[In the Avestan descriptions of Varana (in the Vendidad), Gnoli sees] “a country, where the ‘Airyas’ (Iranians) were not rulers and where there was p… - Gherardo Gnoli

The foregoing leads us to believe that the answer which we gave earlier, at the beginning of this chapter, to the question as to whether we ought to see a sort of continuity and a close link between the western Aryas, the Medes and the Persians and the Airyas of the Avestan people, is a well grounded one. We can reply that the Aryas who became part of the ethnic groups of the Medes and the Persians were none other than western branches of the Avestan Airyas who, in their westward migrations, had taken with them the name Aryan and so had extended, in a way, the boundaries of Ariana proper.

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....

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