The Avesta, the oldest and most sacred text of the Zoroastrian religion, is written in a language that is almost identical to that of the Rig Veda. The older sections of the Avesta—called the Gathas—are said to have been composed by the prophet Zarathustra himself. They can be read as Rig Vedic Sanskrit by making a minor phonetic change. The Avestan ‘h’ is the same as the Sanskrit ‘s’. Thus, the word Sapta-Sindhu becomes Hapta-Hindu. 29 A
