As we saw in the
first two parts of this article, on the basis of the data and evidence in the
Rigveda:
1. The Pūru
Bharata-s of the Puranas were the Vedic "Indo-Aryans".
2. The Early Old Books of the Rigveda
go back in time to 3000 BCE and beyond, and the "Vedic Aryans", even
at that period of time in and around 3000 BCE:
a) were native inhabitants of
the eastern half of the Rigvedic area, closely familiar with and emotionally
attached to these eastern areas,
b) were completely ignorant of any
western areas, but only just starting to become acquainted with the western
areas within the geographical horizon of the Rigveda, which start appearing from
east to west in clear historical contexts and as part of a historical
narrative,
c) did not have even the faintest consciousness
of any extra-territorial memories or migrations from the totally unknown far
western areas outside the geographical horizon of the Rigveda,
d) do not make the faintest reference
to any non-Indo-European language speaking (let alone
specifically Dravidian or Austric language speaking) people or entities, friend
or foe, in the Rigvedic area, past or present (let alone any reference to they
themselves having invaded and displaced them),
e) and happen to be living in an area with
(undeniably or arguably) purely Indo-European names for the
rivers in the Rigvedic area with no indication that these rivers ever had any
other names.
As we concluded:
a) The Rigveda was composed by native people in the same
geographical area as the Harappan Civilization during the same period of time
as the Harappan Civilization.
b) The Rigvedic people were in northwestern India from before
3000 BCE. As per all the linguistic evidence accepted by a general
consensus among linguists, this was a point of time when all the 12
branches of Indo-European languages were still together in contiguous areas in
and around the Original Indo-European Homeland.
In short: the Original Indo-European Homeland was in India,
and the Harappan Civilization (in linguistic terms) was an
"Indo-Iranian" Civilization.
If the Original
Homeland was in India in a period recorded in the Rigveda and in Indian
historical tradition, then the emigration of the speakers of the other (than Indo-Aryan)
branches of Indo-European languages has to be found as recorded history.
And it has to be found as recorded history extractable from the Rigvedic and
(where it supplements, complements, amplifies or clarifies the Rigvedic data)
from other Vedic and Puranic data.
There were
basically two waves of emigrations, and in this part, we will
examine this unambiguous evidence for the second wave of
emigrations from India, as follows:
Section 1. The
Five Tribes.
Section 2. The
Linguistic Case.
Section 3. The
Northern Anu-s..
Section 4. The
Anu-s = The Proto-Iranians.
Section 5. The Migrations
of the Southern Anu-s.
Section 6.
Dāśarājña: The Oldest Record of PIE Migrations.
Section
1. The Five Tribes.
The Vedic Indo-Aryans
constitute speakers of just one out of twelve branches of IE
languages, hence if they are the Pūru-s, one out of many
tribes of people native to northern India as per Puranic accounts, speakers
of the other eleven branches must be found among the other tribes.
Which other
tribes?
The descriptions
in the Puranas about the original locations of the Five Aiḷa (Lunar) tribes in
northern India clearly place them as follow:
a) the Pūru-s
as the inhabitants of the Central Area (Haryana and adjacent areas of
western U.P.),
b) the Anu-s
to the North (Kashmir and adjoining areas to the west),
c) the Druhyu-s
to the West (present-day northern Pakistan),
d) and the Yadu-s
and Turvasu-s to the South-west (south-western U.P, Rajasthan,
Gujarat, western M.P.) and South-east (east of the Yadu-s)
respectively.
[The Solar race
of the Ikṣvāku-s are placed to the East (eastern U.P, northern
Bihar)].
Later historical
events described in the Puranas see the Anu-s expanding southwards and
occupying the erstwhile territory of the Druhyu-s (present-day northern
Pakistan) while the Druhyu-s move out into Afghanistan.
The Yadu-s,
Turvasu-s, as well as the Ikṣvāku-s, lived to the east of the Pūru-s,
in the interior of India, and play a major role in the history of India,
Hinduism and Classical Indian/Hindu culture and civilization. So it is
unlikely, at the least, that the speakers of the other IE proto-dialects,
which became the other eleven branches of IE languages, could have been from
these eastern tribal conglomerates.
The Anu-s
and the Druhyu-s, on the other hand, lived to the west of the Pūru-s
on the northwestern frontiers of India. and it is therefore more likely
that the speakers of the other IE proto-dialects, which became the other eleven
branches of IE languages, could have been from these western tribal
conglomerates.
As we saw above,
the Puranas record two geographical locations of the Anu-s and Druhyu-s:
a) The original
locations, with the Anu-s in the North (Kashmir and adjoining
areas to the west), and the Druhyu-s to the West (present-day
northern Pakistan).
b) The latter locations,
with the Anu-s expanding southwards and occupying the erstwhile
territory of the Druhyu-s (present-day northern Pakistan), while the Druhyu-s
move further out into Afghanistan.
Further:
1. The Druhyu-s,
as we see, move out from the central area into Afghanistan in very early times,
and their historical narrative, even in the Puranas, slowly peters out. The Anu-s,
on the other hand, in the form of their sub-tribes, like the Madra-s and
Kekaya-s, continue to make waves in Puranic narrations and remain a
force to reckon with in the northwest till historical times. The Anu
king Śivi Auśīnara is a renowned figure in the Puranas, the Mahabharata
and even in the Buddhist Jatakas. He is renowned as a Cakravartin in the
Puranas, and there is even a famous tale in the Mahabharata where he shows his
nobility and selflessness by carving out flesh from his own thigh to save Agni
(disguised as a dove) from Indra (disguised as a hawk), both of whom have come
to test his reputation for justice, truth and compassion.
2. In the Rigveda
also, the Druhyu-s are more or less only a distant memory: outside the
verses which contain enumerations of tribes or directional references, the Druhyu-s
are only mentioned thrice in a single hymn (VII.18),
and there they are enemies of the composers of the hymn. And what
is more, even in this hymn, they seem to be remnants of the original Druhyu-s
and figure only as subsidiary allies of the Anu-s, since
the hymns describe the dāśarājña battle, which, as
we will see, was a battle between the Bharata Pūrus on the one
hand and ten tribes from among the Anu tribal conglomerate (led by an Anu
king and an Anu high priest) on the other, fought on Anu
territory. The Anu-s, even after this battle, are mentioned elsewhere
(outside the verses which contain enumerations of tribes or directional
references) in V.31.4; VI.62.9 and VIII.74.4.
Two of these references are clearly to the Bhṛgu-s, who are basically
the priests of the Anu-s (see TALAGERI 2000:142-143), but a branch of
whom later aligned with the Pūru-s and became the single most important
family of ṛṣis-s in Indian tradition (see TALAGERI 2000:164-180, etc.).
The evidence clearly
shows that there were two separate waves of emigration of tribes
from India:
a) An earlier one
of the Druhyu-s, which had already commenced its first steps in a
pre-Rigvedic period, since the Rigveda from its earliest point shows
the latter geographical locations of the Anu-s and Druhyus (noted
above). So this wave of emigration may not be found unambiguously
recorded in the Rigveda.
b) A later one of
the Anu-s, which commenced well within the Rigvedic period and
within the bounds of Rigvedic record, and should be found
unambiguously recorded in the Rigveda.
Before moving to
the recorded evidence of the Rigveda, let us see what the linguistic theory has
to say about the migrations of the different branches from the Original
Homeland, wherever that Original Homeland were to be located.
Section
2. The Linguistic Case.
According to
linguistic analysis, the distribution of the isoglosses (linguistic features
common to two or more of the twelve IE branches) shows that the first branches
migrated out from the Homeland, wherever that Homeland is to be located, in the
following order: Anatolian (Hittite), Tocharian, Italic,
Celtic, Germanic, Baltic and Slavic.
As Winn puts it: “After the dispersals of the early PIE
dialects […] there were still those
who remained […] Among them were
the ancestors of the Greeks and Indo-Iranians”. These branches, and
(although he does not mention it) Albanian, shared many common
linguistic features (not found in the earlier emigrant branches) "also shared by Armenian; all these languages
it seems, existed in an area of mutual interaction.” (WINN
1995:323-324).
These five
branches (Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armenian, Greek
and Albanian) share the following linguistic features which developed
among them after the other branches had left the Original Homeland:
a) a “complete restructuring of the entire inherited verbal system”
(GAMKRELIDZE 1995:340-341,345), in the
Albanian, Greek, Armenian/Phrygian, Iranian and Indo-Aryan dialects, with
the formation of athematic and thematic aorists, augmented forms and
reduplicated presents.
b) a new
formation of "oblique cases in *-bhi-" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:345).
c) the "prohibitive
negation *me" (MEILLET:1902/1967:39).
[The four Anu dialects (Albanian, Greek, Armenian and Iranian), in fact, developed an isogloss in common: an original PIE sound *tt (which remained tt in Indo-Aryan) changed in these dialects to st. Three of them, (Greek, Armenian and Iranian) underwent another innovation: *s (which remained s in Indo-Aryan) became h from initial *s before a vowel, from intervocalic *s, and from some occurrences of *s before and after sonants, and remained s only before and after a stop (MEILLET 1908/1967:113)].
[The four Anu dialects (Albanian, Greek, Armenian and Iranian), in fact, developed an isogloss in common: an original PIE sound *tt (which remained tt in Indo-Aryan) changed in these dialects to st. Three of them, (Greek, Armenian and Iranian) underwent another innovation: *s (which remained s in Indo-Aryan) became h from initial *s before a vowel, from intervocalic *s, and from some occurrences of *s before and after sonants, and remained s only before and after a stop (MEILLET 1908/1967:113)].
Vocabulary-wise
also, these five branches seem to fall in one group separate from a second
group consisting of the five European branches (Italic, Celtic, Germanic,
Baltic and Slavic).
As these five
branches were the last to remain in the Homeland, they should be
found represented among the Anu tribes which remained in India after the
Druhyu tribes had, by and large, moved outside the horizon of Rigvedic
geography.
Section
3. The Northern Anu-s.
As per the
Puranas, the original geographical location of the Anu-s was to the
north of the Pūru-s: i.e. to the north of the Haryana region:
effectively in Kashmir and the western Himalayas.
However, the
Puranas describe a series of events which leads to a massive migration of Anu-s
southwards from this region into the Greater Punjab. This first major movement
of the Anu-s took place in a tumultuous era of conflicts recorded in
traditional history: the Druhyu-s started conquering eastwards and
southwards, and their conflicts brought them into conflict with all the other
tribes and peoples. This led to a concerted effort by the other tribes to drive
them out, and the result was that they were driven out not only from the east
but also from their homeland in the northern half of present-day Pakistan. This
area was occupied by the Anu-s who moved southwards and westwards: “One branch, headed by Uśīnara established
several kingdoms on the eastern border of the Punjab […] his famous son Śivi originated the Śivis
[footnote: called Śivas in Rigveda
VII.18.7] in Śivapura, and extending
his conquests westwards […] occupying
the whole of the Punjab except the northwestern corner” (PARGITER
1962:264). Thus, the Anu-s, after first
moving into the easternmost part of the Punjab, expanded westwards and now
became inhabitants also of the areas in present-day northern Pakistan
originally occupied by the Druhyu-s, while the Druhyu-s were
pushed out further west into Afghanistan. This resulted (in pre-Rigvedic
times) in two distinct groups of Anu-s: the northern Anu-s (in
the original area, Kashmir and the western Himalayas), and the southern Anu-s
(in the Greater Punjab or northern Pakistan).
Even today, a
group of languages of the northern area (stretching from Kashmir to the
adjacent parts of northernmost Pakistan and northeastern-most Afghanistan) constitute
a distinct group of languages referred to by Grierson as the "Dardic"
or "Pishacha" languages. These languages (the most important of them
being Kashmiri) constitute an enigma to most linguists, since they seem to be a
cross between Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages. Now, most linguists bifurcate
them into two major groups (Dard and Kafiri/Nuristani) and treat the first
group as being ultimately a part of the Indo-Aryan branch, and the second group
(six languages - Ashkun, Bashgali or Kamkata-viri, Wasi-veri or Prasun, Tregami
or Gambiri, Waigali or Kalasha-ala, and Zemiaki - all together spoken by around
100,000 people in isolated mountainous tracts in the western parts of this
region) as constituting a separate "third" branch of a hypothetical
earlier "Indo-Iranian" branch. This what the Wikipedia article has to
say about the Nuristani languages:
"There
are three different theories about the origins of the Nuristani languages and
their place within the Indo-Iranian languages:
·
following the studies of Georg
Morgenstierne, Nuristani has generally been regarded as one of three primary
sub-groups of Indo-Iranian (alongside Iranian and Indo-Aryan);
·
suggestions that Nuristani may instead
be a branch of the Indo-Aryan subgroup, due to the evident influence of Dardic
languages, and;
·
it has also been proposed that
Nuristani originated within the Iranian sub-group, and was later influenced by
an Indo-Aryan language, such as Dardic."
The first theory
is obviously based on the concept of a "proto-Indo-Iranian" language
from which both "Iranian" and "Indo-Aryan" are descended.
However, this is disproved by the fact that Iranian shares isoglosses (not
shared by Indo-Aryan) with some other branches. Clearly, the present state of
ambiguity about the entire "Dardic" languages is due to the
continuous waves of Indo-Aryan and Iranian influences during the last at least
3000 years, and these languages represent the earlier forms of the Iranian branch.
The isolated
Nuristani languages retain the following clues:
1. In the first
palatization of the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) palato-velars, these
palato-velars ḱ, ģ, ģh became lamino-alveolar sounds č (tš), ǰ (dž),
ǰh (džh) in many IE branches, including Indo-Aryan and Iranian. These
further became palatals c, j, jh in Indo-Aryan, but became dental
affricates ć (ts), ź (dz), ź (dz) in proto-Iranian.
The Nuristani
languages retained the proto-Iranian dental affricates ć (ts), ź (dz), ź
(dz), but the oldest Iranian languages changed them in two opposite
directions: Avestan de-dentalized the sounds into affricates s, z, z,
while Old Persian de-affricated the sounds into dentals t/θ, d, d.
2. As may be
noticed above, the Iranian languages (both Nuristani and Iranian proper) merged
the voiced aspirated sound into the voiced unaspirated sound: thus ǰ (dž),
ǰh (džh) both became ź (dz) in proto-Iranian and Nuristani, and
later z in Avestan and d in Old Persian. Likewise, the original
velars g, gh and the labials b, bh (all of them retained in
Indo-Aryan) were merged into g and b respectively in all the
Iranian languages (including Nuristani).
3. A third major
change in the Iranian languages was the merger of PIE l into r. Linguists
often make the mistake of assuming that this is an isogloss covering both
Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages. However, the Rigveda does contain many words
with the sound l, and it is clear that the merger of r and l
is an isogloss covering only the Iranian languages. The westernmost dialects of
the Pūru-s (i.e. the "Vedic Aryans") also shared this isogloss due to
the influence of the Anu-s (proto-Iranians), but the eastern dialects of the
Pūru-s retained the l, and this (in spite of the anomalous situation it
creates for the AIT) is now accepted by most linguists: "the paucity of
/l/ in the Rigveda may be explained as a characteristic of the Northwestern
dialect, which has undergone a development parallel to Iranian, and the
distinction between proto-Indo-European *l and *r is preserved in the Eastern
dialects (Meillet… Bloch…. Misra…. Burrow…. Cardona…. Deshpande…. Parpola….
Meier-Brügger)" KOBAYASHI 2004:144-5.
Richard F Strand,
one of the foremost experts on the Nuristani languages, in his internet article
"The Evolution of the Nuristani Languages", divides this
evolution into 6 stages: 1. The Aryan phase (common to Indo-Aryan,
Iranian and Nuristani), 2. The Early Iranian phase (restricted to the
Iranian and Nuristani languages), 3. The Transitional phase (with a
break between the Nuristani and Iranian languages, but still out of the direct
influence of Indo-Aryan), 4. The Indo-Aryan phase (where "the proto-Nuristânis subsequently
entered the Indo-Âryan sphere, where they acquired many IA loanwords and
participated in many of the Middle Indo-Âryan (MIA) changes that characterize
the northwestern IA languages"), 5. The
Nuristan phase (where it developed many new characteristics in isolation in
the Nuristan area), and finally the last,
6. The Afghani-Islamic Stage (with large scale borrowings from
Arabic, Turkish and modern Persian).
It is clear
therefore that the (Dardic and) Nuristani languages represent the earlier phase
of proto-Iranian, and they represent remnants of the northern Anu-s recorded in
the Puranas.
Section
4. The Anu-s = The Proto-Iranians.
Before examining
the stages in the migrations of the Iranians, who constitute the main body of
the Anu-s, it will be in order to first examine the actual vital recorded
evidence showing the identity and/or close connections between the Anu-s, their
priestly class the Bhṛgu-s/Atharvan-s, and the Iranians:
a) In the Old Books of the Rigveda, the
Anu-s are depicted as inhabitants of the area of the Paruṣṇī river in the
centre of the Punjab (the Land of the Seven Rivers): in the Battle of the
Ten Kings, fought on the banks of the Paruṣṇī, the Anu-s are the
inhabitants of the area of this river who form a coalition to fight the
imperialist expansion of Sudās and the Bharata-s, and it is the land and
possessions of the Anu-s (VII.18.13) which are
taken over by the Bharata-s after their victory in the battle. This point is
also noted by P L Bhargava: “The fact
that Indra is said to have given the possessions of the Anu king to the Tṛtsus
in the battle of Paruṣṇī shows that that the Anus dwelt on the banks of the
Paruṣṇī” (BHARGAVA 1956/1971:130).
The area, nevertheless, continues even
after this to be the area of the Anu-s., who are again shown as inhabitants of
the area even in the Late Books: “The
Anu live on the Paruṣṇī in 8.74.15” (WITZEL 1995b:328, fn 51).
And even in later historical times, it
continues to be the area of the Madra-s and the Kekaya-s, who were Anu-s.
The Avesta (Vd. I) mentions the Haptahəndu
(Saptasindhavah) as one of the sixteen Iranian
lands, past and contemporary.
b) The Anu tribes who fought Sudās in
the Battle of
the Ten Kings include at least the Parśu
or Parśava (Persians),
the Pṛthu or Pārthava (Parthians), the Paktha (Pakhtoons) and the Bhalāna (Baluchis): all names of
historical Iranian peoples in later times. The king of the Anu coalition is Kavi (Avestan name Kauui, name of the dynasty which
included Vīštāspa, contemporary and patron of Zaraθuštra) Cāyamāna,
and the priest is Kavaṣa
(a proto-Iranian and Avestan name, Kaoša).
The two most prominent Anu tribes in later texts are the Madra (the Madai or Medes) and the Kekaya (a typical Iranian
sounding name).
c) In later historical times, the name
Anu is prominently found at
both the southern and northern ends of the area described in the Avesta: Greek
texts (e.g. Stathmoi Parthikoi, 16,
of Isidore of Charax) refer to the area and the people immediately north of the
Hāmūn-ī Hilmand in southern Afghanistan as the Anauon or Anauoi;
and Anau is the name of
a very prominent proto-Iranian or Iranian archaeological site in Central Asia
(Turkmenistan).
d) The conflict between the deva-s (gods) and the asura-s (demons), which is a central theme
in Purāṇic mythology, is recognized (e.g. HUMBACH 1991, etc.) as a
mythologization of an earlier historical conflict between the Vedic Aryans and
the Iranians. There is also a priestly angle to this conflict: the Epics and
the Purāṇas depict the priest of the deva-s as an Angiras (Bṛhaspati),
and the priest of the asura-s as a Bhṛgu (Kavi Uśanā or Uśanas Kāvya,
also popularly known in the Puranas and Epics as Uśanas Śukra or Śukrācārya).
Robert P. Goldman, in a detailed study
entitled “Gods, Priests and Warriors:
the Bhṛgus of the Mahābhārata”, points out that the depiction of the Bhṛgu-s
in the Epics and Purāṇas “may shed some
light on some of the most basic problems of early Indian and even early
Indo-Iranian religion” (GOLDMAN 1977:146), and that the Bhṛgu-s may
originally have been the priests of the Iranians, and that certain elements in
the myths about the “ultimate
disillusionment with the demons [of one branch of the Bhṛgu-s] and their going over to the side of the
gods may also be viewed as suggestive of a process of absorption of this branch
of the Bhṛgus into the ranks of the orthodox [i.e. Vedic] brahmins” (GOLDMAN 1977:146). [For full
details of the peculiar position of the Bhṛgu-s in the Rigveda, see TALAGERI
2000:164-180].
An examination of the evidence shows
the close connection between the Anu-s and the Bhṛgu-s on the one hand, and the
Iranians and the Bhṛgu-s on the other:
The Anu-s and the
Bhṛgu-s: the Anu-s are referred to in only four hymns, apart from the neutral
directional references, and these four hymns fall into two categories: the
hostile references (in VI.62 and VII.18) and the neutral references (in V.31.4
and VIII.74.4). The close connection between the Anu-s and the Bhṛgu-s is
clear from both the categories of references:
a) The hostile references, which treat the Anu-s as enemies, are in VI.62 and VII.18, and in VII.18,
verse 14 refers to the Anu-s
and Druhyu-s, while verse 6 refers to the Bhṛgu-s and
Druhyu-s, thus making it clear that the Anu-s are somehow equivalent to
the Bhṛgu-s (actually the latter as the priests, and a subtribe, of the
former).
b) The neutral references are in V.31
and VIII.74, and V.31.4
describes the Anu-s as manufacturing a chariot for Indra. In IV.16.20,
it is Bhṛgu-s who are described as manufacturing
a chariot for Indra, thus again reiterating the equivalence. [In the other
neutral reference, in VIII.74.4, which refers to the sacrificial
fire of the Anu-s., the reference is to an Anu king named Śrutarvan Ārkṣa (son of Ṛkṣa). Both the prefix Śruta-
and the name Ṛkṣa are
found in the Avesta (Srūta- and Ərəxša), and, in this case, the king could be a proto-Iranian king
(although the Avestan connection of the names, in itself, could also be due to
the common culture of the Late Rigvedic period)].
[It is significant that the two
neutral references appear in the more cosmopolitan Late Books, in which the
conflicts of the earlier period have become a thing of the past, and the
composers occasionally have some nice things to say about the Dāsa-s (the
non-Pūru-s). Significantly, of the three hymns which have nice things to say
about Dāsa-s, VIII.5, 46 and 51, the
first two are hymns which have camel-gifting
kings with proto-Iranian names].
Griffith has the following to say about the above
reference to the Anu-s in V.31.4, in his footnote to the verse: “Anus:
probably meaning Bhṛgus who belonged to that tribe”.
The Iranians and
the Bhṛgu-s: Kavi Uśanā
is the priest of the asura-s, who is nevertheless treated with great respect in
both the Rigveda and the later texts, and often treated (in the later
mythology) as even superior (in, for example, his knowledge of the sanjīvanī mantra, which could bring the
dead back to life) to Bṛhaspati,
the priest of the deva-s or
gods. He is found in the Avesta as Kauui Usan. And the fire-priests of
the Iranians are called Āθrauuan (Atharvan, the son of Bhṛgu,
the archetypal fire-priest of the Vedic texts).
Goldman (see above) writes about one
branch of the Iranian priests “going
over to the side of the gods” and about the “absorption of this branch of the Bhṛgus into the ranks of the orthodox
[i.e. Vedic] brahmins” (GOLDMAN
1977:146). This refers to a branch led by Jamadagni, who, in later
Indian tradition, is treated as the patriarch of the Bhṛgu gotras among Vedic brahmins, and consequently, often even referred
to as “Bhṛgu”. As we have seen in detail in our earlier book (see TALAGERI
2000:164-180), the Bhṛgus are treated with disdain in the earlier parts of the
Rigveda, and it is only in the later parts of the Rigveda that they are
accepted into the Vedic mainstream; and later on, in post-Rigvedic Hinduism,
the Bhṛgus (descended from Jamadagni) actually go on to become the single most important family of Vedic ṛṣis.
An examination of the names of the Bhṛgu
composers in the Rigveda shows that most of them contain name-elements in
common with the Avesta, but as this is a feature found in a large number of
names (whatever the family of the ṛṣis)
in the Late Books (where almost all the hymns composed by Bhṛgus are found),
this does not signify much. But the same cannot be said for the names of the
first Bhṛgu ṛṣi of the Rigveda, Jamadagni (who belongs to the Early period),
and of his son Rāma:
The name Jamadagni is clearly a
proto-Iranian name: not a name
containing a name-element common to both the Rigveda and the Avesta, but a name
which is linguistically Iranian
rather than “Indo-Aryan”. (This is in
spite of the fact that the word agni
for “fire” is found in the Vedic but not in the Avestan language: in opposition
to this is the fact that we find the suffix -agni as a name-element in another name only in the Avesta: the name Dāštāγni): “Iranian simply lacks the many innovations that characterize Ved.”
(WITZEL 2005:367). One of these innovations is “the Ṛgvedic normalization in g-
of the present stems beginning in j/g […] Avest. jasaiti:: Vedic gacchati. Note that j is retained only in traditional names such as Jamad-agni and in the perfect ja-gām-a, etc.” (WITZEL
2005:392:149). Witzel assumes that the initial j-, instead of g-, in the
name Jamadagni is an exception to the
rule because it is a “traditional” name; but actually the initial j- is found in the name Jamadagni because it is a
proto-Iranian name.
The name of
Jamadagni’s son is Rāma: he is called Rāma Jāmadagnya as the composer of X.110.
However, he is also known as Parśu–Rāma
in later times; and, consequently, Epic-Purāṇic mythology, in the belief that
the word parśu means “axe” or
“battle-axe”, creates an enduring range of mythical tales centred around the
idea of an axe-wielding Parśurāma. However, the word parśu in the sense of “axe” (which is actually paraśu) is not found in the Rigveda at all: it is a much later
word. The original sense of the word parśu,
as an appellation in the name of Rāma Jāmadagnya, was in respect of his
identity as a member of the Anu (Iranian) tribe of the Parśu.
Section
5. The Migrations of the Southern Anu-s.
The Puranas
record the migrations of a major section of the Anu-s from the western
Himalayan region into the Punjab region, and the early migrations occurred in
the following stages:
Stage 1:
To begin with, the Anu-s lived in the northern region: i.e. the western
Himalayan region.
Stage 2:
In the first migration, an important section migrated southwards into eastern
Punjab.
Stage 3:
In the second migration (or rather expansion), these Anu-s expanded westwards
and occupied the whole of the Greater Punjab region.
The evidence for
these three stages is recorded in the Puranas, the Rigveda and the Avesta:
Stage 1:
a) The Puranas
record that the Anu-s were originally (in a pre-Rigvedic age) occupants of the
region to the north of the central area occupied by the the Pūru-s, i.e. they
lived in the western Himalayan region (extending westwards from Kashmir) to the
north of the Haryana region.
b) The Avesta
records that the ancestors of the Iranians originally lived in a land which
they called Airyana Vaējo, known for its extremely severe winters.
[That Airyana
Vaējo was the western Himalayan region, and not the "Arctic" as
speculated by Tilak and some Zoroastrian writers, is clear from the list of
sixteen Iranian lands given in the Videvdat (a late book of the Avesta). The
list (covering only the areas of Afghanistan and present-day northern Pakistan)
is arranged in rough geographical order, in an anti-clockwise direction which
leads back close to the starting point. The sixteen evils created by Angra
Mainyu in the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda start out with “severe winter” in the first land Airyana Vaējo, move through a
variety of other evils (including various sinful proclivities, obnoxious
insects, evil spirits and physical ailments), and end again with “severe winter” in the sixteenth land, Raηhā, which shows that the
sixteenth land is close to the first one. And since Gnoli identifies the
sixteenth land, Raηhā,
as an “eastern mountainous area, Indian
or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter” (GNOLI 1980:53), it is
clear that Airyana Vaējo
is also likely to be an eastern, mountainous, Indian area].
Stage 2:
a) The Puranas
record that “One branch, headed by
Uśīnara established several kingdoms on the eastern border of the Punjab”
(PARGITER 1962:264). [It may be noted that Uśīnara, with its patronymic
form Auśīnara, is an Iranian name, Aošnara, also found in the Avesta].
b) The Rigveda
records that in the period of the oldest Book (Maṇḍala) 6, the Anu-s were on
the eastern borders of the Punjab to the west of the Vedic Aryans: In VI.27,
Abhyāvartin Cāyamāna (called a Pārthava, i.e. Parthian, in verse 8) is
an ally of the Vedic Aryan (Pūru Bharata) king Sṛñjaya, son of Devavāta, in a
battle fought in the Haryana region.
c) The Avesta
records that the ancestors of the Iranians, to escape from the severe cold of
their ancestral homeland, built an enclosure called Vara in the
centre of the Earth and lived safely within that enclosure. This is
clearly a reference to their migration into the Haryana/eastern-Punjab area:
the Haryana region is referred to in the Rigveda by two descriptive names: Vara
ā Pṛthivyā (the best place on earth) and Nābhā Pṛthivyā (the
navel/centre of the Earth).
Further, the
Avesta shows its early ancient associations with the Haryana region by the
reference to Manuša (the lake Mānuṣa
referred to in the Rigveda, III.23.4, as being located at the vara ā pṛthivyāh, “the best
place on earth”, in Kurukṣetra. Witzel also identifies it as “Manuṣa, a location ‘in the back’ (west) of
Kurukṣetra”: WITZEL 1995b:335): Darmetester translates the verse, Yašt
19.1, as follows: “The first mountain
that rose up out of the earth, O Spitama Zarathuštra! was the Haraiti Barez.
That mountain stretches all along the shores of the land washed by waters
towards the east. The second mountain was Mountain Zeredhō outside mount Manusha: this mountain too stretches all along
the shores of the land washed by waters towards the east”. Note that the “first” mountains that rose up out of
the earth (i.e. the earliest lands known to the Iranians) for the Avesta are “towards the east”. Darmetester
interprets the word Manusha
as the name of a mountain, but the verse specifies that it is referring only to two
mountains, the “first” and the “second” mountains, close to “land washed by waters”, so the
reference to Manuša (which, in the original text, is not specified as a
"mountain", and which both Iranologists and Indologists identify as
an Indo-Aryan and not an Iranian word) is definitely to lake
Mānuṣa, and the word Haraiti is again a reference to the Sarasvati. The word barez means "mountain", but here it clearly also means "river bank", and the Russian word bereg cognate to the Avestan barez actually means "river bank", so the line can also be translated: “The first river bank that rose up out of the earth, O Spitama Zarathuštra! was the Haraiti Barez [the land on the banks of the river Haraiti].
That river bank stretches all along the shores of the land washed by waters
towards the east”.
Stage 3:
a) The Puranas
record that the Anu-s expanded westwards from the "eastern border of the Punjab”: “his famous son Śivi originated the Śivis [footnote: called Śivas in Rigveda VII.18.7] in Śivapura, and extending his conquests
westwards […] occupying the whole
of the Punjab except the northwestern corner” (PARGITER 1962:264).
b) The Rigveda,
as we saw earlier, shows the Anu-s as the local inhabitants of the Punjab
region in both the Old Books (during the dāśarājña battle) as well as the New
Books, and they continue to be the inhabitants of the Punjab (as Madra-s and
Kekaya-s) even in later historical times. That these Anu-s were Iranians is
clear from the names of the Anu tribes who fought Sudās in this battle, e.g.
the Parśu or Parśava (Persians), the Pṛthu or Pārthava (Parthians), the Paktha (Pakhtoons) and the Bhalāna (Baluchis); and of the
king of their alliance, Kavi
(Avestan Kauui); and of
their priest, Kavaṣa
(Avestan name, Kaoša).
c) The Avesta
(Vd. I) mentions the Haptahəndu (Saptasindhavah) as one of the sixteen Iranian lands, past and
contemporary.
While the
evidence for the three earliest stages of the Anu migrations, which took place
within Indian territory and Indian traditional memory, is recorded in the
Puranas, the Rigveda and the Avesta, the next stage, which moves out of India,
is recorded only in the Avesta. The Rigveda only records that the people of the
Asiknī (i.e. of the western Anu territory of the Asiknī or Chenab river, to the
west of the Paruṣṇī or Rāvī river which was the scene of the dāśarājña battle)
left their territories and were "scattered abroad" after their
battle with the Pūru-s (GRIFFITH VII.5.3). And in the very next
hymn, that they were driven "westwards" from "the east"
(GRIFFITH VII.6.3):
Stage 4:
The Avesta, which
was also recorded over a long period of time, clearly records a very late or
post-Rigvedic situation, in which the Iranians (the major section of the Anu-s
who migrated westwards) were now centered in and around Afghanistan.
That it was a
late or post-Rigvedic period, and the next stage (stage 4) of the Iranian
migrations, is clear from the chronological position of the Avesta vis-à-vis
the Rigveda (given in detail in Part 2 of this article series). To give the
salient points:
1. The dāśarājña
battle took place during the period of the Old books of the Rigveda, and the earliest
parts of the Avesta were clearly composed during a very late part of the period
of the New Books, as is clear from the evidence of the name-types common to the
Rigveda and the Avesta (which are older than the oldest part of the Avesta,
since the ancestors of Zarathuštra - who is the composer of the Gāthā-s,
the oldest part of the Avesta - already have names of these types), the meters
in which the Gāthā-s are composed (found only in the New non-Family Books of
the Rigveda), and the fact that certain personalities belonging to the period
of the Middle Old Books of the Rigveda (4 and 2) are ancestral to Zarathuštra.
2. There is a
consensus among most Iranologists that the common elements in Vedic and Iranian
mythology and rituals show a late Vedic correspondence. Helmut Humbach, the eminent Avestan
scholar, makes the following very pertinent observations: “It must be emphasized that the process of polarization of relations
between the Ahuras and the Daēvas is already complete in the Gāthās, whereas,
in the Rigveda, the reverse process of polarization between the Devas and the
Asuras, which does not begin before the later parts of the Rigveda, develops as
it were before our very eyes, and is not completed until the later Vedic
period. Thus, it is not at all likely that the origins of the polarization are
to be sought in the prehistorical, the proto-Aryan period. […] All this suggests a synchrony between
the later Vedic period and Zarathuštra’s reform in Iran.”
(HUMBACH 1991:23).
That the bulk of the proto-Iranians, after moving westwards from
the Punjab region, had still spread only as far west as Afghanistan is clear
from the geographical evidence in the Avesta:
The
Vendidad or Videvdat, a late book of the Avesta, gives a list of the sixteen Iranian
lands past and present: Gnoli identifies fifteen of the sixteen Iranian lands named
in the Vendidād list (he declines to try to identify "the first
of the countries created by Ahura Mazda, Airyana Vaējah", since "this
country is characterized, in the Vd. I context, by an advanced state of
mythicization" GNOLI 1980:63): "From the second to the
sixteenth country, we have quite a compact and consistent picture. The
order goes roughly from north to south and then towards the east: Sogdiana (Gava),
Margiana (Mourv), Bactria (Bāxδī), Nisaya between Margiana
and Bactria, Areia (Harōiva), Kābulistān (Vaēkərəta), the Gaznī
region (Urvā), Xnənta, Arachosia (Haraxvaitī), Drangiana (Haētumant), a territory between Zamin-dāvar and
Qal'at-i-Gilzay (Raγa), the Lūgar valley (Caxra), Bunēr (Varəna),
Pañjāb (Hapta Həndu), Raƞhā … between the Kābul and the Kurram,
in the region where it seems likely the Vedic river Rasā flowed"
(GNOLI 1980:63-64).
All these regions are centered
around Afghanistan and present-day northern Pakistan. Gnoli notes that
India is still very much a part of the geographical picture: "With Varəna
and Raƞhā, as of course with Hapta Həndu, which comes between them in the Vd. I
list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in
territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by
Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans" (GNOLI 1980:47).
However, western areas (including
present-day Iran!) are still not part of the Iranian area. Gnoli repeatedly
stresses "the fact that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd.
I, is confined to the east" (GNOLI 1980:45).
Elsewhere, he again refers to "the entirely eastern character of the
countries listed in the first chapter of the Vendidād, including Zoroastrian
Raγa, and the historical and geographical importance of that list" (GNOLI 1980:59). The horizon of the Avesta, Gnoli further notes,
"is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier
than the westward migrations of the Iranian tribes" (GNOLI 1980:161).
Likewise, the Avesta does
not know any area to the north, or west, of the Aral Sea. The northernmost
area, the only place in northern Central Asia, named in the Avesta is
Chorasmia or Khwārizm, to the south of the Aral Sea.
However, Gnoli points out that Chorasmia "is mentioned only once"
(GNOLI 1980:110) in the whole of the Avesta. Moreover, it is not
mentioned among the sixteen Iranian lands created by Ahura Mazda listed in the
first chapter of the Vendidad. It is mentioned among the lands named in
the Mihr Yašt (Yt.10.14) in a description of the God Miθra standing on the
mountains and surveying the lands to his south and north.
Gnoli
emphasizes the significance of this distinction: "the countries in Vd.I
and Yt.X are of a quite different nature: the aim of the first list is
evidently to give a fairly complete description of the space occupied by the
Aryan tribes in a remote period in their history" (GNOLI 1980:44-45).
Clearly, Chorasmia is not a part of this space.
As a matter of fact,
Chorasmia is named as "practically the very furthest horizon reached by
Miθra's gaze" (GNOLI 1980:110), and Gnoli suggests that "the
inclusion of the name of Chorasmia in this Yašt [….] could in fact be a
mention or an interpolation whose purpose, whether conscious or unconscious,
was rather meant to continue in a south-north direction the list of lands over
which Miθra's gaze passed by indicating a country on the
outskirts such as Chorasmia (which must have been very little known at the time
the Yašt was composed)" (GNOLI 1980:89). The suggestion that the
inclusion of Chorasmia in the Yašt is an interpolation is based on a solid
linguistic fact: the name, Xvāirizəm, as it occurs in the reference,
is "in a late, clearly Middle Persian nominal form" (GNOLI
1980:110).
So,
by the time of composition of even the latest parts of the Avesta, the Iranians
were still confined to an area no further west than Afghanistan and the bordering
areas to its north. The earliest historical Iranian groups made their
appearance only in Stage 5.
Stage
6:
Recorded
evidence for "Iranians" of any kind in the post-Avestan period is totally
missing till the first millennium BCE: "Evidence either for the history
of the Iranian tribes or their languages from the period following the
separation of the Indian and Iranian tribes down to the early 1st millennium BC
is sadly lacking. There are no written sources, and archaeologists are
still working to fill out the picture" (SKJÆRVØ
1995:156).
The
earliest historical Iranians make their appearance in a very much post-Avestan
period: "The earliest mention of Iranians in historical sources is,
paradoxically, of those settled on the Iranian plateau, not those still in
Central Asia, their ancestral homeland. 'Persians' are first mentioned in
the 9th century BC Assyrian annals: on one campaign, in 835 BC, Shalmaneser
(858-824 BC) is said to have received tributes from 27 kings of Paršuwaš; the
Medes are mentioned under Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727 BC); at the battle of
Halulê on the Tigris in 691 BC, the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 BC)
faced an army of troops from Elam, Parsumaš, Anzan, and others; and in the
Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon (680-669 BC) and elsewhere numerous 'kings' of
the Medes are mentioned (see also, for example, Boyce 1975-82: 5-13) [….]
There are no literary sources for Iranians in Central Asia before the Old
Persian inscriptions (Darius's Bisotun inscription, 521-519 BC, ed. Schmitt)
and Herodotus' Histories (ca. 470 BC). These show
that by the mid-Ist millennium BC tribes called Sakas by the Persians and
Scythians by the Greeks were spread throughout Central Asia, from the
westernmost edges (north and northwest of the Black Sea) to its easternmost
borders" (SKJÆRVØ 1995:156).
“We find no evidence of the future
‘Iranians’ previous to the ninth century BC. The first allusion to the Parsua
or Persians, then localized in the mountains of Kurdistan,
and to the Madai or Medes, already established on the plain, occurs in 837 BC
in connection with the expedition of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. About a
hundred years afterwards, the Medes invaded the plateau which we call Persia
(or Iran) driving back or assimilating populations of whom there is no written
record” (LAROUSSE 1959:321).
And all these
Iranian groups were moving from east to west: “By the mid-ninth century
BC two major groups of Iranians appear in cuneiform sources: the Medes and the
Persians. [….] What is reasonably clear from the cuneiform sources is that the Medes and
Persians (and no doubt other Iranian peoples not identified by name) were
moving into western Iran
from the east” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974, Vol.9, 832).
The Iranians clearly spread out from Afghanistan, in the
post-Avestan period, into Iran to the west and Central Asia to the north. Their
expanding geography, in the course of time, spread them all the way out to
eastern and Central Europe.
Section
6. Dāśarājña: The Oldest Record of PIE Migrations.
The migration of
the Iranians from their Original Homeland in India, including the various
chronological and geographical stages in that migration, is, as we saw, fully
recorded history. However, this is only because we have available with us
the oldest recorded texts, the Rigveda and the Avesta, whose traditional records
and memories go back to those periods. If Indian and Iranian records had
started with the earliest texts of the Mauryan period for India and the
earliest texts of the Persians, Parthians and Medes for the Iranians, we would
have continued to remain in the dark about this early history, and the
fabrications of western Indologists and linguists would have faced no
challenge.
In the case of
the other "last" branches of Indo-European languages, i.e. of
Albanian, Greek and Armenian, the earliest records commence late in their
historical habitats with no memories of Proto-Indo-European times. So we do not
have the same degree of corroboration from diverse sources that we have in the
case of "Indo-Aryan" and Iranian. Nevertheless, we still have the
recorded evidence in the Rigvedic hymns. And incredibly, this evidence is
sufficient in itself:
The great
historical incident recorded in the Rigveda is the dāśarājña battle, or
"the Battle of the Ten Kings". This was a battle (or, as some western
scholars prefer to downplay it, a "skirmish") between the Bharata
Pūru king Sudās on the one hand and a coalition of ten "kings" (or
more properly, ten tribes) from among the Anu-s on the other. Sudās, after
letting loose a horse, set out on a campaign of conquest "east, west
and north" (III.53.14). The main thrust of his
expansionist drive was towards the Punjab area, the area of the Anu-s. He
expanded westwards after crossing (in III.33) the two easternmost
rivers, the Vipāś and Śutudrī (present day Beas and Satlej) of the Punjab, under
the priestly stewardship of Viśvāmitra. Later, after a change of priests (with
Vasiṣṭha replacing Viśvāmitra), he continued his forays westwards. However, ten
tribes of Anu-s from the Punjab, along with some Anu-ized remnants of the
original Druhyu population of the Punjab, formed a coalition to halt his
advances, and confronted him on the banks of the Paruṣṇī (present day Ravi) in
the heart of the Punjab. The ensuing battle, called the dāśarājña battle, or
"the Battle of the Ten Kings", is the subject of a handful of hymns
in the Rigveda: mainly VII.18 and VII.83, but with some important
references in some other hymns in Book 7.
The importance of
this great historical event is that these handful of references in just a couple
of hymns of the Rigveda (both in Book 7) provide us the names of the different
Anu tribes who united to fight against Sudās and the Bharata-s:
VII.18.5 Śimyu.
VII.18.6 Bhṛgu.
VII.18.7 Paktha, Bhalāna, Alina, Śiva, Viṣāṇin.
VII.83.1 Parśu/Parśava, Pṛthu/Pārthava,
Dāsa.
Puranic Anus:
Madra.
A few words on
some of these names:
1. Dāsa is a word which
refers to any non-Pūru (i.e. non-"Vedic Aryan"), but particularly to
Iranians: it is found in 54 hymns (63 verses) and the
overwhelming majority of these references are hostile references. But there are
three verses which stand out from the rest: they contain references which
are friendly towards the Dāsa-s:
a. In VIII.5.31,
the Aśvin-s are depicted as accepting the offerings of the Dāsa-s.
b. In VIII.46.32,
the patrons are referred to as Dāsa-s.
c. In VIII.51.9,
Indra is described as belonging to both Āryas and Dāsa-s.
As all these three hymns
are dānastuti-s (hymns in praise of donors), it is clear that the
friendly references have to do with the identity of the patrons in these hymns.
Two of these hymns (VIII.5,46) have camel-gifting patrons (and it is
very likely that the third hymn has one
two: this dānastuti does not mention the specific gifts received, and
merely calls upon Indra to shower wealth on the patron), and the only other
hymn with a camel-gifting patron is another dānastuti in the same book: VIII.6.48.
These four hymns (VIII.5,6,46,51) clearly belong to a separate class
from the other Rigvedic hymns: 3 of them (VIII.5,6,46) gift camels, 3 of
them (VIII.5,46,51) speak well of Dāsa-s, and 3 of them (VIII.5,6,46)
have patrons whose names have been identified as proto-Iranian names: A
range of western Indologists (including Hoffman, Wilson, Weber, Witzel and
Gamkrelidze) have identified Kaśu (VIII.5), Tirindira Parśava
(VIII.6), and Pṛthuśravas Kānīta (VIII.46) as
proto-Iranian names. Ruśama Pavīru, the patron of VIII.51, is not
specifically named as Iranian by the scholars. However, the Ruśama-s are
identified by M.L.Bhargava (BHARGAVA:1964) as a tribe of the extreme northwest
from the Soma lands of Suṣomā and Ārjīkīyā.
This clearly places them in the territory of the Iranians.
Now the word dāsa, though
used for non-Pūru-s and mostly in a hostile sense in the Rigveda (and meaning
"slave" in later Sanskrit), is clearly a word with an originally
benevolent connotation. It is derived from the root √daṁś- "to shine"
(obviously with a positive connotation), is found in the name of Divo-dāsa in a
positive sense, and is used to describe the patrons of the hymns in the above
references. Clearly, it was a tribal name among the Anu-s (the Iranians: note
that the word "daha" means "man" in Khotanese), first used
by the Bharata Pūru-s for the Anu-s in general and later extended to all non-Pūru-s.
2. Śimyu:
This word is found only in the Rigveda, and only twice in the Rigveda: once in VII.18.5
in reference to the enemies of Sudās and later once more in I.100.18,
in the hymn which describes the Varṣāgira battle (the "battle beyond the
Sarayu") in Central Afghanistan, in reference to the enemies of
the descendants of Sudās.
3. Madra:
The Madra-s are not referred to in the Rigveda, in the descriptions of the
battle between Sudās and the Anu tribes, but they were one of the most
prominent Anu tribes of the area even in much later post-Rigvedic times.
4. Viṣāṇin: This may seem the
only weak link in the identifications of the Anu (Iranian) tribes. However, it
seems to complete the picture if they are identified with the Piśācin-s or Piśāca-s
(the Nuristanis): note the interchangeability between "p" and
"v" in "Paṇi" and "vaṇi", and the change of
"n" in "bhalāna" (Bolan) to "Baluch".
These tribal names are primarily
found only in two hymns, VII.18
and VII.83, of the Rigveda, which refer to the Anu tribes who fought
against Sudās in the dāśarājña battle
or "the Battle of the Ten Kings". But see where these same tribal
names are found in later historical times (after their exodus westwards
referred to in VII.5.3 and VII.6.3). Incredibly, they cover, in an almost
continuous geographical belt, the entire sweep of areas extending westwards
from the Punjab (the battleground of the dāśarājña
battle) right up to southern and eastern Europe:
(Avestan)
Afghanistan: Proto-Iranian:
Sairima (Śimyu), Dahi (Dāsa).
NE Afghanistan: Proto-Iranian: Nuristani/Piśācin (Viṣāṇin).
Pakhtoonistan (NW
Pakistan), South Afghanistan:
Iranian: Pakhtoon/Pashtu (Paktha).
Baluchistan (SW
Pakistan), SE Iran: Iranian:
Bolan/Baluchi (Bhalāna).
NE Iran: Iranian: Parthian/Parthava (Pṛthu/Pārthava).
SW Iran: Iranian: Parsua/Persian (Parśu/Parśava).
NW Iran: Iranian: Madai/Mede (Madra).
Uzbekistan: Iranian: Khiva/Khwarezmian (Śiva).
W. Turkmenistan: Iranian: Dahae (Dāsa).
Ukraine, S,
Russia: Iranian: Alan (Alina), Sarmatian
(Śimyu).
Turkey: Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian: Phryge/Phrygian
(Bhṛgu).
Romania, Bulgaria: Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian: Dacian (Dāsa).
Greece: Greek: Hellene (Alina).
Albania: Albanian: Sirmio (Śimyu).
Note:
1. It cannot be a coincidence that every single one of these
tribal names, from only two hymns describing a single event, fits in so perfectly
with the roster of Iranian, Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian, Greek and Albanian tribal
names. Nor can it be branded as a P.N. Oak-like set of
correspondences. Note that many of these correspondences (Parśava, Pārthava,
Paktha, Bhalāna, Bhṛgu) are so obvious and undeniable that they have been
accepted by many prominent western Indologists (including Witzel).
2. The above named Iranian
tribes include the ancestors of almost all other prominent historical and modern
Iranian groups, such as the Scythians (Sakas), Ossetes and Kurds, and even
the presently Slavic-language speaking Serbs and Croats! The reader can check
up the relevant encyclopedias (including Wikipedia) for the historical
importance and geographical locations of all these different groups.
3. We also see here an important
historical phenomenon: the tribal group which migrates furthest retains its
linguistic identity, while those of that tribe who remain behind or on the way
get absorbed into the surrounding linguistic group:
a) The Śimyu who migrated furthest
retained their Albanian identity and dialect (Sirmio), while those among them
who settled down on the way got linguistically absorbed into the Iranians
(Avestan Sairima, later Sarmatians).
b) The Alina who migrated furthest
retained their Greek name and dialect (Ellene/Hellene), while those among
them who settled down on the way got linguistically absorbed into the Iranians (Alan).
c) The Bhṛgu who migrated furthest
retained their Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian name and dialect (Phryge/Phrygian),
while those among them who settled down on the way got linguistically absorbed
into the Iranians (their priestly class the Āthrauuan-s), and those who
remained behind got linguistically absorbed into the Indo-Aryans (as the
priestly class of Bhṛgu-s). [The Armenians, in the Caucasus area, lost the name, but retained their language much influenced by Iranian].
d) The Madra who migrated furthest
retained their Iranian name and dialect (Mada/Mede/Median), while those who remained
behind got linguistically absorbed into the Indo-Aryans (Madra).
All in all, the two Rigvedic hymns (VII.18
and 83), which describe the dāśarājña battle or "the Battle of the Ten
Kings", provide us with the oldest recorded evidence of the
presence of the Last Dialects (Albanian, Greek, Thraco-Phrygian/Armenian,
Iranian and Indo-Aryan) in the Original Indo-European Homeland, and of the
events which led to the second Great Indo-European Migration or Expansion involving
four of these five groups.
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