Some questions on Asuras

[Steve Farmer]

Gunthard Mueller writes, of asuras/ahuras and devas/daeuuas in
Indian and Iranian sources:

> So we might have a case where the Indians and the Iranians
> referred to the gods of the respective others as "demons" or
> "dangerous gods".

> While this would be a nice mutually supportive parallelism,
> this theory is otherwise difficult to prop up.

Could you expand on the difficulties that you see in supporting
this theory? The evidence to me seems pretty overwhelming,
especially in light of the positive views of asuras in early
strata of the Rgveda. The reversal of attitudes towards the
asuras in later RV hymns and the Brahmanas, when viewed in light
of the *consistently* negative views of daeuuas in the Gathas,
would seem to me to hold a critical clue to resolving the
Zarathustra/Gathas dating problem. The probability of this
increases when we note that the level of abstraction of theistic
concepts in later RV 10 hymns are similar to those found in the
Gathas -- and quite different from those found in older hymns in
the RV family books. Taken together, these two pieces of data
suggest that the Gathas date from no earlier than the latest RV
strata, e.g. in mandala 10, which were presumably composed long
after the Indo-Iranian language split.

This gives poignancy to Jean Kellens' words (2000: 46) that "It
is hardly an exaggeration to say the Old Avesta is the eleventh
mandala of the Rigveda, only written in a slightly different
dialect." Even early redaction principles in the texts are
similar, as witnessed by the fact that the Gathas (like the RV)
are organized systematically by meter and hymn length. As Kellens
points out in the same place, on the average every other verse of
the Gathas has an RV parallel.

In any case, the demonization of the gods of bordering
civilizations occurred everywhere in the premodern world, as
witnessed by much evidence from the Middle East, Europe, China,
and even Mesoamerica. It is difficult to believe that something
else was involved in the asuras/ahuras case. The sharp reversal
in attitudes towards the asuras found in late RV and later Vedic
sources appears to be strong prima facie evidence of extended
contact between Indian and Iranian civilizations long after their
linguistic split. Considering that final redaction of the RV did
not apparently occur until well into the first millennium BCE,
the implications of this could run deep.

I assume that there are probably strong counterarguments to these
views, which I would be interested in hearing. I also assume that
George Thompson might have informed opinions on this issue.