Namaste Everyone,
As you may know, the Vedas describe a conflict between two groups of humans: the Aryas and the Dasas/Dasyus/Panis.
My previous post was about the identity of these groups. According to the Vedas, the Dasas lived in tripura (forts containing 3 circular walls). These forts do not match the structure of Indus Valley cities, which have a rectangular layout. Instead, they matched the cities of a previously-unknown civilization called the "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex".
In other words, the Dasas were the inhabitants of the BMAC.
This post will focus on their religious beliefs. On page 370 of the book The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Asko Parpola writes:
As you may know, the Vedas describe a conflict between two groups of humans: the Aryas and the Dasas/Dasyus/Panis.
My previous post was about the identity of these groups. According to the Vedas, the Dasas lived in tripura (forts containing 3 circular walls). These forts do not match the structure of Indus Valley cities, which have a rectangular layout. Instead, they matched the cities of a previously-unknown civilization called the "Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex".
In other words, the Dasas were the inhabitants of the BMAC.
This post will focus on their religious beliefs. On page 370 of the book The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Asko Parpola writes:
In other words, the enemies of the Rgvedic Aryans were Shakti worshippers who engaged in Tantric sex.The word tripura has important religious implications. I shall only briefly deal with the religion of the BMAC, which I have examined elsewhere (Parpola 1988: 251-264; also Parpola 1992, 1993, in press). There is widespread evidence for the worship of a goddess connected with lions (for a new BMAC seal with this motif see Sarianidi 1993c), ultimately going back to the traditions of the ancient Near East. Connections with the later Indian worship of Durga, the goddess of victory and fertility escorted by a lion or tiger, the protectress of the stronghold (Durga), are suggested by several things. The ground plan of the Dashly-3 “palace” is strikingly similar to the Tantric mandala (Brentjes 1981; Brentjes 1986: 234; Brentjes 1987: 128f.), the ritual “palace” of the god or goddess in the Hindu cult. A Bactrian seal depicting copulating pairs, both human and animal, reminds one of the orgies associated with the principal festival of the goddess. Wine is associated with the cult of the goddess and may have been enjoyed from the fabulous drinking cups made from silver and gold found in Bactria and Baluchistan, for viticulture is an integral part of the BMAC (Miller 1993: 151, 154). Durga is worshipped in eastern India as Tripura, a name which connects her with the strongholds of the Dasas. Of course, the Sakta tradition of eastern India is far removed from Bactria and the Dasas both temporally and geographically. But the distance between these two traditions can be bridged by means of Vedic and Epic evidence relating to Vratya religion and archaeologically by the strong resemblance between the antennae-hilted swords from BMAC sites in Bactria and the Gangetic Copper Hoards (c. 1700-1500 BC). The linguistic data associated with the Dasas also link them with the easternmost branch of Middle Indo-Aryan, the Magadhi Prakrit. The age-and-area principle of anthropology suggests that the earliest wave of Indo-Aryans was the first to reach the other end of the Subcontinent.
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