If anyone can make sense of #1180 please tag me. Ive a bottle of Johnny Walker as reward. I've tried AI too & the answer I received would make Hydrocele's posts seem more intelligent.
Reminds me of the Bhojpuri dub of Mission Impossible 3 - ∞ . At least in that case there was a lot lost in translation. Here there's a refusal to admit lack of even cursory knowledge of the said subject .
Just read up on the go & post on the go.
The Gathas were never written down till the Sassanid Empire somewhere between the 3rd -7th century CE . Even then there were plenty of issues as Alexander had burnt down Persepolis the capital of the Achaemenid Empire in the late 3rd century BCE when he invaded Persia.
With it was gone all the knowledge since that was the repository of high priests as like the Vedic people the Avestans were primarily an oral culture .
Whatever was salvaged in the form of the 17 hymns in 5 Gathas authored by Zoroaster were mere fragments of the the original. Nobody knows how much was lost as all those with such knowledge had long since disappeared.
The usage of Haoma / Soma in sacrifices was the contribution of the Bhrigus who were the priests of the Anu tribe the enemy of the Bharatas . Ditto the concept of fire sacrifice which is credited to the Bhrigus along with the Angiras who were the priests of the Bharatas.
Since at that time both tribes lived side by side these innovations were shared between them. Then came the schism. The Athravans of the Zend Avesta are the very same as the Bhrigu of the Vedas .
Incidentally not all Bhrigus sided with the Anu tribe in their war against the Bharatas. Hence not all of the Bhrigus accompanied the Anus in their emigration from what's India proper then.
Another factoid - the Atharva Veda is also known as the Atharvangirasah/Bhrgvangirasah - the latter compound name should give one an indication of the authorship of the Athrava Veda.
As I've stated before the Zend Avesta is considered to be a lost twin of the Atharva Veda where certain rituals & mantras not performed by the Vedics given the schism in the religion was observed & performed by the Avestan people & vice versa.
The Angra Mainyu or the destructive spirit in Zoroastrianism is thought by some to be Angiras though this isn't an unanimous opinion. Incidentally the conflation of Daevas as demons is a later development. In his Gathas Zoroaster merely refers to them as false or fallen Gods .
Lots of things to unpack in this fascinating episode . Unfortunately time is a constraint.
apnews.com
