Gourt Home::Gourt :: Indo-Iranian mythology
The ancient Indo-Iranians were the founders of Persia and of Indian Vedic culture. It is assumed that before they divided into Persian and Vedic groups they shared a common mythology. The details of this are not known, but the names of some Indo-Aryan gods are found in texts surviving from the lost Hittite and Mitanni kingdoms. The main source of information is the early Indo-Aryan Rigveda.
Gods that can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-Iranian religion include Soma, Mitra and Tvastar.
It is assumed that these gods developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. Thus, a god such as the Vedic Mitra appears in Persian form as Mithra and then later develops into the Roman Mithras. Because Aryan texts were then the oldest surviving evidence of early Indo-European speaking peoples it was assumed during the nineteenth century that they preserved aspects of Proto-Indo-European culture with particular accuarcy. It was thus thought that Indo-Iranian deities are linked to Celtic, Norse, Greek and Roman mythology. Many ethnologists hoped to unify all the pagan European mythologies into a Proto-Indo-European belief system. Many such thinkers, following Max Müller, believed that all the Indo-Iranian mythical systems began as forms of sun worship. Such ideas influenced the emergence of New Age thinking about myth, and theories such as Jung's notion of a collective unconscious.
Modern scholarship still considers old Indo-Aryan and Iranian mythology an archaic offshoot of an unattested Indo-European religion, but has moved away from considering them near-identical.
Cognate terms and concepts
The following is a list of cognate terms and concepts in Indian and Persian mythology, deriving from a common origin in Indo-Iranian mythology.
| Indo-Iranian | Vedic term | Avestan term | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apam Napat | Apam Napat (Ahura Berezant) | the "water's offspring" (see Ap (water), Aban) | |
| aryaman | airyaman | "friend", "companion" | |
| *(a)rta | rta | asha | "order, law, truth", (c.f. cosmos, dharma) |
| *athar, *athar-van- | athar-van | atar, athornan | "fire", "f'ire-priest", see also Vedic priesthood |
| *azi | ahi (Vrtra) | azhi | "snake", the nemesis slain by the heroic deity |
| *daiva | deva | daeva | celestial deities, deified natural phenomena |
| *manu | manu | manu | primeval man, homo sapiens; see also Mannaz |
| *mi-tra- | Mitra | Mithra | the god of the oath |
| *nsura | asura | ahura | terrestrial/infernal deities, deified social order |
| *saras-vnt-ih | Sarasvati | Haraxuwati (Helmand River) | a sacred river, a river goddess |
| *sau-ma- | soma | haoma | the deified potion, the plant and its extract |
| *suhr/svahr-ya- | surya | hvarə-* | the Sun, also cognate to helios, sol |
| *tvas-tr- | Tvastar | Tistrya | the "heavenly builder", god of creation |
| *vr-tra-ghn- | vrtrahan- (Indra) | verethragna- | "slayer of Vrtra" |
| *yama | Yama | Yama/Yima => (Jamshid) | the first man, mythical twin, see also Dioscurism |
| *yaj-na- | yajña | yasna, rel: yazata'' | "worship, sacrifice, oblation" |
See also
Mythology by culture | Indo-European mythology | Indo-Iranian peoples
"Indo-Iranian mythology"