Weshparkar was the Sogdian god of the Atmosphere and the Wind. He corresponds to the Avestan god

Vayu Vayu (, sa, वायु, ), also known as Vata and Pavana, is the Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine massenger of the gods. In the '' Vedic scriptures'', Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king of ...

. In Central Asia, Weshparkar has also been associated to the Indian god

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

. By the VI-VIII centuries. include numerous scenes of worship of gods in temples, palaces and houses of Penjikent, Samarkand, Varakhshi near Bukhara, Shakhristan (the residence of the ruler of Ustrushana, an area inhabited by Sogdians northeast of Samarkand Sogd). It is not always easy to distinguish between the images of such Sogdian gods, strongly Indianized under the influence of Shiva's iconography, such as, for example, the God of the wind Veshparkar, similar to Mahadeva, from the images of Shiva himself, whose cult penetrated into Bactria and Sogd. If the dancing god in the “pose of an archer”, with all his Indian features, is included in a typical Sogdian cult scene with worshipers in local clothes with local ritual objects - a portable fire altar and a bunch of branches (leopard), then the already mentioned group with Shiva and Parvati, although it has Sogdian elements, on the whole it hardly allows for an Iranian (in the broad sense of the word) interpretation. In the wall painting of Penjikent, the Sogdian god Veshparkar is depicted in full growth, his body is wrapped around a cord with bells.ХАКИМОВ Н. Г. ФОРМИРОВАНИЕ ТАНЦЕВАЛЬНЫХ ТРАДИЦИЙ В ИСКУССТВЕ ТАДЖИКОВ
/ref> According to N. N. Negmatov, the inscription Veshparkar is a Sogdian translation of the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

word

Vishvakarman Vishvakarma or Vishvakarman ( sa, विश्वकर्मा, Viśvakarmā, all maker) is a craftsman deity and the divine architect of the devas in contemporary Hinduism. In the early texts, the craftsman deity was known as Tvastar and the ...

and means “creator of everything”. Veshparkar-Vishvakarman, depicted as a four-armed and three-headed man seated on a horse, was one of the three main objects of veneration in pre-Islamic Ustrushana. The Ustrushan image of Veshparkara differs from the Hindu and Buddhist images of Vishvakarman more than the

Penjikent , image_skyline = Pajakent Bazaar1.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = Panjakent Bazaar , image_flag = , image_seal = , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Tajikistan#West Asia , pushpin_relief = yes , pushpin_label_position = , pushp ...

image: many Indian beginnings have disappeared, it is not accompanied by a female face, it has fewer arms, there is no flame on the shoulders, and animal heads on the shoulders. According to B. I. Marshak, in addition to the Sogdian Buddhists and adherents of the Panjakent religion, Veshparkar was also revered by

Manichaeans Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani (AD ...

. By the number of preserved images, Veshparkar ranks third among all Sogdian gods.

References

Bibliography

* * {{cite book, author-link=Негматов, Нуман Негматович, last=Негматов , first=Н. Н., chapter=Глава 6. Уструшана, title=Средняя Азия и Дальний Восток в эпоху средневековья. Средняя Азия в раннем средневековье, url=https://www.archaeolog.ru/ru/el-bib/el-cat/el-series/arch-sssr/archaeologyussr_17, location=Мoscow, publisher=Наука, year=1999, pages=114—130, isbn=5-02-008617-7 , language=ru Central Asia