The True Identity of the Dasas-- Part II

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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:

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.

In other words, the enemies of the Rgvedic Aryans were Shakti worshippers who engaged in Tantric sex.

 

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In other words, the enemies of the Rgvedic Aryans were Shakti worshippers who engaged in Tantric sex.

And that wasn't all that they were doing. On page 176 of The Strange World of Human Sacrifice, Asko Parpola writes the following:

A lion-escorted martial goddess imported from the Near East is depicted on the seals of the “Bactria and Margiana Archaeological Complex” (=BMAC) of the Bronze Age (c. 2500-1500 BC) in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan; she apparently kept her Sumerian name Nana(ya) for two millennia, as her counterpart worshipped in Afghanistan in Kusana times was so called, and is worshipped in Afghanistan even nowadays as “Bibi Nanni”. This BMAC culture interacted with the Indus Civilization, and may be a principal source of the “Gangetic Copper Hoards”. A BMAC-type cylinder seal from the Harappan site Kalibangan bears an Indus inscription and a tiger-escorted goddess in the midst of two warriors spearing each other. Vedic texts show Vac (“Voice, Speech&#8221 as a goddess of war identified with the lioness and connected with the Vratyas. The Vedic vratyastomas were performed before and after raiding expeditions, and closely resemble the later Hindu navaratri festivals of Goddess Durga, which involve sexual license and feasting with the meat of many different sacrificial animals. The Vedic lists of “unclean” animals (to be released) agree with Puranic lists of victims pleasing the goddess; in both cases, a human victim as the most appreciated offering heads the list.
Excavations at the BMAC site Dashly-3 in northern Afghanistan brought to light a palace with the layout of a Tantric mandala and a temple-fortress surrounded by a moat and three concentric circular walls. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Rgvedic Aryans encountered an inimical people, called Dasa, whose chief Sambara had in the mountains “autumnal forts” (saradi pur), possibly venues of the autumnal navaratri festival, like the fortress called Sar(a)di in Kashmir. Many of the goddess’s names (Durga, Kottavi, Tripura-sundari) designate her as the guardian of the fortress (durga, kotta, tripura).

There are at least three conclusions that we can draw from this data:

• The Hindu goddess Durga is none other than the Sumerian goddess Inanna (who is referred to in the Bible as "The Whore of Babylon");
• She was worshipped by the enemies of the Rgvedic Aryans; and
• Her cult involved sex, violence, and alcohol consumption.