On the Adoption and Representation of Mesopotamian Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World

Sogdian Buddhist documents found in Dunhuang preserved important evidence about names and descriptions of deities rooted in the traditional religion of Sogdiana that was a polytheistic system with a Zoroastrian background common to other Iranian or “Iranized” lands such as Persia and the Caucasus. However, Chinese chronicles made some distinction between the religion of those regions and the one of Sogdiana precisely called Xian. One deity not directly associated with any Sogdian god, namely Vreshman, the Buddhist guardian of the north, already called the attention of scholars because of some textual and figurative ambiguities. Literary and figurative evidence would allow one to argue that Sogdian priests and artists probably identified him with a local controversial god called Tish. Not only Sogdians but also Persians, Armenians and other Central Asian peoples worshiped a deity connected with him. Traces of this deity could be found in the Avesta as well. He also appeared in pre-Islamic Sogdian mural paintings and at least one Zoroastrian ossuary forming a divine couple with Nana, another important goddess of the pre-Islamic Central Asian pantheon whose origins are rooted in Mesopotamian culture and religion.