<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The third highest grade of the Mithraic initiation was Perses (Persian). Above this were the positions of Messenger of the Sun and the highest of all, which was Father (Pater). <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perseus should be connected to the Indic Gorgon as another example of a dual iranian-indic influence in greece. Although Kak is a little too direct in his exposition, here is a sample:
http://www.indiastar.com/kak5.htm :
<span style='font-family:Arial'>
Although the Kirttimukha, a guardian of the threshold, is dated somewhat late in Indian art, its basis is squarely within the Indian mythological tradition. Zimmer (1946) argued that the image of the Gorgon must be viewed as an intrusive Indic idea or a Greek interpretation of the Kirttimukha assimilated atop a different legend. Napier (1986, 1982) provides powerful new support for this idea. He suggest that the forehead markings of the Gorgon and the single-eye of the cyclops are Indian elements.
He suggests that this may have been a byproduct of the interaction with the Indian foot soldiers who fought for the Persian armies. But there were also Indian traders in Greece. This is supported by the fact that the name of the Mycenaean Greek city Tiryns-- the place where the most ancient monuments of Greece are to be found-- is the same as that of the most powerful Indian sea-faring people called the Tirayans (Krishna 1980).
Napier shows that the Perseus-Gorgon story is replete with Indian elements, especially the connection of the myth with Lycia.
``This ancient kindgom figures predominantly in Greek mythology as the location of the exotic: a place of ivory, peacocks, and `many-eyed' cows; a place to which Greeks went to marry and assimilate that which to the pre-classical mind represented everything exotic... [In the British Museum] we find a Lycian building, the roof of which is clearly the descendant of an ancient South Asian style. Proof of this hypothesis comes not only in what may appear to be a superficial similarity, nor in the many `Asian' references with which Lycia is associated, but in the very name of the structure which dates to the mid-fourth century B.C.. For this is the so-called `Tomb of the Payava' a Graeco-Indian Pallava if there was one. And who were the Tirayans, but the ancestors of two of the most famous of ancient Indian clans, the Pallavas and Cholas?'' (Napier 1998)</span>
Perseus should be connected to the Indic Gorgon as another example of a dual iranian-indic influence in greece. Although Kak is a little too direct in his exposition, here is a sample:
http://www.indiastar.com/kak5.htm :
<span style='font-family:Arial'>
Although the Kirttimukha, a guardian of the threshold, is dated somewhat late in Indian art, its basis is squarely within the Indian mythological tradition. Zimmer (1946) argued that the image of the Gorgon must be viewed as an intrusive Indic idea or a Greek interpretation of the Kirttimukha assimilated atop a different legend. Napier (1986, 1982) provides powerful new support for this idea. He suggest that the forehead markings of the Gorgon and the single-eye of the cyclops are Indian elements.
He suggests that this may have been a byproduct of the interaction with the Indian foot soldiers who fought for the Persian armies. But there were also Indian traders in Greece. This is supported by the fact that the name of the Mycenaean Greek city Tiryns-- the place where the most ancient monuments of Greece are to be found-- is the same as that of the most powerful Indian sea-faring people called the Tirayans (Krishna 1980).
Napier shows that the Perseus-Gorgon story is replete with Indian elements, especially the connection of the myth with Lycia.
``This ancient kindgom figures predominantly in Greek mythology as the location of the exotic: a place of ivory, peacocks, and `many-eyed' cows; a place to which Greeks went to marry and assimilate that which to the pre-classical mind represented everything exotic... [In the British Museum] we find a Lycian building, the roof of which is clearly the descendant of an ancient South Asian style. Proof of this hypothesis comes not only in what may appear to be a superficial similarity, nor in the many `Asian' references with which Lycia is associated, but in the very name of the structure which dates to the mid-fourth century B.C.. For this is the so-called `Tomb of the Payava' a Graeco-Indian Pallava if there was one. And who were the Tirayans, but the ancestors of two of the most famous of ancient Indian clans, the Pallavas and Cholas?'' (Napier 1998)</span>