Hi guys I am Inotia King a youtuber, redditor and gamer who likes theorizing about the story. I actually cobbled together a list of some of my more important theories with respect to the game Genshin Impact and Star Rail that I have been basing all of my newer theories on. I'll be putting more of those up on Hive along with new stuff but if you're impatient I also archived all my theories here. I hope some of you guys are game theorists too. Let's try to figure out these great games together!
Last time I brought up a bunch of stuff from the new region's new World Quest the Khvarena of Good and Evil. And you guys really enjoyed the breakdown particularly because there seems to still be some confusion in the Genshin community about where Sumeru's lore comes from.
The trouble I noticed was that Hinduism also tends to share terminology with the Persian beliefs in Zoroastrianism. That's actually not a coincidence. I've brought this up before but the first Persia or the Achaemenid Empire actually spread across a vast amount of Asia. This was part of what's called the Indo-European Migrations. Eventually this brought the Vedic civilization to India which as far as I can tell is the origins of today's Indians. Vedic religion evolved into today's Hinduism and was related to Persia's Zoroastrianism. In fact the term Hindu is actually Persian and just means the Indus River. That's why while Indians actually call their country Bharata the west calls it India. (India > Hindi > Hindu > Sindhu gotta love that historical game of telephone!)
Now the rest of this part is conjecture because I haven't found a source for it. I'm basing it off of what I know about Japanese culture and how terms changed when the religion changed. When Japan went from shamanistic Proto-Shintoism to Buddhism all the youkai (actually oni at the time) stopped being natural forces and became either divine or demonic. Kitsune were elevated to servants of the divine and Tanuki became malevolent demons. Anyway a long time ago Persia had the word daeva. Back then all it meant was something supernatural. This word carried over into India by the Vedics and became the name for the gods in Hinduism anglicized to Deva. But in Persia, Zoroastrianism was a monotheistic religion so just like your Abrahamic religions anything supernatural that didn't relate to their one god became evil so the "supernatural beings" the daeva became demons. (The confusing thing though is that there are other "gods" in Zoroastrianism but they relate to Ahura Mazda the one god. Think of it like the trinity in Christianity or in Genshin how Phanes split itself into the four shining shades.) I imagine the rest of the words that have an Indian version would relate to this too.
Side Note: Also it didn't help that the English localization decided to call the six majors schools of thought in the Academia the Six Darshans. The Six Darshans is a real thing in Hinduism. But as we can see from the names of those Darshans they aren't anything related to the Darshans lol. The actual names of the Darshans are Samkhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimamsa, and Vedanta.
Ok but all of that said the way Genshin's lore works, I think miHoYo took mostly Persian Zoroastrian sources for these terms. That's because Zoroastrianism plays into Gnosticism which as we all know is fundamental to Genshin's story. But there are actual Hindi terms too right? The Aranara for example. The entire Aranyaka questline is filled with Indian terms, the forest region's names are Indian and Kusanali and Rukkhadevata are definitely Indian names. And none of these things relate back to Zoroastrianism. So what's going on with that? Well if we collect all of those together they share a common origin. Let's just take Rukkhadevata and Kusanali. Both these names come from the same story the Jataka Katha which is an account of the Buddha's previous incarnations. In the case of Kusanali he (yes in the story Kusanali is a he) prevents a rukkhadevata's tree home from being cut down by turning himself into a chameleon, climbing onto the tree and using its chromatophores to make the tree look rotted. What's a rukkhadevata? Well check out the dev in the name and we know dev in Hinduism is a god. Rukkha is the word for tree so Rukkhadevata is a literal Tree God. Anyway the point is Buddhism which is also a popular religion in China where Genshin's from. Buddhism actually arrived in China alongside Manichaeism which is a version of Gnosticism. Now if we go in reverse Buddhism started with Siddhartha Gautama and while I think it's disputed I'm going to agree with the sources that say he spoke Pali. And wouldn't you know it Rukkhadevata, Kusanali, Sumeru (or Mount Meru) and Akasha are all Pali words.
Side Note: And there is bleed over into other Indian languages. Actually I ended off on Akasha because it's not only a common word in India but also Persia and Ancient Egypt and it means the same thing across all of them: sky.
Side Note 2: Actually going back to the previous note the new quest works in favor of calling these schools Darshans. The thing is in Zoroastrianism there was only ever seven Amesha Spenta because they were just aspects of Ahura Mazda. But since Buddhism arose in India where Hinduism had long been established Buddhism itself is also considered a Darshan just not one of the core six.
Anyway I hope that helps clarify things. I know to this day the question of what is Sumeru based on is still debated. But take it in the context of a story centralized on Gnosticism and taken from the lens of its Chinese creators. Sumeru was based on Persia through how crucial its culture and religion is to the development of such a story.
Now for some of the terminology found in the World Quest.
Apaosha is a Zoroastrian spirit representing decay. It's the negative form of the word paosha for healthy. Later on it was equated with the summer droughts of the Middle East known for some of the driest regions on Earth. Genshin seems to have taken that later lore where Apaosha is a demonic horse that stampeded into Vourukasha, not the Oasis but the primordial sea in Zoroastrianism out of which grows the primordial tree of Haoma that I talked about last time. In Genshin's case since the Haoma is syncretized with the other mythological world tree Yggdrasil as Irminsul miHoYo went with the name Harvisptokhm which is weird. Not that it doesn't fit with the lore. It's weird because I've found sources saying it's just another name for Haoma, it's the tree that grew from the world tree Haoma and also that the Haoma is one of the trees that grew from the Harvisptokhm "the tree of all seeds" lol. Chicken or the egg guys.
Anyway it seems Genshin is making their Apaosha just another regional way of saying the Abyss. And we need to combat the Abyss right? So who fights Apaosha? Tishtrya or maybe you'd better recognize the name Tir as in Tir Yazad or the Hymn of Tir Yazad. So yazad just means god so Tir Yazad just means Tir the god. It is a god of rain and that makes it interesting for so many reasons when it comes to Sumeru. The obvious one is that Rukkhadevata once created the Varuna a machine that returned a portion of the Gurabad desert back into lush forest paving the way for her version of Sumeru. (Varuna is a Hindu deva of the sky and water.) Another way to look at Tir Yazad though is what actually happens in that part of the quest. We reinvigorate the Amrita (interesting because it means immortality in Pali) using the Rite of Ab-Zohr (a real Zoroastrian ritual for water purification) which can then revitalize the Gaokarena (another name for haoma but not the World Tree Haoma and instead a mushroom used in rituals) that will make the Flower of Sanctity bloom. -deep breath-
Ok and one more thing. Tir is related to the Babylonian Nabu and classical planet of Mercury. If you've been following my other stuff you know why that's interesting lol
No wait two more things. The Achievement we get for finishing the Hymn of Tir Yazad is The Day of Tirgan. Tirgan is a real holiday celebrated by Zoroastrians worldwide and yes it celebrates Tir. In fact it even takes place in the month of Tir specifically Tir 13th in the modern Iranian calendar.
Besides Tir, we're aided by a few other Pari during the quest. The leader Zurvan is actually controversial. In Zoroastrianism god's name is Ahura Mazda and the religion is monotheistic so it is the highest power. But a cult developed in Persia and they claimed that Ahura Mazda was the primordial force of good while Angra Mainyu was the primoridal force of evil and because of that duality Ahura Mazda was actually Angra Mainyu's twin. So a higher power must have given birth to both of them the God of Infinity Zurvan. Our Zurvan doesn't seem to have as lofty of a position lol
He's not as important in the lore or today's topic. Rashnu and Mihir on the other hand definitely are! Rashnu is just Rashnu but Mihir's name has a more popular form in English Mithra and these guys together with Sorush are the three Gods of Justice in Zoroastrianism. Last time I talked about how Sorush was the aspect of Ahura Mazda and twin of Spenta Mainyu who was tasked with defeating Angra Mainyu. He is the word of god personified (his name means hearing) and Rashnu means truth and finally Mithra is the holy covenant between man and god. Why is any of that important? Well for one Mithra is also a god of water. So let's go back to that first thing about Tir being a god of rain which I related to the Varuna Contraption. Varuna is a god of sky and water remember but also a guardian of justice. Water and Justice.
Curiously though that's not what this quest is about. Instead it implies that the previous Hydro Archon died in Sumeru during the Cataclysm and while we had been told that Rukkhadevata was nowhere near the conflict against Khaenri'ah she's the one who took the elemental energy released by the dying Archon to create the Amrita. (Remember how I found Amrita interesting because it meant immortality? I've had a theory that the Archons are also cursed with immortality hence suffer from erosion.) In other words similar to how Makoto exists now as the Sacred Sakura the Hydro Archon exists as the Amrita. And actually I've been developing a Fontaine theory based on this too because there's other pieces to this story that suggest Rukkhadevata doesn't intend for the Hydro Archon to remain the Amrita.
Still with me? Let's cool down with some easy stuff. So by the end of the quest we know that it's the Rite of Ab-Zohr and not the "Rite of Chinvat" that the Skeptics tell Sorush about that we needed to perform. Chinvat is the chinvat peretu the Zoroastrian concept of a bridge between the world of the living and dead. So sacrifice. The "rite" is just getting Sorush to kill herself. Very naughty Nasejuna.
Speaking of that guy we get a few names and titles for him right? His real name actually means nothing as far as I can tell. It's the "derogatory" name that offends these guys that's actually real. Nagarjuna is the name of one of the most important figures towards the spread of Mahayana Buddhism the same Buddhism that got into China which miHoYo has used in Genshin pretty often. It's also the Buddhism that's related to Gnosticism.
And what better "Darshan" to ostracize in the very Zoroastrian Sumeru than the one that's Buddhist? This actually calls out to the real world outlawing of Buddhism in Persia during the Sassanid period. Shamaniyya is just a period Persian word for Buddhist monk.
His title of Lord Nasuraia is actually the name of a still active sect of Gnostics in Persia. Nasuraia actually means the Guardians of Sacred Knowledge. Their version of Gnosticism is called Mandaeism and it serves as a surviving link to the Buddhist and Zoroastrian-derived Manichaeist system. There are also possible Taoist inspirations too and yes Taoism does play a part in Genshin as well. (Perilous Trail anyone?) This could be because Buddhism spread into Persia during the Parthian Empire by Chinese missionaries and Mahayana Buddhism was interpreted in China through its Taoist and Confucianist lens.
Vijnanapati isn't a real word but it is grammatically correct. A Pati is just a lord or master. And the word Vijnana might look familiar if I write it like this: vi-jnana. Jnana Energy. In real life Jnana means knowledge but vijnana means the mind. So a Vijnanapati would be a master of the mind.
Now similiarly Yasnapati can be broken up into yasna and pati. So Zoroastrianism is the English word for the religion named after Zoroaster the Greek name for Zarathustra the founder of the religion. The religion's actual name is Mazdayasna or the worship of Ahura Mazda. So yasna just means worship and what we are to Sorush is her "master" of worship. We're her cheering section.
Nasejuna's stooge that Eremite that we fight all the way back in the beginning of the quest also has a little lore to him. He's a member of the Order of Skeptics right? Pyrrho not to be confused with King Pyrrhus is actually named after Pyrrho of Elis the founder of Skepticism in Greece. Not sure our Eremite friend can live up to that.
Ok last thing for this section. Remember earlier how I brought up that most of the Indian references came from the Pali language? Rukkhadevata, Kusanali etc? Well the Tunigi Hollow does too. The Tunigi Hollow is actually called 荼泥黑渊 in Chinese which translates to the Tuni Black Abyss. Tuni is Pali for to carry. In terms of Genshin the hollow "carried" the corruption of the Abyss. And after all, it also literally transports us to the source of the problem.
Lastly and probably not what you guys would have expected for me to wrap this one up with is the drum that we find almost immediately after the quest starts. It would be later into the quest when we first meet Nasejuna that he tells us it's a Korybantes or "Kory drum" making it seem like bantes should mean drum in some language. It doesn't.
Korybantes is not a drum. But the Korybantes did play drums. They were actually Phrygian worshippers of Cybele. In case your classical antiquity is as rusty as mine is Phyrigia is located in Anatolia aka Turkey so Sumeru. But Greek and Roman mythologies assimilated their goddess Cybele. Greece broke apart her role into the Earth mother aka Gaia and Goddess of Nature Demeter. Not a big presence directly. But Greece claimed that Phrygia was pro-Troy and Rome came from Troy - see Aeneas - so they call Cybele the Magna Mater or Great Mother and she is the arch god of the Roman pantheon.
Side Note: Because of the heavy cost of the Punic Wars Rome's birth rates were down and they needed to replenish their forces. Rome's original pantheon didn't have Zeus and his rape-tastic core philosophy so the Magna Mater or Great Mother helped motivate more births for the war effort.
For our purposes if we're talking arch god then that would be Ananke the Goddess of Inevitability and mother of Phanes the Greek Creation God and also Primordial One in Genshin. I've brought her up a few times now so it was interesting to see another possible shoutout to her existence in the lore.
Side Note: There's also a weird story from Rome that works with Cybele promoting birth rates. She's so easy to impregnate that once upon a time Zeus tried to rape her and failed but even when his junk spilled onto the floor, she still got pregante from it. Of course the baby was a monster or at least considered one by the Greeks because it was androgynous. Not in like a "metrosexual" kind of way. More like in a confused the word androgynous with the word hermaphrodite kind of way. And the way the gods kill it is weird, gross and somehow led to the Roman Cybele cult's way of worshipping her? Who hurt you Rome?
Side Note for the Side Note: The reason why you wouldn't use the term hermaphrodite to describe the Zeus-Cybele monster baby is because that word is also Greek and means someone totally different. Hermaphroditus is the son of Hermes and Aphrodite (hence the name) and got his girl parts (technically the girl got his guy parts) because the nymph Salmacis tried to rape him - since he was so pretty (this is where the metro part of androgyny comes in) - and because of that she absorbed his body into herself. Greek and Roman mythology is messed up what can I say?
Ok so there you go. Wasn't that interesting? You just gotta wonder how deeply these devs have looked into the material they're working with to come up with interpretations on this level.
Topic originally created on April 22nd, 2023.