conflicts between Manichean universalism and Zoroastrian nationalism
during the 3rd century CE, however, traditionalistic and nationalistic
movements eventually took the upper hand during the Sasanian period,
and the Iranian identity ( ērīh ) came to assume a definite political value.
Among Iranians ( ērān ), one ethnic group in particular, the Persians,
were placed at the centre of the Ērān-šahr ('Kingdom of the Iranians')
ruled by the šāhān-šāh ērān ud anērān ('King of Kings of the Iranians
and non-Iranians').[33]
Ethical and ethnic meanings may also intertwine, for instance in the use
of anēr ('non-Iranian') as a synonymous of 'evil' in anērīh ī
hrōmāyīkān ("the evil conduct of the Romans, i.e. Byzantines"), or in
the association of ēr ('Iranian') with good birth ( hutōhmaktom ēr
martōm , 'the best-born Arya man') and the use of ērīh ('Iranianness') to
mean 'nobility' against "labor and burdens from poverty" in the 10th-
century Dēnkard .[59] The Indian opposition between ārya - ('noble')
and dāsá - ('stranger, slave, enemy') is however absent from the Iranian
tradition.[59] According to linguist Émile Benveniste, the root * das- may
have been used exclusively as a collective name by Iranian peoples: "If
the word referred at first to Iranian society, the name by which this
enemy people called themselves collectively took on a hostile
connotation and became for the Aryas of India the term for an inferior
and barbarous people."[64]
Place names
In ancient Sanskrit literature, the term Āryāvarta (आर्ययवर्य, the 'abode
of the Aryas') was the name given to the cradle of the Indo-
Aryan culture in northern India. The Manusmṛiti locates Āryāvarta in
"the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the
Eastern (Bay of Bengal) to the Western Sea (Arabian Sea)".[65]