Nana was an ancient Eastern Iranian goddess worshiped by Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians, as well as by non-Iranian Yuezhi, including Kushans, as the head of their respective pantheons.

There is no consensus regarding the date of Nana's introduction to Central Asia, though most researchers assume it occurred in the late first millennium BCE.

[8][9][10] The original form of the latter name, dna-na-a (𒀭𒈾𒈾𒀀), appears for the first time in cuneiform texts from the Shulgi-simti archive from Puzrish-Dagan (Drehem), dated to the Ur III period (c. 2100 BCE).

[11] The only possible earlier attestations are Old Akkadian personal names from Gasur with the element na-na (𒈾𒈾, written without the determinative designating theonyms), but they might be unrelated, as the evidence for later worship of Nanaya in the Diyala River basin and elsewhere in the east of Mesopotamia is scarce.

[12] The etymology of Nanaya's name is unknown,[13] though according to Joan Goodnick Westenholz it can be assumed that it originates in Akkadian, as it ends with a suffix common in hypocoristics and nisba formations in Semitic languages.

[15] Proponents of this theory suggest it was derived from the term nan(n)-, "day" or "morning", though Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz stresses that support for this view among researchers is limited.

[17] Following François Lenormant's proposal from 1876, Nana is sometimes incorrectly described by historians of Central Asia as a derivative of Inanna (Ishtar), in this context treated as identical with Nanaya, but Daniel T. Potts notes that the modern consensus view in Assyriology is that they were distinct goddesses.

[21] While it has been suggested that Nana's cult in Central Asia flourished because she initially developed through syncretism between her Mesopotamian forerunner and an Iranian goddess,[22] neither textual nor archeological sources support this conclusion.

[28] In the latter context the additional pair of arms reflected conventions of Mahayana Buddhist art of the region, in which multi-armed deities were widespread.

[39] Nana was also depicted holding scepters with lion-shaped zoomorphic finials,[40] for example on a panel from Kafir-kala dated to the fifth or sixth century.

[20] A further possible astral symbol associated with Nana were the so-called "three pellets", which occur as a decoration of her earrings in Kushan and Sogdian art (for example on a mural from Shahristan) and her scepter on a Chorasmian bowl.

[53] Due to her frequent portrayals in the company of armed attendants, as well as a tradition of depicting her battling demons, it has been suggested that Nana had a military aspect in Sogdia, though analogous evidence is not available from Bactria.

[54] A painting from Panjakent showing Nana fighting demons alongside a hero riding in a chariot is presumed to represent a scene from a hitherto unknown Sogdian myth.

[55] In the Khirmantepa ossuary, as well as in the so-called "Hell and Heaven painting" from Panjakent, she might be accompanied by Tish (Tishtrya), a Zoroastrian figure associated with rain.

[61] A bronze plaque which supposedly originates in the Laghman valley in Afghanistan might indicate that in post-Kushan Bactria Nana came to be viewed as a goddess linked to nature and vegetation, as a figure depicted on it similar to her in addition to riding on her symbolic lion she is accompanied by flowerpots, her crown is decorated with tulips and she holds a plant stem, but due to the unique character of this work of art and lack of similar evidence from Sogdia this proposal remains speculative.

[62] Nana was worshiped in Central Asia by various Eastern Iranian groups, including Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians, as well as by the most likely non-Iranian Yuezhi.

[68] Daniel T. Potts argues for a date as early as the late third millennium BCE,[63] with Susa, at the time an Elamite city, as the intermediary.

[69] He points out that a female figure seated on a lion appears in glyptic art from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex, despite the absence of these animals from this region, which he argues might reflect transmission from Mesopotamia.

[71] She was venerated by the Kushans, one of the member groups of the Yuezhi confederation, as evidenced by the Rabatak inscription of emperor Kanishka, dated to 127 CE, which addresses her as the deity responsible for granting him kingship.

[77] According to Harry Falk it is possible that a festival dedicated to Nana was celebrated annually, though this proposal relies on a reinterpretation of a text from the reign of Huvishka which according to earlier translations does not mention this goddess.

[64] She is considered an outlier among Sogdian deities as due to distinct, consistent iconography she can be easily identified in art even in absence of accompanying textual evidence.

[85] Multiple representations of Nana have been identified on the Panjakent murals, for example in a mourning scene from her temple and in various paintings which originally decorated private houses.

[92] A painting of a four-armed Sogdian goddess riding on a lion presumed to be Nana has been discovered in Bunjikat,[93] and it is possible she was commonly worshiped in this city as well.

[89] Katsumi Tanabe has additionally proposed that the main goddess worshiped in a temple according to the Syriac version of Pseudo-Callisthenes constructed in Samarkand in the seventh century was also Nana.

[98] She is chiefly known from depictions on silver bowls, which show close similarities with Sogdian art, and might indicate that she played an analogous role in local beliefs as she did in Sogdia.

[25] An example is a painting from a Buddhist shrine excavated in Dandan Oilik, which shows her in the company of two other figures of Sogdian origin, three-headed trident-armed Weshparkar[101] and a three-eyed deity described by Michael Shenkar as "Indra-Āδβāγ-Ahura Mazdā",[102] Āδβāγ ("the great god") being an epithet applied in Sogdian Buddhist texts to Indra but possibly originally serving as a way to avoid using the name of Ahura Mazda due to a religious taboo.

[104] While first published by Jao Tsong-yi in 1978, this work of art only attracted attention among researchers after Jiang Boqin proposed in 1988 that one of the two seated figures is Nana.

[106] She concludes that more research is necessary to determine if a feminine form of Tish, supposedly also attested on Kushan coins depicting this deity similarly to Greek Artemis, was worshiped in central Asia.

[26] Frantz Grenet and Zhang Guangda stress that the figures have no exact iconographic parallels elsewhere, and propose identifying the left one as the Sogdian form of Zoroastrian Dēn (Daena), the personification of conscience who welcomed souls on the Chinvat Bridge.