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A Study of the Early Vedic Age in Ancient India
Journal of Arts and Culture ISSN: 0976-9862 & E-ISSN: 0976-9870, Volume 3, Issue 3, 2012, pp.-129-132. Available online at http://www.bioinfo.in/contents.php?id=53. A STUDY OF THE EARLY VEDIC AGE IN ANCIENT INDIA FASALE M.K.* Department of Histroy, Abasaheb Kakade Arts College, Bodhegaon, Shevgaon- 414 502, MS, India *Corresponding Author: Email- [email protected] Received: December 04, 2012; Accepted: December 20, 2012 Abstract- The Vedic period (or Vedic age) was a period in history during which the Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, were composed. The time span of the period is uncertain. Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Rigveda, the oldest of the Vedas, was com- posed roughly between 1700 and 1100 BCE, also referred to as the early Vedic period. The end of the period is commonly estimated to have occurred about 500 BCE, and 150 BCE has been suggested as a terminus ante quem for all Vedic Sanskrit literature. Transmission of texts in the Vedic period was by oral tradition alone, and a literary tradition set in only in post-Vedic times. Despite the difficulties in dating the period, the Vedas can safely be assumed to be several thousands of years old. The associated culture, sometimes referred to as Vedic civilization, was probably centred early on in the northern and northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent, but has now spread and constitutes the basis of contemporary Indian culture. After the end of the Vedic period, the Mahajanapadas period in turn gave way to the Maurya Empire (from ca. -
Linguistics Development Team
Development Team Principal Investigator: Prof. Pramod Pandey Centre for Linguistics / SLL&CS Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Email: [email protected] Paper Coordinator: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja Department of Linguistics, Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune- 411006, [email protected] Content Writer: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja Prof H. S. Ananthanarayana Content Reviewer: Retd Prof, Department of Linguistics Osmania University, Hyderabad 500007 Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Indo-Aryan Language Family Description of Module Subject Name Linguistics Paper Name Historical and Comparative Linguistics Module Title Indo-Aryan Language Family Module ID Lings_P7_M1 Quadrant 1 E-Text Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Indo-Aryan Language Family INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGE FAMILY The Indo-Aryan migration theory proposes that the Indo-Aryans migrated from the Central Asian steppes into South Asia during the early part of the 2nd millennium BCE, bringing with them the Indo-Aryan languages. Migration by an Indo-European people was first hypothesized in the late 18th century, following the discovery of the Indo-European language family, when similarities between Western and Indian languages had been noted. Given these similarities, a single source or origin was proposed, which was diffused by migrations from some original homeland. This linguistic argument is supported by archaeological and anthropological research. Genetic research reveals that those migrations form part of a complex genetical puzzle on the origin and spread of the various components of the Indian population. Literary research reveals similarities between various, geographically distinct, Indo-Aryan historical cultures. The Indo-Aryan migrations started in approximately 1800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. -
The Majority of the Mithraic Monuments And
THE ORIGINS OF MITHRAIC MYSTERIES AND THE IDEA OF PROTO-MITHRAISM In Memory of the late Professor Osamu Suzuki (1905-1977) HIDEO OGAWA Professor, Keio University I The majority of the Mithraic monuments and inscriptions have been known from the western half of the Roman Empire.(1) The eastern half, includ- ing Greece, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and South Russia, have given less evidences. This would not be so surprising, if Mithras had been a native god of the Romans or of a western province. But such is not the case. With the exception of S. Wikander,(2) most scholars have supported the eastern origin of the god Mithras and his mystery cult. This thesis was stated in the most typical way by Franz Cumont.(3) His speculations have been the starting point of almost all subsequent Mithraic studies. I do not want to re- capitulate his theory in length here, but confine myself in describing the main line of it with an emphasis upon his methodology concerning the problem of Mithraic origins. According to Cumont, the Avestan origin of Mithras is obvious. In the days of the Persian empire, magi (perhaps with official support) transplanted from Iran the worship of Mithras and Anahita in Asia Minor, North Syria and Armenia. Anahita was identified there with various local mother godesses such as Cybele. The cult of Mithras at first absorbed the astronomical ideas in Mesopotamia as the monuments of Nemrud-Dagh so indicate. Then, later, under the Greek influence in the Hellenistic period the cult was organized as an independent sectarian reli- gion. -
Examining the Transference Between Mithraism and Christianity Peter J
\ The Sword and the Cross: Examining the Transference between Mithraism and Christianity Peter J. Decker III Advisor: Dr. Elizabeth Manwell Ph. D .. Kalamazoo College Co-Chair of Classics Department I - A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degr~e of Bachelor of ~rts at - - Kalamazoo College. 2013 Table of Contents Acknowledgments ......................... ~ .... : ......................................................ii I. The Cult ofMithras: Imagery, Practices, and Beliefs ............................... .1-21 II. Examining the Transference between Mithraism and Christianity ............... ~ .. 23-38 III. Appendix .......................· ............................................................. 39 Bibliography .................... ·................................................................. 40-44 / 11 Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to my loving parents who made it possible to attend Kalamazoo College and allow me to further my studies in Classics. Without their financial and emotional support I would not have been able to complete this Senior Independent Project (SIP). Love you Mom and Dad! I am also deepl_y thankful to the Todd family and their generous grant, the Todd Memorial Classics Study Abroad Grant, which allowed me to travel to Italy and gain the inspiration for the topic of my SIP. I would like to express aspecial thanks to my SIP advisor Prof. Manwell, for putting up with all my procrastination and my challenging writing. I hope you didn't spend to many nights up late editing my drafts. Without all of you none of this would have been possible. Thank you very much. 1 I. The Cult ofMithras: Imagery, Practices, and Beliefs In the spring of 2011 an American atheist group put up a billboard in downtown New York City which read: "Born of a virgin on December 25th, known to his 12 disciples as "the Son of God, and resurrected three days after his death, we wish a Happy Birthday to Mithras, the mythical Persian god imagined over 600 years before that other guy .. -
Vedic Brahmanism and Its Offshoots
Vedic Brahmanism and Its Offshoots Buddhism (Buddha) Followed by Hindūism (Kṛṣṇā) The religion of the Vedic period (also known as Vedism or Vedic Brahmanism or, in a context of Indian antiquity, simply Brahmanism[1]) is a historical predecessor of Hinduism.[2] Its liturgy is reflected in the Mantra portion of the four Vedas, which are compiled in Sanskrit. The religious practices centered on a clergy administering rites that often involved sacrifices. This mode of worship is largely unchanged today within Hinduism; however, only a small fraction of conservative Shrautins continue the tradition of oral recitation of hymns learned solely through the oral tradition. Texts dating to the Vedic period, composed in Vedic Sanskrit, are mainly the four Vedic Samhitas, but the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and some of the older Upanishads (Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Chāndogya, Jaiminiya Upanishad Brahmana) are also placed in this period. The Vedas record the liturgy connected with the rituals and sacrifices performed by the 16 or 17 shrauta priests and the purohitas. According to traditional views, the hymns of the Rigveda and other Vedic hymns were divinely revealed to the rishis, who were considered to be seers or "hearers" (shruti means "what is heard") of the Veda, rather than "authors". In addition the Vedas are said to be "apaurashaya", a Sanskrit word meaning uncreated by man and which further reveals their eternal non-changing status. The mode of worship was worship of the elements like fire and rivers, worship of heroic gods like Indra, chanting of hymns and performance of sacrifices. The priests performed the solemn rituals for the noblemen (Kshsatriya) and some wealthy Vaishyas. -
Indo-Iranian Personal Names in Mitanni: a Source for Cultural Reconstruction DOI: 10.34158/ONOMA.54/2019/8
Onoma 54 Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences ISSN: 0078-463X; e-ISSN: 1783-1644 Journal homepage: https://onomajournal.org/ Indo-Iranian personal names in Mitanni: A source for cultural reconstruction DOI: 10.34158/ONOMA.54/2019/8 Simone Gentile Università degli Studi di Roma Tre Dipartimento di Filosofia, Comunicazione e Spettacolo via Ostiense, 234˗236 00146 Roma (RM) Italy [email protected] To cite this article: Gentile, Simone. 2019. Indo-Iranian personal names in Mitanni: A source for cultural reconstruction. Onoma 54, 137–159. DOI: 10.34158/ONOMA.54/2019/8 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.34158/ONOMA.54/2019/8 © Onoma and the author. Indo-Iranian personal names in Mitanni: A source for cultural reconstruction Abstract: As is known, some Indo˗Aryan (or Iranian) proper names and glosses are attested in documents from Egypt, Northern Mesopotamia, and Syria, related to the ancient kingdom of Mitanni (2nd millennium BC). The discovery of these Aryan archaic forms in Hittite and Hurrian sources was of particular interest for comparative philology. Indeed, some names can be readily compared to Indo˗Iranian anthroponyms and theonyms: for instance, Aššuzzana can likely be related with OPers. Aspačanā ‘delighting in horses’, probably of Median origin; Indaratti ‘having Indra as his guest’ clearly recalls Indra, a theonym which occurs both in R̥ gveda and Avesta. This paper aims at investigating the relationship between Aryan personal names preserved in Near Eastern documents and the Indo˗Iranian cultural milieu. After a thorough collection of these names, their 138 SIMONE GENTILE morphological and semantic structures are analysed in depth and the most relevant results are showed here. -
Part I the Religions of Indian Origin
Part I The Religions of Indian Origin MRC01 13 6/4/04, 10:46 AM Religions of Indian Origin AFGHANISTAN CHINA Amritsar Kedamath Rishikesh PAKISTAN Badrinath Harappa Hardwar Delhi Indus R. NEPAL Indus Civilization BHUTAN Mohenjo-daro Ayodhya Mathura Lucknow Ganges R. Pushkar Prayag BANGLADESH Benares Gaya Ambaji I N D I A Dakshineshwar Sidphur Bhopal Ahmadabad Jabalpur Jamshedpur Calcutta Dwarka Dakor Pavagadh Raipur Gimar Kadod Nagpur Bhubaneswar Nasik-Tryambak Jagannath Puri Bombay Hyderabad Vishakhapatnam Arabian Sea Panaji Bay of Bengal Tirupati Tiruvannamalai-Kaiahasti Bangalore Madras Mangalore Kanchipuram Pondicherry Calicut Kavaratti Island Madurai Thanjavar Hindu place of pilgrimage Rameswaram Pilgrimage route Major city SRI LANKA The Hindu cultural region 14 MRC01 14 6/4/04, 10:46 AM 1 Hinduism Hinduism The Spirit of Hinduism Through prolonged austerities and devotional practices the sage Narada won the grace of the god Vishnu. The god appeared before him in his hermitage and granted him the fulfillment of a wish. “Show me the magic power of your Maya,” Narada prayed. The god replied, “I will. Come with me,” but with an ambiguous smile on his lips. From the shade of the hermit grove, Vishnu led Narada across a bare stretch of land which blazed like metal under the scorching sun. The two were soon very thirsty. At some distance, in the glaring light, they perceived the thatched roofs of a tiny village. Vishnu asked, “Will you go over there and fetch me some water?” “Certainly, O Lord,” the saint replied, and he made off to the distant group of huts. When Narada reached the hamlet, he knocked at the first door. -
Autochthonous Aryans? the Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts
Michael Witzel Harvard University Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts. INTRODUCTION §1. Terminology § 2. Texts § 3. Dates §4. Indo-Aryans in the RV §5. Irano-Aryans in the Avesta §6. The Indo-Iranians §7. An ''Aryan'' Race? §8. Immigration §9. Remembrance of immigration §10. Linguistic and cultural acculturation THE AUTOCHTHONOUS ARYAN THEORY § 11. The ''Aryan Invasion'' and the "Out of India" theories LANGUAGE §12. Vedic, Iranian and Indo-European §13. Absence of Indian influences in Indo-Iranian §14. Date of Indo-Aryan innovations §15. Absence of retroflexes in Iranian §16. Absence of 'Indian' words in Iranian §17. Indo-European words in Indo-Iranian; Indo-European archaisms vs. Indian innovations §18. Absence of Indian influence in Mitanni Indo-Aryan Summary: Linguistics CHRONOLOGY §19. Lack of agreement of the autochthonous theory with the historical evidence: dating of kings and teachers ARCHAEOLOGY __________________________________________ Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7-3 (EJVS) 2001(1-115) Autochthonous Aryans? 2 §20. Archaeology and texts §21. RV and the Indus civilization: horses and chariots §22. Absence of towns in the RV §23. Absence of wheat and rice in the RV §24. RV class society and the Indus civilization §25. The Sarasvatī and dating of the RV and the Bråhmaas §26. Harappan fire rituals? §27. Cultural continuity: pottery and the Indus script VEDIC TEXTS AND SCIENCE §28. The ''astronomical code of the RV'' §29. Astronomy: the equinoxes in ŚB §30. Astronomy: Jyotia Vedåga and the -
Mithra Oct 2015
Mithra The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation James R. Russell. 2015. "Mithra." In the Proceedings of Genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the Great War, 1915-2015: One Hundred Years of Research. International Conference on the Armenian Genocide, Sorbonne, Paris, France, March 25-28, 2015. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23514774 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Mithra. By James R. Russell, Harvard University. I want to take you to the ancient city of Dura Europos. Dura, whose Aramaic name means something like “fortified place” was a populous, cosmopolitan walled city on a hill looking over the Euphrates frontier of the Roman Empire with the realms of the Arsacid Parthians, near modern-day Deir ez-Zor in Syria. The Seleucid successors of Alexander made what had been a fort into a town, appending its second, Greek name. Dura Europos was destroyed, never again to be inhabited, during a sudden, swift Sasanian attack in AD 256: devastating for the inhabitants but good for archeology. The French occupying forces discovered the ruins in 1918; and over the succeeding two decades a team of archeologists excavated it and for generations art historians and textual scholars have pored over the finds: great scholars such as Franz Cumont, father of Mithraic studies, and Mikhail Rostovtzeff, historian of the Hellenistic era, worked there. -
Beyond the Flight of the Falcon: the Immigration of the Indo-Aryans Into Northwestern South Asia
M. Witzel, ICABS, July 10, 2018 Beyond the Flight of the Falcon: The immigration of the Indo-Aryans into Northwestern South Asia • why this title? • upari śyena/upairi saēna (para-uparisaēna = Greek paropanisos) Indo-Aryan migration: from Russian steppes near Ural mountains to India “Arya” is the self-designation of Iranians and Northern Indians: King Darius 519 BCE, Kauṣītaki Āraṇyaka 8.9 yatrāryā vāg vadate * multidisciplinary approach is needed: archaeology, linguistics, population genetics (DNA), early Vedic texts * Problem of dating oldest Veda: Ṛgveda c. 1200 BCE (see below) § 1. ARCHAEOLOGY End of the Indus (Harappan) civilization at 1900/1300 BCE; for 1300, only small area studied, Cemetery H etc. • with new pottery designs, shift to cremation / urn burial: homunculus • overlap between Harappan and Vedic civilizations is not clear • no use: recently found burials at Sinauli, with 2 wheel-ox cart, 1800-2000 BCE(?), Vedic people were semi-nomadic: pastoral, with a little barley agriculture, leave little evidence behind • extensive communication of local post-Indus sedentary and pastoral ethnicities (many loan words!) Heated current discussion in India: Indus civilization as “Aryan”… Example: question of horses and chariots. • Horses imported into Ancient Near East and early India only around 1900/1700 BCE • “chariot” was a light-weight (30 kg), horse-drawn vehicle, with two spoked wheels, one or two riders (rathin, ratheṣṭha) -- unlike Sinauli carts • First proto-chariots (*ratha) in Ural area (Sintashta) c. 2000 BCE • In India: Gandhāra Grave Culture? — Swat Immigration path via Inner Asian Mountain Corridor/ North Afghanistan (Bactria): high mountain grazing grounds (c. 3000 BCE--) like modern Kirgiz § 2. -
Reference List
20 Investigating the myth of the sun in India and Iran Shohreh Javadi, Ali Nikoei sand and gravel so neither ground moisture nor soil can touch the dead body. In such a place, the dead body should be left for two days to a month (Razi, 1997: 1875). 8.The Sindhū or Indus River, is a large river originating from the Tibet Plateau and after passing from the Jam- mu and Kashmir region, Gilgit and Baltistan, passes through the middle area of Pakistan and joins the Arabian Sea near Karachi port. 9.Dravidian refers to the native people of the Indian subcontinent. Today, the people of this race constitute about one fourth of the Indian population and mostly live in south India. Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Mal- dives are the other countries where Dravidians constitute a significant minority. Reference List • Bahar, M. (1996).Az Ostureh ta Tarikh [From myth to his- Ghate. Tehran: Baran-e Andishe. tory]. Tehran: Haghighat. • Mazdapour. K. (1990). Shāyast ne-Shāyast. Tehran: Insti- • Bajlan Farrokhi. M. H. (1979). Afarinesh-e Jahan dar tute for Cultural Research and Studies. asatir-e chhin [Creation of the world in Chinese myths]. • Moein, M. (1974). Farhang-e Moein [Moein dictionary]. Hafteh nameh-e Ketab-e Jome, 1(5): 122-134. Tehran: Amir Kabir Publications. • Bajlan Farrokhi. M. H. (1979). Ostureh Khorshid va mah • Mosaheb. Gh. (1977). Encyclopedia. Tehran: Printed and [The myth of the sun and moon]. Hafteh nameh-e Ketab-e published by Farsi Encyclopedia. Jome, 1(1): 108-118. • Peron, S. (1999). Roman myths. Translated by Bajlan Far- • Bierlein, J. -
Vedic Hinduism 1
Jamison & Witzel VEDIC HINDUISM 1 VEDIC HINDUISM by S. W. Jamison and M. Witzel (1992) CONTENTS Introduction 2 I. General Treatments a. The texts 4 b. Philological work 25 II. An Outline of Vedic Religion and Ritual a. Overviews of Vedic Religion 28 b. Ritual 29 c. gvedic ritual and its forerunners 30 d. Classical ritual 32 e. The development of ritual 36 f. The individual rituals 38 g. Domestic ritual 44 h. Ritual magic / magic ritual 49 i. Recent developments 50 III. Deities and Mythology a. Vedic mythology 52 b. The principal Vedic gods 54 IV. The "Philosophy" of Vedic Religion a. Early Vedic 63 b. Middle Vedic: The power of ritual 70 c. Speculation in the Ārayakas and Upaniads 73 V. The Religious Life: Personal and popular religious experience a. Personal religious experience 80 b. Popular religion 82 Abbreviations, Literature 88 Jamison & Witzel VEDIC HINDUISM 2 Introduction* The Vedic period is the earliest period of Indian history for which we have direct textual evidence, but even with this evidence it is difficult to fix even imprecise chronological limits to the period, much less to establish absolute dates within the period. We tentatively suggest 1500-500 BCE as convenient limiting dates of the period,1 the latter marking the approximate date of the codification of Sanskrit by Påini and the transition from "Vedic" to "Classical" Sanskrit; the former perhaps approximating the beginnings of the g Veda, the earliest Indian text.2 Since (almost3) all our evidence for Vedic India is textual, much more fruitful than defining the Vedic period by date is defining it by texts.