Old Persian Ethnonym and Avestan Ritual Control

The Old Persian name Saka haumavarga is one of the most important small phrases on the Scythian shelf. It does not merely locate a people. It remembers them by ritual: Saka associated with haoma, the sacred Iranian plant-drink.

This dossier places the imperial ethnonym beside an Avestan ritual formula in which haoma and milk are offered to Mithra. The pieces do not prove that the royal scribes and the Avestan liturgists saw the same rite in the same place. They show that the name stood inside a living Iranian religious vocabulary.

The translation below is from Old Persian and Avestan transliterations already inspected in the archive.

Translation

Darius names among the lands that held his law: India, the haoma-drinking Saka, the Saka with pointed caps, Babylonia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt, Armenia, Cappadocia, Lydia, the Greeks, and the Saka beyond the sea.

Xerxes names among the lands that held his law: Cappadocia, the Dahae, the haoma-drinking Saka, the pointed-cap Saka, Thrace, Akaufaciya, Libya, Caria, and Nubia.

The Avestan hymn to Mithra gives the ritual world behind the word haoma: I will offer sacrifice to mighty Mithra with libations. I will worship Mithra of wide pastures with haoma and milk, with the baresman, with the tongue's skill and the sacred word, with speech and deeds and libations, and with rightly spoken words.

Thus the Saka haumavarga stand in the Persian lists with a name made from worship. The empire saw them as a Saka people marked by haoma, and the Iranian liturgy shows haoma not as a mere drink but as a carried offering, a pressed sacrament, and a sign of worship spoken before a god.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Scythian shelf by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the source text printed below. The English is an independent rendering from the source-language transliteration or Greek text, with existing public translations used only as controls for damaged or conventional passages.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: Saka Haumavarga and Haoma Formulae

Old Persian and Avestan source text in romanized transliteration. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

DNa 25-29: Gadara Hidush Saka haumavarga Saka tigraxauda Babirush Athura Arabaya Mudraya Armina Katpatuka Sparda Yauna Saka tyaiy paradraya

XPh 25-28: Maciya Arabaya Gadara Hidush Katpatuka Daha Saka haumavarga Saka tigraxauda Skudra Akaufaciya Putaya Karka Kushiya

Miθra Yašt I: tem amavantem yazatem surem damohu sevishtem mithrem yazai zaothraby o, tem pairi-jasai vantaca nemanghaca tem yazai surunvata yasna mithrem vouru-gaoyaoitim zaothraby o, mithrem vouru-gaoyaoitim yazamaide haomayo gava baresmana, hizvo danghangha manthraca, vacaca shyaothnaca zaothrabyasca, arshuxdhaeibyasca

Source Colophon

Old Persian lines inspected from Livius DNa and XPh. Avestan source inspected from the local Good Work Library Mithra Yasht source appendix, which follows Karl Friedrich Geldner's critical edition as digitized at avesta.org. The English rendering above is newly prepared from the source-language transliterations.

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