OUR ARYAN FOREFATHERS 



west ; and that a great religious schism was ac- 

 companied by the westward migration of a large 

 part of the community, while the other part 

 proceeded onward, and established itself in Hin- 

 dustan. A comparison of the Zendavesta with 

 the Veda so strongly alike as they are, both 

 in thought and in expression shows clearly 

 that the occasion of this schism must have been 

 the promulgation of the worship of Ahura- 

 Mazda. 



In illustration of this community of origin 

 between the Vedic and Zendavestan peoples, 

 Jet us refer to the name of the first country 

 which the supreme deity created, the name 

 of Aryana Vaejo. This, as already hinted, is 

 not a geographical name. There is no identifi- 

 able locality which has ever been called Aryana 

 Vaejo. The name means simply " the start- 

 ing-place of the Aryans." In later Persian my- 

 thology, as represented in the Minokhired, the 

 name came to stand for a terrestrial paradise, 

 where men live for three hundred years, without 

 pain or sickness, where no lies are told, and 

 where ten men eat of one loaf and grow fat 

 thereon. In the Vendidad, however, Aryana 

 Vaejo is simply the primeval dwelling-place, 

 whatever it may have been, from which the 

 Aryans passed into Sogdiana. Now " Aryan " 

 \vas the name by which the ancient Persians and 

 (he ancient Hindus alike described themselves. 

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