Vedic influence in West Asia

The ancient Babylonians cremated their dead. According to history textbooks, king Nebuchadnezzar threatened to throw three Jews  into a fiery furnace which was kept burning at all times to cremate the dead.

There are some cylinder seals from Babylonia that depict a half man half bird being brought before Minos for judgment. Minos is the Babylonian pronunciation for Manu.

Soul is compared to a bird in the Vedic texts. In the case of an enlightened being, the bird represents flying away to higher region. A  bird is also called patanka in Sanskrit which is derived from the root “to fall” and represents the fall of humans in to samsara.

The Babylonians considered that all souls possess a semi bird like character after death. This might have been derived from the Vedic concept that all souls possess knowledge about self and paramatma but when inside a body, the inherent knowledge is dimmed. The karma accumulated while residing in a body would pull the soul down into samsara and prevent it from flying away. This might be why the Babylonians depicted souls as half human and half bird like. The bird half of the soul depicts the soul’s inherent knowledge while the human half of the soul represents the accumulated karma. 

 

References:

The Arian Witness by Rev. K.M. Banerjea

The origin of Pagan idolatry by George Stanley Faber