Fwd: INDIA: THE PERSIAN AND GREEK CONNECTION

[Amit Vijaywargiya]

For discussion and further commments

Interesting

​                                    ​

Can this be correct ?

Many of us would be surprised to learn that no ancient Hindu temple was dedicated to Rama - neither in Ayodhya nor anywhere else. There had been many old temples and shrines devoted to Vishnu and Shiva and a few to Brahma, Ganesha, Kartikeya, Hanuman, Kubera, Nagas, Kali and Durga. Only 180 years ago Raja Mohan Roy re-coined the word Hindu  to describe the large variety of faiths and sects but with similar but not identical philosophies, myths and rituals.

 

2.    The word Hindu was actually a Persian word coined during the reign of Cyrus The Great, in the 6th Century BC, to describe the people who lived East of the River Indus. The Persians had a phonetic problem with 'S' so  River Sindhu got translated into Indu in Persian. This word Indu/India was reinforced when Alexander The Great came calling to India after defeating the Persians around 320 BC. Alexander, in addition to his Army and Generals also brought along with him Greek Historians,  Engineers, Architects, Scientists, Philosophers, Carto-graphers who captured the essence of their Indian conquest. It was Alexander  and his accompaning staff who  made the word  "India / Indu"  famous in the West including Egypt, Greece and later on in Rome.

 

3.    The Persian connections are very interesting. It is possible that the Persian Zend Avesta may have been older than the Indian Rig Veda as its main deities of Varuna, Surya and Aryaman were  the Purvi Devias  or old deities of the RigVeda. The Rigveda was orignally written in the Kharoshi script around 3000 BC that like Persian and Arabic is written from right to left. (The Harappan/Indus Valley Civilization, script which evolved around 3500 BC, or earlier has still to be deciphered) Actually Devnagiri script was the fifth script used for Indian texts. After Kharoshi came Brahmi Lipi, similar to the 'Priman" script of ancient Babylon. Then 'Pali' script and Gupta-Lipi. The distinctive 'washing on a line' Devnagiri script only emerged after the 6th Century AD. So Sanskrit (some similarities to Latin) was not strictly the mother of  Indian languages; actually it was the daughter of an older language similar, if not identical , to the now forgotten Old Persian. Tamil (South India ) and Telgu ( Central India ) languages of the Sub-Continent  are even older than Sanskrit.

 

4.    Many common words in the Hindu/Sanskrit  lexicon like Aryavrata, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra can only be understood from a reading of the Persian Zend Avesta. The word Aryavarta, or Land of the Aryas, seems to have evolved  from the Avestan words Aryenam Vaego.....  Vaego means 'Seed ' so Aryenem Vaego actually translated means the Seed of the Aryas. In all old texts and Vedas the words used to describe the people are referred to as Aryas or worshippers of the Sun and Aryavrata as the land /country inhabited by the Aryas.

 

5.    Many Indo-European tribes like the Dorians who left Central Asia around 2000  BC penetrated Greece/Italy (Southern Europe) and the Aryans who settled in Iran and India around 3000 BC had similar traditions. The Horse and Chariot were important and their warriors were called ' Ratheshwar' from which the word Kshatriya was derived.

 

6.    Their bards, singing hymns extolling their adventures, later became their priests and the word Arthvan. meaning a person of essence, evolved to become Brahmins. Their workers and herders of their sheep and cattle  were called Vastrayosh and when they settled down  to become cultivators and traders, Vastrsyosh evolved to become Vaishya.

 

7.    There had orignally been only three castes but a collection of camp followers and slaves whom the Aryans  had conquered in their travels were called Hotoksha. Perhaps this was the orign of the word Shudra in India at a later time. Such fascinating phonetic affinities show that there is much more to history than is available just from Sanskrit literary sources.

 

__,_._,__

 

--

Amit Vijaywargiya
ACE(C)
NPCIL Anushaktinagar Mumbai 400094
Ph: 9869697530