From the bellowing cow to the cow’s soul. Remarks on the Old Indo-Āryan and Old Iranian animal sacrifice

This paper aims to draw parallels between the ancient Iranian or Avestan culture and the ancient Indo-Āryan or Vedic Sanskrit culture as regards animal sacrifices. As is well known, these two cultures share an ancient common cultural basin, that is the so-called Indo-Iranian culture located at least within the Andronovo cultural complex, during the Bronze Age, and within the Bactria-Margiana Acheological Complex (BMAC) in the first half of the second millennium BCE. However, the Iranian culture which we know from the Avestan textual corpus developed especially on the Iranian plateau, at least from the ninth century BCE onwards, whereas the Old Indo-Āryan culture we know from the Vedic textual corpus developed in the North-Western area of the Indian subcontinent, that is between Afghanistan and Pakistan earlier (1500-1300 BCE), and later in the area corresponding to today’s eastern Panjab, and Uttar Pradesh (1300-900 BCE). Therefore, despite a common cultural background, for centuries the Avestan and Vedic cultures developed independently of each other, each with its own characteristics. As regards the so-called ‘sacrifice,’ known as yasna in Old Iranian and yajña in Old Indo-Āryan, and in light of the afore-mentioned historical premise, there are nevertheless peculiar parallels that are anything but mere cultural coincidences, nor the mere remnants of an ancient Indo-Iranian cultural unit, but the result of the development of a common cultural heritage under similar historical conditions, despite the peculiarities of each culture. This article aims to highlight such developments, especially in relation to the performance of the animal sacrifice.