druid Dravid drud-firm
wiki druids
nowadays it is more often understood as originally meaning 'one with firm knowledge' (i.e. 'a great sage'),
seer individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the supernatural source to other people.
Druids left no written accounts. they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form
The druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors.
A druid was a member of the high-ranking priestly class in ancient Celtic cultures
responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure
Diodorus writes of the Druids that they were "philosophers" and "men learned in religious affairs" who are honored.[26] Strabo mentions that their domain was both natural philosophy and moral philosophy,[27] while Ammianus Marcellinus lists them as investigators of "obscure and profound subjects
Druidic lore consisted of a large number of memorized verses, and Caesar remarked that it could take up to twenty years to complete the course of study./////rigved?
What was taught to druid novices anywhere is conjecture: of the druids' oral literature, not one certifiably ancient verse is known to have survived, even in translation. All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports, the Gauls had a written language in which they used Greek letters.
In this he probably draws on earlier writers;
Caesar believed that this practice of oral transmission of knowledge and opposition to recording their ideas had dual motivations: wanting to keep druidic knowledge from becoming common, and improving the druids' faculties of memory.[32] Caesar writes that of the Druids "a large number of the young men resort for the purpose of instruction".[33] Due to the privileges afforded to the druids he tells us that "many embrace this profession of their own accord", whereas many others are sent to become druids by their families
human sacrifice
vedic period human sacrifice
Vedic texts describe Purusha Medha, a symbolic human sacrifice ritual for imperial power, but scholars debate if it was literal or metaphorical, with many believing victims (men/women of various types) were bound, then released unharmed, like the Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice). While some Brahmana texts mention actual immolation (e.g., Shunashepa story), others, like the Satapatha Brahmana, show divine intervention stopping it, suggesting a shift from literal to symbolic practice, with later Tantric traditions sometimes reviving actual sacrifices,
druids as philosophers, and called their doctrine of the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis (reincarnation),
Caesar made similar observations:
With regard to their actual course of studies, the main object of all education is, in their opinion, to imbue their scholars with a firm belief in the indestructibility of the human soul, which, according to their belief, merely passes at death from one tenement to another; for by such doctrine alone, they say, which robs death of all its terrors, can the highest form of human courage be developed. Subsidiary to the teachings of this main principle, they hold various lectures and discussions on the stars and their movement, on the extent and geographical distribution of the earth, on the different branches of natural philosophy, and on many problems connected with religion.
In 1928, the folklorist Donald A. Mackenzie speculated that Buddhist missionaries had been sent by the Indian king Ashoka.[42] Caesar noted the druidic doctrine that the original ancestor of the tribe was the god that he referred to as "Dispater", which means "Father Dis"./deus pitr
"Druids make their pronouncements by means of riddles and dark sayings, teaching that the gods must be worshipped, and no evil done, and manly behavior maintained".Diogenes
the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi, and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei, among the Indians the Gymnosophistae, and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called druids and semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers.
— Vitae, Introduction,
Alongside the druids, or as he called them, drouidas, who he believed to be philosophers and theologians, he remarked how there were poets and singers in Celtic society, who he called bardous, or bards.[41] Such an idea was expanded upon by Strabo, who, writing in the 20s CE, declared that amongst the Gauls, there were three types of honoured figures:[82]
the poets and singers known as bardoi,
the diviners and specialists in the natural world known as o'vateis, and
those who studied "moral philosophy", the druidai.
Ancient Texts
Hinduism and India
Atharva Veda
Aryan People
Ancient South Asia
History of the Vedas
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Was the Atharva Veda written by non-Aryans?
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Divaker V Vittal
Expert In Tradition, Culture, Folklore, History, HinduismAuthor has 5.6K answers and 12.5M answer views6y
were druids Atharva vedis?
Atharva Veda has used the words Rishi, Mantra, Guru, Yagna, Yagnopavith etc. Those Brahmins who practiced Atharvana Vedas were considered as Advanced Stage of Brahminism and in plain English they can be considered something like head priests who managed the Yagna Fire.
Those who have composed and practiced Atharvana Veda were called as "Atharvangirasa".
Atharvana Veda gives us a new concept of Chandas, which we use it extensively in vernacular languages.
The concept of Moksha also is defined in Atharvana Veda, i'm not sure about Moksha and its significance in other vedic literature.
Kashmir is described vividly in Atharavana Veda, meaning the Aryans were in Kashmir when they had composed Atharvana Veda
sramana in Greece
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarmanochegas
Interpretation of the inscription in regard to religious affiliation
Charles Eliot in his Hinduism and Buddhism: An Historical Sketch (1921) considers that the name Zarmanochegas "perhaps contains the two words sramana and acarya."
Halkias (2015) situates Zarmanochegas within a lineage of Buddhist sramanas who had adopted the custom of setting themselves on fire.[