[KorematsuFred]

The most ancient book of India is Rigveda. The first of Vedas. Exact timing is up for debate but could be easily 5000+ years old. I think in one of the early chapters the book describes a war, a war of 10 kings it is called. Leaving the mystical elements aside this war would shape future of India and Persia going forward. The historians I know believe that this war is not pure fiction but rooted in truth. In this war 9 Persian tribes unite to finally destroy the one king on India's western border (modern day Pakistan). All those tribes are named and it turns out all except 2 still exist in modern day Iran. The defeat of Indian king is certain except that Persians make a terrible mistake, they try to cross a shallow river to pursue Indian king and a sudden cloudburst in mountains wipes off majority of the army. Persians see this as Gods favouring Sudas, the Indian King, Indian King Sudas believes this to be the doing of his God Indra.

Defeated Persians walk back. It is a long journey and by the time they reach home their numbers are low and moral is broken, one of those tribes would split further to become the modern day Zoroastrianism. World's first monotheistic religion.

Technically, Zoroastrianism is at direct conflict with Hinduism and yet both religions have thrived side by side in India and average Hindu has very positive opinion of Parasi people (Zoroastrianism). Examine the language of both religions. In Sanskrit Asura means evil people (demon), in Persian Asura becomes Ahura which means Lord.

I have always felt that Parasi and Hindu communities are exceptional example of how religious groups with opposite viewpoints can live next to each other and peacefully.

[yumraj]

> I have always felt that Parasi and Hindu communities are exceptional example of how religious groups with opposite viewpoints can live next to each other and peacefully.

I think the primary reason for this is that neither religion has a concept of converting someone to their religion. Same is true for Judaism, and probably for most ancient religions. As no one was actively trying to convert the other person, wars were fought over territory and resources, and not over who had better gods. It is only when proselytizing became a requirement did we start seeing religious wars.

[kleton]

The Zoroastrians who became Gujarati Parsis made an agreement with a Hindu ruler to be allowed in as refugees, as long as they do not proselytize or allow conversions to Zoroastrianism. Previously, it was not a strict ethno-religion.

[peanutz454]

You are right, but there is also the net positive Hindus feel about Zoroastrians. The (probably made up) story that I heard was that when the Zoroastrians (Parsi as they are called in India) came to Indian land escaping persecution from Islam, an emissary was sent by the Indian king of the state of modern day Gujarat with a bowl filled to the brim with milk - to indicate that the kingdom was already filled and there was no space for new people. The Parsi leader added a pinch of sugar to the milk to indicate - there is still space for us, and we can sweeten the milk too. This story sums up how as a minority Parsi's have come to occupy an important space in Hindu dominated India. They were provided a safe space, and in return for it they made a net positive contribution to India.

[KorematsuFred]

Yes. I think not having a 'homeland' that pumps in money to spread the God's word like Joshua Project also helps a great deal. Many years ago I attended "Meeting of Elders" an amazing conference between Hindu monks and Native American Shamans. It was pretty cool to see who quickly they were comfortable with each other's traditions.

[yumraj]

> It was pretty cool to see who quickly they were comfortable with each other's traditions.

Thank you for sharing that. That was exactly my point, when neither group is interested in converting the other and are comfortable in their own traditions, the interaction is very civil and beneficial to all parties.

Hinduism had a rich tradition of Shastrartha (Sanskrit शास्त्रार्थ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shastrartha where scholars debated the meaning and their interpretation of scriptures. Which meant that the religious books were always open to interpretation and never taken literally, which is unlike what we see in several modern religions where the text is applied literally and interpretations are considered sacrilegious.

[danans]

> I think in one of the early chapters the book describes a war, a war of 10 kings it is called. Leaving the mystical elements aside this war would shape future of India and Persia going forward.

In fact, it may have echoed forward directly for centuries. The daasharajna yuddha, as it is called in Sanskrit, may have both inspired the epic Mahabharata composed centuries later, and which is also centered on a great war.

Even more, the tribes and kingdoms that participated in Mahabharata war may have been descendants of Sudas from the battle of 10 kings. They are certainly cultural descendants, as they carried forward the story of the 10 Kings' Battle in the Vedas.

We also know with near certainty that those tribes mentioned in the Mahabharata inhabited the area spanning modern Afghanistan through the Gangetic plain [1], which is just east of the border region between the Vedic/Indian and Persian/Zoroastrian worlds.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchala#/media/File:Late_Vedi...

[Ar-Curunir]

The Rigveda is not 5000yrs old, but rather is closer to 3900 years old, at most. This is based on linguistic evidence, as well as geographic and biological names in the Rigveda

[naruvimama]

The reason for the number 3900, is that most British historian who were the authority were Christians.

They refused to accept any civilizational could be older than 4000 years because of the great flood.

So often they tried to fit the evidence into their narrative. As we know today very many civilizations can be dated to much further in time.

[Ar-Curunir]

No, it is based on both linguistic and archaeological evidence. For example, read The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, which corroborates these two kinds of evidence

Fwiw I’m Hindu.

[srean]

Friendly, good faith hint: dont fall in to the trap of feeding trolls. Take a look at comment history to see what I mean.

[chakkepolja]

I know these people are hard to convince, just writing factual evidence so that outsiders don't believe all the stuff these people write.

[naruvimama]

Please keep to my comment above.

Character assassination based on your subjective psychoanalysis is not a polite thing to do on a public forum.

[naruvimama]

Just because it is in a book doesn't mean it is true.

'The Horse, The Wheel, and Language' - those are slim evidences made to fit a narrative.

The narrative clearly starts with negating the out of India theory instead to favour a Central Asia/European roots.

But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa.

[chakkepolja]

Out of India theory is fringe at best.

I don't know why Indian nationalists take a root at pontic Caspian steppes as an attack against antiquity of our culture. It doesn't take anything away from us. They were not Europeans or something. They didn't attack and invade the indigenous mostly mixed with them. Before them there were migrations from zagros mountains etc..

> Central Asia/European roots.

They are not the same.

> But really what kind of evidence do we have for the existence of a sophisticated culture in Germany that predates Harappa.

You clearly have not read the book. It's not Germany, it's Pontic Caspian steppes, approximately in modern day Ukraine if I recall correctly.

[srean]

Ha! If you go by one of the revered figures, eminent scholar, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the pure Hindu people come from the land of the North pole.

Fly in the ointment, there hasn't been any land at the North pole for quite some time. Why the choice ? perhaps to help themselves to some notion of exceptionalism, uniqueness, so on and so forth.

I get it, everyone wants to feel a little special, it gets dangerous when that becomes a sizeable political force. More so, if they feel they have not been given their rightful due and/or humiliated. Wish there was a moral analogue of "now now dont be hurt, yes baby you are so very special, have a candy bar" in the international arena.

I am ethnically Hindu but an athiest (which, by the way, does not disqualify me from being a Hindu)

[KorematsuFred]

Out of India theory is not fringe at all in fact a pretty dominant theory in India which actually matters. It gained even more importance after the marxist scholars like Romila Thapar basically changed their stance from Aryan Invasion Theory to Aryan Migration Theory.

As I have said earlier the racial contours of USA/West in general have vested interest in polluting research in this field.

[naruvimama]

Colonial theories especially when it flies in the face of observed evidence should not be trusted.

There is a strong reason to believe it is biased.

Let them produce physical evidence of cultural artifacts that predates and connects those found all accross the Indian subcontinent.

We can then discuss out of India vs Aryan invassion theory.

[KorematsuFred]

The 3900 number is mostly spread by a single researcher at Harvard who is quoted and self-quoted and cited by his own students somehow making his shoddy research some kind of "fact". Anyone trying to question this basically gets shunned from any conference this gentleman will be involved in and labelled as "revisionist".

It is incredible that Wikipedia too just quotes this single individual on hundreds of pages somehow giving him and his claims credibility. His claims have been refuted by many using plethora of evidence but his citation cartel will simply dismiss it by attacking the authors instead of their research.

[chakkepolja]

Bruh. Read up on Indo European migrations. Not to belittle Rg Veda, but modern archeologists agree with GP.

One thousand years doesn't take anything away from it though.

[KorematsuFred]

I do not want to start a flamewar but Indians should most certainly come out of the shoddy colonial scholarship and their control over Indology.

Horse,

Early British researchers claimed Harrapans (aroun 3500 BC) did not know horses and since Vedas rely so much on horses, clearly Vedas were much later inventions. This theory was repeated so many times that a lot of people assume this to be true. It gets quoted again and again. In reality this is as false as Trump's claim of re-election victory. The oldest domesticated horse bones in India were found in Rajasthan around 4500 BCE. However the white researchers have not bothered at all to revise any of their theories despite new evidence. There are over 15 different instances of domesticated horse bones ranging from 2500 BCE to 3000 BCE have been found. Please read Srikant Talegari's paper on the topic.

Linguistic evidence:

This is actually pretty lame evidence to begin with and can very easily be repudiated. Early white christian researchers believed that Aryans invaded India killing native people (to justify why British rule of India) and they claimed these Aryans came from Russia 3000 BCE. How did they arrive at this conclusion ? Linguistics shows that all 12 branches of Indo-European languages were together sometime around 3000 BCE. It was not clear when, but the "south russia" claim is completely random and unsubstantiated. During these times Avesta, the holy book of Zorostrasians was the only non Hindu text that would talk about Vedic culture but it was orally transmitted and hence had not physical artifacts. Much much later, Mittani treaty was discovered in Syria which was around 1500 BCE old which clearly indentified itself as Indo-Iranian. So many western scholars took this as contemporary of Rigveda without analyzing both books in details.

Rigveda which has 10 books is generally classified as core and non-core. It is unanimous opinion that core is much older than non-core. It turns out Mittani shares a lot of words and linguistic traits with the non-core where as nearly none with the old core. Mittani's own languages is a "residue" of old vedic languages which they picked up centuries earlier. Hence some of the researchers think that Rigveda predates Mittani by significant amount of time.

Note: I am not emotionally involved in any of the dates, other that pure academic curiosity I think it is irrelevant if it s 3900 years old or 5000 years old. The only point I am trying to make is that Rigveda dating is not a "settled" matter as some claim and we will see more interesting research in future.

Reas Srikant's paper here: https://www.amazon.com/Rigveda-Historical-Analysis-Shrikant-...

[Ar-Curunir]

I'm not going to respond point-by-point to this nonsense. There's enough genetic evidence now to refute your claims, alongside the linguistic and archaeological claims. Read primary sources and the latest research instead of quoting people who have done absolutely zero peer-reviewed research.

[KorematsuFred]

HN is not the forum for the flame war but not providing any evidence and attacking some researcher has "he is not approved by white people" is not a valid defense.

I am not entirely sure how genetic claims could even play role in dating rigveda.

[Ar-Curunir]

Genetic claims play a role in that you can see in which direction certain genes flowed, and how old they are, and how they’re distributed. See eg: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QoGmPJJS3X8

Also peer review is not just “approval by white people”. There’s plenty of non-white scientists (eg: me)

[KorematsuFred]

> Genetic claims play a role in that you can see in which direction certain genes flowed, and how old they are, and how they’re distributed.

I am not very familiar with Genetic theories to be honest and only work I have read on this topic is from Manu Joseph's not very scientific summary of research on this topic but it is barely conclusive in any direction.

> There’s plenty of non-white scientists

That is besides the point, they will let in those who tow their lines and keep out those who disagree claiming them to be either "they haven't published anything in journals reviewed by us". Afterall british controlled India not through white soldiers but brown soliders handpicked from Indians.

It basically is a citation cartel to begin with very little concern for actual research or truth. Also this is not specific to Indology either. In this day and age it matters very little though as better quality research by such as likes of Talegari or Elst or Danino et al. stands on its own even after decades.

[pmoriarty]

"In Sanskrit Asura means evil people (demon), in Persian Asura becomes Ahura which means Lord."

In the essay I refer to elsewhere in this thread [1], Zaehner writes:

"What do we know of these so-called "demon worshippers"? The Persian for demon is div (Middle Persian dev , Old Persian daiva, Avestan daeva). All these words correspond to the Sanskrit deva and are etymologically connected with the Latin deus. Originally, they must have been gods.

In the Avesta there are two words for supernatural beings, ahura and daeva , and these correspond etymologically exactly to the Sanskrit asura and deva. In the Rig-Veda, the earliest literary monument of the whole Indo-European group of races, both terms mean divine beings, the asuras being more remote from man, the devas closer to him. In the course of time, however, the asuras, who always had an uncanny element in them, became purely maleficent powers, whereas the devas remained gods similar to the gods of Greece and Rome and other Indo-European peoples.

In Iran, however, exactly the opposite happened. Owing to the reform of the Prophet Zoroaster, no ahura was any longer allowed to exist in his own right, and Ahura Mazdah, the "Wise Lord", was raised to the position of the one true God, maker of heaven and earth and all that in them is. The daevas, on the other hand, were regarded by the Iranian Prophet as being maleficent powers, the henchmen of Angra Mainyu or Ahriman, whose real origins remain obscure. The Zoroastrian reform, however -- which put an exalted monotheism in the place of the more ancient polytheism which the Iranians had formerly shared with their Aryan cousins who had moved on into India -- this Zoroastrian reform was far too radical and politically too weak to eliminate the worship of the daevas altogether. In what was later to become Zoroastrian orthodoxy, a place was made for many of the old ahuras like Mithra and Anahita, but not for the old daevas, whose cult was in all probability associated with bloody sacrifice; and it is this cult, in my opinion, which reappears in Mithras' sacrifice of the Bull in the Mithraism of the Roman Empire.

It seems plain, however, that the cult of the daevas co-existed with orthodox Zoroastrianism until the reign of Xerxes, when it seems to have been suppressed, at least officially. It maintained an underground existence, however, in all probability up to Muslim times as the constant attacks on it in the Pahlavi books show..."

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27522709

[ithkuil]

Latin deus and Greek Zeus are etymologically connected with Ṛgvedic deity Dyauspitar, the sky deity. All in turn connected to the proto-indo-european "daylight-sky father" deity *Dyḗus ph₂tḗr.

Latin also contains a cognate of "deus" that retains more features of the PIE form, namely Jupiter.

[dragonwriter]

> It maintained an underground existence, however, in all probability up to Muslim times as the constant attacks on it in the Pahlavi books show

I don’t know thr actual history at all here, but the logic here seems dangerous; the repeated attacks on the “witchcraft” that was intimately described and attacked in European Christian documents aren’t evidence that it continued to exist (or ever existed in the form described) throughout the period those documents were written.

[bane]

This dual-deity system reminds me quite a bit of the divide between the Grecco-Roman Gods and Titans.

[inawarminister]

And the Aesir (Os) and the Vanir (Divs) of the Norse.

"The relationship between the Æsir and Vanir parallel the Asuras and Devas in another way; like the Æsir, the Asuras were associated in Vedic myth with human phenomena (contracts, the arts, fate), while the Vanir, like the Devas, are associated with the natural world (such as Njord and Freyr, associated with fertility)." [0]

Very interesting.

[0] https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Aesir-Asura_correspondence

[chupchap]

> In Sanskrit Asura means evil people (demon)

Are you sure? I was under the impression this is a mistaken translation. Rakshasa would be the more demonic one and not asura.

[gautamdivgi]

Referring to [0] where Asuras originally started out under the stewardship of Varuna but gradually the terminology changed to be synonymous with Rakshasa.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asura

[chupchap]

Did you seariously share the whole wiki article as the source? :D

[Arnavion]

Do you have a reference to it being a mistaken translation? I'm a native Hindi speaker, and I would've told you asura and rakshasa are both demons. "Asura" == "not sura" == "not good" sounds generic, sure, but everyone grows up hearing that word only used for demons in mythological stories.

(This is far from the only case where a generic word ends up being used to refer to something specific that has that category. Everyone in Hindu mythological stories has a bajillion alternative names that are generic-sounding but only apply to them, based around some aspect of their personality or actions.)

[qart]

Current Indian mythology has a lot of differences from ancient Indian mythology. The nature of asura is among them. Many of the then major gods were described in Rig Veda as asuras. Wikipedia gives a good overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asura

[naruvimama]

Very many Indian words that have exact meaning loose their meaning when they get translated to English.

A Rakshas is just someone blinded by the need to accumulate wealth and power, they may be kind but often take the wrong path.

[chupchap]

I used to think so as well till I read more about it. Asuras are equivalent to lords and divine beings equivalent to devas and not inherently evil. Even more interesting is how Asuras are treated in Budhism and in Hinduism-like religions that are prevelant in various parts of SE Asia.

[KorematsuFred]

There are subtle differences in Rakshasa and Asura indeed but they are nearly interchangeable.

[newyankee]

Unfortunately an objective comparison with other religions is not possible without going into political territory. There are religions where people feel they are the only truths and the adherents mostly believe everything seriously and there are some where adherents follow what they consider the good parts.

[baybal2]

They have very telling surnames.

Poonawalla, Gheewalla, Daruwalla, Canteenwalla, Something-wala. Or even more straight: Driver, Carpenter, Broker, Sethna etc all real surnames.