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Paper abstract:

Although our knowledge of the non-Sassanian/non-Persian Iranian religion(s) is incomplete due to the paucity of surviving (Zoroastrian) theological works of the various Eastern Iranian peoples, aspects can be recovered from archeological and numismatic evidence (e.g. Grenet 2006). But even this kind of data naturally only displays the beliefs of, e.g., the Bactrian and Sogdian elites who ordered coins to be minted and statues to be erected.

It is difficult to gather meaningful data about the pre-Islamic religions of those Eastern Iranians who have left no written traces in pre-Islamic Afghanistan. Nevertheless, it is possible to uncover a few specific features of the local pantheons by means of linguistic data.

In ancient ethno-religious communities, the everyday name of a natural concept was often also the name of the deity associated with it. For example, the Roman Luna, the Greek Σελήνη, the Egyptian jˁḥ, but also the Sogdian mʾx and Middle Persian mʾh stand for both the divine being and the moon as such.

In this respect, we can assume some Eastern Iranians worshipped a female moon deity, and not the male mʾx/mʾh, Avestan mā̊. The words for ‘moon’ in some contemporary languages are (at least originally) feminine: Munji yúmag/γo, yumáγika, Sanglechi wulmék, Wakhi ẓ̌əmak can be linked to Bactrian ϸομογο˚ and Sogdian ʾxšwm˚, both part of theophoric names (Sims-Williams 2010: no. 558). The words in question ultimately derive from an epithet *uxšma-(kā-/-kī-) ‘waxing, growing’, clearly referring to the moon. I argue that this epithet originally referred to a goddess *māsti- f., cf Khotanese māstä- f. ‘moon; month’, Pashto myāšt f. ‘month; (dialectal) moon’, Shughni mêst ‘moon’.

Pashto ẓ̌o, today an outdated exclamation used in oaths, derives from *zr̥wā ‘Zurvan’ (Morgenstierne 2003: 29), and suggests an important position of this deity among the pre-Islamic Pashto speakers.

These and other lexical vestiges provide us with a picture of the Iranian religion(s) in the Hindukush towards the end of the 1st millennium CE, on which I would like to elaborate in my talk.

References

Grenet, Frantz. 2006. “Iranian Gods in Hindu Garb: The Zoroastrian Pantheon of the Bactrians and Sogdians,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute, new series, vol. 20, pp. 87-99.

Morgenstierne, Georg. 2003. A New Etymological Dictionary of Pashto. Ed. by J. Elfenbein, D.N. MacKenzie, N. Sims-Williams. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reicher Verlag.

Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 2010. Bactrian Personal Names. Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.