Apart from islands such as Buddhism, the religious world of ancient India and Iran is still a wasteland on the maps of Western knowledge standards; often in the specialist sciences too. This is initially disconcerting, as it is obvious that Greek and Roman, as well as Jewish and Christian religious history could only have developed in interaction with it.
The most pristine cult tradition there was the Soma Sacrifice. It can be traced back to the Bronze Age in parts even to the Neolithic. From the abundant sources reconstructable in detail, striking parallels, particularly with Christian...