The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c8.26

v1.c8.26

We are compelled therefore to content ourselves in the main with internal evidence. There is, however, one point of interest arising from the discoveries at Boghaz-Köi,¹ where among gods invoked by the King of the Mitanni are found names suggestive of the gods Mitra, Varuṇa, Indra, and the Nāsatyas, i. e. the two Açvins, who often bear that name or epithet in the Rigveda. The existence of these gods seems, therefore, established for a period which may be placed about 1400 B.C., but unfortunately there is nothing in the record to show decisively whether these gods are to be regarded as the gods of an Aryan people, no clear separation of Iranian and Indian yet having taken place, or of the proto-Iranians, or of the proto-Indians. From the names of kings of the Mitanni preserved in the Tell-el-Amarna letters,² it has been deduced that there were proto-Iranian elements among the Mitanni, and this possibility is not to be denied, though it is at least certain that the people were not a pure Aryan race. But in view of its uncertain value no direct light can be thrown on the age of the Rigveda either in its earliest or its latest form. *A priori* it is clear that the gods must have existed before the hymns, and there is nothing special about the grouping of the gods as found at Boghaz-Köi which would justify us in holding that the pantheon had by that time assumed the definite form which it takes in the Rigveda, and that the Rigveda must then have existed. Still less importance attaches to the occurrence of a name like Šuriaš (perhaps Sūrya, the sun) in Kassite records, which leads Meyer to the conclusion that the Kaššū were originally settled in Media and driven west by Aryan tribes.¹