Airyanem Vaejah

Template:Zoroastrianism Airyanem Vaejah (Avestan: 𐬀𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬌𐬀𐬥𐬀 𐬬𐬀𐬉𐬘𐬀𐬵 airiiana vaējah, approximately “expanse of the Aryans”, i.e. Iranians) is the homeland of the early Iranians and a reference in the Zoroastrian Avesta (Vendidad, Farg. 1) to one of Ahura Mazda's "sixteen perfect lands."

Etymology and related words

The Avestan term airyanəm vaējah is formed from the plural genitive case of airya and the word vaējah (whose oft-used nominative case is vaējō). The meaning of vaējah is victory as in Vijay. It may be related to Vedic Sanskrit vej/vij, suggesting the region of a fast-flowing river. It has also been interpreted by some as "seed". Avestan airya is etymologically related to the Old Persian ariya.

The related Old Iranian term *aryānām xšaθra- is the origin of the modern Persian term "Iran" via Middle Persian 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭𐭱𐭲𐭥𐭩 Ērān-shahr and 𐭠𐭩𐭥𐭠𐭭 Ērān during the Sasanian Empire.

Historical concepts

The historical location of Airyanem Vaejah is still uncertain. In the first chapter of the Vendidad is a listing of 16 countries, and some scholars believe that Airyanem Vaejah lies to the north of all of these. As Darmesteter notes in his translation of the Avesta, Bundahishn 29:12 directly states that it was beside Azerbaijan, however, most modern scholars favor a more eastern location.

Bahram Farahvashi and Nasser Takmil Homayoun suggest that Airyanem Vaejah was probably centered on Khwarezm, a region that is now split between several Central Asian republics. The University of Hawaii historian Elton L. Daniel likewise believes Khwarezm to be the “most likely locale” corresponding to the original home of the Avestan-speaking peoples, and Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda once called Khwarezm “the cradle of the Aryan tribe”.

Conversely, according to Michael Witzel, Airyanem Vaejah lies at the center of the 16 lands mentioned in the Vendidad: an area now in the central Afghan highlands (around Bamyan Province).

David Anthony's The Horse, the Wheel and Language, makes no direct reference to Airynem Vaejah. Anthony may, however, provide evidence linking it to four successive Indo-European cultures.

• On the lower and middle Volga River,
  • the Poltavka culture of 2700–2100 BCE and
  • the Abashevo culture of 2500–1900 BCE.
• In the area that is now Kazakhstan:
  • the Sintashta culture of 2200–1600 BCE; and
  • the Andronovo culture of 2000–900 BCE.

Shrikant G. Talageri, in his book The Rigveda: A Historical Analysis, proposes that Airyam Vaejah was located in Kashmir.

The compulsion to demonstrate an Iranian (and consequently Indo-Iranian) migration from the north into Afghanistan has led many scholars to identify Chorasmia with Airyana VaEjah, and to trace the origins of both Zoro-astrianism as well as the (Indo-)Iranians to this area.

As a matter of fact, Chorasmia is named as “practically the very furthest horizon reached by Mi?ra’s gaze”41 and Gnoli suggests that “the inclusion of the name of Chorasmia in this YaSt … could in fact be a mention or an interpolation whose purpose, whether conscious or unconscious, was rather meant to continue in a south-north direction the list of lands over which Mi?ra’s gaze passed by indicating a country on the outskirts such as Chorasmia (which must have been very little known at the time the YaSt was composed)”.42

As a matter of fact, even though it contradicts the Theory, there have been a great many scholars who have claimed a movement in the opposite direction in the case of Chorasmia: “It has been said that the Chorasmians moved from the south (from the territory immediately to the east of the Parthians and the Hyrcanians) towards the north (to XwArizm).”46

The scholars who make this claim suggest that “the probable ancient seat of the Chorasmians was a country with both mountainous areas and plains, much further south than XIva, whereas the oasis of XIva was a more recent seat which they may have moved to precisely in consequence of the growing power of the Achaemenians by which, as Herodotus says, they were deprived of a considerable part of their land”.47

While Gnoli does not agree with the late chronology suggested for this south-to-north movement, and gives evidence to show that “Chorasmia corresponded more or less to historical XwArizm even before Darius I’s reign (521-486 BC)”48, he nevertheless agrees with the suggested direction of migration, which is, moreover, backed by the opinion of archaeologists:

“As a matter of fact, we are able to reconstruct a south-north migration of the Chorasmians on a smaller scale only, as it is a well known fact that the delta of the Oxus moved in the same direction between the end of the second millennium and the 6th century BC and ended up flowing into the Aral Sea.”49 Therefore, “we cannot rule out the possibility that the Chorasmians, as pointed out, moved in this same direction and that at the beginning of the Achaemenian empire there were still settlements of them further south. At all events, this is the explanation that archaeologists give for the proto-historic settlement of Chorasmia, without taking into account precise ethnic identifications.”50

In short, far from being the early homeland from which the (Indo-)Iranians migrated southwards, “XwArizm … appears upon an unprejudiced examination, as a remote, outlying province which never played a really central part in the political and cultural history of Iran before the Middle Ages”.51And the region was so unknown that there was, among the Iranians, “absence of any sure knowledge of the very existence of the Aral Sea as a separate body of water with a name of its own, even as late as the time of Alexander”.52 (Talageri 2000)

• Significantly, Iranian traditions record the earliest homeland of the Iranians as Airyana Vaējah, a land characterized by extreme cold. Gnoli, one of the greatest Avestan scholars, suggests that this land, mentioned in the list of the sixteen Iranian lands in the Avesta in Vendidād I, should be ―left out‖ of the discussion since ―the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization‖ (GNOLI 1980:63). However, it is clear that the list of sixteen Iranian lands is arranged in rough geographical order, in an anti-clockwise direction which leads back close to the starting point; and the fact that the sixteen evils created by Angra Mainyu in the sixteen lands created by Ahura Mazda start out with ―severe winter‖ in the first land Airyana Vaējah, move through a variety of other evils (including various sinful proclivities, obnoxious insects, evil spirits and physical ailments), and end again with ―severe winter‖ in the sixteenth land, Raηhā, shows that the sixteenth land is close to the first one. And since Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter‖ (GNOLI 1980:53), it is clear that Airyana Vaējah is also likely to be an eastern, mountainous, Indian area. (Talageri 2008)

• Independent of the relation with Vedic history, the Avestā itself gives more reasons for Zarathuštra’s ancientness, though not dated with precision. The first chapter of the Vendidād, discussed in Gnoli 1985:24-30, lists sixteen countries fit for Iranian habitation: most are parts of Afghanistan or due north of it (but not towards the Aral Lake, as the Aryan Invasion Theory would make you expect, nor the more westerly historical habitats of the Medes, Persians and Scythians), two are parts of Northwest India. These are Hapta Hendū, the “Land of Seven Rivers”, roughly Panjab; and Airiiānām Vaējo (the “Seed of the Aryans”), the first habitat after the Ānava ethnogenesis, which is Kaśmīr: “Given its very Oriental horizon, this list must be pre-Achaemenid; on the other hand, the remarkable extendedness of the territories concerned recommends situating them in a period much later than the Zoroastrian origins. (…) one or several centuries later than Zarathuštra’s preaching.” (Gnoli 1985:25) Elst 2018 [2] ^[archive]

• Hock quotes the two following excerpts from my book, the first of which is from P.L.Bhargava quoted by me, and the second being my own words: (a) ”The first chapter of the Vendidad or the handbook of the Parsees enumerates sixteen holy lands created by Ahura Mazda which were later rendered unfit for the residence of man (i.e. the ancestors of the Iranians) on account of different things created by Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit of the Avesta…The first of these lands was of course Airyana Vaejo which was abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow; of the others, one was Hapta Hindu, i.e. Saptasindhu”. (Bhargava quoted in TALAGERI 1993a:180). (b) “The Hapta Hindu mentioned in the Vendidad is obviously the Saptasindhu (the Punjab region), and the first land, ‘abandoned by the ancestors of the Iranians because of severe winter and snow’ before they came to the Saptasindhu region and settled down among the Vedic people, is obviously Kashmir” (TALAGERI 1993a:180-1). [3] ^[archive]

See also

• Avestan geography
• Ahura Mazda
• Ariana
• Āryāvarta, its Hindu counterpart
• Indo-Iranians

External links

• Avesta terminology: Eranvej ^[archive]