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Gherardo Gnoli
66 quotes
“Zoroastrianism had its beginnings in fairly early times, no later than the beginning of the 1st millennium B.C., in the eastern part of the Iranian plateau, in the central-southern regions rather than the decidedly northern ones.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The gaining of this information on the primitive location of Mazandaran in the eastern and southeastern regions of Iran is remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism, just as important as the recognition of the fact that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the East.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With Varana and Ranha, as of course with Hapta Handu, which comes between them in the Vd. I list, we find ourselves straight away in Indian territory, or, at any rate, in territory that, from the very earliest times, was certainly deeply permeated by Indo-Aryans or Proto-Indoaryans.” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ranha after Hapta Hendu and Varuna, belongs in all likelihood to the same Indian, or Indo-Iranian frontier area... refers to peoples who had settled along the banks of a river near the country of Hapta Hendu. The geographical picture , reconstructed in this way, would agree with the Indian evidence on the river Rasa, the Vedic equivalent of Ranha, to the extent that we could deduce a real identity between the two rivers.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An hypothesis based on the comparison of Avestan and Vedic evidence appears to be much more convincing. ... There can be no doubt that in some cases the places or rivers are in effect the same.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“namely the entirely eastern character of the countries listed in the first chapter of the Vendidad, including Zoroastrian Raya, and the historical and geographical importance of that list.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As a matter of fact all this is due to a persistent effort to make accounts work out at all costs according to the logic of a pre-established plan.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The first chapter of the Vendidad seems to give considerable support to a theory that attempts to reconstruct an active presencce of the Iranian tribes .... in territories such as eastern Iran...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... for identifying the aryo sayana with the vast region that stretches southward from the Hindukus... As a matter of fact, these Avestan texts.. give a fairly uniform picture: eastern Iran, with a certain prevalence of the southern regions or the countries reaching up to the southern slopes of the Hindukus. To make an attempt, as has been done, at reconstructing... the route followed by the Iranian tribes in their migration southwards, or the expansion in the same direction of the Zoroastrian community is, I think, in any case arbitrary from a methodological viewpoint.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And so we may conclude that Beneviste's theory, according to which... gave proof of the identity of Airyana Vaejah and Chorasmia ... is quite unacceptable.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are no convincing arguments, whether historical or archaeological ones, for such an hypothesis. The archaeological arguments are not at all convincing... The historico-philological arguments are not convincing either.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“With regard to this region, Xwarizm, far from being a center for the spreading of such an important part of Iranian civilization as the Zoroastrian doctrine was, appears, upon an unprejudiced examination, as a remote, outlying province which never played a really central part in the political and cultural history of Iran before the Middle Ages.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The idea of a Turanian, or Scythian, or Chorasmian period of Zoroastrianism... should thus be definitely rejected.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What has been said so far about the Tuiryas... persuades us once again that ther eis no good reason for seeking the primitive location of Iranian Turan in a historico-geographical horizon that is necessarily different from the one in which the Iranian Airyas lived...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I simply cannot understand ... how one can think that "... its original may have been the Black Sea or Caspian, as known to dwellers on the steppe-lands to the North..."... it seems evident to me that the geographical horizon ... is the one we are familiar with by now: the central-southern areas of eastern Iran, south of the Hindukus.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the importance of cattle in various aspects of the Gathic doctrine can be taken as certain. This importance can be explained as a reflection in religious practice and myth of a socioeconomic set-up in which cattle-raising was a basic factor.” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...either they construct an antagonism of an essentially ethnic character... The first of these two hypotheses is not based on any sound arguments. On the contrary...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no evidence for thinking that the Zoroastrian message was meant for the Iranians alone. On the-contrary, history suggests that the exact opposite is likely, and there are also indisputable facts … which show clearly that Zoroaster’s teaching was addressed, earlier on at least to all men ... whether they were Iranians or not, Proto-Indoaryans or otherwise…”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fact [is] that Avestan geography, particularly the list in Vd. I, is confined to the east,” ...[this list is] “remarkably important in reconstructing the early history of Zoroastrianism”. ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[The horizon of the Avesta] “is according to Burrow, wholly eastern and therefore certainly earlier than the westward migrations of the Iranian tribes.” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[the attempt to transpose the geography of the Avesta from Afghanistan to western Iran] “was doubtless due to different attempts made by the most powerful religious centres of western Iran and the influential order of the Magi to appropriate the traditions of Zoroastrianism that had flourished in the eastern territories of the plateau in far-off times. Without a doubt, the identification of Raya with Adurbadagan, more or less parallel with its identification with Ray, should be fitted into the vaster picture of the late location of Airyana Vaejah in Adarbayjan.” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[the Avesta reflects] “an historical situation in which Iranian elements exist side by side with … Aryan or Proto-Indoaryan (elements)”. ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Likewise, in later Greek tradition, Ariane] “is the Greek name which doubtless reflects an older Iranian tradition that designated with an equivalent form the regions of eastern Iran lying mostly south, and not north, of the Hindukus. It is clear how important this information is in our research as a whole.” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Hilmand region and the Hamun-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[This region is subject to] “a process of spiritualization of Avestan geography … in the famous celebration of the Hilmand in the Zamyad Yast…”, and “this pre-eminent position of Sistan in Iranian religious history and especially in the Zoroastrian tradition is a very archaic one that most likely marks the first stages of the new religion … the sacredness of the Hamun-i Hilmand goes back to pre-Zoroastrian times…” ...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[In the Avestan descriptions of Varana (in the Vendidad), Gnoli sees] “a country, where the ‘Airyas’ (Iranians) were not rulers and where there was probably a hegemony of Indo-Aryan or proto-Indoaryan peoples.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Airyana Vaējah... ]"the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization".”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―] eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We can therefore attribute to an essentially mythical geography certain common Indo-Iranian conceptions: the conception of Mount Hara in the Avesta or Mount Meru or Sumeru in India; that of the seven regions of the earth: the Iranian kesvar or the Indian dvipa; that of a central region: Xanirata or Jambudvipa respectively in Iran and India; that of the Tree of all seeds in the Vourukasa sea south of Mount Hara in Iran, and of the Jambu tree south of Mount Meru in India, etc.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If to these reasons we add archaeological considerations that demonstrate the entirely peripheral situation of Chorasmia in relation to the Iranian world of the first half of the 1st millennium BCE, we can exclude this northeastern region from the geographic horizon of Zoroastrian origins. Chorasmia retained this peripheral position throughout the entire 1st millennium BCE... No valid argument can make us think that it was ever decisively larger than present-day Khwarezm and that it extended to much more southern territories.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is farther south than in Chorasmia that we must strive to reconstruct the historical environment where the Iranian prophet lived and acted. A set of data from different sources... leads... to shifting our focus toward the areas around the Hindu Kush and toward the lands south of these mountains...in short, between ancient Bactria and the ancient Drangiana and Arachosia.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Muza recalls the Sanskrit Mujavant, to be located in a region between the Hindu Kush and the Pamir.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mount Hara, which in Iranian cosmography is the counterpart of Mount Meru in Indian cosmography, is clearly identifiable in the Mihr Yast with Paropamisos, Para-uparisaina.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The geographical framework of Vd. I is entirely that of eastern Iran.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This list... in my opinion, has the same meaning as the lists of the sixteen Great Territories, sodasa mahājanapada, subjected to the Aryan element according to Buddhist, Jain, and epic sources of 6th-century BCE India. The first fargard of the Vendidad – I do not know if this parallelism has ever been observed – is a Zoroastrian list of the sixteen Great Territories in which the Aryan element spread, albeit unevenly.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Given its very Oriental horizon, this list must be pre-Achaemenid; on the other hand, the remarkable extendedness of the territories concerned recommends situating them in a period much later than the Zoroastrian origins. (…) one or several centuries later than Zarathuštra’s preaching.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gnoli, Gherarda, 1985: De Zoroastre à Mani, Paris, Institut d’Etudes Iraniennes, Sorbonne. (page 25), quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2018). Still no trace of an Aryan invasion: A collection on Indo-European origins. About th…
“The case of Vakereta was resolved by S. Lévi, who linked it to the name of the yakṣa of Gandhāra, Vaikr̥tika, in the list of the Mahāmāyūrī. This identification is solid and widely accepted, as evidenced by the consensus it has gathered.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Varena was identified by Henning with Buner, the Varnu of the Mahāmāyūrī.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For Ranha, finally, as for Vakereta, Varena, and Hapta Hendu, I believe that the comparison with Vedic or ancient Indian geography is valid: just as for these three countries we consider the comparison with Vaikrta, Varnu, and Sapta Sindhavah significant, so too for the country on the waters of the Ranha we can consider the comparison with the Vedic river Rasa no less significant, which is sometimes mentioned together with Kubha (the Kabul) and Krumu (the Kurram), as in RV V, 53, 9.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This suggests to us a conclusion which, in my view, is historically important: the northern steppes, the Aral region, the lands beyond the Syr Darya and probably also those beyond the Amu Darya, remain outside the reconstructed horizon... This means that Zoroastrianism... was born in an area of the Iranian or Iranianized world where, for centuries, cultural, social, and economic processes developed...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, groups of states were present on the western and southern margins of this territory, while Chorasmia was inhabited by populations living mainly by subsistence economy.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the contrary, it was certainly not before the Achaemenid period that areas with greater agricultural potential like Sogdiana and Chorasmia were widely populated and exploited. In light of archaeological research results, this delay is attributed less to their intrinsic geographical characteristics than to the distance separating these areas from those that, in the 3rd millennium BCE, saw the first state formations in eastern Iran. This marginality will disappear when they become demographically saturated and fully exploitable.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is one of the regions in our geographical horizon that probably witnessed the origins of Zoroastrianism: Sistan, and more precisely, the basin of the Hamun-i Helmand.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Zoroastrianism was born on a cultural and religious ground that is several centuries, even millennia old...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This suggests a long and complex prehistory, largely documented by archaeological evidence... which allows us to reconstruct a sort of ideological detachment process related to the bovine, an animal that was certainly at the base of the economy of the Indus Valley and the Iranian plateau.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only Ariana we know is Strabo's Ariana, whose Geography describes its limits precisely: to the east the Indus, to the south the Arabian Sea, and to the west an irregular line...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Zoroaster probably lived at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, within the vast region known to the Greeks... The Central Asian steppes or Chorasmia are again excluded from this geographical horizon.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All this gives Sistan a central role regarding the origins of Zoroastrianism, as it is almost presented to us as the Zoroastrian land par excellence.”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This would probably be the first known case of transposition from east to west of a sacred place in the Zoroastrian tradition...”
Gherardo Gnoli (1937–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source