being the centre of the seven great continents of the world
(Vislum-Purana, B. II. cap. 2).In the Rig-veda ira occurs but once, and there, V. 83, 4, it has the meaning of food springing from the earth. "Food is produced for every being, when Par^anya quickens the earth with seed " (ira vlsvasmai bhuvanaya ^/ayate ydt pan/anyaA prithivim retasa avati).
Here ira cannot mean simply "a liquid, a draught, feast, particularly a draught of milk ;" for the simile shows that the rain is taken as seed, and that from it the food (ira) is supposed to spring (yayate).
In another passage in the Atharva-veda, IV. 11, 10, ira may mean earth, but the sense is doubtful. If it be asked how ira, originally meaning earth, could take the meaning of food, we must remember the tendency of ancient lan guage to mix up cause and effect, the producer and the produced. Ira, meaning originally earth, would be used in many circumstances as the food and sustenance supplied by the earth, just as gau&, cow, in the Veda is used, not only for milk, but even for leather.
The adjective iravat means possessed of nourishment, nourishing. Anira means without food, and anira amiva seems to be a name for famine. In one place, Rig-veda, IX. 97, 17, iravat stands for iravat; v?-ishi!ini nah arsha divyam (Tigatnum i^avatlm, "Give us the heavenly, streaming, fruitful rain."
Considering the antiquity of the name arya, we may refer its origin to a period in the history of the Aryan language, when the primitive substantive ar was still used instead of the later *ara, ira, epa. As from x a /*e we should be justified in postulating the former existence not only of x /^, earth, but even of a more primitive substan tive xap, which is actually preserved in x^" so fr m Zpa^f, we conclude the former existence not only of epa, but also of a substantive ep, Sk. ar.
Whether arya means born of the earth, or holding, cul tivating, possessing the earth, in either case such a name finds ample analogies in the names by which the early dwellers on the earth spoke of themselves. It is not in modern languages only that people call those of their own coxintry, Landsmann, countryman, but in Greek, too, y^m/s is used in that sense, while yetr-wv, equally derived from yrj, means neighbour. The Latin vicinus, neighbour, is derived from vicus, the Greek, ot/<o?, the Sanskrit, vesa ; all connected with the Sanskrit vis, dwelling or dweller, the synonym of arya in Sanskrit. In Gothic, gaujan, a countryman, is derived from gauja, land, probably con nected with x^ in x -^ "- ^- Connected with this same X<x/i (x$wv, x^apxXos) is the Gothic guma(n), man; Lithu anian, zm6n-es, plur., men ; and the Latin, hemones (nehemo = nemo), and homines, men, not derived from humus, but from an older nominal base, ham, hem, or horn.
Mythology also supplies several instances showing that man was conceived as born of the earth, the son and then the lord of the earth, made of dust, and meant to "till the ground from whence he was taken." Erechtheus or Erichthonios (both chtheus and chthonios point to x a fO> the national hero of the Athenians, worshipped in the oldest shrine on the Acropolis, was represented as y^yo^s or alTo X Ouv (Her., VIII. 55), while Homer (II., II. 548) says of him that the Earth bore him (re /ce 8i ^etScopos apovpa). Hellen is the son of Pyrrha, and Pyrrha, the red, was the oldest name of Thessaly. The Germans derive their race from Mannus, who Avas the son of Tuisco, the heavenly, who was the son of the Earth.
The root ar, which as a substantive supplied the oldest names for earth, took in its verbal application the meaning of ploughing, at least among the members of the north western branch, Gr., apo-rpov, apo-ryp, dpo-w ; Lat., ar-a-re, ar-a-trurn, ar-a-tor ; Goth., ar-jan, to ear; Lith., ar-ti, to plough; Old Slav., oralo, plough; Irish, airim, I plough, arathar, plough. In the south-eastern branch it took the technical meaning of ploughing the sea, Sanskrit, ari-tram, meaning rudder, never plough (cf. Kr/xara rtfj-vav and apovpav refjiveiv). Yet the meaning of moving, stirring up, belonged to the root ar from the beginning, and though we ought not to derive *ar, *ara, ira, epa, from a root ar, to plough, as little as homo from humus, we may well under stand how ar, as the broken, reclaimed, arable land could be used, even before the Aryan separation, as one of the names of earth.
The common etymology which would assign to arya the meaning of "belonging to the faithful" (Roth) is unten able, because arya, with the short a and accent on the last syllable, does not mean faithful or devoted, and it is ex tremely doubtful whether ari, from which arya is said to be derived, occurs anywhere in the Veda with the meaning of desirous, devoted, or faithful. But even if it did, it would be impossible to leave out of consideration the name arya, meaning simply landholder, Vaisya, without any admixture of the meaning of faithful or devoted. The national name, a rya, comes directly from this arya, landholder, and arya, landholder, comes from ar, land, not from ari, which means enemy. To distinguish arya, as a term of honour, in the sense of lord or master, from arya, the mere appellative, a change of accent was admitted, which is recognised by the earliest grammarians who mention arya, lord, as distin guished from arya, landlord, while no native authority ever assigns to arya, still less to ari, the meaning of faithful.
Arya and Arya, as national names, can be traced from India to Persia. In the Avesta, airya means venerable, and is at the same time the name of the people. The first country created by Ormuzd or Ahuramazda is called in the Avesta, Airyanem vae^o, Arianum semen. The whole extent of country occupied by the worshippers of Ormuzd is also called Airya. As opposed to the Aryan clans (airyao dainhavo), we hear in the Avesta of the un-Aryan clans (anairyao dainhavo), and the same name is contained in the Avapia/xi of Strabo, a people and town on the frontiers of Hyrcania. Greek geographers use the name of Ariana in a wider sense than the Avesta. All the country between the Indian Ocean in the south and the Indus on the east, the Hindu-Kush and Paropamisus in the north, the Caspian gates, Karamania, and the mouth of the Persian Gulf in the west, is included by Strabo under the name of Ariana ; Bactria is called by him the ornament of the whole of Ariana. As the Zoroastrian religion spread westward, Persia, Elymais, and Media, all claimed the Aryan title. Hellanicus, who wrote before Herodotus, gives Aria as a name of Persia. Herodotus attests that the Medians were called Arii ; and even for the northernmost part of Media, Atropatene, the name of Ariania has been preserved by Stephanus Byzantinus. Even Elymais has been supposed to be derived from Ailama, a modification of Airyama. That airya was considered a name of honour we see from the cuneiform inscriptions. There Darius calls himself Ariya and Ariya&itra, an Aryan, and of Aryan descent. The same element enters into many historical Persian names, Ariaramnes, Ariobarzanes, &c. When after centuries of foreign invasion and occupation Persia rose again under the sceptre of the Sassanians to the rank of a national kingdom, the kings, the worshippers of Masdanes, called themselves again in their inscriptions, Kings of the Aryan and un-xVryan races, Iran va Aniran, AptavwK Kal Avapiavwv. Hence the modern name of Persia, Iran.
been supposed to exist. The old name of the country is Armina, and its etymology is doubtful. In the language
of Armenia, however, ari exists, used in the widest sense