Gherardo Gnoli Quotes
1937–2012 Italy
Gherardo Gnoli (6 December 1937 in Rome – 7 March 2012 in Cagli) was a historian of Italian religions and Iran expert.
Random Gherardo Gnoli quote
29 quotes
The only possible identification of Airyana Vaejah must point to the great Hindukus mountain range.
All this gives Sistan a central role regarding the origins of Zoroastrianism, as it is almost presented to us as the Zoroastrian land par excellence.
This would probably be the first known case of transposition from east to west of a sacred place in the Zoroastrian tradition...
As a matter of fact all this is due to a persistent effort to make accounts work out at all costs according to the logic of a pre-established plan.
The geographical framework of Vd. I is entirely that of eastern Iran.
Muza recalls the Sanskrit Mujavant, to be located in a region between the Hindu Kush and the Pamir.
Mount Hara, which in Iranian cosmography is the counterpart of Mount Meru in Indian cosmography, is clearly identifiable in the Mihr Yast with Paropamisos, Para-uparisaina.
The first chapter of the Vendidad seems to give considerable support to a theory that attempts to reconstruct an active presencce of the Iranian tribes .... in territories such as eastern Iran...
This is one of the regions in our geographical horizon that probably witnessed the origins of Zoroastrianism: Sistan, and more precisely, the basin of the Hamun-i Helmand.
“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”. ...
Zoroastrianism was born on a cultural and religious ground that is several centuries, even millennia old...
Such religious thought was formed... in the central and southern zones of the eastern Iranian world...
The idea of a Turanian, or Scythian, or Chorasmian period of Zoroastrianism... should thus be definitely rejected.
The Hilmand region and the Hamun-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ...
Varena was identified by Henning with Buner, the Varnu of the Mahāmāyūrī.
And so we may conclude that Beneviste's theory, according to which... gave proof of the identity of Airyana Vaejah and Chorasmia ... is quite unacceptable.
The only Ariana we know is Strabo's Ariana, whose Geography describes its limits precisely: to the east the Indus, to the south the Arabian Sea, and to the west an irregular line...
There are no convincing arguments, whether historical or archaeological ones, for such an hypothesis. The archaeological arguments are not at all convincing... The historico-philological arguments are not convincing either.
An hypothesis based on the comparison of Avestan and Vedic evidence appears to be much more convincing. ... There can be no doubt that in some cases the places or rivers are in effect the same.
In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, groups of states were present on the western and southern margins of this territory, while Chorasmia was inhabited by populations living mainly by subsistence economy.