The Iranians had a vague remembrance of a bygone epoch, during which they had wandered, in company with other nations of the same origin as themselves, in that cradle of the Aryan peoples, Aryanem-Vaejo.  Modern historians at first placed their mythical birthplace in the wilder regions of Central Asia, near the Oxus and the Jaxartes, and not far from the so-called table-land of Pamir, which they regarded as the original point of departure of the Indo-European races.  They believed that a large body of these primitive Aryans must have descended southwards into the basin of the Indus and its affluents, and that other detachments had installed themselves in the oases of Margiana and Khorasmia, while the Iranians would have made their way up to the plateau which separates the Caspian Sea from the Persian Gulf, where they sought to win for themselves a territory sufficient for their wants.  The compilers of the sacred books of the Iranians claimed to be able to trace each stage of their peregrinations, and to describe the various accidents which befell them during this heroic period of their history.  According to these records, it was no mere chance or love of adventure which had led them to wander for years from clime to clime, but rather a divine decree.  While Ahuromazdao, the beneficent deity whom they worshipped, had provided them with agreeable resting-places, a perverse spirit, named Angromainyus, had on every occasion rendered their sojourn there impossible, by the plagues which he inflicted on them.  Bitter cold, for instance, had compelled them to forsake Aryanem-Vaejo and seek shelter in Sughdha and Muru.* Locusts had driven them from Sughdha; the incursions of the nomad tribes, coupled with their immorality, had forced them to retire from Muru to Bakhdhi, “the country of lofty banners,"** and subsequently to Nisaya, which lies to the south-east, between Muru and Bakhdhi.  From thence they made their way into the narrow valleys of the Haroyu, and overran Vaekereta, the land of noxious shadows.***

     * Sughdha is Sogdiana; Muru, in ancient Persian Margush, is
     the modern Merv, the Margiana of classical geographers.

** Bakhdhi is identical with Bactriana, but, as Spiegel points out, this Avestic form is comparatively recent, and readily suggests the modern Balkh, in which the consonants have become weakened.

*** The Avesta places Nisaya between Muru and Bakhdhi to distinguish it from other districts of the same name to be found in this part of Asia:  Eugene Burnouf is probably correct in identifying it with the Nessea of Strabo and of Ptolemy, which lay to the south of Margiana, at the junction of the roads leading to Hyrcania in one direction and Bactriana in the other.

From this point forwards, the countries mentioned by their chroniclers are divided into two groups, lying in opposite directions:  Arahvaiti, Haetumant, and Haptahindu* on the east; and on the west, Urva,** Haroyu or Haraeva is the Greek Aria, the modern province of Herat.