Ancient Rivalry between Zoroastrianism and Hinduism

[prasad1]

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Historians and theologians are still so confused even today because they have still not understood the events that led to the birth of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was born as a revolt against the religious setup in India. The mount on which Zoroaster received divine revelation was, in all probability, in India. He formed a new religion and called his God Asur Mazda, meaning God of Asurs (this later got morphed to Ahur Mazda). He rejected the religion of Devas, and termed their god as evil spirit, whose worshippers would go to hell. This new religion was repellant to Devas, who then expelled the Zoroastrians. This event, when Asurs were expelled out of India, is frequently termed in Indian scriptures as ‘Devasur Sangram,' a bloody pre-historic war. Zoroaster led his people to the nearby region of Persia. However, even after moving away to their new home, they were always desirous of reclaiming their original homeland back, and led repeated wars against India - it is these wars that got captured in an extra-ordinarily large body of legends in the scriptures of both the communities.


Historians often date Zoroaster to between 1000 BC and 600 BC. Because of this late date, his influence on the Satanic and other concepts of Abrahamic religions is not fully appreciated. Zoroaster existed at a time when India had only the worship of Brahman, and the currently popular cults of theological Vaishnavism and Saivism did not even exist in India. Mahabharat, a scripture relatively late into Vaishnavite thought is itself often dated to 800 BC to 1000 BC. Zoroaster must therefore be much much earlier than this. Some scholars have already been pointing out that he lived around 6000 BC.


Zoroaster's terming of the Indian God Brahman as evil spirit led to the birth of the first Satanic evil spirit of humanity. This Zoroastrian evil spirit then found its way into the other theologies around the world, including the Satanic concepts of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. This is how the Satanic concepts of our religions originated.

http://www.articlesbase.com/religio...ween-zoroastrianism-and-hinduism-1299890.html

 

[sankara_sharmah]

A theory. Unfortunately this author does not quote any references.

The common origins of Vedas and Zoroastrianism is well known. Unfortunately not much research has been done in the last 100 years. The reasons are very simple.

1. The Hindu scholars do not like any research into the origin of The Vedas which relates to people outside India.

2. The Parsees also do not want to their religion to be associated with Hinduism.

In my first year in college my roommates were an Iranian and a a Goan Catholic. Iranians are Zoroastrians (Parsees ) who came later than the original migrants to India.

I was surprised that the sacred thread called kusti worn by my friend is similar to Yagnopaveeda. They also wear a sacred shirt called sudre.

The word sudre derive the word from Avestan 'vastra' meaning 'clothing', and say, that the word 'sadreh' is formed by dropping the first letter v from it.

The original Avesta word for kusti is aiwyaongana. It could be Avaya Anagana. I translated it. Does not make sense.

About Kusti prayer.

Kusti prayer, per Qadimi observance

This article is based on the translation of the Zed Avesta. It is available here. This also gives the background.

http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/zoroscripts/vendidad.asp#chapter4

It is a pity that enough research has not been done to trace the common origins of the Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.

 

[sangom]

I think linguistically the Zoroastrian scriptures have been accepted as earlier to rigveda. Even if it is not so, the fact that rigveda and the Zend avesta have lot of similarities and points of identity, cannot be ruled out. One source (book) which I had read some time ago (but now forget the details) postulated that the Iranians believed in fire worship as also a sacrificial religion and did not have any idol worship. But when a group of such people spread eastwards towards the Hindukush in search of fresh forest lands for hunting and sustenance (they had not yet become fully agricultural society then), these eastern-going people took to making specialized totem-like yoopas or stakes for tying the animals to be sacrificed to different gods of theirs and, from such practices, slowly, their belief system started taking idol-worship as its main component along with the traditional fire-worship and sacrifices.

Subsequently, when successive emigrations from their original land came towards east, there was perhaps bitter fights between the new arrivals and the old, and possibly it is the memory of such fights which is found in the Deva-asura yuddhas. It is relevant to note here what Vaalmeeki Ramayana has to say about the sura-asura difference, and I give below the relevant slokas:—

वरुणस्य ततः कन्या वारुणी रघुनन्दन।
उत्पपात महाभागा मार्गमाणा परिग्रहम्॥ १-४५-३६

दितेः पुत्रा न ताम् राम जगृहुर् वरुण आत्मजाम्।
अदितेः तु सुता वीर जगृहुः ताम् अनिन्दिताम्॥ १-४५-३७

असुराः तेन दैतेयाः सुराः तेन अदितेः सुताः।
हृष्टाः प्रमुदिताः च आसन् वारुणी ग्रहणात् सुराः॥ १-४५-३८

varuṇasya tataḥ kanyā vāruṇī raghunandana|
utpapāta mahābhāgā mārgamāṇā parigraham|| 1-45-36

diteḥ putrā na tām rāma jagṛhur varuṇa ātmajām|
aditeḥ tu sutā vīra jagṛhuḥ tām aninditām|| 1-45-37

asurāḥ tena daiteyāḥ surāḥ tena aditeḥ sutāḥ|
hṛṣṭāḥ pramuditāḥ ca āsan vāruṇī grahaṇāt surāḥ|| 1-45-38

Oh, descendent of Raghu, then the heaven-sent damsel Vaaruni came up from Milky Ocean searching for her espousal, who is the daughter of Varuna, the Rain-god, and who incidentally is the presiding deity of hard liquors and also called as sura. [1-45-36]

Oh, Rama, the sons of Diti, namely asuraa-s, have not espoused that daughter of Rain-god, but oh, brave Rama, the sons of Aditi on their part, namely sura-s, have espoused that impeccable Vaaruni. [1-45-37]

Thereby the sons of Diti are called a suraa-s, and the sons of Aditi are called suraa-s, and gods are delighted and rejoiced on espousing Vaaruni. [1-45-38]

(Valmiki Ramayana - Baala Kanda - Sarga 45 )

So, you see, incidentally, that vaalmeeki says that our devas were fond of hard liquor suraa whereas the asuras refused to take it. You may now disown vaalmeeki or thhe devas or both! We must note therefore that the soma juice so important to the devas in the vedas must have been some kind of hard liquor.

Back to our topic, may be this drinking habit of the early emigrants was also one reason for the deva-asura conflicts. And this has been described in the subsequent puranas and other religious texts in such manner as to suit their purpose.

But I find we vedists were followers of a group which was drinking hard liquor and they seem to have exterminated the entire asura population by "call a man a dog and hang him" principle

 

[vikrama]

In Rig Veda, Asura means mighty. Indra, Agni and the Devas have been honoured with this epithet.
Of course, in some contexts, Sayana translates it as rakshasa. But it is not justified. A close look at the mantras will reveal that the word asura refers only to might and never to devilishness. For details see my blog:-

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/blogs/vikrama/11009-a.html

 

[prasad1]

So, you see, incidentally, that vaalmeeki says that our devas were fond of hard liquor suraa whereas the asuras refused to take it. You may now disown vaalmeeki or thhe devas or both! We must note therefore that the soma juice so important to the devas in the vedas must have been some kind of hard liquor.

Back to our topic, may be this drinking habit of the early emigrants was also one reason for the deva-asura conflicts. And this has been described in the subsequent puranas and other religious texts in such manner as to suit their purpose.

But I find we vedists were followers of a group which was drinking hard liquor and they seem to have exterminated the entire asura population by "call a man a dog and hang him" principle

I was watching a PBS program on India.
It said that "Soma" was still prepared in Tajikistan, and the root used can not grow in wet climate, it can only grow in Arid climate of the high plain desert of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and eastern Turkey.

There is a lot of argument over the date of Zoroaster, the prophet of the Zoroastrians, but many scholars -- like Mary Boyce in her recent four volume history of Zoroastrianism -- believe that he must be about 1400-1200 BCE because the language of his songs and prayers, the Gathas, is so close to Rig Vedic Sanskrit that they cannot be far separated in time. The theory would then be that speakers of this branch of the Indo-European family tree came out of Central Asia into the Turkmenistan region (Bactria-Margiana complex especially) before 2000 BCE and then dividing into Afghanistan and NW India, and also into what is now Iran. In his interview about the excavation at Gunur Tepe near Merv, Victor Sarianidi used the word Zoroastrian to describe certain aspects of the material culture he found there: e.g. fire altars, chariot wheels, horses, soma/homa etc, but we need to be careful about using such terms so far back. But don’t mix them up with Parsees: the Parsees are people of Zoroastrian descent who came into Western India a thousand years ago from Iran: they haven’t been there since ancient times. In fact I think the term Parsee (i.e. ‘Persian’ or ‘from Persia’) is relatively modern? Hope that clarifies things for your mum. By the way, I filmed with the Zoroastrians in Yazd in Iran a little over ten years ago for our series In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great and went on the pilgrimage to Pir-i-Sabz, which was a wonderful experience. We (or a Zoroastrian friend who could handle a big camera!!) actually filmed the sacred fire and its rituals in Sharifabad with the Belivani family -- its on the DVD if anyone wants to see it.

Michael Wood.
The Story of India | PBS

 

[sangom]

Shri Prasad,

The Rigveda depicts, in the opinion of one section of scholars, the devotional/emotional outpourings of the Rishis when they were under the influence of the Soma juice. What really was the Soma is knowledge that we have lost completely now and I think it is considered today as different types of creepers in the various parts of India but none of these satisfies all the descriptions of Soma found in the RV.

It is quite possible that two groups were formed among the Aryans and subsequent to this schism, those who lived in the Indus valley region, tended to remember their common ancestors prior to the split, as Asuras (by which epithet, the opposite group also was designated by these people) while the opposite group used the word Daeva to denote the first group.

The story (myth?) that asuras and devas are children of Kasyapa Prajapati through his wives Diti and Aditi, perhaps shows that the common ancestry of both was in the memory of people when this legend was made.

The undernoted url is informative to a certain extent imo :

Pre-Zoroastrian Aryan Religions & Religious Wars. Page 1

 

[prasad1]

In Rig Veda, Asura means mighty. Indra, Agni and the Devas have been honoured with this epithet.
Of course, in some contexts, Sayana translates it as rakshasa. But it is not justified. A close look at the mantras will reveal that the word asura refers only to might and never to devilishness. For details see my blog:-

http://www.tamilbrahmins.com/blogs/vikrama/11009-a.html

I went to the blog, but could not understand it (written in Tamil).

 

[vikrama]

I went to the blog, but could not understand it (written in Tamil).

Dear Sri Prasad,

The article was written by me for the monthly magazine Om Sakti. It was published some three months ago. Since I can not translate the whole thing, here is the gist.
All devas have been honoured with the epithet Asura, meaning mighty. Even the Almighty who created the sun is called the Asura.

The word has been used 90 times in RV. In all contexts it denotes only mighty. RV 3.55 speaks of the greatness of devas . Here the burthen of all the 22 stanzas is Mahat Devanam Asuratvam Ekam. (Great is the might of the Devas.)

But Sayana takes it to mean demon in certain places. In these places also the basic meaning is applicable without destroying his interpretation of the mantra.