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"Caspians" (Greek kaspioi, Aramaic kspy,Persian کاسپین or قزوين ) is a Greek ethnonym applied by Strabo1 to the ancient sanskrit name Kashyapa of ancient people dwelling along the south and southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, the region which was called Caspiane after them.2 The name is not attested in Old Iranian,3 nor can it be identified with material culture at any archaeological site in that region. The name Caspia is a cognate of the Sanskrit (Indian language) name Kashyapa - the father of the Suras (possibly Syrians) and the Asuras (possibly Assyrians) as well as the father of the Devas (possibly the Caucasian tribes of Russia). Kashyapa had a number of wives and several children, and is deemed to be the progenitor of many tribes. It is possible that he may have been a tribal sage-king in pre-historic times who entered Indian mythology over the next 5,000 years.
The Caspians have generally been regarded as a pre-Indo-European people; they have been identified by Ernst Herzfeld with the Kassites,4 who spoke a language without an identified relationship to any other known tongue and whose origins have long been the subject of debate.
However onomastic evidence bearing on this point has been newly discovered. Aramaic papyri from Egypt have been published by P. Grelot,5 in which several of the Caspian names that are mentioned— and identified under the gentilic כספי kaspai— are in part, etymologically Iranian. The Caspians of the Egyptian papyri must therefore be considered either an Iranian people or strongly under Iranian cultural influence.3
In Persian mythology, the Caspian area is the realm of the Daevas (ديو), intelligent but evil creatures who are killed by Persian heroes such as Rustam (رستم). The Shahnameh (شاهنامه), or Persian book of kings, states that these Daevas from the Caspian area were the ones who taught the early Persians the arts of agriculture, mathematics, writing, and astronomy. Iranian artists show the Daevas as hairy with sharp teeth and horns, but wearing colorful, beautifully designed kilts.