Re: [tied] Re: Accepted cognates of Arya?

--- David Russell Watson <liberty@...> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> --- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > ****GK: Piotr is quite correct of course. A small
> > corollary: some Alanic tribes WERE Avestan (the
> groups
> > which arrived in the Crimea in the late 2nd and
> early
> > 3rd c. AD, and which founded SUGDEIA, later
> SUROZH,
> > contemporary SUDAK, and temporarily renamed
> FEODOSYA
> > as "ARTABDA".)******
>
> V. I. Abaev insists that none of the Alans were
> Zoroastrian.

*****GK: He's wrong as to the "none". Further
below.****

> In "The Pre-Christian Religion of the Alans" he
> writes:
>
> "In the information that has come down to us about
> the
> religion of the Scythians, Massagetae and Alans
> there is
> no hint of any Zoroastrism. The names of the
> Scythian
> gods preserved by Herodotus have nothing in common
> with
> the names of Zoroastrian divinities.

*****GK: The Scythians are not the late Alanic group I
referred to.****

The

> Zoroastrian
> elements in the Saka language (see above) were
> adopted,
> apparently, not in the original Saka homeland but
> only
> after part of the Saka had moved to Khotan."

*****GK: Nothing to do with my point either.******

>
> "I have no thought of reconstructing the
> pre-Christian
> beliefs of the Alans as a complete system, but only
> some
> of its fragments. However, even these fragments
> suffice
> to show that the religious conceptions of the
> Ossetians
> have some ancient Iranian, even ancient
> Indo-European
> elements, but no Zoroastrian elements whatsoever."

*****GK: The Alanic group I mentioned was not
"Ossetian" in Abaev's sense. Does he consider
everything historically identifiable as "Alanic" to be
"Ossetian"? Including those Alans who wound up in the
West? If so, this would be a major terminological
fallacy. Even of those who stayed in the East, to
repeat, only some evolved into the modern
Ossetians.****

>
> "Does the Ossetic language preserve the names of any
> of
> the Iranian gods?
> As might have been expected, no trace of the supreme
> Zoroastrian god Ahuramazda has been found in it.
> One
> does find, however, the name of the pre-Zoroastrian
> god
> Vayu, whose cult dated back to deep antiquity, to
> the
> epoch of the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) and even the Indo-
> European community."
>
> "The information on the Scythian gods given by
> Herodotus
> in book IV of his "History" has long attracted
> attention
> and been made the subject of frequent commentary.
> But no
> one to my knowledge has paid attention to the number
> of
> Scythian gods mentioned. Yet their number is
> significant
> - seven (unless we count Poseidon Thagimasadas,
> whom only
> the royal Scythians worshipped): Tabiti, Papai,
> Api,
> Oitosyros, Artimpasa, "Heracles", "Ares".

*****GK: Again, the Scythians have nothing to do with
the Alanic group I mentioned. BTW the only Scythians
we can identify unequivocally with Iranian-speakers
are precisely those "Royals" who worshipped not seven
but eight gods.*****

Herodotus

> emphasises that the Scythians worship these gods
> only.
> Is the figure seven an accidental one? Apparently
> not.
> The anonymous author of the Periplus of Pontus
> Euxinus
> (V c. A.D.) states that the city of Theodosia in the
> Crimea "is called in the Alan or Tauric language
> Ard�bda,
> which means having 'seven gods' (hept�theos).
> Contrary
> to doubts that have been voiced, there is no reason
> to
> seek any inaccuracy in the testimony of the
> anonymous
> author either as to the Alan name of Theodosia or
> its
> interpretation. The Alans undoubtedly had a cult of
> "the seven gods" which held an important place in
> their
> religion. Finally, the same cult is known to have
> existed among the descendants of the Alans, the
> Ossetians.
> The shrine of "Avd dzwary" or "the seven
> gods"situated
> near the village of Galiat was noted by Vs.
> Miller.��
> Thus the cult of the seven gods may be traced back
> with
> amazing constancy over a vast periond from the
> Herodotean
> Scythians through the Alans down to the modern
> Ossetians.
> It may be pointed out at the same time that the
> seven
> Scythian gods, by their names and functions, differ
> from
> the seven "Amshaspands" of Zoroastrianism
> (Ahura-Mazda,
> Vohu Manah, Asa vahista, etc.). The seven-god
> pantheon
> was an ancient all-Aryan convention independently
> inherited
> by both the Scythians and Zoroasttians. (Cf. the
> seven
> Vedic Aditya��). Retaining the seven-gods pattern,
> each
> Indo-Iranian people filled it with its own substance
> corresponding to the level of its economic, social
> and
> cultural development."

*****GK: We see from the Royal Scythian example that
"7" was not always the magic number, so to speak. I
tend to follow Mary Boyce here, who argued that in
mazdaic Zoroastrian texts the "Amerta Spenta" are
frequently represented as a unified "Holy heptad". But
the decisive argument for the existence of Zoroastrian
practices among some Alanic groups of Eastern Europe
is the confirmed presence of the Zoroastrian burial
rite in gravesites of the Saltov culture (8th and 9th
c.)as well as in areas of ancient Kyiv associated with
the "Khazars". I guess Abaev didn't know this? BTW
some of the Alans of Eastern Europe also adopted
Judaism. We have Donetz inscriptions which attempt to
write Iranic words in Hebrew script.*****

>
> "The conclusion we draw from all the above data is
> as
> follows:
> The pre-Christian religion of the Alans was a
> synthesis of two elements: pre-Zoroastrian Iranian
> (including a number of specific traits
> characteristic
> of the Scythian-Massagetae group) and substratic
> Caucasian,
> which began to penetrate the religion of the Alans
> from
> the time of their appearance in the Caucasus, i.e.
> from
> the first centuries of our era.
> Zoroastrism left no appriciable trace on the
> religion
> of the Alans."
>
>

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