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CONFLUENCE OF OPPOSITES ! 261 and implies both right knowledge and right belief. For this reason, in the aphorism we find right belief mentioned first, then right knowledge and lastly right con
dact” (SBJ. vol. ii. p. 2). We come now to Mithraism which at one time flourished all over the western tract of Asia, extending from India to Rome, in spirit at least, if not in name. The Vedic Mitra is now generally acknowledged to be the original of the Mithra cult. According to the inscriptions found by H. Winckler at Boghaz-keui in 1907, especially the one chronicling the treaty between Subbi. luliuma, the Hittite king, and Mattiuaza, the son of Tushiratta, the king of Mitanni, Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the twin Aswins were worshipped in the district of Mitanni as far back as the fourteenth century B. C.
This is strong evidence of the fact that the Indian Aryans had extended their conquest up to Asia Minor in those ancient days. I am inclined to agree with Moulton, who says that the fact probably means no more than that the chieftains were Aryan, the people whom they conquered being indigenous. This might also indicate a pre-historic migration of Indian Aryans Westwards as some have surmised. The Iranian Parsis would certainly seem to be a colony of Indian Aryans who settled down in Iran in remote times, and carried Indian ideas and customs with them as is made suffi. ciently clear in the Fountain-Head of Religion by B. Ganga Prasad, whose opinion seems to be in agreement with the best of European thinkers on the point. A
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