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Document Details : Title: Pre-proto-Iranians of Afghanistan as initiatiors of Śākta Tantrism Subtitle: On the Scythian/Saka affiliation of the Dāsas, Nuristanis and Magadhans Author(s): PARPOLA, Asko Journal: Iranica Antiqua Volume: 37 Date: 2002 Pages: 233-324 DOI: 10.2143/IA.37.0.126 Abstract : Some fundamental ideas elaborated here were presented for the first time in 1988 in a paper entitled ‘The coming of the Aryans to Iran and India and the cultural and ethnic identity of the Dāsas’. Briefly stated, I suggested that the fortresses of the inimical Dāsas raided by Ṛgvedic Aryans in the Indo-Iranian borderlands have an archaeological counterpart in the Bronze Age ‘temple-fort’ of Dashly-3 in northern Afghanistan, and that those fortresses were the venue of the autumnal festival of the protoform of Durga, the feline-escorted Hindu goddess of war and victory, who appears to be of ancient Near Eastern origin. The Dāsas, I argued, were the élite of the BMAC or ‘Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex’, who had come from the Eurasiatic steppes and taken over the rule in this originally non-Indo-European speaking culture; the Dāsas were Aryan speakers, but represented a branch that had come to these parts earlier than the Ṛgvedic Aryans; and it was through this BMAC culture abounding in weaponry that the Aryan speech first spread from Central Asia to Iran and to India, where they introduced the Śākta Tantric religion. |
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