant kingdom was called king-of-kings (shah-en-shah in modern terms) - an emperor.".......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

...."King of Kings" (šar šarrāni) .....The Persian title of a king of kings is shahanshah....associated especially with Zoroastrian Persian Achaemenid Empire......the terms used for Hindu kings to represent king of kings include Rajadhi raja , chakravarthi, Maharaja ,Perarasu,etc.......In the Pali Tripitaka, Buddha is sometimes compared to the worldly Emperor (Chakravarti), the Universal King, or the secular "King of Kings". But Buddha is also seen as the "King of the Dharma" or Dharma-raja......The first written record of its consistent use dates to Iranian Kings of the Persian Empire or Iranian High Kings of the Persian Empire (pronounced Shahanshah or Great Shahanshah). Because the Persian kings ruled in a format where conquered kings were allowed to rule over provinces (Satraps), while being loyal to the King of kings of the Persian Empire, the fact that the Persian kings ruled over other kings gave them the title king of kings......

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"...'Iran' is a relatively modern contraction of the name Airyana Vaeja (the ancient homeland of the Airya or Aryans).....Over time, Airyana Vaeja became Airan-Vej, then Eran-Vej or Airan-Vej ...... then Eran or Airan, and finally Iran......While we do not know the precise location of the originl Aryan homeland, Airyana Vaeja, the Central Asian lands that are today part of Tajikistan, north-eastern Afghanistan, and southern Uzbekistan - all east of the northeast corner of present day Iran - are strong candidates....From Airyana Vaeja the original Aryan homeland (possibly quite small in size and extent), the Aryans migrated to surrounding lands. In doing so, they formed fifteen additional kingdoms listed in the Avesta, the Zoroastrian scriptures, in a book called the Vendidad.....the migrations extended along the Aryan Trade Roads known commonly as the Silk Roads.".....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

"During the reign of the subsequent Kayanian dynasty (Zarathushtra lived during the reign of Kayanian King Vishtasp) which assumed dominance over the Aryan nations, the Shahnameh no longer has the capital of Greater Iran located near Sari, but rather in Balkh (Bactria), in the north of Afghanistan today....Ancient Airyana Vaeja grew to become a federation of nations that classical Greek historian and geographer Strabo called Aryana/Ariana (Avestan Airyana). Strabo describes the different kingdoms/nations that constituted Aryana describing its borders as stretching from the Indus to Persia-Media - linked, as he noted, by a common language native to the groups...."........http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

"Balkh / Bactria & King Vishtasp.....The fourth Vendidad nation is Bakhdhim / Bakhdhi / Bakhdi / Balkh located in Northern Afghanistan. Among the first "hearers and teachers" of Zarathushtra's message listed in the Farvardin Yasht (13.99) was King Vishtasp. Later texts state that King Vishtasp, a king of the Kayanian dynasty, was king of Bakhdhi/Balkh, and that Zarathushtra died in Bakhdhi/Balkh, killed by a Turanian. In these texts, the Amu Darya (Oxus) river formed the north-eastern border between ancient Bakhdhi and Turan (Sugd). Further upstream, a portion of the Amu Darya river ran through Bakhdhi. .....Balkh became the capital city of the Kayanian kings and ancient Airan, the successor state to Airyana Vaeja and the predecessor state to modern Iran.".... http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/aryans/location.htm

"Persian Rise to Dominance Over the Aryan Nations......About 2,500 years ago, the Parsa (Persians) rose to power to became the dominant Aryan kingdom. Dominance amongst the Aryans groups passed from the Medes to the Parsa (Persians) when the Achaemenian king Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II) established the Persian Empire in the sixth century BC by bringing the nations within the Aryan Empire ruled by the Medes under overall Persian rule. The dominance of the Aryan federation of nations had passed from Feridoon's dynasty (in Gorgan-Mazandaran, i.e. central-north Aryana) to the Kayanians (in Balkh i.e. mid-eastern Aryana) to the Medes (in north-west Aryana) and now to the Persians (in south-western Aryana).".......http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

"The West, influenced as it was by Greek and Latin literature, continued to call Eran 'Persia', presumably out of habit or because the rulers of Iran were Persians. That Western tradition continued into the last century until the reign of Iranian king, Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. In 1935 AD, Reza Shah asked those countries with whom Iran had diplomatic relations, to stop using the name Persia and to formally refer to his country as Iran. Some Euro-centric map-makers and authors ignored this formal request and continued to use Persia as the name instead of Iran."..........http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

"In the 7th century AD, the Arabs conquered Iran and converted the mainly Zoroastrian population to Islam. The Arabs pronounced the name Pars as Fars (because Arabic does not have the 'p' sound).....While the words Parsi and Farsi are synonymous, today the Arabized name Farsi is used to mean the Persian language. The initial wave of Zoroastrian refugees who fled to India after the Arab invasion of Iran, now use of the authentic name 'Parsi' as their ethnic group name. ".............http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia/

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"The Vendidad.....Today, there is controversy over historical development of the Vendidad. The Vendidad is classified by some as an artificial, young Avestan text. Its language resembles Old Avestan. The Vendidad is thought to be a Magi (Magi-influenced) composition......The Vendidad consists of 22 fargards containing fragments of discussions between Ahura Mazda and Zoroaster.......some consider the Vendidad a link to ancient early oral traditions, began - perhaps substantially - before the formation of the Median and Persian Empires, before the 8th century B.C.....The name of the texts is a contraction of the Avestan language Vî-Daêvô-Dāta, "Given Against the Daevas (Demons)", and as the name suggests, the Vendidad is an enumeration of various manifestations of evil spirits, and ways to confound them." ....Kellens, Jean (1989). "Avesta". Encyclopedia Iranica

"Daeva (daēuua, daāua, daēva) is an Avestan language term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon, the daevas are "wrong gods" or "false gods" or "gods that are (to be) rejected.......Daeva, the Iranian language term, should not be confused with the devas of Indian religions. While the word for the Vedic spirits and the word for the Zoroastrian entities are etymologically related, their function and thematic development is altogether different. The once-widespread notion that the radically different functions of Iranian daeva and Indic deva (and ahura versus asura) represented a prehistoric inversion of roles is no longer followed in 21st century academic discourse....In the Rigveda (10.124.3), the devas are the "younger gods", in conflict with the asuras, the "older gods". There is no such division evident in the Zoroastrian texts....Old Avestan daēuua or daēva derives from Old Iranian *daiva, which in turn derives from Indo-Iranian *daivá- "god," reflecting Proto-Indo-European *deiu̯ó with the same meaning.".....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daeva

"Kār-nāmag........KĀR-NĀMAG Ī ARDAŠĪR Ī PĀBAGĀN, a short prose work written in Middle Persian... written in the Sassanid period (226-651 AD)...... It narrates the Sasanian king Ardašīr I’s own life story—his rise to the throne, battle against the Parthian king Ardawān, and conquest of the empire by the scion of the House of Sāsān, as well as episodes concerning his heir Šābuhr and the latter’s son, Ohrmazd. .....http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/karnamag-i-ardasir

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

December 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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Aq Kupruk, Balkh...Early Human Representation....(18,000 BC)

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Aq Kupruk, Balkh...."Over 20,000 stone tools are reported to have been recovered from a site just north of Aq Kupruk/Kopruk township and some 77 km south of Mazar-e Sharif, Balkh Province. Aq Kupruk sits on the banks of the Balkh River where it leaves the foothills of the Paropamisus. .....The Aq Kupruk site is also called Dukhtar-e Padshah. Excavations at the site have yielded artifacts from various levels. Some writers have remarked on the relative sophistication of the stone tools calling Aq Kupruk's artisans "the Michelangelos of the Upper Paleolithic." One of the artifacts recovered is the carved the face of a person on a small limestone pebble - one of the earliest representations of a human face made by a human hand as portable cave art. The artifact has been dated to 18,000 BC....The age of the various levels and their associated artifacts recovered from the four site range from the Upper Paleolithic (18,000-10,000 BCE) to the Iron Age. The finds include incised spatulas, points, and awls made of bone, and a flint toolkit: blades, cores, utilized and retouched side- and end- scrapers, burins, keeled scrapers, points, a micro-industry, combination tools, a very early stone sculpture (the pebble face), domesticated sheep and goat remains, fragments of beaten copper from the ceramic Neolithic period, several projectile points, glass, terracotta and simple jewellery. ".....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/prehistoricsites/dawn.htm

Sculpted head from Aq Kupruk, northern Afghanistan, circa 20,000 BC - the carved the face of a person on a small limestone pebble - one of the earliest representations of a human face made by a human hand as portable cave art.

"North Afghanistan may well be the zone where modern Homo sapiens, or at least a variety of modern man, developed physically and began to revolutionize Stone Age technology,” said University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Louis Dupree of the Darra-i Kul discovery. But the 1979 Soviet invasion ended the excavation that might have confirmed this startling hypothesis. .....Across northern Afghanistan, from Balkh to the Pakistan border, lay the evidence of vibrant Stone Age, Neolithic and early Bronze Age cultures. A rock shelter at Kara Kamar, 14 miles north of Samangan yielded Stone Age tools dating circa 30,000 BC. More than 20,000 stone tools excavated from Aq Kupruk are of such sophistication that archaeologists often refer to the tool makers of Aq Kupruk as "the Michelangelos of the Upper Palaeolithic."......Aq Kupruk artifacts belong to a cultural phase that lasted some 5,000 years, from circa 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, during which some unknown artist carved the face of a man (or is it a woman?) on a small limestone pebble — giving us one of the earliest representations of a human face made by human hand."...... http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-02enl.html

"There are four sites in the vicinity of Aq Kupruk:
Aq Kupruk I or Ghar-e Asb (aka: Horse Cave) is a cave/rock shelter of the Kushan-Sasanian period, containing some fragmentary Buddhist frescos and some simple architecture.
Aq Kupruk II or Ghar-e Mar (aka: Snake Cave) is cave/another rock shelter that has yielded the largest number of artifacts from among the three sites and dating to several periods except the Kushan-Sasanian period. About 10% of the site has been excavated.
Aq Kupruk III is an open air site on the river terrace. Its artifacts date to the Mesolithic/EpiPaleolithic period (10-15,000 years ago).
Aq Kupruk IV (Skull Cave)....is closer to the modern village. Its artifacts include those dated to the Upper Paleolithic (15,000 years +).
....http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/prehistoricsites/dawn.htm

"....the Aq Kupruk carving remains one of the oldest known human likenesses ever discovered. Why was it carved? We may never know. ....Early peasant farms dating circa 30,000 – 20,000 BC, found at Hazar Sum and in the foothills of the Hindu Kush, confirm that North Afghanistan was one of the earliest places to domestic plants and animals. Later still, farming villages, dating 7,000-5,000 BC, near Deh Morasi Ghundai, show the transition that allowed faming villages to emerge and small cities to follow. By this time, evidence of Bronze Age culture abounds. .......While much has been looted and is forever lost, much has been discovered, and much more awaits excavation, at sites such as the Dashli Oasis."......http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-02enl.html

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"After 2400 BC, throughout Central Asia the growth of urban societies was severely challenged. Within a span of some three hundred years, none of the major centers that developed during the first half of the 3rd millennium were still occupied. The precise reasons for this "urban collapse" remain a mystery. Yet toward the end of 3rd millennium, across northern Afghanistan and southern Turkemenistan and Uzbekistan, a series of events fueled the rise of cities and settlements that was to have a major impact......Large numbers of nomadic invaders or migrants, pastoral citiless people travelling on horseback and by chariot, long known (conveniently, perhaps wrongly) as Aryans (derived from the Sanskrit word for "nobles"), migrated from the Caspian Sea region across the Oxus (present-day Amu Darya) River to present-day Afghanistan during the late early 2nd millennium (by circa 1700 BC).......No contemporaneous record exists of the Aryans' journey. But according to legend, they sang hymns as they travelled that were passed on by word of mouth from one generation of priests to another until c. 1200 BC, when the hymns were added to a collection of volumes known as the Rig Veda (1700-1100 BC). .....In these texts, we read about a tribe, centuries earlier, emerging from the Hindy Kush and crossing the Kubha, or Kabul, River around 1,500 BC, and can almost visualize these nomadic wanderers putting the Central Asian vastness behind them. ......Though evidence remains slim, some of the Aryan migrants appear to have stopped their wandering and settled in Afghanistan, while others continued south toward the India subcontinent. Meanwhile, a third branch of the Aryan Migration turned westward and settled on the Iranian plateau, in a place called Ariana, where an unknown scribe, or scribes, around 1800 BC produced the Persian hymns known as the Avesta, which mentions a city in northern Afghanistan termed Bakhdi (Balkh) "beautiful, crowned with banners.” .......http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh02-02enl.html

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"AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, points out that northern Afghanistan is part of a ‘Vavilov Centres’, one of eight regions of the world where crop plants were first domesticated. For plant breeders, having access to the wild relatives and related species of a crop is important. The plant crops domesticated here include wheat, peas, lentils, chickpeas, sesame, hemp, onion, garlic, spinach, carrot, pistachio, pear, almond, grape and apple.....Vavilov developed a theory on the centers of origin of cultivated plants. He stated that plants were not domesticated somewhere in the world at random but there are regions where the domestication started. The center of origin is also considered the center of diversity....The center of origin (or centre of origin) is a geographical area where a group of organisms, either domesticated or wild, first developed its distinctive properties.".....https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/plants-of-afghanistan-1-centre-of-global-biodiversity/

"The Bronze Age occurred roughly between 3000 BC and 2500 BC. The previous millennium had seen the emergence of advanced, urbanized civilizations, new bronze metallurgy extending the productivity of agricultural work, and highly developed ways of communication in the form of writing......an increasing amount of evidence supports the hypothesis that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes approximately 4000–3500 BC......

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

November 2015

John Hopkins....Northern New Mexico

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