IRAQ
– The 3rd Millennia Theatre of War
It was also the Aryan Rann-Bhoomi in 2nd Millennia BC
This US led war against Iraq, declared outside the UN Charter by
secretary general Kofi Annan, might be a new war or continuation of
the 1991 Gulf War. The 1991 war might or might not be the mother of
all battles as described by president Saddam Hussein. But this war
might end up as the mother of all battles in its ramifications for
this century. Will it bring back might is right and the law of the
Jungle?
However the civilizations which flourished in Mesopotamia, between
the river valleys of rivers Euphrates and Tigris and their
tributaries in Iraq, Turkey and Syria and in Iran certainly remain
the mother lode of all civilizations. It is from them that the
Egyptians and the Phoenicians borrowed and from them the Cretian
civilization took shape, mother of the Greek civilization; basis for
European and Western civilizations.
But now a days it is the cities of first millennia Islamic culture
and civilization which are attracting the attention of international
media and in the cross wires of warring machines, bringing home on
TV screens daily historic and revered names like Baghdad, Basra,
Najaf, Kerbala, Kut, Mosul, Kirkuk, Nasiriye and Ninenveh to name
few of them. Flourishing civilizations have always attracted
barbarians and savages, who have prevailed by sheer brutal force
i.e. chariot riders, horse riders, mobile military and tanks and now
helicopter gun ships and inaccessible and invisible air machines
raining terrible deaths and destruction.
Here is a learned paper on ancient
Indian religion and culture outside India, in Mesopotamia, now
theatre of war for US led forces. I had done most of my research at
British Institute of Archeology Ankara. The theatre of war was also the
Rann Bhumi of Indo-Aryan Mitannis in 2nd Millennia BC. Not many
Indians are aware of this heritage and this is an occasion to
educate them. (Not those ignorant who believe that Aryans
originated from India). India is now being led by the likes of Modi
and Togadia. Our polity has regressed back to Alberuni's India, with
cow and its urine etc being the main subjects of political
discourse.
But before the centers of Islamic culture and civilization emerged,
centers of ancient civilizations had existed earlier. With corporate
chieftains ruling a country which has graduated from savagery (against red
Indians and African black slaves) to high-tech, it is hoped that these
invaluable cities, sign posts and remains of progress in human
civilization and culture would not be damaged and destroyed. For example,
during 16th to 13th century BC, the dynasty of Aryan Mitannis flourished in the rich and grain growing valleys of the
rivers Balikh and Khabur, tributaries of the Euphrates. The upper
Mesopotamia region around the middle reaches of the Euphrates and
Tigris was rich agriculture land and therefore, much sought after.
Throughout history, because of its excellent location, for caravans
bringing goods from India and the east, for connecting the Arabian
desert to the Mediterranean and Asia Minor, it was much fought over.
It is now divided between Turkey, Syria and Iraq with Iran not far
away.
Mitannis perhaps came to this region through the Caucasus and had
splintered off in the Eurasian steppes from the main stream of Aryan
tribes, who had continued on to Iran and then to India. They became the
ruling chariot riding aristocracy among the confederation of Hurrian,
Hanigalbat and other states of the region which extended from the Zagros
mountains in Iran through Assyria, upper Mesopotamia and Syria to the
Mediterranean. Information on Mitannis and their kingdoms first surfaced
at the end of the 19th century when letters from a Mitanni King sent to
his Pharaoh son-in-law were discovered at El Amarna and deciphered. The
Egyptians called the Mitannis Naharinas. The other extensive and important
source material was discovered in early 20th century at Bogazkoy 250 km
north east of Ankara, the stronghold of Hittites.
Among the documents discovered were treaties between the Hittites and
Mitannis in which reference was made to the Indo-Iranian gods Indra,
Natasya, Mitra and Varuna and a treatise on horse training and
chariotry in Hittite written by Kikkuli, a Mitanni who used ancient Vedic
Sanskrit technical terms. This also confirmed Mitannian superiority in
matters of horsemanship.
The Egyptian Pharaohs had requested the Mitannis time and again for
horses and chariots. Other places where cuneiform documents in
Akkadian and other languages throw light on Mitannis are Arraphka,
Nuzi (near Kirkuk), Alalakh, a river port on Orontes (on the Turkish
-Syrian border near Antioch), Ugarit (Ras Shamra in Syria) on the
Mediterranean, Mari on the river Euphrates. Antioch (Antakya in
Turkey) was the capital of Selucus Nikator's empire, Alexander's
infantry commander against Porus in India, but when he tried to
reclaim Alexander's domains he was defeated and fobbed off with 500
elephants by Chandra Gupta Maurya. Ugarit was perhaps one of the
greatest international sea ports of that time for, owing to its
location, it controlled trade between Syria, its hinterland and the
East with the Aegean and the Mediterranean, with merchants and
sailors from Egypt, Cyprus, Crete, Mycene and other places mingling
here for trade and commerce. Documents from Nuzi describe certain
social and religious traditions which are reflected in Hebrew
legends recorded in the Old Testament.
The fact that the gods in the Treaties are Hindu Vedic Daivya
gods, Indra and Natasya along with Assura
Iranian gods Mitra and Varuna, shows that the Aryan
division into Iranians and Indians had not yet taken place. Later on
most of Daivya worshipping Aryans continued on to India and
most of Assura worshipping Aryans stayed behind in Iran after
some recriminations, each calling the others gods devils. Limiting
the use of Indo-Aryan gods to the Treaties perhaps indicates that
only the rulers were of Indo-Aryan origin. There is also some
evidence that the Royals were cremated. The chariot riding shock
troops were called Marijannina linked with old Indian Vedic i.e.
Marya=youngman, old Avestan= a member of a group. Later
this land owning aristocratic group became hereditary, i.e. even
without owning chariots. The technical terms used in horse training
and chariotry like aikawartanna, navartanna etc (one
turn, nine turns ) are like ek vartanam, nava vartanam as in
Vedic Sanskrit. A Hurrian text from Yorgan Tepe uses Indo-Aryan
words to describe the color of horses, i.e. babru (brown ) parita
(grey ), pinkara (reddish ) etc.
The beginnings of the Mitannis arrival are shrouded in mystery, but it
seems that they took advantage of the collapse of the Empire established
by Hammurabi (who gave the first code in human history, ie to protect the
weak against the strong). There are reasons to believe that the kings of
the Ashur between 1500 BC to 1360 BC were the vassals of the Mitannis. The
Mitannis also crossed the Euphrates and exercised influence over the
Amorites and Canaanites in the South i.e. Palestine and Israel. The first
and most important Mitanni king was Saustatar (1450 BC to 1440 BC). Other
important kings were Artatama (1440-1420),Vedic rta -dhaman=
whose abode is the Rta, Shutarna (1420 to 1395),
Artashumara (1395 to 1385), Tushratta = Vedic Tvesh- ratha,
one whose chariot moves forward violently (some echo of Dashrath)
and Sattiwaza; in old Indo-Aryan sati-vaja = acquiring booty, old
Vedic vaja -sati. While the etymology of names of all Mitanni kings
has not been done, they are very different from Hurrian names. Rulers with
similar names ruled in south Syria and Palestine. Shaustatar ruled around
the same time as Pharaoh Thuthmosis III. In fact he made Thuthmosis's
drive to conquer Syria, very difficult by supporting the small states
there. This led to mutual respect for each other. Later the Mitannis
signed a peace treaty with the Pharaohs in order to counteract the Hittite
threat from the North West. This state relationship was cemented with a
Mitanni princess being married to a Pharaoh, but only after 7 requests had
been received. Shaustatar's son Artatama sent his daughter Mutema as wife
to Pharaoh Thuthmosis IV, grandson of Thutmosis III. Artatarna's successor
Shutarna's daughter Gilukhepa was married to Amun hotep III. She went to
her husband in style accompanied by 317 Mitannian maidens.
Next, Tushratta gave his daughter Tadukhepa to Amun hotep IV, who also
married Gilukhepa, youngest in his father's harem. It is generally
believed that Gilukhepa was no other than the beautiful and famous
Nefertiti. It is known that Nefertiti fully supported her husband' s
efforts to bring in monotheism. It was from Egypt, where Moses was born
and brought up that he led out the Jews with the idea of one God Jehovah.
The last semi-independent King was Mattiuzza, who was installed on the
throne following a palace coup after the murder of Tushratha. He became a
vassal of the Hittite king Shuppiluliuma who gave his daughter Mursil in
marriage to Mattiuza. Thus the Mitanni dynasty came to be connected with
both the Pharaohs and the Hittites. But after the alliance with the
Hittites, the Mitannis were reduced to a smaller state with limited
independence. As the Mitanni power declined relations with the Pharaohs
withered away. Some of its later kings were Shattwara and Wasasatta. Small
Mitanni states lingered on for years. The Assyrians took advantage of the
situation to assert their independence. They even raided the Mitanni
capital Wassukkanni and took back the golden and silver gates which the
Mitannis had brought from Assyria 200 years ago. Assyrian king Ashur
Uballit I (1365 BC to1338 BC) ended the Mittani independence completely by
defeating Shuttarna II. Over 14,000 Mitannis were blinded. After this
defeat, the Mitannis either got absorbed in the region or some of them
went up north to form part of the Urartu Kingdom. Something like that had
perhaps also happened to another Indo Aryan people the Kassites, who had
ruled earlier over Assyria for nearly 5 centuries, but apart from 300
words of their language and 30 odd gods not much is known about them.
In the Kingdom of Mitannis, also known that of Hurrians, the latter
probably formed the majority, ie the other backward classes of those days.
The Hurrians, whose language is neither Indo-European nor Semitic, were a
non-Indo-European people and are believed to have come from Armenia and
present day north east of Turkey. They were well distributed in the
region, even in the Hittite areas. They were culturally well developed and
their religion and other practices were adopted by the Hittites. The
Hurrians also transmitted the Assyrian culture to the Hittites. Perhaps it
was too early for the castes to emerge, but the Mitannis certainly
appeared to be like the Kshatriyas; a word which comes from
ratharias charioteers (Rath = chariot), having superimposed
themselves over the Hurrians. The Mitannis used Hurrian language but
inducted into it Indo-Aryan vocabulary, as the Turks did in Persia, India
in a way and elsewhere, ie using the language of the subjects, but
retaining the military terms.
Most of the time the Mitannis had adverse relations with Indo-European
Hittites in Bogazkoy, nearly 250 km north east of Turkey’s capital Ankara.
They generally had close familial relations with the Egyptian Pharaohs.
The Hittites were an Indo-European people, the first to break away from
the proto Indo-Europeans, who probably originated from the Black Sea coast
of Russia and Ukraine. They had reached Asia Minor at the beginning of the
2nd millennium BC via the straits of the Bosporus and established a
magnificent and impregnable capital at Hattusa, ie Bogazkoy next to
Cappadocia (with its mysterious honeycombed underground cities and lunar
landscape with eerie tall chimneys in which the earliest Christian
communities had built their churches). The name Hittites (referred as such
in the Bible) is taken from Hattis, an indigenous people, whom the
Hittites had displaced and who then formed the lower sub-strata. The
Hittites called themselves Nes and their language Nesiti.
The Hittite King Hattusilis (reign 1650 to 1620 BC) consolidated the
Kingdom and extended its control over most of Asia Minor and Northern
Syria. His grandson Mursilis I raided down along the Euphrates river and
destroyed the Amorite dynasty of Babylon, then one of the most
cosmopolitan, rich and cultured cities. The austere highlanders felt out
of place and far away from Hattussa and returned to their capital.
Then for some time they got embroiled in their own affairs and re-emerged
as the new Empire in the 14th century BC. Under Suppililumas I it reached
the height of its power, extent and culture. Tusharatta, the last
independent Mitanni King, defeated the Hittites first time around, but
Suppililuimas I then went north and east, taking Wassukkanni by surprise.
Tushratta escaped to Carchemish, but the Mitanni power was broken and its
glory came to an end. Suppliliumas put his sons as kings of Aleppo and
Carchemish. Hittite king Muwatallis (1320 to 1294BC) fought at Kadesh (in
Syria) in one of the greatest tactical battles of ancient times against
Pharaoh Ramses II. It was probably indecisive, even though the latter
claimed a victory. Later a peace treaty was signed and a marriage alliance
concluded. The Hittites were tolerant in their religious outlook and their
polytheism contained indigenous Anatolian, Syrian and Hurrian divinities.
The Hittite King, deputy of the storm god, was also the commander in
chief, chief judge and after death became a god. The earliest Indo-Aryan
writing in India occurs around 300 BC on Ashoka pillars, but it is really
Prakrit. The ancient Sanskrit of Vedas, though transmitted orally
was probably written down by 6th century BC. Thus the earliest written
archaic Indo-Aryan/Indo-Iranian language has been found in Asia Minor and
Syria. The Hittite language is the earliest known extinct form of
Indo-European language and the older Hittite texts (from 1650 BC to 1595
BC) are the earliest texts found so far. In the later forms (1400 BC to
1190 BC) are to be found the Treaties and Treatise mentioned earlier,
which are some times on display at the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul
along with other historical treasures, literally a sweep through time and
history.
But for a full and authentic account of the times and lives of the
Mitannis and pre-Vedic Aryans, we have to wait till Wassukkanni is
located, dug and its findings deciphered. Unfortunately, none of the sites
of the Mitanni Kingdom itself has been located. Knowledge about the
Mitannis is based on information from sites in El Amarna Egypt and
Bogazkoy in north-west Turkey. Wassukkanni was once thought to be Rais el
Ain in Syria, just 80 kms east across from Harran, where Patriarch Abraham
had halted on way to Palestine (he is believed to be buried in Hebron )
from Urs in Iraq. But the Akkadian cuneiform tablets found at Amarna, when
subjected to tests did not match. Wassukkanni is now believed to be up
north in south east Turkey between Mardin, and 100 km up north Diyarbakir
(ancient Amida) now a Kurdish city, an area this writer has traversed many
times in early 1970s and 1990s. USA had wanted Diyarbakir, Mardin and
other neighboring bases for its troops, to open a second front against
north Iraq. But the Turkish parliament did not agree.
It was at Zile, northeast of Ankara, that Julius Caesar proclaimed veni,
vidi,vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) after his unexpected quick
victory over Pharnaces II, whose father Mithradates VI had given a tough
fight to the Romans. The name Mithridates (gift of Mithra), was a popular
name in the region, and came god Mithra.
The Greek Hellenic world had come in contact with the sophisticated
religions and philosophy of the East, including Mithraism, after the small
town boy Alexander and his hordes cut a swathe of victories across the
Achaemenian Empire. They also learnt about state protocol and the divinity
of the emperor. Coming into contact with neo-Platonian and other ideas,
Mithraism flowered between the 2nd and 4th centuries in the Roman world
and became a very popular religion among the Roman aristocracy, military
leaders and soldiers, traders and slaves with powerful patrons among Roman
emperors, like Commodus, Septimium Severus, Caraculla and others.
Diocletian built a temple for Mithra near Vienna on Danube as "the
Protector of the Empire".
Along the Rhine, Danube, Euphrates and in Roman north Africa, where Roman
legions used to camp, there are ruins of hundreds of underground Mithra
temples, with the slaying of the Cosmic Bull symbolizing the creation of
the universe and fertility. (Perhaps the Spanish sport of bullfighting
originates from it). As the god of Light and Sun, contract, loyalty and
justice, Mithraism was organized (but open only to men, being an Aryan
patriarchal religion) in a graded hierarchy, with novices ascending up the
highest seventh level - something like Buddhist /Hindu sanghas
(orders).
Various astronomical symbols, still indecipherable, with their meanings
transmitted orally from teacher to pupil in Aryan/Avestan tradition, still
remain unknown. One can speculate that they were similar to levels in
meditation for final unity with God. Celebrations for Mithra's birthday on
December 25, the sun's solstice, was so popular in the east that Christmas
celebrations had to be shifted to this day from January 6 to make it
acceptable among the masses. Christianity also took over many of the
rituals and symbols of Mithraism, like baptism, resurrection and prayers
in honor of the sun. But for the 312 AD victory at the Milvian Bridge
under the banner of the Cross, after which Constantine opted for
Christianity, leading to the decline of Mithraism, it is conceivable that
Mithraism might have spread and become a world religion
Instead of doing the diggings at Ayodhya, for negative and narrow
political electoral aims which only promotes divisions in Indian polity,
Indians and non resident Indians, many among the latter have helped fund
Chairs of Indian studies in USA, should establish a Chair for search of
Wassukkanni and study of its archeological discoveries. To reclaim and
proudly flaunt ancient Indian Aryan culture and civilization to the world.
– K Gajendra Singh
Bucharest,
April 2, 2003
(K Gajendra Singh, served as
Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in 1992-96. Prior to that, he
served as ambassador to Jordan (during the 1990-91 Gulf war ), Romania and
Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic
Studies. E-Mail.gajendrak@hotmail.com)
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IRAQ
– The 3rd Millennia Theatre of War
