Talk:Proto-Indo-Iranian religion

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There are more examples:

iranian Mah and sanskrit Mas (moon) iranian Rashnu and sanskrit Vishnu

else the iranian "Tvashtar" was Tashan and not Tishtrya/Tir.

[edit] Proto-Indo-Iranian Religion

This article rushes to conclusions and is biased towards a heavy-handed, simplicistic type of historic materialism Engels used to employ when her spoke about religions arising from fear of thunder and lightning and humans developing from monkeys. I cannot offer a better text for the time being as much preliminary research would have to be conducted for which I have neither the time nor the means yet. I can warn the readers, though, that the existing article should be taken with a grain -- nay, a handful -- of salt.

   Ligia Luckhurst83.67.148.205 07:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reversal of positive and negative divinities

There's no mention that in Avestan daeva is negative and ahura positive, while in Sanskrit deva is positive and asura negative (roughly speaking)... AnonMoos 16:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

First, with respect to religion, its not appropriate to compare languages - one has to compare texts. In an Indo-Iranian context, the comparison is between the Vedas (the RigVeda in particular) and the Old Avestan texts (the Gathas and the Yasna Haptangaiti). Sanskrit was a living language well into the common era, and the ideas expressed in classical Sanskrit are far removed from those of the Vedas.

Second, ...

• "there's no mention that in Avestan daeva is negative" is a generalization only applicable to the post-Gathic texts. In the Avesta daeva always has a negative connotation and ahura always has a positive one. That daeva in Zoroastrian tradition does not have quite the same meaning as in the earliest texts is a different matter: In Zoroaster's revelation (which are Old Avestan texts), the daevas are wrong gods, or false gods, or gods that should not be followed, but they are not per-se evil entities as they are in the later texts (e.g. the Vendidad)
• Likewise, "in Sanskrit deva is positive and asura negative" is a generalization only applicable to the newest Sanskrit texts. In Vedic cosmogony, the asuras are the older gods while the daevas are the younger ones. The older gods preside over moral phenomena, while the younger ones preside over physical ones (i.e. the younger gods are identified with aspects of the created universe). In the RigVeda there is still a distinction between asuras, devas, and asuras-who-became-devas. In the post-Vedic but older Sanskrit texts, an asura is a non-daeva, or one in conflict to the daevas. The assignation of "bad" to asura is only evident in the very newest texts.

-- Fullstop 08:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)