Gherardo Gnoli Quotes

The main obstacle to a reconstruction that closely links the western Aryas to the Avestan Airyas is, in my opinion, the one arising from the theories that the Medes and the Persians emigrated from the North rather than from the East, that is to say, for instance, from south-east Russia (some scholars connect them with the so-called Andronovo culture) to the region lying North or North-West of the Caspian and across the Caucasus to the Urmia Lake region and, lastly, in an easterly and southeasterly direction towards the Zagros mountains.

“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”. ...

The Hilmand region and the Hamun-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ...

The only possible identification of Airyana Vaejah must point to the great Hindukus mountain range.

When we speak of Medes and Persians, we must not lose sight of a historical perspective. In all likelihood, the ethnic groups of the Medes and the Persians that were settling the historical lands in the 8th century B.C. must already have been the result of processes of assimilation of heterogeneous ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements.

A much more convincing theory than that of the western Iranians having emigrated from North to South across the Caucasus is that of a slow, progressive East-West emigration, a gradual penetration as it were, over the centuries, from the end of the 2nd millennium to the first half of the 1st millennium B.C. ...

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.

Having done away with the obstacle provided by the theory of the trans-Caucasian migration..., we can see both these peoples as western branches of those same Airyas that in the Younger Avesta are described as being settled in such a large part of the eastern Iranian world....

There is no evidence for thinking that the Zoroastrian message was meant for the Iranians alone. On the-contrary, history suggests that the exact opposite is likely, and there are also indisputable facts … which show clearly that Zoroaster’s teaching was addressed, earlier on at least to all men ... whether they were Iranians or not, Proto-Indoaryans or otherwise…

“we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ...

“in the denomination of Ariana, which became known to the Greeks after the Macedonian conquest of the eastern territories of the old Persian empire, there was obviously reflected a tradition that located the Aryan region in the central-southern part of eastern Iran, roughly from the Hindukus southwards, and that considered some of the Medes and the Persians in the west and some of the Bactrians and Sogdians in the north as further extensions of those people who were henceforth known by the name of Ariani. And this, to tell the truth, fits nicely into the picture we have been trying to piece so far. Here too, as in the passages of the Avesta we have studied from the Mihr Yast and the Zamyad Yast, the geographical horizon is central-eastern and southeastern; the northern lands are also completely peripheral, and Chorasmia, which is present only in the very peculiar position of which we have spoken in the Mihr Yast, is not included.” ...

[the Avesta reflects] “an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with … Aryan or Proto-Indoaryan (elements)”. ...

[This region is subject to] “a process of spiritualization of Avestan geography … in the famous celebration of the Hilmand in the Zamyad Yast…”, and “this pre-eminent position of Sistan in Iranian religious history and especially in the Zoroastrian tradition is a very archaic one that most likely marks the first stages of the new religion … the sacredness of the Hamun-i Hilmand goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times…” ...

“the importance of cattle in various aspects of the Gathic doctrine can be taken as certain. This importance can be explained as a reflection in religious practice and myth of a socioeconomic set-up in which cattle-raising was a basic factor.” ...

[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, Ariane] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the Hindukus. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.” ...