Gherardo Gnoli

“Thus Airyana Vaéjah was the new Zoroastrian name for the country that was considered the centre of the main karSvarq where the Iranian ‘Meru’ stood and through which there flowed the “Aryan” reach of the river that was renamed Vanuhi Daitya,”

“Now, the obstacle that arises from the theory of the Medes and the Persians having emigrated from the North ... on the basis of a highly conjectural interpretation of the archaeological evidence, is now removed by the archaeologists themselves. A body of evidence... orients us in quite a different direction, namely towards that of a migratory movement, probably a slow, progressive one, from East to West, along the great Khorasan Road.....”

“The main obstacle to a reconstruction that closely links the western Aryas to the Avestan Airyas is, in my opinion, the one arising from the theories that the Medes and the Persians emigrated from the North rather than from the East, that is to say, for instance, from south-east Russia (some scholars connect them with the so-called Andronovo culture) to the region lying North or North-West of the Caspian and across the Caucasus to the Urmia Lake region and, lastly, in an easterly and southeasterly direction towards the Zagros mountains.”

“Such religious thought was formed... in the central and southern zones of the eastern Iranian world...”

“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...”

“[Gnoli identifies the sixteenth land, Raηhā, as an ―] eastern mountainous area, Indian or Indo-Iranian, hit by intense cold in winter.”

“[Airyana Vaējah... ]"the country is characterized, in the Vd.I context, by an advanced state of mythicization".”

“The Hilmand region and the Hamun-i Hilmand are beyond all doubt the most minutely described countries in Avestan geography. ...”

““we may consider that the northernmost regions where Zoroaster carried out his work were Bactria and Areia”. ...”

“[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.” ...”