Mitanni: Encyclopedia II - Mitanni - Possible connections to Sanskrit and Indo-Aryans

Mitanni - Possible connections to Sanskrit and Indo-Aryans

Some scholars try to equate the deities venerated by the Mitanni with Vedic deities, and trace the names used by the aristocracy to Indo-Aryan roots. In a treaty between the Hittites and the Mitanni, the deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatya (Ashvins) are invoked. Kikkuli's horse training text includes technical terms such as aika (eka, one), tera (tri, three), panza (pancha, five), satta (sapta, seven), na (nava, nine), vartana (vartana, round). Another text has babru (babhru, brown), parita (palita, grey), and pinkara (pingala, red). Their chief festival was the celebration of the solstice (vishuva) which was common in most cultures in the ancient world. The Mitanni warriors were called marya, the term for warrior in Sanskrit as well.

Sanskritic interpretations of Mitanni royal names render Shuttarna as Sutarna ("good sun"), Baratarna as Paratarna ("great sun"), Parsatatar as Parashukshatra ("ruler with axe"), Saustatar as Saukshatra ("son of Sukshatra, the good ruler"), Artatama as "most righteous", Tushratta as Dasharatha ("having ten chariots"?), and, finally, Mattivaza as Mativaja ("whose wealth is prayer"). Some scholars believe that not only the kings had Indo-Aryan names; a large number of other names resembling Sanskrit have been unearthed in records from the area.

It has been widely conjectured that this original Mitanni aristocracy who bore Indo-Aryan names, had emigrated from the north and imposed themselves upon the indigenous Hurrians of Syria who were not Indo-Aryan, although historical clues are scarce. Some have attempted to connect the name M(a)itanni with Madai (Medes), Indo-Iranians who had an empire to the West centuries later. As the names suggest, the Indo-Aryans and the Indo-Iranians (Persians) were closely related linguistic groups. In addition, some Kurdish sources claim that one of their clans, the Mattini, preserves the name of Mitanni. Archaeologists have attested a striking parallel in the spread to Syria of a distinct pottery type associated with what they call the Kura-Araxes culture, however the dates they usually assign for this are somewhat earlier than the Mitanni are thought to have first arrived. As for the Vedic Sanskrit-speaking Aryans themselves, it seems that they first migrated into India in this same general time frame (roughly 1500 BC).

Finally, for what it's worth, Eusebius, writing in the early 4th century, quotes fragments of Eupolemus, a now-lost Jewish historian of the 2nd century BC, as saying that around the time of Abraham (ca. 1700 BC?), "the Armenians invaded the Syrians" - quite possibly, the only surviving historical reference to the invasion of the possibly Indo-Aryan Mitanni ruling class, who at that time could not have been actual "Armenians" per se, but who likely originated in the same general region later known as Armenia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Possible connections to Sanskrit and Indo-Aryans", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki