Re: [cybalist] Dating Zarathushtra and the Rig Veda

----- Original Message -----

From: John Croft

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2000 7:17 AM

Subject: Re: [cybalist] Dating Zarathushtra and the Rig Veda

John writes:

There is, it seems, a number of attempts around to try to give myth
historiic standing, as a way as we move into the 21st century of
establishing various kinds of "fundamentalism".  Hindu Fundamentalism
asserts the historical truth of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. 
Christian fundamentalism asserts the literal truth of the Flood and a
7 day creation.  There is even a Zoroastrian fundamentalism.

 

While serious scholars can hardly be accused of falling prey to fundamentalist beliefs, they are sometimes "caught up in the aura of sanctity that surrounds the Vedic [or Avestan -- PG] oral transmission" (A.F. Sjoberg 1992) and suspend the normal standards of critical judgement they would use when discussing more mundane documentation.

Thirdly Ahura is the same as the Hindu Asura, and the Germanic Asir. 
Again this suggests an I.E. cognate going back to the Pontic Steppe.

 

Ahura = Asura, sure enough, but the Germanic word is a false friend. Áss (OE o:s) , pl. Aesir (OE o:s) goes back to PGmc *ans- (see Jordanes' Latinised Gothic ansis 'deities, demigods'). There are various etymological suggestions regarding this word, but it was only after the loss of the nasal in some Germanic dialects that it acquired a superficial resemblance to Indo-Iranian *asura-.

 

Piotr