Imagining Zoroastrianism in the Loght of the Maga Brahmanas and the Kambojas

The Iranian tribes, despite their earlier separation from their cousins in India, belonging to a common Indo‐Iranian stock, never stopped to maintain relations with the post‐Vedic and Hindu peoples, although the hypothesis that the dual division in their pantheon could be attributed to a later clash among them1 is presently considered improbable. Mutual historical contacts intensified during the Achaemenian period, when the area of Gandhara was conquered by the Persians. New opportunities for increasing exchanges emerged in Late Antiquity, starting with the Hellenistic domination, and became significant when Bactria and northern India hosted Indo‐Parthian, Indo‐Greek, and Kushano‐Sasanian dynasties. This geographic space was exposed since early antiquity to migrations and invasions, and ethno‐cultural and ethno‐linguistic borders were permeable. The ethnographic situation is therefore extremely complex, as we can infer still today from the difficult linguistic classification of the so‐called Irano‐Dardic and Indo‐Iranian frontier languages, or in the determination of the particular position of the Nuristani languages, which could even represent a third branch of the Indo‐Iranian family. Among the most interesting cases of cultural adaptation of a foreign religious and ethnic tradition within the Indian sphere is that of the Maga Brahmanas. Another important tradition of Iranian origin can be seen in the ancient people of the Kambojas (or, sometimes, Kāmbojas), living in a district of northern India, and which, as an ethnic group, was considered barbarian and partly extraneous to the Hindu society. The present contribution investigates in particular these two ethno-religious traditions.