Abstract:
In the 90s, a remarkable number of manuscripts were found in Northern Afghanistan, including economic documents, legal documents, and letters, which have become an important resource for academic studies. This paper aims to investigate the Bactrian pantheon as reflected in the economic documents of this collection. At first, these economic documents and the pantheon mentioned in them are introduced. After that, the names of the gods that were commonly used in people’s names are studied, and finally the gods of the Bactrian pantheon are discussed in detail. The conclusion is that the names of the gods in the Bactrian pantheon are not Indian but Iranian, and also the gods themselves are rather pre-Zoroastrian than originally Zoroastrian.
Machine summary:
Sims-Williams has labeled the dated economic and legal Bactrian documents in BD1 with capital letters ordered according to their dates.
Cost inventory (al) In this paper, we have explored Bactrian documents in order to further our knowledge of the gods worshipped in Bactria and their influence as reflected in the use of their names in people’s names.
After an introductory discussion on the development of Buddhism in Bactrian documents, we first mention the names of the gods found in these economic documents.
Wakhsh (οαχþο in Bactrian) is a river-god (the river Wakhsh is the very Oxus river) that is mentioned in documents L, Nn, U, V, and W and is described in Nn as "wonderful, the granter of favours and fulfiller of wishes whose fame and miracle has filled the whole world" (BD2, 243; Sims-Williams 2001, 13).
(4) God Zhun (ζονο in Bactrian), which is used in the personal name ζονολαδο "given by Zhun" in L8, 19, 23, 30, P3, 4'f, Q5, 5'f (Sims-Williams 2010, 65-66).
The above discussion is another evidence proving the hypothesis of Gershevitch, according to which Mihr as the god of the sun was originally an eastern Iranian idea (BD2, 233-34; Gershevitch 1954, 41; Sims-Williams and Cribb, 1996, 108, 110).
Nana on Kushan coins (Staviskij 1986, ii) Conclusion (1) In studying the Bactrian economic documents, we found out that the gods worshipped by Bactrian people are Iranian deities or the replaced local and Semitic gods.