Ariana

19th century reconstruction of a map of the world by Eratosthenes, c.194 BC. The name Ariana can be seen on this map.

Aria'na, the Latinized form of (Greek: ἡ 'Αρειανή/Arianē^[1]), inhabitants: Ariani (Greek: Αρειανοί/Arianoi^[2]), was a region of the eastern countries of ancient Persia, next to India,^[3] included in present E Iran, whole of Afghanistan, and India NE of the Indus River.^[4]. At various times, the region was in possession of the Persians, the Macedonians, and partly the Indians.^[5] Its exact limits are laid down with little accuracy in classical sources, and it seems to have been often confused (as in Pliny, Naturalis Historia, book vi., page 23) with the small province of Aria.^[6]

As a geographical term Ariana was introduced by Eratosthenes^[7] and as such it was defined by a border-line comprising the Indus river in the east, the sea in the south, a line from Carmania to the Caspian Gates in the west, and the so-called Taurus Mountains in the north, and, as Strabo^[8] emphasizes, also by its name, “as of a single nation.” This large region includes almost all of the countries east of Media and Persia and south of the great mountain ranges up to the deserts of Gedrosia and Carmania,^[9] i.e. the provinces of Carmania, Gedrosia, Drangiana, Arachosia^[10], Aria, the Paropamisadae; also Bactria was reckoned to Ariana and was called “the ornament of Ariana as a whole” by Apollodorus of Artemita^[11]. After having described the boundaries of Ariana, Strabo writes that the name 'Αρειανή could also be extended to part of he Persians and the Medes and also northwards to the Bactrians and the Sogdians.^[12] A detailed description of that region is to be found in Strabo's Geographica, Book XV – "Persia, Ariana, the Indian subcontinent", chapter 2, sections 1-9).^[13]

Rüdiger Schmitt, the German scholar of Iranian Studies, writes in the Encyclopedia Iranica:

"Eratosthenes’ use of this term (followed by Diodorus 2.37.6) is obviously due to a mistake, since, firstly, not all inhabitants of these lands belonged to the same tribe and, secondly, the term “Aryan” originally was an ethnical one and only later a political one as the name of the Iranian empire (for all Indians and Iranians designated themselves as “Aryan”), thus comprising still other Iranian tribes outside of Ariana proper, like Medes, Persians or Sogdians (so possibly in Diodorus 1.94.2, where Zarathushtra is said to have preached Ahura Mazdā’s laws “among the Arianoi”)."

^{(Encylopedia Iranica, ARIA (2. Ariane), R. Schmitt)}

The Greek term is based upon Old Iranian Āryana- (Avestan: Airiiana-, esp. in Airiianəm vaēǰō, the name of the Aryans’ mother country, whose localization is disputed),^[14] which is connected with the Avestan term Airya-, the Old Persian term Ariya- and the Sanskrit term Arya-, "noble", "exellent" and "honourable" (esp. in Āryāvarta, Sanskrit: आर्यावर्त, "abode of the Aryans").^[15]

See also

• Airyanem Vaejah
• Āryāvarta
• Arya

References