Türá, ancient Scythians, present day Ukrainians and the later Turkic people of Central Asia

We read in the second line of Yasna 46.12 of the Türá people and how the Fryáná clan among the Türás has embraced the teachings of the seer Zarathúshtrá. The word Türá occurs once in the sacred verse or the gáthás of the seer/prophet, but about 20 times in the other parts of the Avesta. As “Irach J.S. Taraporewala” very accurately writes; Türás were nomadic Scythians, for the ancient Scythian speech has been classed definitely as one of the ancient aryan/iranian languages. The word türá means “swift,” “quick” or “fast moving” and is used to describe horses and is used as an epithet of the gods in the Rig Veda, especially the Marúts. The Türánians have throughout history been famous as sturdy horsemen. This idea is supported by a passage in Avesta, Yasht 17(ashí).55, where the Türá is spoken as having swift horses.

In Avesta, the word Türá designates the indo-european nomadic raiders of the steppes, in contrast to the indo-european agricultural settlers.The concept of Türá is not a linguistic or ethnic designation in the Avesta, but a name for the raiders of the steppes that opposed the stewardship of the land and animals as preached by the seer/prophet Zarathúshtrá. The name”Türán”also appears in a very similar fashion in the fictional geography of the Conan the Barbarian.

In middle iranian literature/pahlavi the original meaning of Türá as the warrior horseman/nomad is still retained. The names of ancient indo-european tribes including those of the Turanians that appear in Avesta have been studied by Professor Mayrhofer in his comprehensive book on Avesta personal name etymologies: Iranisches Personennamenbuch,I: Die altiranischen Namen. Faszikel l, Die Avestischen Namen.

Polish philosopher Feliks Koneczny claimed that there is a distinctive Türánian civilization,encompassing the original Slavic people such as Ukrainians. This civilization’s hallmark is militarism, anti-intellectualism and an absolute obedience to the ruler according to koneczny.
The identification of the Türá with the waves of the Turkic nomads from Mongolia and the far east who much later settled central Asia was a later development. The nomadic people of the far east first came into limited contact with the ancient Aryans/Iranians in the late Sassanid, early Islamic period around the 6th to 7th century, and mostly replaced the ancient indo-europeans including the Türá people of central Asia by the time of the chengiz invasion few centuries later.
The terms “Turk” and ” Türá ” became used interchangeably first during the Islamic era and in the Sháh-námé or the Book of God- Rulers; the bible of the ancient Iranian mythology, uses the two terms equivalently.
The term Türán thus, always contained ambiguity and contradiction, arising from the fact that all through the Islamic times and in the pre-islamic past; Central Asia and the vast lands immediately beyond the Oxus river and along its lower reaches were the homes not of far eastern mongolians, but of Aryan/ ancient Iranians such as the Tajiks and other indo-european peoples, such as Türá or ancient Scythians of the steppes.

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