- Joined
- Sep 8, 2009
- Messages
- 4,562
- Likes
- 2,572
It seems that the term "Iran" (Eran) was in use as an ethnic self-designator at least since the Sassanian period (3rd-7th centuries C.E.)."Iran" does mean "Land of Aryans", but not in the sense of "Aryan" as an racial or ethnic term. The ancient Iranians used the word "Arya" the same way that the ancient Indians did, i.e. as a cultural term meaning "noble" or "high-born". It had no racial/ethnic meaning. The name "Eran/Iran" would therefore have the same meaning as "Aryavarta".
Even the ancient Greeks were aware of this term, and they used the name "Ariana" to refer to what is now eastern Iran. Here is a map by the Greek geographer Eratosthenes in the 2nd century B.C.E., which places "Ariana" as the landmass located west of India.
From Encyclopedia Iranica:
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eran-eransahThe great trilingual inscription of Å ÄpÅ«r I at the KaÊ¿ba-ye ZardoÅ¡t in FÄrs, here preserved only in Parth. and Greek, but reconstructable with certainty also in Pers., contains for the first time the Pers. word Ä“rÄnÅ¡ahr (Parth. aryÄnÅ¡ahr), the king declaring in Persian [*ʾNH . . . ylʾnÅ¡try ḥwtʾy ḤWHm]/an. . .Ä“rÄnÅ¡ahr xwadÄy hÄ“m/, Parth. ʾNH . . .ʾryʾnḥštr ḥwtwy ḤWYm/az. . .aryÄnÅ¡ahr xwadÄy ahÄ“m/, Greek egÅ . . .tou ArianÅn ethnous despotÄ“s eimi "I am lord of the kingdom (Gk. nation) of the Aryans" (Å KZ, Mid. Pers. [1], Parth. 1., Gk. 1.2; Back, p. 284-85). This formulation, following his title "king of kings of the Aryans," makes it seem very likely that Ä“rÄnÅ¡ahr properly denoted the empire, while Ä“rÄn was still understood, in agreement with its etymology (< OIr. *aryÄnÄm), as the (oblique) plural of the gentilic Ä“r (Parth. ary < Old Ir. arya-) "Aryan," i.e., "of the Iranians."
The key is the Greek translation of the Persian, which appears in the multilingual inscription of Shapur. The use of the Greek word ethnous, the basis of the English word "ethnicity" and meaning a "nation", is revealing. Shahanshah Shapur is proclaiming himself as the ruler of an Aryan "nation". The conclusion is that, by this time (3rd century C.E.), the word "Aryan" had evolved from its earlier, largely cultural meaning into an ethno-linguistic one referring to a distinct group of people (the Iranians, people of Eranshahr). In India, the usage of the cognate term "Arya" seems to have been largely restricted to the former, and never took on an ethnic/national meaning as it did in Iran.