The Aryan Esthetics: Introductory Notes

Introduction

Recently a number of historians and ethnologists renewed their interest regarding the culture of the legendary Aryans. As a result, many written observations have been made and lots of research work has been published to shed light on believes and the life styles of various Aryan groups around the world. Despite some successful works over this subject, most of them had carried an eclectic character which could be explained by the ambitions of people with narrow profiles attempting to climb to the tops of the Aryanology which until now is considered to be a terra incognita. To avoid the mix-up created by such approaches it would be prudent to begin differentiating various aspects of the subject studied, which will enable to piece together a holistic picture of the matter in question. The work presented below is a hypothesis of one aspect of the Aryanology – the ancient esthetic beliefs of the Aryan people. As such, the results of my researched work presented below are the first, introductory step in this field of Aryan esthetics that does not claim to be as holistic and conclusive.

The Aryan sacred texts – Vedas, Avesta, the Laws of Manu and others – cite a geographical location of the Aryan homeland which is known as Ariyanam-Vaedjo (in Avestan) or Ariavarta (in Sanskrit) as “the first and the best location” made by the God the Creator. In this land a river named Daiti flows while in the middle of the land stands a holy mountain named Harayta, sometimes referred to as Hara. Accordingly, this is a heavenly land – the homeland of the Aryan nations.

The historians attempted to position Ariyanam-Vaedjo in various parts of the world: in Central Europe, on the Black Sea shores, in Central Asia, in the Balkans…However, probably the most likely place for its location was presented by the theory presented by the renown Soviet historians Thamaz Gamralidze and Vyacheslav Ivanov, who argue that the Aryan homeland was located in the Armenian Highland, in the region of Lake Van and the Taron (Aratzani river) valley. Without going into much details of the theory I would to add that another renowned Armenian researcher, Alexandr Varpetyan linked the Ariyanam-Vaedjo with the Armenian province of Hark, the river Daiti with the river Artsani and the mountain Harayta with Mount Ararat.

So according to the hypothesis mentioned above, the Aryan culture began in the Armenian Highland. From here, in the middle of the third millennium before Christ a famous Aryan emigration began, that gradually moved into the northern Iraq, north-western Iran and India. Through time, due to the growing distances between the locations of the Aryan migrants a brake within the Aryan branches of languages occurred. Nevertheless, a spiritual unity within them didn’t change. It is very evident after a careful examination of various religious movements that grew out of one Aryan body of spiritual heritage. Considering the importance of religious believes for understanding the character of the esthetic world view upheld by the Aryans I will bring into focus the basic believes that were so common among them:

The traces of the material and spiritual heritage left behind by the Aryan culture speak of their highly developed civilization. The seeds of their esthetic thinking found in the mythologies of the Vedas and Avesta were an integral part of the Aryan culture. The spiritual unity so brightly reflected in the Aryan world view became the fundamentals of the Iranian, Indian and European esthetics.

Esthetic Dualism

The esthetic view of the world among all cultures is similar. The sources behind that are found in the creative workings of the people. The public view of the beautiful and pleasant though primitive at the beginning has grown to develop into an esthetically structural view of the world. The esthetic needs gradually develop a certain taste, which in turn raises the esthetic culture of the people. Such process being the same for all tribes and nations at the same time finds unique features among them all. The same could be said about the Aryans.

Unique features of the Aryan worldview are more profound in comparison to their neighbors, the Near-Eastern people. The esthetic thinking among the Aryans was still in an embryonic state when the esthetic taste was about to develop. But nevertheless, it could be said that the core of the Aryan esthetics was based upon the universal law, the Ard (in Persian-Arta, in Indian-Rita, in Greek-Orthos, in Latin-Ordum, in German-Ordnung, in Russian-Poryadok), this universal Order was the organizing beginning, the main principle of the Aryan esthetics that gave satisfaction to the Aryan perceptions of the world around them.

Such Aryan worldview was based on the recognition of the conflict between the good and the evil, justice and injustice, beautiful and ugly, harmony and disharmony. Of course the same was found in the Near-Eastern worldview, and not only them; however, contrary to other traditional values, the understanding of the conflict between the opposites among the Aryan people didn’t carry a nugatory character. Along with the understanding of the positive and the good, subsequently the Aryans understood the importance to identify the source of the negative beginning. As such, we can speak of a dualistic view of the world as was perceived by the Aryans.

So, the supreme God named Dyaus-Pitar created the Universal law Arta, according to which, the diversity of things and the phenomenon of life occurred. This was the Aryan view of how the Universe took shape. The main principle behind such view is very simple, thus anything happening in the world either of positive or negative nature could be attributed to one of the two sources. Above them both or within the unity of the two opposite stands the God-Father. Thus the esthetic categories of the beautiful, noble and harmonic could be attributed to the positive things and phenomena while the ugly, ennoble and disharmonic is attributed to the negative things and phenomena.

After close examination we can find that the Aryans accepted the principal of the hierarchical world. However, that may not be related to their esthetical views, since any divine beauty is the result of divine emanation. In the ancient texts we find yet another point of view, according to which the creative solar emanation gives beauty to the world. Yet that doesn’t mean that ugliness and other esthetically negative phenomena are not accepted by the God. They became to be perceived as such later on, as the esthetic views of the Aryan people evolved and became qualitatively new, thus changing the esthetic taste of the Aryan culture.

At the beginning, the beauty and ugliness were considered to be as God-given results of the divine emanation that doesn’t contradict to the Universal Law-the Arta. Yet from the other side of the coin, the over-religiosity of the Aryan people led them to believe, that the esthetic feelings imbedded within them wholeheartedly were dependant upon the God Himself, that is to say that things appeared to them as positive or negative because that is how the God wanted them to perceive. Basically, the ancestors thought that the esthetics found within them were installed by the God the Creator.

Gradually, the artistic thinking among the Aryans has increased, which contributed to the development of their esthetic intuition. Obviously such process was taking place on the religious ground, which had an increasing effect upon the Aryans of the past. Symbolism found within the esthetic views among the Aryans had its own detectable character. As such, esthetic ideas were developed to be found within the embodiments of the Aryan god-figures. Therefore, for us to continue the pursuit of the esthetical within the Aryan culture we need to refer to the Aryan mythologies.

Pantheon of Aryan gods represents a qualitatively new culture of esthetical thinking. With the emergence of the pantheon the differentiation between good and evil, beautiful and ugly is not only much clearer, but is also governed by an organizational principle of a hierarchical order for gods and goddesses, spirits and demons.

It was a common Aryan world view that they are not against the nature and the animal world, but a significant part of the nature. This could be explained by the character of esthetic ideals that were associated with the qualities of Aryan gods. The bases of them all, however was their physical superiority. Lets examine some of the examples:

In the hymns of Rigveda the heavens are associated with the male beginning, while the earth is associated with the female beginning. Both are referred to as father and mother who are occupying wide space, who are grandiose and infinite, Father and Mother who protect all the creatures, two worlds as if twin beauties dressed in different colors. In fact the Aryans believed that with their beauty, heavens and earth can save them from evil and misfortune. One of the prayers said: “I call my both proto-parents with the power of gods, two beauties, o heavens and earth, defend us from horror.”

The beauty of nature, particularly of heaven and earth is song by the Aryans within a specific context: if something is beautiful then it is good and is of service to people. Same regard was upheld towards gods.

Among Aryan believes nature and animals are intrinsically beautiful. Therefore, while worshipping their gods they associated with them various qualities of animals and birds which they considered to have possessed divine essence (for example: eagles, lions, etc). One of their prayers said the following: “O gods, crossing waters, come quickly to the suffering one like cows on the field! ...Be happy with our sacrifices o fast-handed governors of beauty…”

In another place, Indra-the thunder god is being compared with “mighty buffalo”, “the leading sheep”, “and eagle”. Similar esthetic qualities have been attributed to the Greek god Zeus, German Vodan, Scandinavian Odin, Slavic Yarilo, Armenian Aray and other gods of the past. All of them have a common character-they represent esthetic ideals, as a result of which one can find such epithets as- the greatest, bordering to monumental. One can imagine the esthetical feelings that were activated by the ancient gods, brave Odin, thundering Zeus, Aray the ‘handsome’ and Agni, who according to their olden writings would ‘attract attention from birth’. It is rather remarking that the ancient Armenian god of fire and war, “fire-blond youngster” Vahagn, who also attracted attention by h having “fire-like hair, flaming beard and eyes like two sons”4.

The last descriptions were referring to the divinity of fire. Fire in general had a special place in the esthetic world of ancient Aryans. As was said before, Aryans, later being Sun-worshippers, considered heavenly stars-especially the Sun-an outstanding source of all the esthetically positive in the world. Every morning, Brahmans (Aryan priests) would refer to the Sun with the following prayer: “This is the eye (sun-A.A.)-clean, highly appreciative is climbing from the east. O, if only we could see it the whole century!” Such esthetical indulgence from observing the rotation of the fiery-red Sun was obtained not only by the proto-Aryans. For comparison we can remember the Slavic “red” at the beginning meant ‘beautiful’ (krasna devitsa – initially “beautiful girl” now sounding more like “red girl”, Krasnaya Ploshchad’ – initially “Beautiful Square”, now is the famous Red Square in Moscow), even the Russian word “prekrasniy” – now meaning ‘red’ – has the same word root.

Praises made to the Moon found in the Atkhavaveda says the following: “you are the young month, very nice, very sophisticated, I will be like you.” In general, the epithets given to gods and goddesses in the Aryan mythology contain such descriptions like, “flaming, very bright, sun-like, moon-like...etc.” That is not surprising, since such ‘brightness’ is equated with the beauty and the natural diversity in the world that the Aryans lived in and where the Sun was the source of life.

The esthetic needs of people are rather diverse. As such we have a diverse understanding of the ‘beautiful’. If in the early times the Aryans considered everything ‘positive’ as divine, insanely beautiful and harmonic, then later, a new understanding of the hierarchically beautiful emerged. At the same time, the differentiation between the male and female aspects of the beauty was preserved. With the advancement of the understanding behind the esthetically beautiful, the needs for esthetic qualities would change as well.

In praises to gods and goddesses, on the one hand, the common esthetics were expressed by their greatness, grandiosity, virtues and qualities. On the other hand what was considered as esthetically beautiful about the divine characters was the mystery behind them, the unexpected, the unknown, the miraculous attributes, the owe that they would excite among their worshippers. At the same time, the gender descriptions behind their divinity were kept separate and distinguishable.

The first esthetic attributes of the gods from Veda are their physical qualities, physical superiority, maturity and sophistication. The Aryan gods were foremost a great warriors, even if their function didn’t have any relation with war. Their main quality was their bravery and endurance. As such, the epithets behind the god Indra were the following: “powerful, thundering, brave and awesome”. The impression received from the war-gods is their dynamism. That is a result of the fact that most of them, Indra, Mithra, Vahagn, Agni and others-were always leading the good and positive in their war against the bad and the ugly, usually symbolized by demons and dragons.

The description of the beauty behind the Aryan goddesses is different though. They are attributed such qualities and features like, “beautiful, petite and over-grandiose”. In contrast from male gods, they represented the unity of _expression and conservatism. In the images of indo-Aryan goddess Sarasvati, one can find unlimited harmony and felinity; in the sculptures of Iranian Ardvisura Anahita it is hard to not notice the proportionality of her body and the exactness of her facial features. Furthermore what is interesting about the goddesses is probably the extreme physical attraction that they have possessed. For example, in the hymn to Anahit found in the Aryan holy book of Avesta, it is said the following: “Anyone can see her, Ardvisura Anahita, in the image of a beautiful diva, strong, straight, tall, high waste…in a beautiful apron, with big curves, golden hair, she is beautiful with her earrings and necklace. Ardvisura Anahita has beautiful neck, tight body that emphasizes her divine breasts. She attracts people’s attention, with her beautiful and specially made ring, beautiful ribbons…”

That was certainly a beautiful description. I would like to add only that Aryans didn’t consider physical beauty as the main aim of everyone to attain. The highest mission of the beauty was to contrast the ugliness of demons. Here is an example of ugliness described in one of the ancient Indian texts: “Her head was covered with dirty, red hair, in her huge mouth she had sharp teeth, her nostrils were deep and dark…her body was huge like a tower. It was very scary and disgusting for people to look at her.”

Aryans emphasized greatly the physical beauty of gods and people, things and phenomenas. According to them, the male beauty was comprised of bravery, physical greatness of the body, while women’s beauty comprised of petite-ness and correctness of the facial features, grandiosity of the body. The maturity of the Aryan esthetic world view speaks of the fact that in the pantheon of the Aryan nations and people there were goddesses of beauty, love and felinity.

In summary it is possible to say that the esthetic ideals of the Aryans found in the images of gods and goddesses has greatly contributed to the formation of an esthetic taste among the people of Eurasia. Later they were the ones who contributed to the formation of the esthetic schools in India, Greece, Rome and many other places, where their traces could be easily found in the creative art, architecture and music. The esthetic ideals of the Aryan people about the beautiful, harmonic and the advance have contributed greatly to the advancement and progress of the world cultures and civilizations.

Conclusion

In the depth of the millennia, the roots of the Indo-European civilizations could be found in the Aryan heartland. It is hard to ignore the important value of the culturally rich heritage left by the Aryan tribes. Through the time, their word-views became irrelevant and lost in the obscurity. They accepted the divinity of the natural beauty, dynamism of a brave man-warrior, grandiosity and the importance of a woman-mother. They accepted the world the way it is and as such knew their place in this world.

It is thoughtless to idealization of the past, however, due to the modern ‘nihilism of the current civilization” it is rather sad that right now men are stripped off their noble knighthood, women overtaken by the modern feminism would reject marriage, kids, family and motherhood, while our environment is polluted and degraded. Perhaps the attempt to resurrect spiritual values could be explained by the growing interest toward the ancestral heritage so pronounced in the last decades.

Disclaimer 1: The article above represents author’s views while he was a university student. Since then, some of authors ideas might have changed as more information is found and evidences pointing at the contrary of the opinion presented above emerge.

Disclaimer 2: The term “Aryan” is used in this article in its original scientific meaning as it was first used in the modern science in 19th century, i.e. to indicate all ancient peoples of Indo-European linguistic group. It does not have any meaning other than belonging to the Indo-European linguistic and cultural group of humanity.

Notes:

1. Regrettably, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov yielded to the ideological considerations and, instead of using the correct geographical name of the Armenian highland, were referring to “the region between eastern Anatolia, southern Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia”.

2. Literally “God Father”. Later on this name changed into Greek “Theus Pater” (which transformed into Zeus), Roman Deu Piter (later Jupiter), Germanic and Scandinavian Alfathr (All-Father, Father of all), which was another name for Wodan-Odin.

3. xarteash patanekik

4. howr her owner, yev boc owner morows, yev achkownqn ein aregakownq 5. The sun was perceived by the Aryans not only as the source of beauty and plentitude of the world, but also as a heavenly judge who monitors and protects the harmony and balance of the world. The solar disc was seen as the eye of God Father. After Christianization the Armenians were referring to the sun as “light of justice” (a philosophical reference to Christ) and “Light bringer of tiw” (tiwakan loysatow, literally “divine light” from tiw – dew – dyaus = god).

6. Interestingly enough, in contemporary English there are two words for attractiveness: handsome for masculine and beautiful for feminine.