The Problem Of Aryan Origins

Chapter Four

The Mitanni Documents and Rigvedic India

The indubitably cultural import of some frequent Rigvedic terms, which might superficially convey a racial shade, leads us to make light of whatever non-"Aryan" components there were in the population of the Indus Valley Civilization. A fair critical case is created for considering, on the strength of the "Aryan" component, that the Rigveda may have been anterior and not, as generally believed by West-influenced scholars, posterior to the Harappā Culture. But here the Mitanni documents with their Indo-Irānian-looking nomenclature and language come into the picture. Since there lies behind them the presence of Aryan rulers, whose first identified member dates back to c. 1480 B.C.¹ and who appear to have colonized a part of Mesopotamia at about the same time as the Aryans are said to have invaded India, a background other than India has been conjured up for the Rigveda - a background of common life abroad with the people who later became the Irānians. But here is an error which should have been laid at rest long ago

It is well known that in the treaty between the Hittite king Shubiluliuma and the Mitanni ruler Mattiwaza (= Sanskrit Mativāja, "Victorious through prayer"), son of Dusratta, the latter invokes his gods as witnesses of the treaty, in the formula: Hani mi-it-tra-as-si-il Hani u-ru-wa-na-as-si-il ilu inda-ra Hani na-sa-at-ti-ia-an-na.

Obviously, we have in this formula the Rigvedic deities Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra and the Nāsatyas, an alternative name for the heavenly twins, the Aświnas. Particularly with the extant variant a-ru-na for u-ru-wa-na the Rigvedism hits the eye at once. We may also note that the determinative "god" in the plural (ilani) precedes each of the two names Mitra and Varuṇa. The purpose of this plural determinative could

1. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq (A Pelican Book, Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 229.

Page 31

have been only to suggest that these names formed a Dvandva compound - exactly as in Rigvedic Sanskrit.

In the Mitanni Kikkuli's manual of horse-breeding the rulers of the Mitanni are said to practise chariot-racing, a favourite sport mentioned in the Rigveda, and are called maryanni which can be equated to the Rigvedic mārya meaning "a young hero." Kikkuli also uses numerals like aika, tera, panza, satta and the word vartanna for each "turning" round the course. The numerals are very near to Sanskrit, and the word for "turning" is akin to the Sanskrit vartanam.

On the face of it, Rigvedic culture appears to have sent an offshoot to Mesopotamia, in conformity with what the Purānas tell about Aryan migrations from India. Whatever differences there may be from Sanskrit seem to be due solely to the inadequacy of the Akkadian syllabary employed by the Hittites. But several scholars have taken another view.² They see in the numerals an archaic Indo-Irānian dialect pointing to a language outside India and preceding Rigvedic no less than Gāthic In support of their contention they have directed our gaze to the clay-tablets of about the same period, with Babylonian cuneiform script, discovered at El-Amarna in Egypt. These tablets list numerous dynasts ruling in Syria with names such as Artamanya, Arzawiya, Yasdata, Suttarna. We hear too of Namyawaza, Biridaswa, Swardata, Abiratta, Artadama and Artasumara. It is claimed that in these Indo-Irānian-looking names no specifically Indo-Aryan or Irānian feature is perceptible. The inference is drawn that there existed in Mesopotamia archaic Indo-Irānian speech-forms which are undoubtedly older than the oldest Avestan or Sanskrit known to us and must have their ultimate provenance beyond both Irānian and Indian territories.

Unfortunately for this inference, most of the strange appellations have been reduced to their Sanskrit counterparts:

2. E.g., B.K. Ghosh, "The Aryan Problem", The Vedic Age, pp. 204-05.

Page 32

Artasumara = Ritasmara, "remembering the divine law."

Artadama = Ritadhaman, "abiding in the divine law."

Abiratta = Abhiratha, "owner of a superior chariot."

Swardata = Svardata, "given by Heaven."

Biridaswa = Brihadashwa, "possessing great horses."

Namyawaza = Namya-vāja, "one who owns a glorious prize."

Suttarana = Sudharna, "very strong."³

We may without hesitation assert that hardly any of the Indo-Irānian-looking names fall outside Sanskrit to raise the presumption of a possible origin outside India for the ancestors of the Rigvedic seers.

Actually a sharp direct consideration of Kikkuli should suffice to invalidate such a presumption. Pusalker aptly remarks that "the words do not exhibit the changes which distinguish Irānian from the Indian forms, indicating that the words were borrowed either from the Indians or from their ancestors before bifurcation into Indians and Irānians."⁴ Pusalker, while not negating a possible common Indo-Irānian ancestry outside India, is at least clear in ruling out specific Irānian roots and in positing the possibility of specific Indian ones. Gordon Childe goes even further: "The numerals are distinctively Indian not Irānian; aika is identical with the Sanskrit eka, while 'one' in Zend is aeva. So the s is preserved in satta where it becomes h in Irānian (hapta) and the exact form is found, not indeed in Sanskrit, but in the Prakrits which were supposed to be post-Vedic."⁵

Coming to the most important document, the treaty, we may adduce as settling the whole issue a masterly examination of it by Paul Thieme.⁶ His article helps to link the son of

3.Selected from R.A. Jairazbhoy, Foreign Influence in Ancient India (Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1963), pp. 14-15.

4."Cultural Interrelation between India and the Outside World before Asoka", The Cultural Heritage of India, I, p. 148.

5.The Aryans (London, 1926), p. 19.

6."The 'Aryan' Gods of the Mitanni Treaties", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 80, No. 4, October-December 1960, pp. 301-17.

Page 33

Dusratta (= Sanskrit Dasaratha) straight to the Rigvedic religion instead of an Indo-Irānian one from which the Rig-veda and the A vesta would be derivatives. His findings in brief are:

(1)The Avesta has no combination corresponding to the "Mitra-Varuṇa" of the Rigveda and of the Mitanni document, nor even a god Varuṇa. So we cannot reconstruct a similar Indo-Irānian or what Thieme terms Proto-Aryan form. The Avesta has "Mithra-Ahura". As the Rigveda also has "Asura" as counterpart of the Avestan "Ahura" and uses it at times together with "Mitra" (and "Varuṇa"), the Proto-Aryan combination would logically be "Mitra-Asura". The Mitanni document's combination is therefore strictly Rigvedic.

(2)The Rigvedic adjective vrtrahan which is at times applied to several gods is mostly applied to Indra to denote the enemy-smashing or victorious power he brings to the help of these gods. This word is represented by two different forms in the Avesta, one an adjective "verethragan" for the Winds and the other the name of a god "Verethragna". The Avesta's Indra is not of the Rigvedic type, he has been converted into a demon, but Verethragna who helps the other gods is his equivalent, personifying enemy-smashing or victory. So we cannot postulate for Proto-Aryan a god corresponding exactly to Indra vrtrahan. We can only postulate a god Indra and another god Vrtraghna personifying enemy-smashing or victory and finally an adjective "vrtraghna" answering to the Rigvedic and Avestan adjectives and applicable not only to the god Indra but also to other gods. The helpful vrtrahan-function predominantly though not exclusively given in the Rigveda to Indra cannot be considered as special to the Proto-Aryan Indra: it should belong to Vrtraghna himself. Hence the Indra of the Mitanni document, who comes effectively to the help of the other gods, is purely Rigvedic.

(3)The Avesta knows of just one Nāsatya (Naonhaitya). A single Nāsatya is known also to the Rigveda (IV. 3, 6).

Page 34

Once the Rigveda forms the combination "Indra-Nāsatya" (VIII. 26, 8), which can only mean "Indra and (one) Nāsatya". The Avesta too has a similar formation (Vendidad, 10, 9). But the Rigveda knows, in addition, of two Nāsatyas: most commonly its Nāsatyas are dual. So the Proto-Aryan form must be that in which the Rigveda resembles the Avesta: Proto-Aryan must have no more than one Nāsatya. And the dual Nāsatyas of the Mitanni document cannot but be altogether Rigvedic.

(4) All the gods named in this document in connection with a treaty are said in the Rigveda to protect treaties, even the two Nāsatyas though these only occasionally. Their connection with speech or verbal expression can be shown once as occurring even in the same order: Mitrā-Varuṇa, Indra-Agni, Aśvinā (= Nāsatya) (X. 125, 1bc): "I (Speech) carry ('support, nourish' or 'bear [in my womb]'?) both Mitra and Varuṇa, I [carry] Indra-Agni, I [carry] both the two Aśvinas." The combination of Agni with Indra is, of course, due to the wish to create a grammatical parallelism among the three as dual.

Thieme's conclusions enable us to assert that the rulers of the Mitanni were essentially Rigvedic in culture. We do not have to think that the Indo-Aryans developed from those who, before moving into India, lived in some extra-Indian territory with those who later became the Mitanni monarchy in Mesopotamia. What we have to think is that the Maryanni were an offshoot of Rigvedic culture - though not necessarily contemporaneous with the Rigveda - from a place where Irānian elements might mingle with Indian ones to account for certain Irānian traits as components of royal names in the miscellaneous group of Aryan peoples whom we find in Western Asia soon after 2000 B.C. - traits like "bugash" (Irānian "baga") or perhaps even "arta", though, as Keith observes, "in Mitanni script it was impossible to reproduce Rta correctly".⁷ The place in question could very

7. "The Early History of the Indo-Irānians", R.G. Bhandarkar Commemoration Volume (Poona 1917), p. 90.

Page 35

well be on the borders of India neighbouring Irān.

Thus the Boghaz-keui documents pose no hurdle to our rejection of the invasion-theory and to our proposal to date the Rigveda to an antiquity greater than that of the Harappā Culture. But then the questions would come up: "Are there any reasons to place the latter before the former? If not, what is the relation of the two? Can we regard the Harappā Culture as linked to the Rigveda and as a natural phenomenon following in its wake, a civilization which, for all the Irānian, Sumerian and so-called Dravidian ingredients seen in it, would be basically Aryan?"

Page 36