--- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "John Croft" <jdcroft@...> wrote:
> Zarathrustra may be a creature of the Avestan religion, and not of
> history. Whatever the case, however, it is clear that the Iranians
> completely displaced the Indics in the South Caucusus and Persia --
> in > fact, everywhere except India. The Iranians encountered the
Indic > religion -- which seems to have been remarkably similar to
their own. > As a matter of ethnic pride and social superiority, it
seems they > differentiated themselves from the Indics they were
displacing via > religion -- and were quite successful. Maybe it was
the Sassanids who > did this, perhaps an earlier group..
For a justification of the out of India hypothesis see the book
review of-- The Rigveda: A historical Analysis by Talageri, at:
http://www.voi.org/reviews/rev-trha.html
Kalyanaraman