The term only appears twice in Iranian texts from before the 5th century BCE, and only one of these can be dated with precision. This one instance occurs in the trilingual Behistun inscription of Darius the Great, and

In the Talmud, instances of dialogue between the Jewish sages and various magi are recorded. The Talmud depicts the Magi as sorcerers and in several descriptions, they are

In India, the Sakaldwipiya Brahmins are considered to be the descendants of the ten Maga (Sanskrit मग) priests who were invited to conduct worship

Victor H. Mair (1990) suggested that Chinese wū (巫 "shaman; witch, wizard; magician") may originate as a loanword from Old Persian *maguš "magician; magi". Mair reconstructs an

Classical Greek
The oldest surviving Greek reference to the magi – from Greek μάγος (mágos, plural: magoi) – might be from 6th century BCE Heraclitus

The word mágos (Greek) and its variants appear in both the Old and New Testaments. Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" or "sorcerer" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller,

In Arabic, "Magians" (majus) is the term for Zoroastrians. The term is mentioned in the Quran, in sura 22 verse 17, where the "Magians" are mentioned alongside the Jews, the