Introduction
Indo-Iranian languages include three subgroups: first Indo-Aryan languages (including the Dardic languages); second Iranic languages (east and west) and third Nuristani languages. From these various and dispersed cultures a set of common ideas may be reconstructed from which a common, unattested proto-Indo-Iranian source may be deduced. The Proto-Indo-Iranian Religions are most likely the source of all prodomeniatly monotheistic religions today. The Proto-Indo-Iranian religions influenced Zoroastrianism and the Vedic Religions, which influenced Judism; Judism Influenced Christianity and Islam. The vedic religions influenced, shaped and evolved more into hinduism, eventually leading to Buddhism. This supports the theory that mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization.
Beliefs developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. For example the cosmo-mythology of the peoples that remained on the Central Asian steppes and the Iranian plateau is to a great degree unlike that of the Indians, focussed more on groups of deities (*daiva and *asura) and less on the divinities individually. Indians were less conservative than Iranians in their treatment of their divinities, so that some deities were conflated with others or, conversely, aspects of a single divinity developed into divinities in their own right. By the time of Zoroaster, Iranian culture had also been subject to the upheavals of the Iranian Heroic Age (late Iranian Bronze Age, 1800–800 BCE), an influence that the Indians were not subject to.
Sometimes certain myths developed in altogether different ways. The Rig-Vedic Sarasvati is linguistically and functionally cognate with Avestan *Haraxvaitī Ārəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā. In the Rig-Veda (6,61,5–7) she battles a serpent called Vritra, who has hoarded all of the Earth's water. In contrast, in early portions of the Avesta, Iranian *Harahvati is the world-river that flows down from the mythical central Mount Hara. But *Harahvati does no battle — she is blocked by an obstacle (Avestan for obstacle: vərəϑra) placed there by Angra Mainyu.
Read more about this topic: Proto-Indo-Iranian Religion
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