u Darya), with the capital
Bactra (now Balkh); in the Persian inscriptions B[=a]khtri. It is a
mountainous country with a moderate climate. Water is abundant and the land
is very fertile. Bactria was the home of one of the Iranian tribes (see
PERSIA: _Ancient History_). Modern authors have often used the name in a
wider sense, as the designation of the whole eastern part of Iran. As there
can be scarcely any doubt that it was in these regions, where the fertile
soil of the mountainous country is everywhere surrounded and limited by the
Turanian desert, that the prophet Zoroaster preached and gained his first
adherents, and that his religion spread from here over the western parts of
Iran, the sacred language in which the Avesta, the holy book of
Zoroastrianism, is written, has often been called "old Bactrian." But there
is no reason for this extensive use of the name, and the term "old
Bactrian" is, therefore, at present completely abandoned by scholars. Still
less foundation exists for the belief, once widely spread, that Bactria was
the cradle of the Indo-European race; it was based on the supposition that
the nations of Europe had immigrated from Asia, and that the Aryan
languages (Indian and Iranian) stood nearest to the original language of
the Indo-Europeans. It is now acknowledged by all linguists that this
supposition is quite wrong, and that the Aryans probably came from Europe.
The eastern part of Iran seems to have been the region where the Aryans
lived as long as they formed one people, and whence they separated into
Indians and Iranians.

The Iranian tradition, preserved in the Avesta and in Firdousi's
_Shahnama_, localizes a part of its heroes and myths in the east of Iran,
and has transformed the old gods who fight with the great snake into kings
of Iran who fight with the Turanians. Many modern authors have attempted to
make history out of these stories, and have created an old Bactrian empire
of great extent, the kings of which had won great victories over the
Turanians. But this historical aspect of the myth is of late origin: it is
nothing but a reflex of the great Iranian empire founded by the Achaemenids
and restored by the Sassanids. The only historical fact which we can learn
from the Iranian tradition is that the contrast and the feud between the
peasants of Iran and the nomads of Turan was as great in old times as it is
now: it is indeed based upon the natural geographical conditions, and is
ther