CAUCASIAN ROOTS TO INDIAN LEGENDS

Few people realise that the origins of many cherished Indian myths might be found in Central Asia. There are many tantalising similarities in the accounts of the Rigveda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata with places and people of the Caucasian region.

The first connection is found in the accounts of a tribe who called themselves Arya in the Rigveda and in, the probably earlier, Zend Avesta, which covers a period when they seem to have traveled through Persia from their ancestral homeland… a land in the North where ‘the year is as a day’, perhaps implying an Arctic region. The Meru mountains must have been the Pamirs where there are five mountains soaring to over 22,000 feet. Around it were four seas (perhaps the Caspian, Aral, Black Sea and the Arctic Sea) as well as three deserts (perhaps the Taklimatan, Dasht-e- lut and Kyzyl Kum into which the river Syr disappears).

The Avestsa speaks of the Aryas having to leave their ancestral land of Aryanem Vaego meaning Aryan Bija or Aryan seed (the root of the Vedic word Aryavarta) because the power of evil had made the land too cold. Geological evidence indicates that there was a mini ice age about 1800 BC that may have accounted for their migration to warmer southern areas. 

Their success was due to the fact that they were the first people to have domesticated horses and make them into fearsome weapons of war. In the beginning, their horses were small, like horses in the wild, with backs too weak to carry a mounted horseman. They had to therefore be yoked in pairs to a light bow fronted two-wheeled chariot with a seated charioteer and a standing warrior with a javelin (later a bow) that was to become the trademark of the Aryan tribes in every region of their conquest.

The speed, range and fearsome power of their chariots overwhelmed the donkey and oxen mounted armies of the great old civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, Syria and Turkey. In 1732 BC, one of their tribes, the Mittani defeated the great armies of Babylon. In 1730 BC, their cousins the Hittites overwhelmed Syria while the Hyskos conquered Egypt. The Kassites occupied Turkey while the Achaens and Dorians entered Greece and Italy. The dates when theyreached Persia and India have not been established but it must have followed the same southern movement.

West Asian accounts speak of these Aryan warriors being dressed in leather from top to toe who knew nothing of fruits and vegetables and believed that every man should ride a horse, hurl a lance (later an arrow) and speak the truth.

The Aryas and several other Indo-European tribes spoke a language that was the ancestor to both Sanskrit and Persian and was to become the root language of Greek, Latin and other languages as the tribes spread to overwhelm other areas and later become assimilated into them. Few Indian’s are aware that ancient Sanskrit was never written in the Devanagri script that only appeared in the late Gupta period (4^th century AD) but in Kharaoshti, which like Persian and was written from right to left.

The origins of the names of Indian castes can also be found in the Zend Avesta. Few Brahmins know that the name of their caste was probably derived from the word ‘Arthvan’, meaning one with `Arth' or essence. They are also unlikely to also know that the word `Kshatriya' was derived from the word ‘Rateshwar’ meaning charioteer while the caste of ‘Vaishya’ is derived from the word `Vastrayosh' meaning husbandman of cattle. They only became traders after the nomadic Aryans settled down. The fourth caste of `Hutoksh', or slaves, was added much later and was the origin of the word `Shudra' as the Aryans could not pronounce S and made it H. Their Hoama was the same as the Indian Soma.

The Puranas declare that there had been an Uttara (northern) Kuru and a Dakshina (southern) Kuru. Most Indians believe that the epic battle of Kurukshetra had been fought near Karnal on India’s northern plains and are unaware that there is no Kuru river there but that a river that is still called the Kuru that flows south of Baku between Azarbaijan and Iran into the Caspian sea. It must have been important for the great Persian King Cyrus (Kurosh) was named after it. If the epic battle of the Mahabharata had been fought here, it would have been fairly close both in space and time to the epic Trojan War.

An absolutely historic event is the treaty of Cappadocea in central Turkey signed between the Mittani king Mattinuza, son of a king Dasratta and king Subiluliuma of the Hittites in 1380 BC witnessed by their gods Varuna, Mittra and Indra. This king Dasratta was incidentally usurped by one of his sons and killed by another.

The names of the Caspian Sea over the centuries contain fascinating traces of the origins of many Jat tribes that now inhabit India. At the time of Herodotus in the 6th century BC, it had been called the Vrathian Sea after the Virks one of the oldest Jat tribes. Later it was called Dadhi Sagar after the Dahae or Dahiyas and still later took the name of another tribe the Gills and was called the sea of Gilan. When the ancestors of the Gujjars were dominant, it was called the Badr-e- Ghazar. Though the Gujjars are today considered a low tribe of nomads, they too had their days of glory and places like Georgia and Gujarat honour a great former name. The present name Caspian is derived from the name of a great sage called Caspili who was probably the Kashyap of the Puranas.

Though the Turks are today mostly a Muslim people they had no religion at this time. The Turks seem to have been descendents of the Tur or Toor clan of the Jats. Toorki was to become Turkey and some Tur tribes in India are Hindu. The Jat tribes variously called Djati, Yu Chi and Goths spread from Central Asia to Italy and Kiev. All the major Jat tribes can be traced to regions around the Caspian Sea.

Perhaps the most interesting connections are found in the epic Ramayana. Ram’s father Dasarath lived in the heavenly city of Ayodhya on the banks of the river Saryu. This might have been a river that is still called the Syr Darya that flows through the Farghana valley in present day Turkemenistan north of the Pamirs with a city called Akshi or Adhijan (possibly the legendary Ayodhya) as the main town of the area. Babur was born there and, like Rama, considered it the most beautiful place on earth.

East of the Syr Darya is the town of Kashgarh that is still called Kashi while Samarkand, that had been called Markanda in Alexander’s accounts as well as in the Puranas, was to the west. An early account by Valmiki has it that Dasrath, meaning a small ruler with just ten chariots, met and fell in love with his second wife Kaikeyi after she tended his wounds after a local battle. Kaikeya means that she was the daughter of the king of Kaikay or the Caucasus like the name Gandhari, of the Mahabharata, had been derived from Gandhara where she had come from.

Why should Indians think that the events of these great epics must have been within the confines of British India? If Gandhari came from Gandhara it does not mean that she was Afghan. The heroes of ancient legend may have originated outside present day India. There were no national boundaries in ancient times and as people migrated in many directions they gave the names of venerated old places to the mountains, rivers and cities where they were living as is evident from the names of the many English towns that are found in Canada and Australia. It is little surprising that many places named in the Ramayana are also found in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. There is thus little sanctity about place names but great romance in the possibilities of history.