THE ARYANS in RIG VEDA and AVESTA

The Indo-Iranian group whose members composed the Hindu scriptures (Rig Veda) and 
the Zoroastrian scriptures (Avesta). They called themselves THE ARYANS.
("Airya" or "Airyan" in AVESTA and "Arya" or "Aryan" in RIG VEDA).

The RIG VEDA is the oldest portion of the VEDAS. The Avesta and Rig Veda are the only known ancient texts that contain references to The Aryans.

The next contemporaneous references are in the inscriptions of the Achaemenian Persians (see Achaemenian History as well as our page on Naqsh-e Rustam), and classical Greek texts such as those of Herodotus and Strabo, where the the references are exclusively regarding the Medes' and Persians' ancestry and their Central Asian connections.

Similarity in Avestan & Rig Vedic Languages

The languages of the two scriptures, the Zoroastrian Avesta and Hindu Rig Veda, are similar but not identical, indicating that at the time of their composition, the people of the Avesta and the Rig Veda were related and close neighbours - in a fashion similar to two provinces within one country - provinces where the people spoke two dialects of the same language.

The following is an example of the closeness of the Avestan Old Iranian and Rig-Vedic (Sanskrit) languages: 

Old Iranian/Avestan: aevo pantao yo ashahe, vispe anyaesham apantam (Yasna 72.11) 

Old Indian/Vedic: abade pantha he ashae, visha anyaesham apantham 

Translation: the one path is that of Asha, all others are not-paths. 

[The Rig-Vedic (Sanskrit) translation of the Avestan was provided to this writer by Dr. Satyan Banerjee.]

For further information, please see the Avestan Languages page.

HOMELAND of THE ARYANS

At the time the earliest sections of the Avesta and Rig Veda were composed, the Aryans were residents of the Aryan lands or Aryan nation, called "Airyana Vaeja" or Airyanam Dakhyunam in the Avesta and Arya Varta in the Vedas. In the Avestan and Vedic texts, Airyana Vaeja or Arya Varta was a beautiful but mysterious mountainous land (see Airyana Vaeja as Paradise). While the precise location of the original Aryan homeland is lost to us, we have been left with ample clues which allow us to draw reasonable conclusions about its likely location, the mountain regions of Central Asia.

We further discuss the possible location of Airyana Vaeja in our Aryan Homeland Location page. Airyana Vaeja and the other nations of the Avesta are further referenced and listed in the Aryan Homeland in Scripture page.

The name Airyana Vaeja was contracted over the years to Airan Vej, Iran Vej (in Middle Persian texts) and finally to Iran.

The two Indo-Iranian (the Aryans) groups eventually ceased to be close neighbours. They separated and migrated to present day India and Iran, becoming Indians and Iranians in the process.

Therefore, as an added definition, the Aryans were those members of the Indo-Iranian family who originated in Arya Varta or Airyana Vaeja, the Aryans' homeland.

HEROES of the ARYANS

ANTROPOLOGY of THE ARYANS (The East Indo-Europeans)

PRINCIPLES of LIFE of THE INDO ARYANS and THE IRANO ARYANS

Two ancient religions of The Aryans 

are Hindu and Zoroastrishm. 

Both teach the same principles of human behaviour.

HINDU 

Hindu/Vedic Religion is the religion of The Indo-Aryans. It teaches the principle of human behaviour named Tri Kaya Parisudha. The principle is interpreted into 3 basic human behaviors those should be purified. 
Tri Kaya Parisudha consists of :

Manacika

Wacika

Kayika

Manacika = Good Thoughts

Wacika = Good Words

Kayika = Good Deeds. 

Good Thoughts will underlie Good Words and from Good Words arisen Good Deeds. Basically, Good Words and Good Deeds come out from good mind. Good mind or Good Thoughts will lead human beings to say or to do any good things. 

From the principle of Tri Kaya Parisudha, the earliest should be controlled by human-beings is mind. Things those affect the mind should be awaken and should be controlled to build a mental or emotional stability. If this mind is muddled, especially thinking various matters, so the words and the deeds also become muddled. Since these two things muddled, human-beings will destruct and suffer. Vedic Scriptures teaches mankind to throw away the Evil and sinful deeds. To get away from rid of malice, mankind always do right things called dharma, by thinking, speaking, and doing the right things.
VEDA is the most principal religious book of Hindu Religion.

ZOROASTRISHM

Zoroastrishm is the religion of The Irano-Aryans. Zarathushtra the prophet was the founder of Zoroastrianism religion, brought messages for peace, progress, and prosperity on Earth and a blessful life beyond. His teachings to make life more living and divine. His message is based on the the Principle of human behaviour :

Good Thoughts 

Good Words

Good Deeds

It promotes the human mind and provokes its thinking faculty. It solves the complicated problem of Good and Evil by placing them in the human mind as teo opposing mentalities not entities. Good serves and promotes human society in an ecological sound world, while the Evil damages and retards society’s good progress. A human being endowed with a discriminating mind, is born free, to choose GOOD or EVIL.

To choose wisely good or evil things, it makes great responsibility for a human-being as an individual person. A person is good if the person chooses to think “Good Thoughts”, a person is good if the person speaks “Good Words”, and a person is good if the person performs “Good Deeds”. 

That is why all Zarathushtra’s teachings about Human Behaviour are based on Good Thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds. Teachings about human behavior of Zoroastrianism included in AVESTA, the most principal religious book of Zoroastrishm.

The Sassanid Empire - an Empire of The Irano-Aryans

Also known as  Sassanian, Sasanid, or  Neo-Persian Empire, known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Eran in Middle Persian and resulting in the  New Persian terms Iran-shahr and Iran, was the last Iranian Empire before the rise of Islam, ruled by the Sasanian dynasty from 224 CE to 651 CE. The Sassanid Empire, which succeeded theParthian Empire, was recognized as one of the main powers in Western and Central Asia, alongside the Roman–Byzantine Empire, for a period of more than 400 years. The Sasanian Empire was founded by Ardashir I, after the fall of the Arsacid Empire and the defeat of the last Arsacid king, Artabanus V. At its greatest extent, the Sassanid Empire encompassed all of today's Iran, Iraq,       

The Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Israel),     The Caucasus (Armenia,  Georgia, Azerbaijan, Dagestan), Egypt, parts of Turkey, much of Central Asia (Afghanistan,  Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan), The Persian Gulf countries, Yemen, Oman, and Pakistan.

According to a legend, the vexilloid of the Sassanid Empire was the Derafsh Kaviani. It was also hypothesized that the transition toward the Sassanid Empire represents the end of struggle of ethnic proto-Persians with their close migrant ethnic relatives, the Parthians, whose original homeland was in modern-day  Central Asia.

The Sassaniad Empire, during Late Antiquity, is considered to have been one of Iran's most important and influential historical periods, and constituted the last great Iranian empire before the Muslim conquest and the adoption of Islam. In many ways, the Sassanid period witnessed the peak of ancient Iranian civilization. Persia influenced Roman civilization considerably during the Sassanid period. The Sassanids' cultural influence extended far beyond the empire's territorial borders, reaching as far as Western Europe, Africa, China and India. It played a prominent role in the formation of both European and Asian medieval art. Much of what later became known as Islamic culture in architecture, poetry, and other subject matter was transferred from the Sassanids throughout The Moslem world. Even after the fall of the Sasanian empire it remained the ideal model of organization, splendor, and justice in Perso-Arab tradition; and its bureaucracy and royal ideology were imitated by successor states, especially the Abbasid, Ottoman, and Safavid Empire.

The Medes Empire - an Empire of The Irano-Aryans

The Medes and The Persians are two tribes of a single nation. The Medes is an Eastern Branch of Indo-European people. It is inculuded in Indo Iranians/Aryans, related to the Persians, who entered northeastern Iran probably as early as the 17th century bc and settled in the plateau land that came to be known as Media."  The Persian King "Cyrus completed immediate task by assimilating the Medes on equal footing with the Persians, forming a composite empire. With the assimilation of the Medes, Cyrus also inherited the remains of the Median empire."

The Medes (old Persian, Maad-ha, مادها) 

were an ancient Iranian people who lived in  in Northern Iran area, known as Media and spoke a Northern Iranian language referred to as the Median language. Their arrival to the region is associated with the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium BCE(the bronze age collapse) through the beginning of the first millenium BCE.

The Six Median Tribes

Herodotus lists the names of Median tribes. Some of these are similar to tribal names of the Iranian-Scythians, suggesting a definitive link between these two groups :

The Busae group is thought to derive from the Persian term buza meaning indigenous. Whether this was based on an originally Iranian term, or their own name, is unknown.

The second group is called the Paraetaceni, or Parae-tak-(eni) in Persian, and denotes nomadic inhabitants of the mountains of Paraetacene. This name recalls the Scythian Para-la-ti, the people of Kolaxis, believed to represent the common people in general, but whom Herodotus calls the "Royal Scythians."

The third group is called Stru khat.  

The fourth group is the Arizanti, whose name is derived from the words Arya (noble), and Zantu (tribe, clan). 

The fifth group were the Budii, found also among the Black Sea Scythians as Budi-ni. Buddha was of the tribe Budha, the Saka (eastern Scythian) form of the name.  

The sixth tribe were the Magi. They were a hereditary caste of priests of the Zurvanism religion that evolved out of Zoroastrianism. The name Magi implies a link with the Sumerians, who called their language Emegir, over time becoming simplified to Magi. Hungarian tradition also traces pre-European Magyar (Hungarian) ancestry back to the Magi. In time, the Sumerian-influenced religion of the Magi was suppressed in favour of a more purely Iranian form of Zoroastrianism, itself evolved from its somewhat dualist beginnings into the monotheistic faith that it is today (also known as Parsi-ism). 

Herodotus also mentioned that "the Medes had exactly the same equipment as the Persians; and indeed the dress common to both is not so much Persian as Median." 

Old Persian and Avestan are the two oldest known Irano Iranian languages. "They were both spoken several centuries B.C.E. Together they make up the the oldest stratum of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language group." (Ibid.)  Northern Iranians, known as Medes, and Southern Iranians, known as the Fars, spoke languages that were closely related to Old Persian." Median is a substrate of Old Persian.  Median is attested by a large vocabulary incorporated into Old Persian, presumably as a substrate for the official language of the Persian Achaemenid kings. Persian generally had four separate stages of development:

1.  Old Persian

2.  Middle Persian

3.  Classical Persian

4.  Modern Persian

Old Persian is what the original tribe of the Hakahmaneshinian (Achaemenid هخامنشی) era spoke and they have left for us samples carved on stone in cuneiform script.  This was the language of Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great. In the Behistun Inscriptions of King Darius I of Persia (522-486 BC), Persia and Media are described as provinces of Iran; the army of Iran is referred to as one army: the “Persian and Median Army; and Persians and Medes are referred to as “our family” within a shared Iranian ethnicity. Archeological sites in Iran commonly have inscriptions in several Iranian languages, such as Shapur's inscription at Ka‘ba-i Zartosht, which includes Parthian and Middle Persian texts.  Below is the name of Iran from Ka'ba-i Zartosht, ērānšahr, which means Empire of the Iranians/Irano Aryans.

The Achaemenid Empire - an Empire of The Irano-Aryans

According to The Old Testament of Bible, this empire was also called The Medes Persian Empire, was a  Uni Median-Persian Empire in Western Asia, was founded in the 6th century BC by Cyrus the  Great who overthrew the Median confederation. The dynasty draws its name from King Achaemenes, king of Anshan, who ruled Persia between 705 BC and 675 BC. The empire expanded to eventually rule over significant portions of the ancient world which at around 500 BC stretched from the Indus Valley in the east, to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece, making it the biggest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenid Empire would eventually control Egypt as well. It was ruled by a series of monarchs who unified its disparate tribes and nationalities by constructing a complex network of roads.

Calling themselves Parsuha  after their original Aryan tribal name  Parsa (the Persians), settled in a land which they named Parsuha. The land is bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf. This became their heartland for the duration of the Achaemenid Empire. It was from this region that eventually Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II of Persia) would advance to defeat the Median, the Lydian, and the Babylonian Empires, opening the way for subsequent conquests into Egypt and Asia Minor.

At the height of its power after the conquest of Egypt, the empire encompassed approximately      

8 million square kilometers spanning three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. At its greatest extent, the empire included the modern territories of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and all significant population centers of ancient Egypt as far west as Libya, then Turkey, Thrace and Macedonia, much of the Black Sea coastal regions, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, much of Central Asia, Afghanistan, northern Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and parts of Oman, and the UAE. It is noted in Western history as the antagonist foe of the Greek city states during the Greco-Persian Wars, for emancipation of slaves including the Jewish people from their Babylonian captivity, and for instituting infrastructures such as a postal system,road systems, and the usage of an official language, Aramaic, throughout its territories. The empire had a centralised, bureaucratic administration under the King and a large professional army and civil services, inspiring similar developments in later empires. The delegation of power to local governments eventually weakened the king's central authority, causing resources to be expended in attempts to subdue local rebellions. This accounts for the disunification of the region by the time Alexander the Great invaded Persia in 334 BC.

This viewpoint however is challenged by some modern scholars who argue that the Achaemenid Empire was not facing any such crisis around the time of Alexander, and that only internal succession struggles within the Achaemenid family ever came close to weakening the Empire. Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, would eventually cause the collapse of the empire and its disintegration around 330 BC into what later became the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire, in addition to other minor territories which gained independence at that time. The Iranian Culture of the central plateau, however, continued to thrive and eventually reclaimed power by the 2nd century BC. The historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their daily lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange, some being employed by, or allied to the Persian kings. The impact of Cyrus the Great's Edict of Restoration is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts and the empire was instrumental in the spread of Zoroastrianism as far east as China. Even Alexander the Great, the man who would set out to conquer this vast empire, would respect its customs, by enforcing respect for the royal Persian kings including Cyrus the Great, and even by appearing in proskynesis, a Persian royal custom, despite stern Macedonian disapproval. The Persian empire would also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran.