Could Abraham be from the Vedas?

[Forum Monk]

The Roman Mithras is identified with the sun, as is the Vedic one. The only reason there's speculation about which planet he's identified with in the Zoroastrian story is because he was never intended to be in that story in the first place, and so he doesn't fit in.

Firstly, I confess, the association to Venus is based strictly on my own impressions after reading Cumont's work. He specifically says that in the origins of Mithra, he specifically was NOT the sun:

In the Avesta, Mithra is the genius of the celestial light. He appears before sunrise on the rocky summits of the mountains; during the day he traverses the wide firmament in his chariot drawn by four white horses, and when night falls he still illumines with flickering glow the surface of the earth, "ever waking, ever watchful." He is neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, but with "his hundred ears and his hundred eyes" watches constantly the world.

Its only my interpretation. It could also apply to Sirius as some of the descriptions are reminiscent of Sothis and the annual flooding of the Nile.

Yes, 3rd millennium BC is the first attested evidence of astrology, in the Vedas.

There are also recorded solstices dating to 8,000 BC in the Surya Siddhantha, the Vedic astronomy records. But we don't know if they were added in retrospect.

So astrology could be older...but even 3,000 BC is old enough to support Ulansey's claims.

As for Ulansey's zodiac, let me clarify.
Ulansey says this in his book "Origins..."

During that earlier age, which we may call the "Age of Taurus," lasting from around 4,000 to 2,000 B.C., the celestial equator passed through Taurus the Bull (the spring equinox of that epoch), Canis Minor the Dog, Hydra the Snake, Corvus the Raven, and Scorpio the Scorpion (the autumn equinox): that is, precisely the constellations represented in the Mithraic tauroctony.

The key to his hypothesis, in my opinion is the association with Taurus. Now according to some sources, the zodiac did not originate so early and probably post-dates the association of Mithra to Taurus.

The beginnings of actual astrology can be seen during the Old Babylonian period, during the second millennium. The focus of the Babylonians was on the well-being of the kingdom and the king, not of the individual. For this reason, predictions revolved around things that would affect this well-being. The Babylonian priests correctly documented Venus’s appearances and disappearances and because of this erratic behavior (due to the fact that Venus revolves about the sun backwards) Venus became associated with love and war. Somewhere around 1300 BC, the precursors of the individual birth horoscopes were formulated. These were merely predictions based on which month a child was born in. By this time the astral bodies have become quite significant at this point.

...

As mentioned above, the Assyrians had developed constellations. In fact, they plotted eighteen all together. Later, by 600 BC, some of these would be combined and some would be deleted to form the twelve constellations of the zodiac.
http://touregypt.net/astro/

At the time that the Assyrians conquered Babylon in the 9th century, the current form of the zodiac had not yet been secured and seemed to have evolved a few hundred years after. In fact, one could argue it evolved as a blending of Assyrian and Babylonian astrology.

So, I was sort of thinking out loud, in my previous post, that the association which Ulansey describes may have emerge much later. Nevertheless, I think his idea is interesting.

As for the development of Vedic astrology, you know better than I whether their zodiac corresponded with the present one, and when it emerged, but I think the present zodiac is based upon the one which emerged from Assyria/Babylon.

[Ishtar]

As far as I can see, Cumont only got as far as seeing that Mithras was/could have been Iranian. I cannot see anywhere that he even looked any further east, to India, where Mithras is identified with the sun. He got to Iraq/Iran and just stopped. I also don’t think Ulansey appreciates the Vedic influence that was in the region.

The pre-Zoroastrian religion in the Iranian/Persian region was Vedic. We know this for a number of reasons. We know that Zoroaster Spitama had to do a deal with the all-powerful Kavis after he had already formed his religion, and the Kavis insisted that he bring back in Mithra, the Vedic god associated with the sun who he’d ignored or discarded. The very name Kavis tells us something about these guys. The Kavis were the most respected Vedic poets (and this harks back to another post in this thread about the importance of the poets in an orally transmitted tradition.) The Kavis, at that time, pretty much ran the country.

Further back than that, we also know that the Kassites were in Mesopotamia in 1750 BC in Mesopotamia and they worshiped Surya [another Vedic Sun god]. The Kassites dominated Babylon for 440 years (1595 – 1185) and the city was renamed Karanduniash.

In 1500 BC, we also had the Mitannis (wonder which god that name came from?) in Syria and northern Mesopotamia who cited Mithra and Varuna in a treaty and had kings with Sanskrit names. Mithra is only cited with Varuna in the Vedic tradition where they are always mentioned together. Varuna doesn’t exist in the Zoroastrian religion.

The Mitannis ruled northern Mesopotamia and Syria for about 300 years.

This is from a good Vedic researcher, Subhash Kak, of the University of Louisiana.

http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/zoro.pdf

The pre-Zoroastrian religion of Iran is clearly Vedic. Zarathushtra's innovation lay in his emphasis on the dichotomy of good and bad. But in details it retained the earlier structure of the Vedic divinities and their relationship as well as the central role of the fire ritual.....

I have summarized the evidence regarding the presence of the Indian religion in West Asia in the second millennium BC. This spread appears with the Kassites in 1750 BC in Mesopotamia who worshiped Surya [another Vedic Sun god] and later for centuries in the empire of the Vedic worshiping Mitanni.

These ruling groups represented a minority in a population that spoke different languages. Other Vedic religion worshiping groups were undoubtedly in the intermediate region of Iran which itself consisted of several ethnic groups including the Elamite and the Turkic.

The old Vedic religion survived for a pretty long time in corners of Iran. The evidence of the survival of the devas comes from the daiva-inscription of Khshayarshan (Xerxes) (ruled 486-465 BC) in which the revolt by the daiva worshipers in West Iran is directly mentioned.

So where does Zoroaster fit in with all this?

Unfortunately, there is some controversy over Zoroaster’s dates of which I won’t bore you here with the details, although you can read them here if you wish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

So the currently accepted date is between the 8th and 10th centuries BCE - in other words, a couple of hundred years after the Vedic Kassites. But this does tell us that the area was essentially Vedic (and even Zoroastrianism itself was a reformation of the Vedic tradition) and so that anything coming from that region could just as likely have a Vedic rather than Zoroastrian influence. In other words, that Mithra is identified with the sun (Vedic) could have easily spread from that region independently of a Zoroastrianism that didn’t know where to put him.

We know the Vedics had astrology. All the rites, rituals and ceremonies described in the four core books of the Vedas were dependent upon it. It’s just that the Vedas has been misdated to 1200 BC, when in fact it is probably at least 5,000 years old. So that’s why researchers assume that the Babylonians were first with astrology.

The Vedics also paid great attention – and still do – to the constellations, which they call ‘nakshatras’. This form of astrology is known as sidereal or jyotish as opposed to the tropical astrology that’s practised in the West.

Again, from Subhash Kak:

The Rig-veda describes the universe to be infinite. Of the five planets it mentions Brihaspati (Jupiter) and Vena (Venus) by name. The moon’s path was divided into 27 equal parts, although the moon takes about 27 1/3 days to complete it. Each of these parts was called a nakshatra.

Specific stars or asterisms were also termed nakshatras, and they are mentioned in the Rig-veda and Taittirıya Samhita, the latter specifically saying that they are linked to the moon’s path. The Rig-vedic reference to 34 lights apparently means the sun, the moon, the five planets, and the 27 nakshatras. In later literature the list of nakshatras was increased to 28. Constellations other than the nakshatras were also known; these include the Riksias (the Bears), the two divine Dogs (Canis Major and Canis Minor), and the Boat (Argo Navis).

Aitareya Brahmana speaks of Mrga (Orion) and Mrgavyadha (Sirius). The moon is called surya rasmi, one that shines by sunlight.

The constellations conjoined monthly with the circuit of the sun were traditionally represented as in the outer circle of Figure 3. The inner circle of this figure shows the five planets, the sun, the moon and its ascending and descending nodes. [Sorry, don’t have Fig 3].

The Satapatha Brahmana provides an overview of the broad aspects of
Vedic astronomy. The sixth chapter of the book provides significant clues.

Speaking of creation under the aegis of the Prajapati (reference either to astar or to abstract time) mention is made of the emergence of Asva, Rasabha, Aja and Kurma before the emergence of the earth. It has been argued that these refer to stars or constellations. Visvanatha Vidyalankara (1985) suggests that these should be identified as the sun (Asva), Gemini (Rasabha), Aja (Capricorn) and Kurma or Kasyapıya (Cassiopeia). This identificationis supported by etymological considerations. RV 1.164.2 and Nirukta 4.4.27 define Asva as the sun. Rsabha which literally means the twin asses are defined in Nighant.u 1.15 as Asvinau which later usage suggests are Castor and Pollux in Gemini. In Western astronomy the twin asses are to be found in the next constellation of Cancer as Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis. Aja (goat) is defined by Nighantu 1.15 as a sun and owing to the continuity that we see in the Vedic and later European names for constellations (as inthe case of the Great Bear) it is reasonable to identify it as the constellation Capricorn (caper goat + cornu horn).

Vedic ritual was based on the times for the full and the new moons,
solstices and the equinoxes. The year was known to be somewhat more than 365 days and a bit less than 366 days. The solar year was marked variously in the many different astronomical traditions that marked the Vedic world. In one tradition, an extra eleven days, marked by ekada´saratra or eleven-day sacrifice, were added to the lunar year of 354 days.

According to the Taittirıya Samhita, five more days are required over the nominal year of 360 days to complete the seasons, adding that four days are too short and six days are too long. In other traditions, gavamayana, ‘the walk of cows or intercalary periods,’ varied from 36 days of the lunar sidereal year of 12 months of 27 days, to 9 days for the lunar sidereal year of 13 months of 27 days to bring the year in line with the ideal year of 360 days; additional days were required to be in accord with the solar year.

The year was divided into two halves: uttarayana, when the sun travels
north, and daksinayana, when the sun travels south. According to the
Kauıtaki Brahmana, the year-long sacrifices began with the winter solstice,noting the occurrence of the summer solstice, visuvant, after six months.


Hope this helps.

[Ishtar]

Hi Forum Monk

I’ve just been through Ulansey’s book again, The Mithraic Mysteries, and my worst fears have been confirmed. There is no mention anywhere of India, the Vedas, the fact that Mithra was a Vedic god or that Zoroastrianism is a reformation of Vedism.

As I understand it, Ulansey also believes that there is no bull slaying story in the Zoroastrian literature, when we know that there is:

http://www.themystica.com/mythical-folk ... of%20.html

Neither does he mention the other, much older, bull slaying story that comes from that same area (Sumerian circa 3,000 BC) from the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is important, for the following reason:

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enki (Gilgamesh’s friend) kills the Bull of Heaven by wrenching off its head and shoulders. Ulansey doesn’t mention this story (leading one to believe that he doesn’t know it) but he has noticed this about the Roman Mithras:

“We find a number of monuments showing Helios (the sun god) kneeling before Mithras in a gesture of submission in the so-called ‘investiture scene’. In some of the scenes, Mithras is holding what looks like the shoulder or leg of an animal.”

So Ulansey notices this, but doesn’t make the connection with the Sumerian Bull of Heaven story. Neither does he pay any attention at all to the Zoroastrian bull slaying story or to the Indian Mithra. So what sort of a scholar is he?

I’m getting used to scholars and researchers having Indiaphobia, and I think I know why and what they're thinking, i.e:

1. it’s too difficult, and in any case
2. nothing of importance came into, and thus out, of India pre 1200 BC when the ‘tall, fair Aryans invaded/migrated from the north bringing the Vedas with them and civilising all those nasty little brown savages.'

The first point, I can sympathise with. It’s much easier to stick with Zoroastrianism. The stories are shorter and to the point; they don’t use so much metaphor and there is a clear understanding about what is good and what is evil. (which was Zoroaster's USP after all!).

But the second point is no longer acceptable. In the light of recent genealogical studies (no significant changes in India’s gene pool for around 10,000 years) plus the fact that archaeology has so far not been able to come up with any evidence (let alone proof) of any Aryan invasion/migration, I think it is now TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE to ignore India’s past, or to treat it as irrelevance to world history.

The archaeologist who discovered the (circa 3,000 BC) Harrapan culture in the Indus valley at the beginning of the 20th century, Alexander Cunningham, said this in his report:

“One thing that stands out clear and unmistakeable both at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa is that the civilisation hitherto revealed at these two places is not an incipient civilisation, but one already age-old and stereotyped on Indian soil, with many millenniums of human endeavour behind it. Thus India must henceforth by recognised along with Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt as one of the most important areas where the civilising processes of society were initiated and developed.”

What cannot be ignored is that the huge structures — such as the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro and a large reservoir at Lothal — would have required advanced knowledge of mathematics, especially geometry, to design and construct. And now that we know that it wasn’t the Arabs who invented maths, but the Indians who passed it to the Arabs, this should come as no surprise. But what some may not realise is that the term ‘mathematics’ is named after the ‘maths’ or monasteries where trainee Brahmin priests and monks learned the science of numbers from the Vedas.

And the fact that there is a “Great Bath” (known in India as a ‘ghat’) at all at Mohenjo Daro tells us that the citizens of that city practised Vedic purification rites, as that was (and still is in many Indian temples today) the ghat’s raison d’etre

I also believe that the great and the good who get to decide these matters should now drop this whole 1200 BC farcical date for the Rig-veda. It’s time – in fact, it’s well overdue. The date was originally decided by a British Raj Victorian Christian to fit after his imagined date for Noah’s Flood, and even he rejected his dating of the Vedas at the end of his life. Max Mueller said:

“Whether the Vedic hymns were composed in 1000, 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”

However, his original date of 1200 BC remains the official date and because of that, I believe, it throws the whole history of that area out of kilter, and has variously confused and put off no end of scholars and researchers, this Mithras story being a case in point.

Sorry for the rant! But it was either this, or go shout at the traffic!

[daybrown]

<2. nothing of importance came into, and thus out, of India pre 1200 BC when the ‘tall, fair Aryans invaded/migrated from the north bringing the Vedas with them and civilising all those nasty little brown savages.'>
I dont see anyone here claiming that.


<But the second point is no longer acceptable. In the light of recent genealogical studies (no significant changes in India’s gene pool for around 10,000 years) plus the fact that archaeology has so far not been able to come up with any evidence (let alone proof) of any Aryan invasion/migration, I think it is now TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE to ignore India’s past, or to treat it as irrelevance to world history.>
I dont see anyone with a credible claim to to know what that past is. The warm wet climate biodegraded all the organic matter, and the monsoons eroded away all but the most resistant stone & brick.

There's just not a lot to go on compared with the deserts further north that were so dry that plant pollens & residues, fabrics, leather, wood, etc, all survived for 4000 years or more.

Davis-Kimball, for instance, digging in the perafrost of the Altai, gets back Amazons that even have their tattoos preserved. She gets more out of one grave than you can get out of a whole city in India. People go where the goodies are, and if they thot there was such easy to get to loot to look at in India, they'd go there. Its not a deliberate effort to ignore India, there just isnt any money in it, and India has thousands of its own archaeologists to compete with for careers.

[Ishtar]

.. nothing of importance came into, and thus out, of India pre 1200 BC when the ‘tall, fair Aryans invaded/migrated from the north bringing the Vedas with them and civilising all those nasty little brown savages.'

I dont see anyone here claiming that.

I'm not talking about people on this forum, DB.

But the second point is no longer acceptable. In the light of recent genealogical studies (no significant changes in India’s gene pool for around 10,000 years) plus the fact that archaeology has so far not been able to come up with any evidence (let alone proof) of any Aryan invasion/migration, I think it is now TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE to ignore India’s past, or to treat it as irrelevance to world history.

I dont see anyone with a credible claim to to know what that past is.

That's my whole point. There is no evidence for an Aryan invasion. So why does the Club insist that there was one? And why do you insist that there were Aryans running all over Asia? There were many many tribes. But they weren't Aryans. And they didn't invade or migrate into India.

Please see the AIT thread to see why.....

[daybrown]

I dunno who the club is. I'm not a member of it. But I dont see the Aryan invasion idea promulgated on the usenet archeology list either.

what I do see are reports, like the National Geo's "China's Secret Mummies" or Davis-Kimball on the Altai Amazon graves show us people who seem to fit the classic Aryan model- white skin and fair hair, and while the Taklamakhan and Altai are not "all over Asia", its far enuf away from Nazi Germany to make people rethink the whole thing.

Ever since Sykes, "The Seven Daughters of Eve" reported that there's only 7 mtDNA lines in Europe, its beginning to dawn on people that the Aryans were not the sons of great warriors, but the children of fecund goddesses. What was different about the Aryans was not the 60 Y chromosome lines, many of which are also found in the Levant and India, but this white skinned maternal lineage. And I can see why a culture led by white women would not be interested in adding dark skinned airheads to the gene pool, whereas that's never been a problem with patriarchies.

They cant keep it in their pants.

[Cognito]

“Whether the Vedic hymns were composed in 1000, 1500 or 2000 or 3000 BC, no power on earth will ever determine.”

However, his original date of 1200 BC remains the official date and because of that, I believe, it throws the whole history of that area out of kilter, and has variously confused and put off no end of scholars and researchers, this Mithras story being a case in point.

The following article discusses satellite images of the Saraswait River.

http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifa ... -myth.html

As lifted from the article: The great Saraswati that flowed "from the mountain to the sea" is now seen to belong to a date long anterior to 3,000 BCE. This means that the Rig Veda describes the geography of North India long before 3,000 BCE. This is further supported by the fact that the Drishadvati river, also described in the Rig Veda, had itself gone dry long before 3,000 BCE. All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than 3,500 BCE.

Looks reasonable.

[Ishtar]

And I can see why a culture led by white women would not be interested in adding dark skinned airheads to the gene pool, whereas that's never been a problem with patriarchies.

They cant keep it in their pants.

You really don't understand women much, DB.

Speaking as a fully self empowered cyberwarrior white woman. I would have absolutely no objection to a few 'dark skinned airheads' being scrubbed and brought to my tent.

[Ishtar]

All this shows that the Rig Veda must have been in existence no later than 3,500 BCE.[/b]

Looks reasonable.

We've got more on this on the AIT thread, Cogs, if you're interested.

[daybrown]

And I can see why a culture led by white women would not be interested in adding dark skinned airheads to the gene pool, whereas that's never been a problem with patriarchies.

They cant keep it in their pants.

You really don't understand women much, DB.

Speaking as a fully self empowered cyberwarrior white woman. I would have absolutely no objection to a few 'dark skinned airheads' being scrubbed and brought to my tent.

I was talking about breeding the airhead females. Who you choose to have on hand for your personal pleasure is a whole different thing. The attitude of the alpha males has always been that the womb was no more than the room for their seed to grow.

Conversely, when a woman selects a sperm donor, she knows that the resulting progeny will most often be "Just like his father" in terms of attitude and looks. But we all now recognize that more of the smarts are hers. Nevertheless, since she can only bear so few, whereas he can, with control over enuf women, sire so many, she must be much more choosy.

The sons of the king all inherit his drive to dominate, but they didnt inherit his smarts from their airhead mothers to actually succeed at it. Matriarchy dont have the problem; the queen is much more selective in who will sire the next queen. We see the kind of stud muffin bodhisattavahs the Kuchan queens produced; but when it came time to defend the city from the Mongols, they were not worth much.

Today, however, the brave heart, strong right arm, sword in hand, no longer cuts it, and the next matriarchy will have the lessons of history from places like Kucha to consider.

i wonder if anyone has considered that the sea the Rig Veda refers to was the Caspian. There was a later time, when the Vikings traded from the Caspian all the way to the Baltic, and thence across to Greeenland. As a result, that race of men got exposed to more diseases than any other, and has the DNA markers on their immune systems to prove it.

So- who women take to their tents is one thing, but when they consider bearing children, they will want those who can travel the globe with the most robust immune systems. Only if they intend for progeny to live in a tropical zone would they want a line with the sickle cell or other such markers.

we now know the Amazons existed, but nobody yet has tried to consider the kind of culture and mating choices they made. I've seen some facial reconstructions that frankly look pretty ugly by today's standards.

[Ishtar]

I knew I shouldn't have said anything.

[Ishtar]

I think we have now established that the Roman god Mithras came from the Vedic god Mithra, admittedly via an uncertain route.

Assuming that we agree on that, perhaps it might be a good idea to go on to explore all the other Jesus-type myths that permeated the ancient world and to look at their similarities and to ask the question: why were these stories of the dying and resurrecting Godman/Goddess all so similar? Was it just because it was a good rattling yarn, even though there's no shoot 'em up at the end? Or was it for another reason.

I notice that there are about a hundred people viewing this thread, so if any of you would like to explore these ideas further, please let me know, and I'll start another thread on it.

Thanks.

Ishtar xxx

[Minimalist]

Neither does he mention the other, much older, bull slaying story that comes from that same area (Sumerian circa 3,000 BC) from the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is important, for the following reason:

Can't recall where I read this, Ish, but all of this bull stuff seems to date to the Age of Taurus (c. 4400-2200) BC. Lots of bull worshipping going on in Crete and Egypt (among others) in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages.

[Ishtar]

Yes. That was Ullansey's conclusion, that the myth was based upon the turning of the ages, from Taurus to Aries, thus Perseus slaying the bull. There is also some evidence of bull horns turning to rams horns in the headgear worn by shamans/priest types/icons in the Celtic tradition. I'll look it up later.

[Minimalist]

Robert Bauval made an issue out of the fact that an "equinoctal marker" as he thinks the sphinx is, carved in the shape of a lion would be more appropriate to the Age of Leo than the Age of Taurus.

It's an interesting idea.....and then Schoch comes along and says that erosional evidence proves the sphinx is much older than dynastic Egypt.

Curious.