Rig veda soma

श्रुति स्मृति पुराणां आलयं करुणालयं नमामि भगवद्पदं शङ्करं लोकशन्करं 🙏🪷
Adi Shankara, also known as Shankaracharya, is a remarkable Saint who gives a new meaning to the word “efficiency.”
He advanced the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, was a distinguished teacher, developed exceptional disciples, organized the Ten Orders of Sannyasa which are still in existence today, and wrote profound spiritual hymns for all of the deities!
A single thread of Dharma (His ideal of perfection) weaved through all of His actions, keeping Him focused on advancing Hinduism as He paved the way for the rest of us.
Whether we realize it or not, this great Sage has touched each and every one of us.
Shankarachya as an Enlightened Philosopher propounded Advaita Vedanta Philosophy. The core of Advaita Vedanta is the recognition of the unity of the Atman (the individual soul) with Brahman (the Supreme Divine Consciousness beyond all attributes). Shankaracharya was the first to consolidate the siddhānta (the “doctrine”) of Advaita Vedanta.
The word “advaita” means non-duality or no duality, and is often called a monistic system of thought.
It essentially refers to the identity of the Self or Soul (Atman) with the Whole of Creation, or the Universal Consciousness (Brahman).
Advaita Vedanta says that the one Unchanging Entity (Brahman) alone exists as the one reality and that changing entities do not have absolute existence.
This is much the same as the ocean’s waves, which have no existence separate from the ocean.
Advaita Vedanta can be summed up in this simple, yet sacred wisdom:
The world changes. Therefore, it is not Truth. It is an illusion of Truth. Just as when seeing a coiled rope, we mistakenly feel a sense of apprehension thinking that it may be a snake. In the same way, when we see the material world, we mistake it for reality.
When we realize that the rope is actually not a snake, we feel reprieve. In the same way, when we see that the material world is not Eternal, we realize God.
Shankaracharya as an Inspiring Leader conducted a Dig-vijaya (“tour of conquest”) for the propagation of Advaita Philosophy by debating all philosophies opposed to it.
He travelled throughout India, from South India to Kashmir and Nepal, preaching to the local populace and debating philosophy with Hindu, Buddhist, and other scholars and monks along the way.
Often He debated with the provision that the loser of the debates would become the disciple of the victor!
Of course, Shankaracharya won all the debates, because every religious philosopher was bound to agree with His initial thesis:
“Brahma satyam jagat mithyā, jīvo brahmaiva nā parah”
“God is the only truth, and the world which is perceived in time and space is false, an illusion, because it keeps on changing.
There is ultimately no difference between Brahman, the Supreme Divinity, and Atman, the individual soul.”
Once He could gain agreement to this initial thesis, all further debate was rendered useless discussion about transient phenomena in a temporary world of manifested existence, because only God is the Enduring Truth.
In this way He gathered His disciples, most prominent amongst which was: Hastāmalakācārya, Sureśvarācārya, Padmapādācārya, and Totakācārya.
He established monasteries in the North, South, East and West of India, all promoting this one principle teaching of Vedanta.
In the North He established Jyotirmatha Pītham under the direction of Totakācārya.
In the South He established Śārada Pītham under the direction of Sureśvarācārya.
In the East He established Govardhana Pītham under the direction of Hastāmalakācārya.
In the West He established Dvāraka Pītham under the direction of Padmapādācārya.
In doing so, He united all of India and infused it with Sanskrit culture.
Shankaracharya as a Distinguished Teacher proclaimed that from the four Vedas came forth four Mahāvākyas, which are simple statements that explain the True Knowledge of non-duality:
• From the Rig Veda: “Prajnanam Brahma” – The Wisdom of Nature is God • From the Yajur Veda: “Tattvamasi” – That is You • From the Atharva Veda: “Ayamatma Brahma” – This Soul is God • From the Sama Veda: “Aham Brahmasmi” – I am the Supreme Divinity
He authored devotional hymns to many of the Hindu deities, even while demonstrating devotion to His family. In order to promote unity among the various Hindu sects of those times, He wrote stotrams for each of the prime deities: Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu, Ganesh, and Surya.
The idea was that if you believe in God, you could chant any stotram, recognizing that Divinity resides in every form. Most of His songs were full of devotion to the principles of Vedanta and filled with humility and love for God:
“I am not the mind, nor the intellect, neither the ego nor the perceptions of Consciousness. I have no friend nor any comrade, neither a guru nor a disciple. I am the form of the Bliss of Consciousness, I am Shiva, I am Shiva.”
“I know nothing about meritorious behavior, nothing about spiritual pilgrimages, nothing about liberation, dissolution or any such matters. I know nothing about devotion, worship, or dedication to the Divine Mother. But Oh Divine Mother, you are my sole support, you are my sole support, and I take refuge in you alone.”
Shankaracharya wrote the Vivekacūdāmani, Prasthanatrayi, which are Bhashyas, or commentaries, on the ten major Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras, and the Bhagavad Gita.
In addition, He wrote famous devotional compositions such as Bhaja Govindam, in praise of Lord Krishna, a form of Vishnu; the Shivanandalahari, a devotional hymn in praise of Lord Shiva; the Soundarya Lahari, Gurustotram, Ganesha Pancharathnam, Lalitha Pancharathnam, Upadeśasāhasrī, and commentaries on various scriptures.
Shankaracharya as an Efficient Organizer, established the orders of Dasnami Sannyasis (ten orders of Sannyasa), according to the differing attributes of the various tribes:

1. Bharati – Full of Light
2. Giri – Live in the Mountains
3. Puri – Live in Cities
4. Saraswati – Scholars
5. Van – Live in Forests
6. Arañya – Live in Groves
7. Tirtha – Live in Pilgrimage Places
8. Parvat – Live in the High Mountains
9. Sagar – Live at the Ocean
10. Nath – Defenders of the Faith

From Shankaracharya I learned that the one Supreme Brahman, which is beyond all duality, is the absolute supreme goal. I learned to live with an understanding of the presence of Maya, as the illusion, which obscures that reality. Even though I can strive to realize that Supreme Beyond Manifestation, there is no contradiction in losing myself in devotion for all the branches of Divinity.
The purpose of religion is to remove all the walls, destroy the barriers, boundaries, which keep us bound by the Maya of attachments and identification. I can celebrate the different forms of religion without compromising the sincerity of my devotion. Like Shankaracharya, I also have written commentaries, translations, original hymns in various languages, for all the deities of Hinduism. Like Shankaracharya, I also have tried to share the majesty of non-duality, through sadhana with wisdom and devotion.
Behind the Temple at Badrinath is a shrine where Shankaracharya used to meditate. I used to sit in front of that shrine on a regular basis, for long periods of time. I had visited that shrine nine years in a row, and stayed for periods ranging from two weeks to two months. One day when I was in deep meditation, I saw a vision of Shankaracharya, and he spoke to me, saying: “No one can stay on top of the mountain. Either they do not find that for which they are searching, and they are required to return to care for the needs of the body; or they do find that for which they were searching, and they are required to return to share! Now is the time for you to return. You are authorized to teach!”
🙏🪷🌸
Jai Maa!
Hara hara shankar Jai jai shankar 🙏

Drawing parallels between Greek Mythology and Indian mythology is not something hidden from the World, we get to see the same King of Gods, who is God of thunder, lightning etc in many cultures.
But today I went into a different rabbit hole altogether, Shinto religion. I don't know how I ended up there but I was there after I was looking up words I found in Rig Veda.
Resemblance post buddhism is understandable but Shinto as far as we know is not connected to Hinduism directly, at least, but of course in ancient times some cultural exchange happened that is why this.
Some highlights:
Indra - Susanoo : God of thunder, storm and all of that.
But the above is very common in many cultures, what I found deep inside of Wiki pages related to Shinti religion is the following:
"Izanagi, wishing to see Izanami again, went down to Yomi, the land of the dead, in the hopes of retrieving her. "
It's not that just the name Yomi matches with Yama, but the description of that land is exactly what we know in Hinduism. The whole Yomi place's description is 1:1 match with the Yamalok. Like "an underworld", "once you go there, it is always almost impossible to return", "always in darkness". That's just brilliant!
This is just one thing I found that was quite obvious but I am looking for more and actually thinking of documenting this resemblance somewhere online for people to just get an overview of the similarities in names and stories in both cultures and decide for themselves what may have happened in the ancient past that resulted in so many cultures coming up with the same names of deities and place with slight variations due to regional language.

https://www.academia.edu/118834217
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Summarizing the sound changes within:
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Átri was also ejected from his mother (Speech) early, descended alone, and had a second birth from a pit in the earth (Houben 2010), of a type said to be hot (Śrauta-Sūtras). He was saved from this pit by the Aśvins (likely given strengthening food (offerings to the gods, as usual) and insulated in snow (to protect him from the heat or to allow him to exit?, possibly analogous to the idea that the womb protected embryos from the mother’s stomach)). In another myth, Átri saved the sun. These seem to show that Átri was a name for Mārtāṇḍa, or both Sun Gods with the same myths told of them. If so, the unclear etymology of Átri-would be ‘fiery? / Sun?’, from PIE *HaHter-s > Av. ātar-š ‘fire’, Skt. athr-, L. āter ‘*burnt > black/somber’. If *-Htr- > -thr- was regular in Skt., then -tr- here would be analogy from the nominative.
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The hot pit in the earth he was born from would then be a volcano, it was called arvīṣa- / ṛbī́sa- in Sanskrit, which has been seen by some as a non-IE loan (Kuiper) due to its apparently unnatural form. However, many native words in the Rig Veda also have alternation (for whatever reason), and based on the words for ‘volcano’ as ‘fire-mouth(ed)’ in later Indic (Hindi jvālāmukhī), the same type of compound would explain arvīṣa- as aruṣá- ‘red / fire-colored / glowing /sun / etc.’ + ās(án)- ‘mouth / face’ (either with dissimilation of ṣ-s > 0-ṣ or with later Skt. aru- ‘sun’). Since Skt. ās- came from PIE *HoHs- (L. ōs, ON óss ‘river mouth’), *-HHs(o)- > -īṣa- would appear in compounds, with many C- or n-stems > o-stems (Whalen 2024b). Since *-H- > -i-, it makes sense that *-HH- > -ī-. The alternation arvīṣa- / ṛbī́sa- needs to be explained whatever its origin, and either Middle Indic contamination or ṛbī́sa was borrowed from a related IIr. language that underwent the same changes (if one group not near volcanoes at the time). This would include the common merger of s / ṣ / ś, v / b, a > ǝ. Together:
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*
aru- + ās- < *HaHs-
aru+HHsó-
aru+īsó-
arv+īsó-
arvīṣa-
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or
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*
aruṣá- + ās- < *HaHs-
aruṣ+HHsó-
aruṣ+īṣó-
aru+īṣó- dissimilation
arv+īṣó-
arvīṣa-
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Skt. mārtāṇḍá- meant ‘mortal / man’ (Norelius) and was opposed to cows in a hymn. This would then be a very simple and generic name for the mythic ancestor of humanity. From this alone, since of his brother Garuḍá- / Garútmant- only Garútmant- has understandable IE cognates, it is likely contamination of a pair (like L. levis & gravis > *grevis) caused Garútmant- > *Garutāṇḍá- (if dissimilation of T-T occurred) or directly to Garuḍá- (depending on how extensive the original analogy was). Still, this depends on finding an origin for mārtāṇḍá- to be certain.
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If Mārtāṇḍá- was equivalent to Av. Gaya- Marǝtan-, whose story is very close to Mārtāṇḍá’s (Norelius 2020), could both their names be derived from a common source? IIr. *marta- ‘mortal’ (Skt. márta-s, Av. maša-, G. mortós / brotós << PIE *mer(H)- ‘die’) might have formed a compound *marta-Hnar- ‘mortal man’ ( < *H2ner- ‘strong? / brave? / warrior / man’). In this case, dissimilation of r-r in the strong stem would create *marta-Hnar- > *marta-Hna-, in the weak stem before C *marta-Hnr̥- > *marta-Hn- / *marta:n-, & in the weak stem before V possibly *marta-Hnr- > *marta:nr- > *marta:ndr- > *marta:nd-. With this, *marta-Hn- / *marta:n- > Marǝtan- (with either *marta:n- becoming nom. *marta:n with analogy or metathesis of *H (as in Kümmel)). Since loss of *r / *l occasionally causes retroflexion in Skt., I see no problem in *marta:ndr- producing a vrddhi adj. *ma:rta:ndrá- becoming Mārtāṇḍá- (possibly with meaning ‘a mortal’ >> ‘mortal / man / (family) of mortals / the father of the line of men’).
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Choke & Machoke (A. ṭṣ(h)oók & maṭṣoók) were 2 brothers (or father & son) who founded villages in Ashrit. According to local history (Liljegren 2009: 54-55), Choke son of Machoke was the ancestor of the (Palula/Achareta-speaking) people of Ashrit. There are different versions. According to Ahmad Saeed (Decker 1992: 71-72), they came from Chilas on the Indus River, lost a bid for leadership of their tribe, and they and their followers went west. According to documentation by Dr. Inayatullah Faizi (Liljegren 2009: 55), Choke was one of 3 brothers, the eldest of whom disputed his rule and was the winner of the power struggle; he sent (or forced) his younger brothers Choke & Machoke away (they parted along their travel). Choke gained control of the Ashrit Valley; the legend tells of several battles with the Kalasha. This resembles Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades (Zeus was usually called the youngest) dividing the rule of the world into Land, Sea, and Underworld, or the 3 founding Scythian brothers, only one of whom, Kolá-xaï-s ‘lord of the sun’, was worthy of the golden cup that came from the sky; his brothers Arpó-xaï-s ‘lord of water / lord of the deep’ & Lipó-xaï-s ‘lord of the earth’ also resemble this threefold division (Whalen 2024c).
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These names do not seem historical and there were also, “two villages, Awi and Riri in Oveer in northern Chitral, inhabited by descendants of Kachote, whose tale is very similar to that of Choke and Machoke” (Decker 1992: 72). That they were only legendary might be seen in Dooshi & Kanooshi / dúuši & kaṇúuši. According to a story by an old man from Puri (Liljegren 2009: 56), 2 brothers founded the village; they came (via Dogdarra in Dir Kohistan) from a place called dangeri phurúṛi (in Tangir Valley), which probably is the same as Phurori (shown on some maps). Their names are clearly related to Nuristani ‘older’ & ‘younger’ (Skt. kániṣṭha-, jyéṣṭha- ‘1st/chief / eldest brother’, Ni. düṣṭö´ ‘elder’). These might show a modern outcome (though analogy has changed both to end in -oke, as *Yemos > Remus with R-) of *martya-s. The variants Dk. Machun (in Hunza) & Dishil (in Nagar) would be from *ma(r)tya:n (very similar to Av. Marǝtan-). I do not know the origin of -il, but it’s possible that some language had jyéṣṭha- > *dyéṣṭha- > *dyéṣḷha- or that it is from yet another analogy (in a language in which kániṣṭha- had r \ l and metathesis, lik Kt. křaštá but > *kaštil or the like). Maybe with cognates:
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IIr. *martya-s > OP martiya-, Av. mašya- ‘man’, Kh. móš ‘human’, Dm. mač, *mæhčæ > Ka. mííš (`)
A. maṭṣoók ‘Machoke’, Machun
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*k^euk- >> Skt. śóka-s ‘light /flame’
A. ṭṣ(h)oók ‘Choke’
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For source of retro., compare Skt. śukrá- ‘white / pure’, Rom. šukar ‘beautiful’, Av. suxra- ‘luminous (of fire)’, *indra-ćukra- > Kalasha indóčik ‘lightning’. Others like Skt. šúcyati ‘shine / glare / burn’, śocyate ‘be purified’, Ben. chũci ‘ceremonial cleanliness’, B. šucO ‘pure’, Ks. ṣìṭṣ ‘clean’ show various (apparently irregular outcomes). Since Ks. ṣìṭṣ has no clear *-r-, maybe some š / ṣ alternation existed (also in Skt. kṣ : Dardic č(h) / ṭṣ(h)). If metathesis in *k^(e)uk-ro- > *ćr(a)uka- existed, it might spread by analogy, but I think this is unlikely. Together, these could again be from words for ‘man’ and ‘sun / bright’. Though only one set might resemble these by chance, 2 makes the theory more likely.
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Decker, Kendall D. (1992) Languages of Chitral. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, Volume 5
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Houben, Jan E. M. (2010) Structures, Events and Ritual Practice in the Rg-Veda: The Gharma and Atri's Rescue by the Aśvins
https://www.academia.edu/37664186
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Kümmel, Martin Joachim (2014) The development of laryngeals in Indo-Iranian
https://www.academia.edu/9352535
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Liljegren, Henrik (2009) The Dangari tongue of Choke and Machoke: Tracing the proto-language of Shina enclaves in the Hindu Kush
https://www.academia.edu/3849218
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Norelius, Per-Johan (2020) The divine miscarriage: Mārtāṇḍa, the sun, and the birth of mankind
https://www.academia.edu/98068042
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Whalen, Sean (2023a) Indo-European Divine Twins
https://www.reddit.com/mythology/comments/10op7nj/indoeuropean_divine_twins/
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Whalen, Sean (2023b) Greek part-animal gods and heroes
https://www.reddit.com/mythology/comments/10szo9s/greek_partanimal_gods_and_heroes/
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Whalen, Sean (2023c) Peter Zoller and the Serpentine Spirits
https://www.reddit.com/mythology/comments/12vnln1/peter_zoller_and_the_serpentine_spirits/
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Whalen, Sean (2024a) Gandharvá-s & Kéntauros, Váruṇa-s & Ouranós
https://www.academia.edu/115937304
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Whalen, Sean (2024b) Indo-Iranian *mn > *ṽn > mm / nn, *Cmn > *Cṽn > Cn / Cm, Indo-European adjectives in -no- and -mo- (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/118736225
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Whalen, Sean (2024c) Reclassification of North Picene (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/116163380
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puy_de_D%C3%B4me
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https://www.academia.edu/118848508
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A group of Indo-Iranian words from *piṇḍ-, of unclear origin, includes:
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Skt. píṇḍa-s ‘lump / ball / calf of leg’, Pkt. piṇḍyā-, Pl. píṇṇi ‘calf’, Pj. pinn ‘ball of rice or sugar’, pinn ‘ball of twine’, Kocī (dialect of West Pahāṛī) pinne ‘egg’, Np. pĩṛo ‘ball of flour’, Rom. pinró / punro ‘foot’, A. píṇi, Ni. püṇi Kv. püṇǘ, Kt. puṇá ‘calf muscle’, puṇú ‘kidney’, B. pilli ‘calves’
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Ni. punḍula- ‘roll’, Kv. puṇrá- ‘be encircled’, puṇrí ‘*round/*encircled > whole / entire’
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Kh. pinḍóru ‘round’, A. pinḍúuro, Kv. puṇráň, Ni. punḍura
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Ni. punḍrók ‘kidney’, puṇrík ‘bullet’, -puṇruk ‘cone’
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Skt. utpiṇḍita- ‘swollen up’
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Since the basic meaning seems to be ‘swell / swollen / round’ (with common but obviously secondary ‘round / lump > kidney / calf’), they seem related to Skt. páyate ‘swell’, pínvati ‘fatten / swell’, pīná- ‘fat’, pīpivás- ‘swelling’, pipiṣvant- ‘swollen / overfull / abundant’ << PIE *piH-. But where does -ṇḍa- come from? Turner only says that it might be non-IE, since a source in *piṃṣṭa is impossible. But is it? In:
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*da(H)k^-? > Go. tahjan ‘rend / pull / tear / tug’, G. dáknō ‘bite’, Skt. daṃśana- ‘biting’
*dank^-tro- ‘sharp’ >> Skt. daṃṣṭrikā- / dāḍhikā- ‘beard / tooth / tusk’, B. dāṛ ‘molar’, *ðāṛ > Lv. var ‘tooth’
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Dardic *mhaiṣal- ‘young ram’ > maísōlos, Kt. maṣél ‘full grown male sheep’, Kv. muṣála
*mhainṣḷa- > *mhainṣṭṛa- > *mhainḍhṛa- > Skt. meḍhra- / meṇḍha- / bheṇḍa-, Dardic *mhainḍhaṛa- > A. miṇḍóol ‘young male sheep’, Ti. mind(h)ǝl ‘male sheep’
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it is necessary that *-Nṣṭr- optionally become -ṇḍh- / -_ḍh(r)- (see Note (1) for more on meḍhra-, etc.). The cause seems to be shift of ṣ / x, as in *k^a(H2)po- > Skt. śā́pa-s ‘driftwood’, Ps. sabū ‘kind of grass’, Li. šãpas ‘straw / blade of grass’, *k^aṣpo- > Skt. śáṣpa-m ‘young sprouting grass?’ (2). It is possible that pínvati ‘swell’, in the process of forming *pínv-tra- ‘swelling’, underwent dissimilation of p-v > *p-z (or similar; if not to “fix” *-nvt-, this variant might have existed elsewhere first) to make *pínv-tra- > *pínz-tra- > *pínz-dra-. The path is not clear, since *-Nṣṭr- > -ṇḍh- / -_ḍh(r)- already has variants, whether -ṇḍ- is another or due to *vt or *zt instead of *xt is not clear.
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*vr̥tká-
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The shift in ‘swell / round’ > ‘kidney’ makes it likely that all these groups are related:
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PIE *w(e)rt- ‘turn / revolve / etc.’, Skt. vártate, Rom. boldel ‘turn’
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*varta- ‘circular object? / something made of metal?’, Pkt. vaṭṭa- / vaṭṭaya- ‘cup’, Np. bāṭā ‘round copper or brass vessel’
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*v(a)rtra- ‘round stone’, Skt. vr̥tra- ‘a stone’, Pj. vaṭṭā / baṭṭā ‘stone’, vaṭṭī ‘pebble’, Bhalesī (dialect of West Pahāṛī) baṭṭ ‘small round stone’, *vaRt > Km. waṭh, dat. waṭas ‘round stone’, Kh. bòxt \ boxt \ boht \ bohrt ‘rock / stone’, Ti. bar-, baṭ(h) ‘large rock’
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*vr̥tká- ‘round (object)’ > Skt. vr̥kká- ‘kidney’, Pa. vakka, Dardic *bhürṭka- > A. bhrúk, B. bukṛu, Kh. brùk, Iran. *vǝrǝθka- > Av. vǝrǝðka-, *virdga > MP gurdag
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These resemble another group for ‘kidney’ (which has many other Iran. loanwords), including Armenian. First, since the Arm. ending -mn / -wn is native, from *-mun < PIE *-mo:n, but is added to some words, which seems to include Iran. loanwords ending in *-á(:)- (so it might be so the accent can remain on the same V; no native words with the same final -á likely at the time):
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Iran. *pari-hištaH- >> Arm. paštawn ‘worship / service’, pl. paštamun-k‘
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*doH3to- > Skt. dātá- ‘given’, Av. dāta-, *dāθa- >> Arm. dahamun-k‘ ‘gift’ (*-Ht- > *-th- in Dardic, fem. *daṭhī > Id. díthĭ ‘given’, m. *daṭhō > A. dháatu ‘rich’, and Iran. had the same in *dheH1-to- > Av. dāθa- ‘according to established rules’, so it was either optional or often changed by analogy)
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if any word ends in -mn but has no clear etymology, a source in Iran. should also be considered. Since *tri- > *θri- > *hri- > *(ǝ)ri- > eri- in Arm., metathesis might create:
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Iran. *virθká- >> *θrikvá-mun > Arm. erikamn ‘kidney’, pl. erikamun-k’, *θrikwamǝn- > *t'irkwamǝl- > OGeo. tirk'umel-i, Geo. tirk'mel-i, Laz dirk^u
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Kartvelian alternated n / l, even m / v (just as Arm. here), and the same in another loan in -mel / -vel:
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Li. kùmstis ‘fist’, Iran. *muxšti-, Av. mušti- ‘fist’, Skt. muṣṭí-, *muRšti- > Kv. mřǘšt, Sa. mū́st
Skt. muṣṭikā- ‘handful’, *muRṣṭika >> (loan to Tibetan) Balti mulṭuk ‘fist’, *muxštiká- > Ni. mustik ‘fist’, >> (loan to Kartvelian, through Arm.?) *muxštiká-mǝn > Geo. mt'k'avel-, Svan k'amel ‘five fingers’, Laz mt'k'o
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This change of v > m in Svan and *r > n seems similar to other changes in loans like paršamangi / parševangi (Iran. >> *firašamarga- > Elam. pirrašam ‘peacock’, OGeo. paršamangi, Geo. parševangi OGr; Arm. siramarg (this one with confusion/merger)), as well as native changes. Other words greatly resemble this group:
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*mukšta / *mukšna > Ud. mïžïk, Mv. mokšna,*muxšti- > *mutšix- > Geo. mǰiγ-i ‘fist(ful)’
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The needed shift of *muxšti-, Av. mušti- is also seen in:
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*ya(x)st- > Av. yaxšti- ‘branch’, Skt. yaṣṭí- ‘stick/staff/perch/twig/post’
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*spek^ti- > Av. spaxšti- ‘vision’; *spek^to- > Av. spašta, Skt. spaṣṭá- ‘clearly perceived/discerned/visible’, L. spectus
​
​
In *θrikwamǝn- > *t'irkwamǝl- > OGeo. tirk'umel-i, that Arm. had -mn [mǝn] helps show that the Proto-Kartvelian *e was really a reduced V (ǝ or ï). This explains why *e > Geo. e but other Kartvelian a. This makes Kartvelian part of a large group of languages that had (or are reconstructed to have) an unbalanced V-system with no *e.
​
​
Notes
​
(1) origin of meḍhra- / bheḍra- (Whalen 2024a)
​
*maH2(y)- ‘bleat / bellow / meow’, Skt. mimeti ‘roar / bellow / bleat’, māyu- ‘bleating/etc’, mayú- ‘monkey?/antelope’, mayū́ra- ‘peacock’, Av. anumaya- ‘sheep’, G. mēkás ‘goat’, mēkáomai ‘bleat [of sheep]’, memēkṓs, fem. memakuîa ‘bleating’, Arm. mak’i -ea- ‘ewe’, Van mayel ‘bleat [of sheep]’
​
*maH2iso- ‘bleating’ > Indic *mHaiṣa- > Skt. meṣá- ‘ram / fleece’
​
*maH2ismon- > ? *mo:isimon- >> L. mūsimō, (m-m > m-f) *mūrifon- > Sardinian mufrone / mugrone / etc. > French mouflon ‘a kind of wild sheep’
​
Since mūsimō is likely a loan, based on simple geography, it could come from *maHiso- ‘bleating’, if Sardinian was inhabited by relatives of Sicels, who had *a: > o (Whalen, 2024d)
​
If *maH2ismon- > ? *mo:isimon- by *-ism- > *-isim-, then dissim. m-m > m-0 would allow an exact cognate for:
​
*maH2ismon- > *mHaiṣan- > Dardic *mhaiṣal- ‘young ram’ > maísōlos, Kt. maṣél ‘full grown male sheep’, Kv. muṣála
​
weak stem *maH2ismn- > *mH2aiṣṇ- > *mhainṣḷa- > *mhainṣṭṛa- > *mhainḍhṛa- > Skt. *meṇḍhra- / *mheṇḍra- ‘ram’ > meḍha- / bheḍa- / meḍhra- / bheḍra- / meṇḍha- / bheṇḍa-, Dardic *mhainḍhaṛa- > A. miṇḍóol ‘young male sheep’, Ti. mind(h)ǝl ‘male sheep’
​
maísōlos is found in the glosses in Hesychius for words from India, some of which are likely Gandhari or similar (due to the presence of Indian gándaros ‘bull-ruler’).
​
​
The relationship between these Skt. words (among others) is best explained as optional mh-dh > mh-d / m-dh or metathesis of aspiration, m-dh > *mh-d, then simplification of *mh > bh. The two sets:
​
meḍha-
meḍhra-
meṇḍha-
​
bheḍa-
bheḍra-
bheṇḍa-
​
allow a simple equation of:
​
meḍha- : bheḍa-
meḍhra- : bheḍra-
meṇḍha- : bheṇḍa-
​
in which each meḍha- is opposed *mheḍa- > bheḍa-, m-dh to bh-d, etc., which probably happened only once in in an older more complex form.
​
​
(2) ṣ / x, ṣp / xp (Whalen 2024b)
​
Skt. píppala-m ‘berry (of the peepal tree)’, pippala-s ‘peepal tree / kind of fig tree (Ficus religiosa), pippali- ‘long pepper’, piṣpala-
​
These might all be related to púṣpa-m ‘floweblossom’, with dissimilation of p-u. If so, why do most change ṣp > pp? It isn’t a matter of age, -pp- exists in the Rig Veda.
​
That it IS an old sound change might be shown by :
​
*k^aṣpo- > Skt. śáṣpa-m ‘young sprouting grass?’
*k^a(H2)po- > Skt. śā́pa-s ‘driftwood / floating / what floats on the water’, Ps. sabū ‘kind of grass’, Li. šãpas ‘straw / blade of grass / stalk / (pl) what remains in a field after a flood’, H. kappar(a) ‘vegetables / greens’ (Witczak 2002)
​
​
The alternation of ṣ / H2 / 0 and lack of any conditioning factor resembles my IE shift of H / s (Whalen, 2024c) in words like :
​
*maH2d- ‘wet / fat(ten) / milk / drink’ >>
​
*mad- > L. madēre ‘be moist/wet/drunk’
*mazd- > Skt. médas- ‘fat’, medana-m, OHG mast ‘fattening (noun)’
​
*maH2do-n- > *mand- > OHG manzon ‘udders’
*mazdo- > G. Dor. masdós, Aeo. masthós, Att. mastós ‘breast/udder’
​
*madHro- > G. madarós ‘wet’, Arm. matał ‘young/fresh’, Skt. madirá- ‘intoxicating’
*mazdHro- > Skt. medurá- ‘fat/thick/soft/bland’
​
​
If so, these would show that retroflex and uvular fricatives might have been (part of?) what caused s / ṣ / x / X. Either *xp > pp was also optional, or metathesis > *px > pp. It is also possible that *xp > *fp > pp was the path. If also for *sm / *xm, then :
​
Skt. túviṣmant- ‘powerful’, tuvī́magha- ‘giving much’
​
​
This might explain another word. Just as tuví- in tuvikūrmí- ‘powerful in working’ appears as túviṣ-mant- ‘powerful’ (likely the comparative), if turá- ‘strong/abundant’ also had compounds with *turiṣ-, then :
​
*turiṣ-H2po- ‘having a powerful hold/strength’ > turī́pa- ‘*strength/*virility > semen’
​
with the same shift as attested in :
​
vīryá-m ‘manliness?/strength/valoheroism / semen’
​
​
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (draft?) Offended as a Cook --and a Comedian : Armenian erikamun-kh 'kidneys, entrails'
https://www.academia.edu/40167620
​
Manaster Ramer, Alexis (2024, draft?) Arm erikanunkh Offended as a cook and as a comedian
https://www.academia.edu/118770159
​
Strand, Richard (? > 2008) Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: Lexicons of Kâmviri, Khowar, and other Hindu-Kush Languages
https://nuristan.info/lngFrameL.html
​
Turner, R. L. (Ralph Lilley), Sir (1962-1966) A comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan languages. London: Oxford University Press. Includes three supplements, published 1969-1985.
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/
​
Whalen, Sean (2024a) Artemis and Indo-European Words for ‘Bear’
https://www.academia.edu/117037912
​
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Three Indo-European Sound Changes (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/116456552
​
Whalen, Sean (2024c) Indo-European Alternation of *H / *s (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/114375961
​
Whalen, Sean (2024d) Reclassification of Sicel (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/116074387
​
Witczak, Krzysztof (2002) On the Etymology of Hittite kappar 'vegetable, a product of the garden'
https://www.academia.edu/9564074
​
https://en.wiktionary.org/
​

Mārtāṇḍa was the father of humanity in Vedic myth. Norelius considers his origin and Indo-European equivalents (Norelius 2020). He was the Sun-God as teacher (of culture, knowledge, farming, art, etc.), which is common enough, and this equation might bring more light to that role. Mārtāṇḍa sounds similar to ‘dead egg’, so it might have influenced his mythical origin (dead and/or abandoned at birth by his mother). The origin of the myth might be better understood by looking at other Vedic parallels.
​
Átri was also ejected from his mother (Speech) early, descended alone, and had a second birth from a pit in the earth (Houben 2010), of a type said to be hot (Śrauta-Sūtras). He was saved from this pit by the Aśvins (likely given strengthening food (offerings to the gods, as usual) and insulated in snow (to protect him from the heat or to allow him to exit?, possibly analogous to the idea that the womb protected embryos from the mother’s stomach)). In another myth, Átri saved the sun. These seem to show that Átri was a name for Mārtāṇḍa, or both Sun Gods with the same myths told of them. If so, the unclear etymology of Átri-would be ‘fiery? / Sun?’, from PIE *HaHter-s > Av. ātar-š ‘fire’, Skt. athr-, L. āter ‘*burnt > black/somber’. If *-Htr- > -thr- was regular in Skt., then -tr- here would be analogy from the nominative.
​
The hot pit in the earth he was born from would then be a volcano. It seems very similar to Puy-de-Dôme, which was named after Dumiatis, who was a Gaulish equivalent of Mercury (who had a sanctuary at the dormant volcano in the past). Indo-European *wesu-dyew- ‘good god’ is also seen in L. Vēdiovis \ Vēiovis ‘a god like a young Zeus, known for healing, lightning, volcanoes’, Vesuvius \ Vesaevus \ Vesēvus ‘a volcano’.
​
The hot pit was called arvīṣa- / ṛbī́sa- in Sanskrit, which has been seen by some as a non-IE loan (Kuiper) due to its apparently unnatural form. However, many native words in the Rig Veda also have alternation (for whatever reason), and based on the words for ‘volcano’ as ‘fire-mouth(ed)’ in later Indic (Hindi jvālāmukhī), the same type of compound would explain arvīṣa- as aruṣá- ‘red / fire-colored / glowing /sun / etc.’ + ās(án)- ‘mouth / face’ (either with dissimilation of ṣ-s > 0-ṣ or with later Skt. aru- ‘sun’). Since Skt. ās- came from PIE *HoHs- (L. ōs, ON óss ‘river mouth’), *-HHs(o)- > -īṣa- would appear in compounds, with many C- or n-stems > o-stems (Whalen 2024). Since *-H- > -i-, it makes sense that *-HH- > -ī-. The alternation arvīṣa- / ṛbī́sa- needs to be explained whatever its origin, and either Middle Indic contamination or ṛbī́sa was borrowed from a related IIr. language that underwent the same changes (if one group not near volcanoes at the time). This would include the common merger of s / ṣ / ś, v / b, a > ǝ. Together:
​
*
aru- + ās- < *HaHs-
aru+HHsó-
aru+īsó-
arv+īsó-
arvīṣa-
​
or
​
*
aruṣá- + ās- < *HaHs-
aruṣ+HHsó-
aruṣ+īṣó-
aru+īṣó- dissimilation
arv+īṣó-
arvīṣa-
​
Houben, Jan E. M. (2010) Structures, Events and Ritual Practice in the Rg-Veda: The Gharma and Atri's Rescue by the Aśvins
https://www.academia.edu/37664186
​
Norelius, Per-Johan (2020) The divine miscarriage: Mārtāṇḍa, the sun, and the birth of mankind
https://www.academia.edu/98068042
​
Whalen, Sean (2024) Indo-Iranian *mn > *ṽn > mm / nn, *Cmn > *Cṽn > Cn / Cm, Indo-European adjectives in -no- and -mo- (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/118736225
​

https://youtu.be/6NnbKd8_Q28?si=Uy6m4OLYwSrp3SrS&t=537 here is the video I am referring to. (J. Krishnamurti - San Diego 1974 - Conversation 11 - Being hurt and hurting others)

Dodge argued for an inherited IE style of priestly chanting in imitation of birds (Dodge 2021). Most of this comes from the Rig Veda, both the hymns of priests being compared to birds and birds like priests when singing. He also gives Iranian parallels for Karšift, the chief of birds who knows how to speak and brought religion to the shelter of the Zoroastrian faithful (“…they recite the Avesta in the language of the birds”). A relatively small amount of other IE evidence for its PIE date also exists.
​
Since Av. Karšiptar- must have meant ‘black bird’ (*kWersi- in compounds vs. *kW(e)rsno- ‘black’ is likely due to PIE *kWersino- (Whalen 2022)), it probably referred to the raven (mentioned often in myths). I see it as related to later Iranian words for ‘magpie’: Wx. kirẓepč / kižipči, Shu. [kixe:pts] and the loans >> Kh. kiṣipi, Bu. γašep. These might all come from diminutive *karšiptar-kī (if Karšiptar- ‘raven’ vs. *karšiptar-kī ‘magpie’) with changes:
*karšiptarkī > *karšiptarčī > *karšipta_čī (r-r > r-0) > *karšaiptčī > > *karšaip(t)šī
Some would later have *š-š > š-0 (or similar) to explain -pč vs. -p.
​
A problem with this simple analysis is that later writing called the čarg \ čaxrawāk the name of Karshift, & čixrāz the chief of birds (Redard 2018). These seem like obvious forms of later Persian čakāvak ‘lark’. I would say that since they’re from *kekro-woHkW- ( > IIr. *cakravāk(a) / cakravāc(a) ) they show that PIE named many birds with this root (Ks. kakawáŋk ‘chicken’, Kh. kahàk ‘hen’, A. kakwéeki; further OIr cearc ‘hen’, G. kréx ‘corncrake’, kerkithalís ‘stork’, kérknos ‘hawk / rooster’, Skt. kr(a)kara- ‘kind of partridge’) and it doesn’t matter that 2 of the birds so named were confused later. A second case of confusion (that might show 3 birds were seen as a set, below) is Skt. cakravāka- ‘ruddy shelduck’. For Shina kó(:)rkuts- ‘crow’, karkaámuš / karkaámuts ‘hen’, kʌ´kǝts- ‘pheasant’ being related to Ks. kakawáŋk, etc., optional *w > *v > nasal *ṽ is needed (Whalen 2023b). There are many dialects of Shina, but these changes need to be optional in Proto-Dardic (at the least) to account for other similar changes in many Dardic languages.
​
Another problem with this simple analysis comes from its relation to the Iranian Senmurgh, which was created first among birds, but is not their chief. Why? I think these 2 birds, in a mostly mythical version separated from real eagles & ravens, were supposedly the birds that carried the Sun & Moon, related to enigmatic Indic traditions (Norelius 2016, Whalen 2023a). Indeed, the raven as the thief of the Moon or its bearer is common in myth. These, at least at one point, were equated with the PIE Divine Twins. Dodge’s mention of the Indic story of a pair of ruddy shelducks that always united at dawn is a third bird that might have had to do with their common wife, the Dawn (due to their reddish coloring), making a set of 3 based on colors (if a golden eagle, or a similar bird). Though the Twins were often horses, a variety of forms for gods is also known, such as for Trita/Tishtriya.
​
Dodge, Erick (2021) The Chants of Birds and Poet-Priests in the Vedic, Indo-Iranian, and Indo-European Traditions
https://www.academia.edu/66612017
​
Morgenstierne, Georg (1936) Iranian Elements In Khowar
http://www.mahraka.com/pdf/iranianElementsInKhowar.pdf
​
Norelius, Per-Johan (2016) The Honey-Eating Birds and the Tree of Life
https://www.academia.edu/37874254
​
Redard, Céline (2012) L'oiseau Karšiptar
https://www.academia.edu/1557809
​
Redard, Céline (2018) Karšift
https://www.academia.edu/36586331
​
Whalen, Sean (2022)
https://www.reddit.com/etymology/comments/w01466/importance_of_armenian_retention_of_vowels_in/
​
Whalen, Sean (2023a)
https://www.reddit.com/mythology/comments/10qeu8f/the_separation_of_the_sun_and_moon/
​
Whalen, Sean (2023b) Indo-Iranian Nasal Sonorants (r > n, y > ñ, w > m)
https://www.academia.edu/106688624
​

Pls suggest me on such scholarly literature dealing with this specific battle mentioned in the right Veda.
Would prefer those that are more historical and sociological oriented but also wouldn't mind if written from a archeological/linguistic perspective too.
Thanks in advance 🙂

Also how old is it believed to be?

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I am trying to learn about Sanskrit Prosody / Meter, and it mentions Gayatri (24 syllables; 3 verses of 8 syllables), Anushtubh (32 syllables; 4 verses of 8 syllables), and Tristubh (44 syllables; 4 verses of 11 syllables), amonst a few others (but these being the most common). But how does it work exactly? Can you demonstrate in romanized text how the meter works in some example verse or passage?
For example, the Rig Veda is a huge book, how do you divide the thousands of syllables in it into 3 verses of 8 syllables each? How do you know when one verse ends and the next begins? I see there are 3 notes (low, middle, and high), for that minor-sounding tone of Sanskrit chant (which can be represented using notes A, B, and C). Then they pronounce some notes long and some notes short, and there's all kinds of rules for how syllables work. I'm not too interested in all those rules, I'm mainly interested in how an example chunk of text (written in romanized version), looks when it contains 3 verses of 8 syllables (or using one of the other example patterns). How would 6 verses look then (of 8 syllables each)?
As a tangent, I'd also be curious to know how they could possibly describe things using such a rigid pattern! It is so cool and inspiring! I have tried writing poetry a lot, and making meaningful poetry is hard! And to make it meaningful, and only be allowed 8 syllables, that is one heavy constraint! How did they do that haha!

Prior to the organization of the family books, the Brahmins seem to not conform to a select corpus of hymns like modern Hindus, but will create new hymns to fit their situations. What I’m wondering is how did this apply to ritual? Take for instance RigVeda 6.39, an invitation for Indra to partake in Soma. What exactly was the purpose of its composition? Did it exist only by itself or was it used along other hymns?

Vritra has often been compared to the Midgard Serpent, so there’s a likely PIE source: the Indo-European World Serpent. Norse Jörmungandr and Indic Vritra would simply 2 later examples of it, each retaining part of its characteristics (and maybe with some new ones added, or taken from similar IE myths). The huge mythical snake defeated by the Storm God was called *Vṛtrá- in Indo-Iran. (Sanskrit Vṛtrá-, Avestan Vǝrǝθra-). In “Slaying the dragon across Eurasia”, Michael Witzel of Harvard wrote, “In the Vedic texts of early India, it is the great god Indra who kills the three-headed reptile, just like his Iranian counterpart Thraētaōna (Avesta texts) kills the three-headed dragon, or as their distant equivalent in old Japan, the god Susa.no Wo (Kojiki, Nihon Shoki), kills the “eight-forked” dragon, Yamata.no Orochi.” Giant snakes are common in myths around the world, but these creatures have significance in being mentioned as the adversaries of Thor and Indra (very often in the Rig Veda). Vritra stole the waters from the world, and Indra destroyed his 99 fortresses, then smashed them with the falling carcass of Vritra. Since many other foes are very similar (having 99, 100 fortresses, or 99 arms, etc.), these could be other names for the same beast.
For the similarity of Japanese and Indo-European myths, among others, Witzel considered explaining this by proposing that the ancestors of the Japanese met Indo-European people in Asia long ago. No direct evidence of this exists, but there is no immediate reason to reject it either. In part, he wrote, “To facilitate a closer comparison, individual mythologies are investigated, to begin with, the oldest Japanese texts, Kojiki and Nihon Shoki (712/720 CE). According to them, the dragon Yamata.no orochi lives on the river Hi in Izumo, the land assigned to Susa.no Wo, originally the lord of the Ocean. He is the son of the primordial parent deities Izanagi and Izanami. Nihon Shoki 1.51 (Aston 1972) says that the dragon in the land of Izumo, on the Hi river, “had an eight-forked head and eight-forked tail; his eyes were red like the winter cherry; and on his back firs and cypresses were growing. As it crawled it extended over a space of eight hills and eight valleys,” with the typical Jpn. stress of the number eight. Susa.no Wo gets the dragon drunk with Sake, and cuts off one head afer another. Tearing him apart, he finds a sword (kusa-nagi.no tsurugi) in the dragon’s tail which is to become important later on in Japanese myth (and as the sword of the Emperor).” He gives more parallels in “Vala and Iwato. The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond”. Here, it would be hard to ignore the many specific matches. The IE Goddess of Dawn does not seem like an old figure, instead a recent personification in poetry (and perhaps given many of the features of the Goddess of the Moon). The Japanese Sun Goddess, in a culture in which women would not be expected to be given powers in war and importance in royal descent, might be caused by this change. But why would the Japanese have given up their own beliefs in favor of IE ones whenever their origin was visible?
Witzel did not follow up on the possibilities created by this theory. Though other myths are nearly as similar as these, he said that common descent of the myths and people (across tens of thousands of years) were retained. He offered no direct proof of this, and his connection of Japanese and Indo-Iranian in particular seems correct, but I think it was given special place due to his familiarity with both sets of myths rather than due to a special connection. For example, the Greek myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth (Ouranos and Gaia) is very similar to Polynesian ones, like Maori (Rangi and Papa). Why would only one be borrowed, if he were right in his methods? For snakes in particular, many people much closer to IE lands also have a giant snake, often many-headed, also killed by a god or mythical hero. Though the myth of the dragon Yamata no Orochi being slain by Susa no Wo has many points in common with very similar stories about Indra slaying Vritra, Hittite stories may be even closer (a helper for the god, tricking the snake, etc), though these are in fragmentary form. Instead of special closeness to IIr., I feel that this shows a relation to IE in general. Which parts of this story are restricted to IE and Japanaese? If it is found across the world, with many points in common across southern Asia and Japan, there is no way to say where it came from. I say that the method should fit the evidence. Either all are very old, retained with unexpectedly small change (Witzel’s basic view for most myths) or all are the result of recent contact (likely conquest). Finding out which could be helped by linguistic evidence.
One part Witzel did not consider was the etymology of Japanese orochi. In Old Japanese, woroti ‘big snake’ could come from *wǝrǝtor, and is very similar to Avestan Vǝrǝθra-, etc. Though VrV might be seen as support for Iranian borrowing, I feel this is an old feature of many IE languages (Whalen 2023). Proto-Japanese *-y from *-r and *o from *ǝ are needed to connect cognates to Korean words (Alexander Francis-Ratte). Middle Japanese wòròtì / wòròdì has odd -t- vs. -d-. If unstressed *-t- tended to become *-r- between vowels, but *r-r-r or *r-r was not allowed, optional weakening might have taken place instead. This is similar to apparent restrictions on r-r in Korean, seen in variants for *watōR > OJ wata, *batox / *baror > MK patah / palol ‘ocean’. These words look very similar to IE *wodo:r ‘water’, and that *w(e)l-tlo- might have undergone the same changes makes more sense than both groups resembling each other only by chance. It also resembles r / d / 0 in Skt. márya- stallion’, máya- ‘horse/mule’, máyī- ‘mare’, Kh. madyán ‘mare’. If J & K had the same restrictions: VtV > VrV except -VtVr was optional. In Proto-J, also optional -VrVr > -VdVr (this kind of change suggests that r was a flap). The optional change of *-R > -h suggests uvular pronunciation was optional. This seems to be behind loss of r in IE (Whalen 2024a):
*protH2i > G. protí, Dor. potí, Skt. práti, Av. paiti-, etc.
*spreg- > Alb. shpreh ‘express/voice’, OE sp(r)ecan, E. speak
*sprend(h)- > OE sprind ‘agile/lively’, E. sprint, Skt. spandate ‘throb/shake/quivekick’
*splendh- > L. splend-, Li. spindėti ‘shine’
If Witzel believed the myth came from an Indo-European source, it seems this kind of match would be more than a coincidence showing that the name was also Indo-European. He proposed a similar idea about Tajikara ‘Armstrong’ and the strong-armed Indra fulfilling a similar role. It seems best to gather all possibilities to see if the sum of the similarities makes mere chance an impossibility. This is just one of the many words showing the similarity of Japanese and Indo-European loanwords or cognates. Previous scholars have considered some of them to be related, and even the similarity of the word for ‘honey’ in Japanese and Chinese to *medhu has been seen as evidence of the Indo-European Tocharians in the Far East spreading their language thousands of years in the past. Not all claims have received full agreement. To me, mitsu, etc., is only one out of many words that looks Indo-European but is unlikely to be a loan. I have also worked to show that Vritra indeed meant ‘snake’ (Whalen 2024b):
Many of these names for Vritra are odd in that their meanings are disputed, when it seems many simply meant ‘snake’. For ex.:
Skt. Śúṣṇa- ‘snake slain by Indra’, Ps. sūṇ ‘hissing/sniff/snort’, Bartangi sāwn ‘dragon’, Iran. *susmuka-? >> *ssmuko- > *stmŭkŭ > Pol. smok, Moravian smok \ cmok \ tmok \ zmok >> Li. smãkas
with origin from *k^usno- ‘hissing’ likely < *k^wes- (Skt. śvásati ‘bluster / hiss / snort’, ON hvösa ‘hiss / snort’). The changes ss- > s- / ts- / (d)z- might only be found here, but seem to fit.
Vṛtrá- has been compared to Skt. vṛtrá- ‘defense / resistance / enemy?’, Av. vǝrǝθra- ‘attack? / victory?’ from *(H)wer- ‘defend / cover’ (possibly 2 separate roots). I see no evidence that any of these are necessarily related. Instead, there is evidence that it came from a word for ‘snake’ from a root meaning ‘turn / twist / wind’, etc. (PIE could be *wl-tlo-, *wr(t)-tro-, etc.). There are several pieces of evidence that show oddities not compatible with origin from *(H)wer- ‘defend / cover’.

1. Skt. AV vṛ́nta-s ‘caterpillar?’ < *wrt-no-. This shows that such roots formed words in IIr. for ‘worm / snake’, with typical range of meanings in IE. It is also similar to *wrton- > Arm. ordn ‘worm’ (most IE show *wrmi- > OE wyrm, E. worm, L. vermis or *kw-? > *kWrmi- > Skt. kṛmi-, Av. kǝrǝmi-).
   
2. The names/words Skt. vṛtra-hán- ‘killing (a) snake(s) / Indra’, Av. Vǝrǝθraγna- ‘name of a god’ seem to be related to Av. vārǝγna- ‘(representation of royal glory as) falcon/eagle’. IE names of raptors as ‘_-killer’ seen in Skt. śaśa-ghnī- ‘hawk-eagle’, G. kasandḗrion ‘kite’ (both < *killing/hunting rabbits). If vārǝγna- had a variant *vārǝǰan- like vṛtra-hán-, the loans Ks. váraš, Kh. yúruž / yùrǰ ‘falcon’ would confirm it (with optional *va / *vü; also similar *wi > yu in Skt. vīdhrá-, A. bíidri ‘clear sky’, Kh. yùdur ). Since the mythical aspect of IIr. hawks includes killing snakes, and there is no other animal *va:r(a)- to be the victim, its origin seems clear. There is no known way for *varta- to become *va:ra-, but the optional changes caused by IIr. *l vs. *r are well known, so *valtla-ghna- might work.
   
3. Vṛtrá- is also called Valá-. For the word Skt. Valá- ‘stone cave split by Indra to free Dawn and cows / Vṛtrá-’, there is no reason for these to need to have the same source. Attempts to see Valá- as the brother of Vṛtrá- (with his exact characteristics and fate, as far as is known) seem pointless. They would only make sense if it was impossible for one figure to have 2 names, which is obviously not true. If the optional changes caused by *l in *valtla-ghna- > vārǝγna- also applied to *vḷtla-, then dissimilation might create *Vṛtlá- > Vṛtrá- vs. *Vṛtlá- > *Vṛlá- > Valá-.
   
4. Though these words might have disputed origin, and thus not show various outcomes of *(a)ltl, the same can not be said for Iran. ‘snake’ (Manaster Ramer), which are supposedly *martra- > *marθra- > *mara / *ma:ra / *maθra / *ma:θra > mar / mār / mahr / māhr (NP mâr, Mz. mahr, Yushij māhr, etc.). It seems very unlikely that both *martra-, that definitely meant ‘snake’, and *v(a)rtra-, which COULD have meant ‘snake’ would show the same alternations without being related. If *w(e)ltlo- ‘snake’ existed, and IIr. alternation of w / m (Whalen) applied, since it is fairly common (Skt. -mant- / -vant-), both words would have the same origin and same reason for alternating. This would allow *w(e)l-tlo- to be the source of all. Though no prediction of what *ltl would become is possible in this theory, that both groups showed the same outcomes, with no other possible regular cause, makes it very likely.
   
5. The alternative, that *martra- meant ‘killing’ or ‘deadly’ < PIE *mer- has no specific evidence. An odd parallel would be G. máragna ‘lash / scourge’, Syriac māragnā supposedly being loans from an Old Persian compound formed from ‘snake-killing’. If true, it would exactly match the changes in Vǝrǝθraγna- ~ vārǝγna- as ‘snake-killing’. However, this seems like a meaningless description to apply to a lash, and it is much more likely that it is related to:
   

Skt. mṛgáyati ‘hunt/chase’, mṛgayás- / mṛgayā- ‘wild animal’, mṛgá-s ‘game / stag/gazelle / large bird / beast/demon’
*mṛga-ghna- ‘driving beasts’ (a whip/goad used to make domestic animals move) > Iran. *mǝrǝγa-γna- > *mǝrǝa-γna- (dissim.)
The exact sequence caused by g-g dissim. would be uncertain within Iran., especially since it’s only known from loans that can’t show all the specifics. PIE *gWhen- meant both ‘drive’ and ‘hit / kill’, so there is no reason to think that a tool not used for killing (usually) had only this meaning.
Francis-Ratte, Alexander (2016) Proto-Korean-Japanese: A New Reconstruction of the Common Origin of the Japanese and Korean Languages
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb\_etd/etd/1501/10
Whalen, Sean (2023) PIE syllabic *r and *l reconstructed as *ǝrǝ
https://www.reddit.com/IndoEuropean/comments/147c0lpie\_syllabic\_r\_and\_l\_reconstructed\_as\_%C7%9Dr%C7%9D/
Whalen, Sean (2024a) Greek Uvular R / q, ks > xs / kx / kR, k / x > k / kh / r, Hk > H / k / kh (Draft)
https://www.academia.edu/115369292
Whalen, Sean (2024b) Sanskrit Vṛtrá-, Avestan Vǝrǝθra-, Iranian *marθra- ‘snake’
https://www.academia.edu/118032621
Witzel, Michael (2005) Vala and Iwato. The Myth of the Hidden Sun in India, Japan and beyond
https://www.academia.edu/43690319
Witzel, Michael (2008) Slaying the dragon across Eurasia
https://www.academia.edu/44522210

It is a noun derived from the root jinnī, which means “to cover, to veil, to remain hidden” and the singular jinnī means “that which is covered and hidden”. As a term, it means “a type of being that cannot be perceived by the senses, has consciousness and will like humans, is obliged to obey divine commands, and consists of groups of believers and disbelievers”.
The ancestors of the jinn are called Can. Jinns, which are accepted to be composed of various species such as gūl and ifrit, were sometimes referred to by the word hin in ancient Arabic. In Persian, the words perī and dīv are used for jinn. Although some Orientalists have argued that the word jinn came into Arabic from the Latin words genie or genius, Islamic scholars agree that the word is of Arabic origin. It is possible to say that this view is more accurate when its root meaning and various derivatives are taken into consideration. As a matter of fact, some of the orientalists agree with this view (Watt, p. 62).
The word “jinn” also has a general meaning for invisible beings that are the opposite of human beings, including angels. This is the reason why Iblis is mentioned among the angels in the Qur’an (al-Baqarah 2/34). In the sense of “invisible being”, every angel is a jinn, but not every jinn is an angel. However, Islamic scholars have stated that angels are a separate species from jinns and that the word jinn should be used as the name of a third type of being other than humans and angels (Râgıb al-Isfahânî, al-Mufredât, “jinn” md.).
Throughout history, people have believed in other unseen and extraordinary beings besides God, and they have given different names to the good and the bad of these beings in various periods and geographical regions. These beings were sometimes deified or seen as second-order divine beings, sometimes considered to have human characteristics and qualities, and even in Judaism and Christianity they were confused with each other.
In Islam, the qualities and functions of Allah, the angel, the devil, the jinn and the prophet are precisely defined, so there is no room for confusion. The nature of the jinn, their appearance in different forms, their dwelling places, their relations with human beings, their good or bad effects, and their naming are widely covered in the religious and non-religious literature of various countries.

Jinns in Ancient Assyria and Babylon

Among the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, evil spirits and jinns were believed in all segments of society. Since the Babylonians borrowed these beliefs from the Sumerians, the words they used in this regard were also Sumerian. The evil spirits, which the Assyrians called edimmu, were the spirits of the dead who were believed to return to the world after death due to the lack of rituals and adequate offerings. They were believed to haunt people and various remedies were used to drive them away.
Among the Assyrians and other Semitic tribes, there were different classes of jinn whose creation was different from that of humans. One group, called utukku, consisted of evil spirits living in the sea, mountains and graveyards, waiting in the desert to lay traps and haunt people.
Another, less well-known group, called Gallû, consisted of seemingly sexless jinn. Another class of demons, called rabisu, were believed to roam secretly and lay traps for humans. In addition, in order to protect especially children from the harm of a group of three jinns, including female jinns called labartu, amulets were hung around their necks from enchanted tablets.
In addition to these classes of jinns that did not resemble human beings, the Semitic tribes also believed in jinns with a half-human appearance. These jinn, who were believed to appear as monsters, were divided into three classes: lilu, lilitu and ardat lili. The first of these were considered male and the others female.

Jinns in Ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptians did not have as many and varied types of jinn as the Assyrians or Indians. The jinns of Asian religions, who are human mongrels, are absent in Egyptian religions. According to the ancient Egyptian religion, jinns were generally wild animals, reptiles such as snakes and lizards, or human beings with black bodies and were considered enemies of Re.
According to the Book of the Dead, jinns, especially those in the form of snakes, crocodiles and monkeys, often traveled to the other world. Jinns related to the sky are in the form of birds. Ancient Egyptians believed that jinns caused diseases such as insanity and epilepsy, and that sorcerers used jinns to show people horrible dreams and harm people and animals.

Jinns in Ancient Greece

In ancient Greece, daimon was a name given to secondary gods. In Greek mythology, this word is used for superhuman beings. However, daimons, like humans and angels, were seen as beings created by God, with good and bad qualities. The word demon, which is used in Western languages for a demon, came from the Greek daimon through the Latin of the late Middle Ages, meaning a demigod being who mediates between God and man. Homer uses this word synonymously with theos.
At the end of the Greco-Roman period, daimon, like the Latin genius, was often used for demigods, demi-humans or second-order spirits, especially those who guarded farms, houses and property. Later, the meaning of the word changed and came to refer to evil spirits that torment people, cause them physical or mental harm, and lead them to evil.
In the translation of the “Seventy”, in the first form of the Testament, and in the writings of the church fathers, the word was used for something of an evil nature, evil spirits, and in the Vulgate, in addition to evil spirits, it was used for the idols or gods of the pagans. In ancient Rome, the word genius (pronounced juno), after a long development, came to denote sometimes the soul and sometimes the spirits of the dead; finally it came to mean a demon guarding a house or a place.

Jinns in Ancient Europe

The ancient Slavs’ belief in spirits and demons has survived to this day. These beings were related to dreams, illness, home and nature. The ancient Celts believed in good and evil spirits. These were beings that lived in caves, hollows and deep in the forests. In ancient Germanic mythology, it is difficult to make a clear distinction between spirits and spirit-like beings and ghouls. In Germanic mythology, in addition to the spirits of the dead, there are also spirits that leave the person in dreams and trances and harm others. Their beliefs also include spirits guarding the house, and jinn living in rivers, streams, wells, forests, forests, mountains or on top of them. These spirits and jinns cause rain, lightning and thunder.

Jinns of the Far East

As in the West, the subject of spirits and jinns has always been important in the East. The Chinese concept of kuei (jinn) and shen (spirits or gods) encompasses the entire Chinese invisible world. Kuei are human and animal spirits who, upon death, leave the visible realm for the invisible realm. It is believed that they can take the form of humans or animals in order to deceive and harm the living. In addition, supernatural beings that dwell in mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, etc. or are connected to them are also expressed with the word kuei.
Chinese folklore and literature is full of the deeds of jinns and spirits. Beliefs about these feared beings are largely rooted in Taoism. However, when Buddhism came to China, the belief in invisible good and evil beings in this religion was added to it. The Chinese believe that jinns are omnipresent, that they can revive the dead, and that they frequently visit graves, road junctions and the homes of relatives. According to them, some of the jinn live in that realm under the command of Yen-lo Wang to punish the dead in hell, some live in the sky, and some live among humans, appearing only at night.
In China, especially Taoist priests take measures to protect themselves from the evil effects of demons with amulets, talismans, incense and incense, reading and blowing, and some instructions. Many mental and physical illnesses are known to be caused by jinns. It is common to communicate with ancestor spirits and good spirits for jinn possession and good fortune. In China, Taoist and Buddhist public temples are used as centers where priests carry out such work. Confucianism opposed such activities.
The Japanese also have beliefs about invisible beings, animal and human spirits, ghosts, ghosts and jinns. The Japanese have been influenced by the Chinese in this regard. Various methods are used to exorcise evil spirits and demons, which are generally believed to act on humans in the form of animal spirits such as foxes and badgers. The Nichiren sect has a special place in such treatment. The village of Nakayama near Tokyo is very famous in this regard. In this village, all kinds of evil spirits and demons are treated in a temple belonging to the Nichiren sect.

Jinns in Ancient India

In India, since the earliest times, there have been mythological narratives about gods, invisible beings and, among the beings closer to humans, jinn. In the Vedas, the oldest Indian sacred texts, invisible demonic beings are divided into two groups. Those in the first group who are good to humans are found in the sky; those who are hostile live on earth, in caves and underground. They bring sickness, distress and death to animals as well as humans, and even beyond death, they can violate people’s souls.
Indians have confused the concepts of angel, jinn and god. They do not directly see beings of angelic nature. Of the above two classes, beings who are kind to human beings, although they are shown as a class of jinns, are closer to the concept of angels with their demigod status.
Among these are the rbhus who help Indra to lead people to victory. The apsaras, celestial nymphs who live in waters and trees, are also among them. Apsaras were eventually transformed into virgins who struck men with their beauty. Their husbands are gandharvas with bodies of heavenly light. The gandharvas guard the sacred drink soma. The second group are beings of evil and dark nature. The asuras, who are enemies of the gods, especially Indra, and all creatures and are associated with darkness and death; the panis, who steal the cows of the aris, who are also enemies of Indra; and the celestial demons called “rakshasa”, who can take the form of predatory animals, ghouls or human beings, eat flesh, drink blood, and are enemies of all human beings are among these evil beings.
The bhutas in Indian mythology are jinns or ghouls that are generally believed to be found in places where the dead are cremated. Pisakas, yatudhanas and rakshasas form a trinity with red eyes, smoke-like bodies, bloody sharp teeth and terrible claws. The pisakas are also known as man-eating jinns and are believed to bring death and disease to people. There is also a tribe in northwest India known by this name and known as cannibals.
Pisakas are also mentioned in Buddhism. Yakhas, like pisakas, are goblins mentioned in Buddhist scripture who take the form of a wild animal or bird living in desolate places and disturb and frighten monks and nuns in meditation.
In Buddhism, Mara is regarded as a being hostile to those who aspire to a holy life, like the devil, whose root is the demon. Pali texts describe the struggles between the Buddha and Mara. It is believed that she can take human or animal form. Such an understanding of a single evil being exists only in Buddhism among Indian religions. The subject of jinn is not a product of Buddhist thought, but is in fact a common inter-religious tradition of India. However, in early Buddhism, jinns were seen as the result of bad karma in previous incarnations according to the tenâsüh system. Although Buddhism did not touch the local understanding of jinn in the places where it spread, it succeeded in drawing attention to moral and psychological evils.

Jinn in Ancient Iranian Culture

Zoroaster considered the gods of ancient Iran, called devas, to be jinn. The principle of evil in Zoroastrian dualism was called druj (lie) in the Gathas. There is an endless struggle between good and evil. The jinn emerged from this evil thought, deceit and lies.
An ancient religious text in the Pahlavi language, called Bundahishn, states that the jinn and harmful animals were created by Ehrimen (Angramainyu in Zoroastrian times), the evil power (devil). Zoroaster had forbidden sacrifices to jinn. Later, classifications were made about the jinn. According to this classification, the chief jinn Aesma is responsible for violence, robbery and lust (Asmodoeus in the Hebrew Tobit). The ancient Iranian jinns had a male gender. However, there are also female jinns descended from druj.
Jinn often visit dark and unclean places, such as the towers of the dead called dakhma, now seen among the Parsis of India. Zoroastrian legends tell of jinnish giants like Azhi Dahaka, with two snakes growing out of his shoulders (see DAHHAK). In Zoroastrian eschatology, jinn will also take part in the defeat of Ehrimen by Ohrmazd (formerly Ahura Mazda). Again, in Zurvanism, a pre- Zoroastrian cult in ancient Iran, which was merged with Zoroastrianism in Zoroastrianism after Zoroaster in Magianism, lust was symbolized by a female jinn named Âz. Âz was also passed on to Manichaeism.

Jinn in Ancient Turks

According to the pre-Muslim beliefs of the Turks, the whole world is full of spirits and mountains, lakes and rivers are all living objects. These spirits, which are spread all over nature, are divided into two parts: good and evil. The good spirits under the command of the god Ulgen both serve him and help people. Among these spirits, Yayık acts as an intermediary between Ulgen and humans, Suyla protects people and informs them of future events, and Ayısıt ensures fertility and prosperity.
On the other hand, the evil spirits under the command of Erlik, the prince of the underworld, do all kinds of evil to people and send diseases to them and animals. These spirits belonging to Erlik’s dark world are called black nimes or yeks, and yek means “devil” in Uyghur religious texts. There are always fights, disputes and wars between the evil spirits, and illnesses, deaths and injuries are caused by them. These demons, which are considered the cause of all kinds of illness and evil, are removed from sick bodies by the shaman (Inan, pp. 22-72; ER, XIII, 214).

Jinns in Ancient Jews

In the period before the Babylonian exile in Judaism, even though angels were generally referred to as angels and individual jinni-divine beings (such as bel, leviathan) and concepts passed down from the Mesopotamians and Ken’ânids, belief in jinn and evil spirits did not play much of a role in the lives of the Israelites in this period. However, due to external influences, especially the influence of the dualistic system of Iran, a distinction between good and evil beings began to emerge, and the understanding of evil jinn and spirits emerged among the evil beings. In Rabbinic Judaism, demons have an advanced status in the Aggada (Haggadah) and a relatively important status in the Halakha.
In the Jewish Bible, it is stated that all spiritual beings, whether good or evil, are under God’s control (II Samuel, 24/16-17). In these texts, even the devil is seen as a servant and messenger to help people obey God (Job, 1/6-12; 2/1-7), or as a plaintiff before the divine court where they have overstepped their boundaries (Zechariah, 3/1-2). There are also expressions such as “shedim” (evil spirits, Deuteronomy, 32/17) or “lilit” (Isaiah, 34/14) which can be seen as examples of the influence of folk beliefs on the Bible.
Shedim is equated with the pagan god Seirim (Leviticus 17/7) and lilit with the Mesopotamian Lilitus. These pagan gods were depicted as satyrs (half man, half goat) and hairy (Isaiah 13/21). They were transformed by the Jews into jinn, believed to be found in ruins.
In addition, two other important jinnish figures are Azazel (see AZAZÎL), mentioned in Leviticus (16/8), who lives in the desert places called Kippur, where the scapegoat is released on the Day of Atonement, and Lilith (the feminine form of Lilith), a female jinn mentioned in post-biblical Jewish myths, known for attacking children and being Adam’s first wife. In the Old Testament, or Jewish scripture, there are also references to jinn who cause pain and calamity (II Samuel, 1/9) and suck blood (Proverbs, 30/15).
In Jewish religious literature after the Babylonian exile, there is a proliferation of accounts of demons. In later sacred texts, apocryphal works and folk tales, especially in the mystical tradition called kabbalah, shapeless and shadow-like jinns were depicted together with many prominent jinns with names and special duties; they were accepted as half-angelic, half-human beings living in deserted places and showing their skills at night.
They were thought of as beings who visited people with physical and financial calamities and calamities and diverted them from the path of Allah. Thus, under Iranian influence, jinns began to be thought of as beings who not only caused discomfort and illness, but also as beings under the command of Satan, the chief of evil, who incited people to evil. This tendency is especially evident in apocryphal texts.
In the tradition related to the Aggada, various hypotheses have been put forward about the origin of the demons. According to one conception, they were created by God in the twilight of the evening of the first Sabbath, or they were the descendants of Adam from Lilith, or they were the descendants of the fallen angels who had sexual relations with women (Genesis 6/1-4); according to another, they were the fallen angels who rebelled against God under the leadership of Satan.
The general nature of the concept of jinn in classical Judaism is best exemplified by Leviathan. Leviathan is a source of evil that can be equated with the seven-headed female sea monster of the Abyssinians, Tiamat of the Babylonians or Lotan of the Ken’anites; it is also closely related to Behemoth (Job, 40/15) and Rahab (Isaiah, 51/9; Job, 9/13; 89/10), a jinnish desert being.
Although jinns occupied an important place in medieval Judaism and the kabbalistic tradition, after the seventeenth century a separate understanding of jinnic beings called dibbuk, which is not mentioned in this literature, emerged. This being enters a person who does not walk the earth because of his sins and leads him astray. Driving away the dibbuk requires special religious rituals.
In Judaism, the expulsion of Satan from heaven (Job, 1/2), his becoming the head of the demons, and his eventual defeat by Michael and the heavenly army (Revelation, 12/7 et al.) are important events. Another demon recognized by the Jews of the time of Jesus was Beelzebul. He was the prince of the demons (Matthew, 10/25).

Jinns in Christianity

The Christian understanding of the jinn is a mixture of Judaism, Manichaeism, gnosticism, Greco-Roman thought, Jewish apocryphal and apocalyptic traditions. However, the Christian conception of the jinn was mostly influenced by the Jewish apocryphal and apocalyptic literature of the second and first centuries B.C.E., and the idea that a class of giants was formed from human daughters who lived with angels as a result of forbidden intercourse (Tekvîn, 6/2-4; Le livre d’Hénoch, Bâb 6-7), and that these eventually turned into a group of evil spirits was transformed by the New Testament writers into Satan and the jinn under his command.
In fact, although Satan (Satan) was gradually made the source of evil in apocryphal Jewish texts, it was in the New Testament period that he was equated with the serpent in Chapter 3 of Genesis, that he caused the first human couple to sin in the Garden of Eden, leading to their expulsion, and that he himself was expelled.
Although the New Testament states that demons are the gods of pagans (Acts, 17/18; Letter to the Corinthians, 10/20; Revelation of John, 9/20), it also explains that they are the source of physical and spiritual diseases (Matthew, 12/28; Luke, 11/20). According to the New Testament, demons can enter a person and cause illness; they can only be cast out by invoking God’s name (Matthew, 7/22). Paul wrote that Satan and evil forces operate in a cosmic theater, in the air, on earth and under the earth, and that Satan will reign as king of evil at the second coming of Jesus Christ (Letter to the Ephesians, 2/2).
The book of Revelation describes the final battle of good and evil at the Battle of Armageddon. Origen, however, lamented the failure of the early Church to develop a serious doctrine on demons and angels. While Tatian focused on the nature of demons, Irenaeus discussed the status of demons and angels between man and God. Despite all this, early Christianity seems to have focused more on angels and spirits and less on demons.
As the centuries passed, the practices of magic and the use of demons increased, and from the seventeenth century onwards, demons began to be depicted in Christian art as the cause of all kinds of misfortunes, disasters, floods, earthquakes, individual sufferings and death. At the Lateran Council IV, it was declared that demons and heretics would be sentenced to eternal punishment together with the devil. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, demonic beliefs reached their peak, and witchcraft and witchcraft attracted great attention in Europe and later in America.
The Reformers also accepted the belief in demons. However, as a result of scientific advances, this subject lost its former reputation in Protestant countries. Nevertheless, exorcism is still practiced in the reformed Christian churches, a branch of Protestantism, and in the eastern churches.

Jinns in Pre-Islamic Arab Society

In the beliefs of pre-Islamic Arab society, the spirit world, good and evil forces had an important place. It was believed that some stones and trees, wells, caves and similar places were inhabited by beings that influenced human life. The good and beneficial part of the spirit world consisted of angels and jinns, and the bad and harmful part of the spirit world consisted of devils and jinns.
The Jāhiliyyah Arabs regarded the jinn as gods residing on the earth and believed that they were responsible for many of the events that took place. According to the Qur’ân al-kerîm, the Quraysh claimed that there was a genealogical unity between the jinn and Allah (as-Sâffât 37/158), associating jinn with Allah (al-An’âm 6/100) and worshipping them (Saba’ 34/41).
The Jāhiliyyah Arabs believed that the jinn also lived in tribes and groups, that they fought with each other, and that some natural events such as storms were the work of jinn. They believed that they killed and kidnapped people, and that some jinn helped people, and that there were people who married jinn. It was believed that jinns took the form of various animals, especially snakes, that they usually lived in secluded, secluded and dark places, that they ate and drank like humans, that they brought diseases, and that insane people were those who were invaded by jinns (al-Jāḥiz, VI, 164-265; Jawād Ali, VI, 705-730).

The following is a letter, that Albert Pike wrote to Giuseppe Mazzini in 1871 regarding a conspiracy involving three world wars, that were planned in an attempt to take over the world. The Pike letter to Giuseppe Mazzini was on display in the British Museum Library in London until 1977.
• Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian revolutionary leader of the mid 1800s
• Albert Pike (historical Masonic figure) was a 33rd degree Freemason, Occultist, Grand Master and creator of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Masonic Scottish Rite Order
Following are apparently extracts from the letter, showing how Three World Wars have been planned for many generations:
"The First World War must be brought about in order to permit the Illuminati to overthrow the power of the Czars in Russia and of making that country a fortress of atheistic Communism. The divergences caused by the "agentur" (agents) of the Illuminati between the British and Germanic Empires will be used to foment this war. At the end of the war, Communism will be built and used in order to destroy the other governments and in order to weaken the religions."
"The Second World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences between the Fascists and the political Zionists. This war must be brought about so that Nazism is destroyed and that the political Zionism be strong enough to institute a sovereign state of Israel in Palestine. During the Second World War, International Communism must become strong enough in order to balance Christendom, which would be then restrained and held in check until the time when we would need it for the final social cataclysm."
"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion... We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil.Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view.This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time."
Pike first joined the fraternal Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1840. He next joined a Masonic Lodge, where he became extremely active in the affairs of the organization. In 1859 he was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction. He remained Sovereign Grand Commander for the remainder of his life (a total of thirty-two years), devoting a large amount of his time to developing the rituals of the order. Notably, he published a book called Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1871, of which there were several subsequent editions. This helped the order grow during the nineteenth century. He also researched and wrote the seminal treatise Indo-Aryan Deities and Worship as Contained in the Rig-Veda. In America, Pike is still considered an eminent and influential Freemason, primarily in the Scottish Rite Southern Jurisdiction. A memorial to Pike is located in the Judiciary Square neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He is the only Confederate military officer with an outdoor statue in Washington, D.C.

I have shown what strength there is in the thesis I have presented. I will now proceed to show that the thesis is a valid one. There is one test which I think is generally accepted as the right one by which to appraise the validity of a thesis. It is that a thesis which demands acceptance must not only suggest a solution, but must also show that the solution it proposes answers the riddles which surround the problem which it claims to have solved. It is this test that I propose to apply to my thesis.
Let me begin by listing in one place the riddles of the Shudra. The following include the most important of them :

(1) The Shudras are alleged to be non-Aryans, hostile to the Aryans, whom the Aryans are said to have conquered and made slaves. How is it then that the rishis of the Yajur Veda and the Atharva Veda should wish glory to the Shudras and express a desire to be in favour of the Shudras?
(2) The Shudras are said not to have the right to study the Vedas. How is it then that Sudas, a Shudra, was the composer of the hymns of the Rig Veda?
(3) The Shudras are said to have no right to perform sacrifices. How is it that Sudas performed the Ashva-Medha sacrifice? Why does the Satapatha Brahmana treat the Shudra as a sacrificer and give the formula of addressing him?
(4) The Shudras are said not to have the right to Upanayana. If this was so from the very beginning, why should there be a controversy about it? Why should Badari and the Samskara Ganpati say that he has a right to Upanayana?
(5) The Shudra is not permitted to accumulate property. How is it that the Maitrayani and Kathaka Samhitas speak of the Shudras being rich and wealthy?
(6) The Shudra is said to be unfit to become an officer of the State. How is it then that the Mahabharata speaks of Shudras being ministers to kings?
(7) It is said that the duty of the Shudra is to serve, in the capacity of a menial, the three Vamas. How is it then that there were kings among the Shudras as testified by the case of Sudas and other cases mentioned by Say ana?
(8) If the Shudra had no right to study the Vedas, if he had no right to Upanayana, if he had no right to sacrifice, why was he not given the right to have his Upanayana, to read the Vedas and to perform sacrifice?
(9) The performance of Upanayana of the Shudra, his learning to read the Vedas, his performing the sacrifices, whether they were of any value to the Shudra or not, were certainly occasions of benefit to the Brahmins in as much as it is the Brahmins, who had the monopoly of officiating at ceremonies and of teaching the Vedas. It is the Brahmins who stood to earn large fees by allowing the Shudra the right to Upanayana, the performance of sacrifices and the reading of the Vedas. Why were the Brahmins so determined to deny these concessions to the Shudras, when granting them would have done no harm and would have increased their own earnings?
(10) Even if the Shudra had no right to Upanayana, sacrifices and Vedas, it was open to the Brahmins to concede him these rights. Why were these questions not left to the free will of the individual Brahmins? Why were penalties imposed upon a Brahmin if he did any of these prohibited acts?
How can these riddles be explained? Neither the orthodox Hindu nor the modem scholar has attempted to explain them. Indeed they do not seem to be aware of the fact that such riddles exist. The orthodox Hindu does not bother about them. He is content with the divine explanation contained in the Purusha Sukta that the Shudra was born from the feet of the Purusha. The modern scholar is content with the assumption that the Shudra in his origin is a non-Aryan aboriginal, for whom the Aryan quite naturally prescribed a different code of laws. It is a pity that none of these classes of people have cared to acquaint themselves with the riddles which surround the problem of the Shudra, much less have they thought of suggesting a theory of the origin of the position of the Shudra capable of solving them.
With regard to my thesis it will be seen that it can explain everyone of these riddles. Postulates (1) to (4) explain how the Shudras could be kings and ministers and why the rishis should praise them and desire to be in their good books. Postulates (5) and (6) explain why there was a controversy over the Upanayana of the Shudra, also why the law not only denied the right to the Shudra but imposed penalties upon a Brahmin, helping to make it effective. Indeed there is no riddle which the thesis does not solve. The thesis, if I may say so, is a close and a perfect fit. Few theses can therefore have a better title deed than this.

BR Ambedkar Who were the Shudras.

Coming to the question of Shudras having been made slaves, it is nonsense, if not mendacious. It is founded on two assumptions. First is that the Dasas are described as slaves in the Rig Veda. The second is that the Dasas are the same as Shudras.
It is true that the word Dasa is used in the Rig Veda in the sense of slave or servant. But the word in this sense occurs in only 5 places and no more. But even if it did occur more than five times, would it prove that the Shudras were made slaves? Unless and until it is proved that the two were the same people, the suggestion is absurd. It is contrary to known facts.
Shudras participated in the coronation of kings. In the post-vedic or the period of the Brahmanas, the coronation of a king was in reality an offer of sovereignty by the people to the king. This was done by the representatives of the people called Ratnis who played a very important part in the investiture of the king. The Ratnis were so-called because they held the Ratna (jewel), which was a symbol of sovereignty. The king received his sovereignty only when the Ratnis handed over to him the jewel of sovereignty, and on receiving his sovereignty the king went to the house of each of the Ratnis and made an offering to him. It is a significant fact that one of the Ratnis was always a Shudra.^\f57])
Nilakantha, the author of Nitimayukha, describes the coronation ceremony of a later time. According to him, the four chief ministers, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra, consecrated the new king. Then the leaders of each Varna and of the castes lower still, consecrated him with holy water. Then followed acclamation by the twice-born.^\f58])
That the Shudras were invited to be present at the coronation of the king along with Brahmins is evidenced by the description of the coronation of Yudhishthira, the eldest brother of the Pandavas, which is given in the Mahabharata.^\f59])
Shudras were members of the two political assemblies of ancient times, namely, the Janapada and Paura and as a member of these the Shudra was entitled to special respect even from a Brahmin.^\f60])
This was so even according to the Manusmriti (vi.61) as well as to the Vishnu Smriti (xxi.64). Otherwise there is no meaning in Manu saying that a Brahmin should not live in a country where the king is a Shudra. That means Shudras were kings.
In the Shanti Parvan of the Mahabharata,^\f61]) Bhishma in his lessons on Politics to Yudhishthira says :
"I shall, however, tell thee what kinds of ministers should be appointed by thee. Four Brahmins learned in the Vedas, possessed of a sense of dignity, belonging to the Snataka order, and of pure behaviour, and eight Kshatriyas, all of whom should be possessed of physical strength and capable of weilding weapons, and one and twenty Vaishyas, all of whom should be possessed of wealth, and three Shudras, everyone of whom should be humble and of pure conduct and devoted to his daily duties, and one man of the Suta caste, possessed of a knowledge of the Puranas and the eight cardinal virtues should be thy ministers."
This proves that the Shudras were ministers and that they were almost equal to the Brahmins in number^\f62])
The Shudras were not poor and lowly. They were rich. This fact is testified by the Maitrayani Samhita (iv.2.7.10) and the Panchavirnsa Brahmana (vi.l.ll).^\f63])
There are two other aspects to this question. What significance can there be to the enslavement of the Shudras, assuming it was a fact? There would be some significance if the Aryans did not know slavery or were not prepared to turn the Aryans into slaves. But the fact is that the Aryans knew slavery and permitted the Aryans to be made slaves. This is clear from Rig Veda, (vii.86.7;viii. 19.36 and viii.56.3).
That being so, why should they particularly want to make slaves of the Shudras? What is more important is why should they make different laws for the Shudra slaves?
In short, the Western theory does not help us to answer our questions, who were the Shudras and how did they become the fourth Varna?

BR Ambedkar 38C1. Who were the Shudras?