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Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC BY-SA 3.0
Inscription · c. 1380 BCE

Boğazköy treaty naming Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas

Found
Clay tablets from the Hittite royal archive at Hattusa (Boğazköy, central Turkey), dug up by Hugo Winckler in 1906–07
Kept at
Hittite tablet collections in Turkish museums

A treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and Shattiwaza, prince of Mitanni in north Syria, sworn before the gods of both kingdoms. Among the Mitanni gods stand four names any Vedic priest would know.

What it says

In the list of divine witnesses the Mitanni side calls on mi-it-ra, u-ru-wa-na, in-da-ra and na-sa-at-ti-ya: Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatya twins (the Ashvins), the same gods praised together in the Rigveda. A horse-training manual from the same archive, written by the Mitanni trainer Kikkuli, uses Indic number words such as aika (eka), tera (tri), panza (pancha) and satta (sapta).

What it proves

It is the oldest dated written record of Vedic deities anywhere, from far outside Bharat, so the Vedic gods were already being invoked by name by the 14th century BCE.

Evidence for

Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Vedic gods invoked by name before 1300 BCE

Evidence

Behistun inscription of Darius IInscription
c. 520 BCE

Behistun inscription of Darius I

The Persian king Darius I tells, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, how he took the throne and which lands obeyed him. Gandhara is on the list.

Kandahar bilingual edict of AshokaInscription
c. 258 BCE (ten years after Ashoka’s abhisheka)

Kandahar bilingual edict of Ashoka

Ashoka’s message of dhamma, carved in Greek and Aramaic for the Greek and Persian-speaking subjects at the western edge of his empire.

Edicts of AshokaInscription
c. 268–232 BCE

Edicts of Ashoka

Fourteen major rock edicts, minor rock edicts and seven pillar edicts in which the Maurya emperor speaks in his own voice, as Devanampiya Piyadasi.

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and JaugadaInscription
c. 3rd century BCE

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada

In conquered Kalinga, Ashoka left out the thirteenth rock edict, which mourns the war, and carved two separate edicts addressed to his officers there instead.

Sohgaura copper plateInscription
Maurya period, c. 3rd century BCE

Sohgaura copper plate

A small bronze-copper plate in early Brahmi, issued by the officials of Shravasti, cast with symbols of storehouses above the text.

Hathigumpha inscription of KharavelaInscription
c. 2nd–1st century BCE

Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela

Seventeen lines in Prakrit and Brahmi recording, year by year, the reign of Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga.

Heliodorus pillar, BesnagarInscription
c. 113 BCE

Heliodorus pillar, Besnagar

A stone Garuda-dhvaja raised to Vasudeva by Heliodorus, a Greek envoy from Takshashila, at the court of King Bhagabhadra.

Ghosundi and Hathibada inscriptionsInscription
c. 1st century BCE

Ghosundi and Hathibada inscriptions

A Sanskrit record of a stone enclosure built for the worship of Sankarshana and Vasudeva by a king who had performed the Ashvamedha.