The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c41.s1.23

v2.c41.s1.23

It appears impossible also to derive any results as to the age of the Rigveda or the Avesta from the discovery of Aryan elements in the speeches of Asia used in the Hittite Empire, Sumerian, Babylonian or Akkadian, Kanisian (Hittite), Luvian, Balāian, Charrian, Proto-Hittite, and that of the Manda.² That Indo-European elements of *centum* type may be traced in Kanisian and Luvian is quite natural in view of the obvious activity of the Indo-European tribes. More immediate value attaches to the evidence of the Aryan speech of the Manda tribes on the borders near Mitanni, to whose speech Forrer ascribes the names of Mitanni gods, which as pronounced he holds to have been Midrassil, Ur(u)vanassil, Nasattiyana, and Indar. The first three names are preceded by the determinative An (-Meš) which marks them as denoting groups of gods, which may as regards Mitra and Varuṇa serve as an indication of their being closely united. The variant Arunassil is regarded as due to influence by the Kanisian word *arunas*, ocean, a view interesting if it may be taken as indicating a connexion between Varuṇa and the ocean in the minds of the Manda tribes. As Manda also he classes the terms of horse-breeding and training found in a text emanating from a man of Mitanni; they include in his view, *aika-vartanna*, ‘one round’, *tēravartanna* or *tērōrtanna*, ‘three rounds’, *panzavartanna*, *sattavartanna*, *satvartanna*, *navartanni vasannasaya*, ‘in nine rounds of the stadium’, and *auzomēwa*, ‘run’, in which he sees the *-wa* of an infinitive termination comparable to Vedic *-mane* and *-vane*, drawing the further conclusion that in a period prior to the period of Indo-European speech unity there existed a spirant which in Kanisian became a *v* sound, in Greek and Luvian an *m* sound. This is much too speculative; what is clear is that the numerals are by no means Vedic and that they can be set down as Aryan with equal plausibility. We are, therefore, still left without any definite evidence to aid us in dating the distinction of Aryan into Iranian and Indian, and we should probably revise our conception of this division. In an area of considerable extent over which Aryan was spoken we may assume dialectical differences sprang up, accelerated in development by contact with different racial elements, and the fragments of Mitanni speech akin to Aryan found of late represent developments of what may conveniently be called Aryan, not either Iranian or Indian. This natural hypothesis removes the need of imagining movements back from India to the west, while the possession of some gods in common well accords with the Aryan character of the speech.