Proto Indo European religion

Updated on Oct 29, 2023

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Proto indo european religion domestic religion deities ancestors nature spirits

The religion of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is not directly attested, but reconstruction has been attempted based on the existence of similarities among the deities, religious practices and mythologies of the Indo-European peoples. The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic. Other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil.

Pantheon

Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of some deities in the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more readily accepted among scholars than others.

The term for "a god" was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius; Latin, deus, divus; Sanskrit, deva; Avestan, daeva (later, Persian, div); Welsh, duw; Irish, dia; Old Norse, tívurr; Lithuanian, Dievas; Latvian, Dievs.

Heavenly deities

The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr, whose name literally means "Sky Father." He is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities. The Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity. *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact literal translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥ_ɑtḗr, but do preserve the general meaning of it.

*H_ɑéusōs has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn. Derivatives of her found throughout various Indo-European mythologies include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Auštrine. The form Arap Ushas appears in Albanian folklore, but as a name for the Moon, not the dawn. An extension of the name may have been *H₂eust(e)ro, but see also the form *as-t-r, with intrusive -t- [between s and r] in northern dialects". Anatolian dialects: Estan, Istanus, Istara; Greek, Hestia, goddess of the hearth; Latin Vesta, goddess of the hearth; in Armenian as Astghik, a star goddess; possibly also in Germanic mythology as Ēostre or Ostara; and Baltic, Austija. The name *Deh₂nu- has been connected with the Dan rivers which run into the Black Sea (Dnieper, Dniester, Don, and Danube) and other river names in Celtic areas.

*Seh₂ul and *Meh₁not are reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the Sun and god of the Moon respectively. *Seh₂ul is reconstructed based off the Greek god Helios, the Roman god Sol, the Celtic goddess Sul/Suil, the Norse goddess Sól, the Germanic goddess *Sowilō, the Celtic Solntse, the Hittite goddess "UTU-liya", and the Vedic god Surya. *Meh₁not is reconstructed based off the Norse god Máni, the Hittite god Myesyats, and the Lithuanian god *Meno, or Mėnuo (Mėnulis). They are often seen as the twin children of various deities, but in fact the sun and moon were deified several times and are often found in competing forms within the same language. The usual scheme is that one of these celestial deities is male and the other female, though the exact gender of the Sun or Moon tends to vary among subsequent Indo-European mythologies. The original Indo-European solar deity appears to have been female, a characteristic not only supported by the higher number of sun goddesses in subsequent derivations (feminine Sól, Saule, Sulis, Solntse—not directly attested as a goddess, but feminine in gender—Étaín, Grían, Aimend, Áine and Catha versus masculine Helios, Surya, Savitr, Usil and Sol; Hvare-khshaeta is of neutral gender), but also by vestiges in mythologies with male solar deities (Usil in Etruscan art is depicted occasionally as a goddess, while solar characteristics in Athena and Helen of Troy still remain in Greek mythology). The original Indo-European lunar deity appears to have been masculine, with feminine lunar deities like Selene, Minerva and Luna being a development exclusive to the eastern Mediterranean. Even in these traditions, remnants of male lunar deities, like Menelaus, remain.

Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind: *Manu- ("Man"; Indic Manu; Germanic Mannus) and *Yemo- ("Twin"; Indic Yama; Germanic Ymir), his twin brother. Cognates of this set of twins appear as the first mortals, or the first gods to die, sometimes becoming the ancestors of everyone and/or king(s) of the dead.

Horse Twins, usually have a name that means 'horse' *ekwa-, but the names are not always cognate, because there is no lexical set (Mallory & Adams 2006, p. 432). They are always male and usually have a horse form, or sometimes, one is a horse and the other is a boy. They are brothers of the Sun Maiden or Dawn goddess, sons of the sky god, continued in Sanskrit Ashvins and Lithuanian Ašvieniai, identical to Latvian Dieva deli. Other horse twins are: Greek, Dioskouroi (Polydeukes and Kastor); borrowed into Latin as Castor and Pollux; Irish, the twins of Macha; Old English, Hengist and Horsa (both words mean 'stallion'), and possibly Old Norse Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse born of Loki; Slavic Lel and Polel; possibly Christianized in Albanian as Sts. Flori and Lori. The horse twins may be based on the morning and evening star (the planet Venus) and they often have stories about them in which they "accompany" the Sun goddess, because of the close orbit of the planet Venus to the sun (JIES 10, 1&2, pp. 137–166, Michael Shapiro, who references D. Ward, The Divine Twins, Folklore Studies, No. 19, Univ. Calif. Press, Berkeley, 1968).

The word *prih_xeh_a-, meaning "wife" has been reconstructed based off the Sanskrit word priyā, meaning "wife," the Old Norse word frī, meaning "beloved," and the Old English word frēo, meaning "woman. The name of the Norse goddess Frigg is derived from this root, but there is little evidence to support the reconstruction of a Proto-Indo-European goddess with this name.

Storm deities

*Perk^wunos has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European god of lightning and storms. His name literally means "The Striker." He is reconstructed based off the Norse goddess Fjǫrgyn (the mother of Thor), the Lithuanian god Perkūnas, and the Slavic god Perúnú. The Vedic god Parjánya may also be related, but his possible connection to *Perk^wunos is still under dispute. The name of *Perk^wunos may also be attested in Greek as κεραυνός (Keraunós), an epithet of the god Zeus meaning "thunder-shaker."

Water deities

Some authors have proposed *Neptonos or *H₂epom Nepōts as the Proto-Indo-European god of the waters. The name literally means "Grandson [or Nephew] of the Waters." He has been reconstructed based off the Vedic god Apám Nápát, the Roman god Neptūnus, and the Old Irish god Nechtain. Although such a god has been solidly reconstructed in Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, Mallory and Adams nonetheless still reject him as a Proto-Indo-European deity on linguistic grounds.

A river goddess *Deh_ɑnu- has been proposed based off the Vedic goddess Dānu, the Irish goddess Danu, the Welsh goddess Don and the names of the rivers Danube, Don, Dnieper, and Dniester. Mallory and Adams, however, dismiss this reconstruction, commenting that it does not have any evidence to support it.

Some have also proposed the reconstruction of a sea god named *Trih_ɑtōn based off the Greek god Triton and the Old Irish word trïath, meaning "sea." Mallory and Adams reject this reconstruction as having no basis, asserting that the "lexical correspondence is only just possible and with no evidence of a cognate sea god in Irish."

Nature deities

*Péh₂usōn, a pastoral deity, is reconstructed based off the Greek god Pan and the Vedic god Pūshān. Both deities are closely affiliated with goats and were worshipped as pastoral deities. The minor discrepancies between the two deities can be easily explained by the possibility that many attributes originally associated with Pan may have been transferred over to his father Hermes. The association between Pan and Pūshān was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz.

In 1855, Adalbert Kuhn suggested that the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have believed in a set of nature spirits, whom he reconstructed based off the Germanic elves and the Hindu rhibus. Though this proposal is often mentioned in academic writings, very few scholars actually accept it.There may also have been a female cognate akin to the Greco-Roman nymphs, Slavic vilas, the Huldra of Germanic folklore, and the Hindu Apsaras.

It is also likely that they had three fate goddesses; see the Norns in Norse mythology, Moirai in Greek mythology, Sudjenice of Slavic folklore, Ursitoare in Folklore of Romania and Deivės Valdytojos in Lithuanian mythology. Celtic religion is also rife with triple goddesses, such as the Gaulish Matrones and the Morrigan of Ireland, and sometimes triplicate gods as well, but they are not always associated with fate. See also Triple deities.

Pandemonium

"Pandemonium" is Jaan Puhvel's word for the mutual demonization that occurred when the Younger-Avesta demonized the daevas, and the post-Rigvedic texts demonized the asuras. Neither demonization occurs in the oldest texts: in the Rigveda, there is not yet any hard-and-fast distinction between asuras and dēvas, and even in the later Vedas, the two groups (though thematically in opposition) cooperate at certain times. In the Old Avestan texts the daevas are to be rejected for being misguided by the "lie", but they are still gods, and not demons.

However, in the 19th century this distinction between the older and younger texts had not yet been made, and in 1884 Martin Haug "postulated his thesis that the transition of both the words [asuras and devas] into the designations of the demons ... is based on a prehistoric schism in religion ..." The observation was reiterated by Jacob Grimm (DM3, p. 985), who, like Haug, considered it to be the theological basis of Zoroastrianism's dualism.

Before this (in the 1850s), Westergaard had attributed the Younger-Avesta's demonization of the daevas to a "moral reaction against Vedic polytheism", but that (unlike the general notion of a mutual demonization) was very quickly rejected, and by 1895 James Darmesteter noted that it has "no longer [had] any supporter." Nonetheless, some modern authors like Mallory and Adams still refer to Zoroastrianism as a "religious reformation" of Vedic religion (Mallory & Adams 2006, pp. 408–09). Most scholars however stress that there were two independent developments in ancient Iran and post-Rigvedic India, but nonetheless to be considered against the common background of prehistoric Indo-Iranian religion where both groups coexisted, with the asuras, perhaps even as a subset (having a particular common characteristic, like the Adityas) of the daevas, the national gods.

Dragon or serpent

One common myth among almost all Indo-European mythologies is a battle ending with a hero or god slaying a serpent or dragon of some sort (Watkins 1995).

Vahagn vs. Vishap in Armenian mythology;

Zeus vs. Typhon, Kronos vs. Ophion, Apollo vs. Python, Heracles vs. the Hydra and Ladon, Perseus vs. Ceto, and Bellerophon vs. the Chimera in Greek mythology;

Thor vs. Jörmungandr, Sigurd vs. Fafnir and Beowulf vs. the dragon in Germanic mythology;

Indra vs. Vrtra in the Rigveda;

Krishna vs. Kāliyā in the Bhagavata Purana;

Fereydun, and later Garshasp, vs. Zahhak in Zoroastrianism and Persian mythology;

Perun vs. Veles, Dobrynya Nikitich vs. Zmey in Slavic mythology;

Făt-Frumos vs. Zmeu in Folklore of Romania

Tarhunt vs. Illuyanka of Hittite mythology;

Dian Cecht vs. Meichi of Celtic mythology

There are also analogous stories in other neighbouring mythologies: Anu or Marduk vs. Tiamat in Mesopotamian mythology; Ra vs. Apep in Egyptian mythology; Baal or El vs. Lotan or Yam-Nahar in Levantine mythology; Gabriel vs. Leviathan or Rahab or Tannin in Jewish mythology; Michael the Archangel and, Christ vs. Satan (in the form of a seven-headed dragon), Virgin Mary crushing a serpent in Roman Catholic iconography (see Book of Revelation 12), Saint George and the Dragon in Christian mythology. The myth symbolized a clash between forces of order and chaos (represented by the serpent), and the god or hero would always win (except in some mythologies, such as the Norse Ragnarök myth in which both die). Serpentine aspects can be found in many Greek aquatic deities, most notably Poseidon, Oceanus, Triton, Typhon (who carries many chthonic attributes while not specifically linked with the sea), Ophion, and also the Slavic Veles. Possibly called *kʷr̥mis, or some name cognate with *Varuna/Werunos or the root *Wel/Vel- (VS Varuna, who is associated with the serpentine naga, Vala and Vṛtra, Slavic Veles, Baltic velnias), or "serpent" (Hittite Illuyanka, VS Ahis, Iranian azhi, Greek ophis and Ophion, and Latin anguis), or the root *dheubh- (Greek Typhon and Python).

Sun

Related to the dragon-slaying myth is the "Sun in the rock" myth, of a heroic warrior deity splitting a rock where the Sun or Dawn was imprisoned. Such a myth is preserved in the Rigvedic story of Vala, where Ushas and the cows, stolen by the Panis were imprisoned, connected with other myths of abductions into the netherworld such as the mysteries of Eleusis connected with Persephone, Dionysus and Triptolemus.

The Sun god, Helios of Greek mythology, Surya of Hinduism, and Sól of Germanic mythology are represented as riding in a chariot with horses. (Note that the chariot was not invented until Indo-European had already split into linguistic branches.)

In Norse mythology, the Sun goddess (Sól) and Moon god (Máni) are swallowed by demon wolves Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson.

In Hinduism, the Sun god (Surya) and Moon god (Chandra) are swallowed by the demon serpents Rahu and Ketu resulting in Eclipses.

Brothers

The analysis of different Indo-European tales indicates that the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind: *Manu- ("Man") and *Yemo- ("Twin"), his twin brother. A reconstructed creation myth involving the two is given by David W. Anthony, attributed in part to Bruce Lincoln: Manu and Yemo traverse the cosmos, accompanied by the primordial cow, and finally decide to create the world. To do so, Manu sacrifices either Yemo or the cow, and with help from the sky father, the storm god and the divine twins, forges the earth from the remains. Manu thus becomes the first priest and establishes the practice of sacrifice. The sky gods then present cattle to the third man, *Trito, who loses it to the three-headed serpent *Ng^whi, but eventually overcomes this monster either alone or aided by the sky father. Trito is now the first warrior and ensures that the cycle of mutual giving between gods and humans may continue.

Reflexes of *Manu include Indic Manu, Germanic Mannus; of Yemo, Indic Yama, Avestan Yima, Norse Ymir, possibly Roman Remus (< earlier Italic *iemus).

There are almost no mythological tales from Rome, but the early "history" of Rome is recognized as being an historicized version of various old myths. Romulus and Remus were twin brothers. They both have stories in which they are killed.

Remus is killed by his brother Romulus at the foundation of Rome;

Romulus is dismembered by the senators, "[…] there were some who secretly hinted that he had been torn limb from limb by the senators […]" There is no world making here, but Romulus is the eponymous ancestor of the Romans, and the founder of Rome.

Gemini is the actual Latin word for 'twins' though it usually applies to Castor and Pollux, see Horse Twins in the Pantheon section. They were worshipped all over the Roman world with votive altars with inscriptions, which remained after the Romans were gone. This may be the source of some names which appear in early Christian myths.

The Germanic languages have information about both Ymir and Mannus (cognates of *Yemo- and *Manu- respectively), but they never appear in the same myth, rather they appear only in myths widely separated in both time and circumstances.

A Roman text (dated CE 98) tells that Mannus, the son of Tuisto, was the ancestor of the Germanic people, according to Tacitus, writing in Latin, in Germania 2. We never see this being again, but the name Allemagne is interpreted (perhaps by folk etymology) as "all-men" the name for themselves.

Bulls

Celtic (in this case Irish) texts were written down between the 11th and 14th centuries CE. In one myth a bull is killed and dismembered by another bull and the parts of his body are distributed around Ireland, which explains the names of many features of the landscape, though not the cause of their existence. "It was not long before the men of Erin [Ireland], as they were there in the company of Ailill and Madb early on the morrow, saw coming over Cruachan from the west, the Brown Bull of Cualnge with the Whitehorned [Bull] of Ai in torn fragments hanging about his ears and horns." An example of one of the distributions is this one: "Then he raised his head, and the shoulder-blades of the Whitehorned fell from him in that place. Hence, Sruthair Finnlethe ('Stream of the White Shoulder-blade') is the name given to it."

In Zoroastrianism and Persian mythology, according to the Zoroastrian story of creation, Ahura Mazda existed in light in goodness above, while Angra Mainyu existed in darkness and ignorance below. They have existed independently of each other for all time, and manifest contrary substances. Ahura Mazda first created seven abstract heavenly beings called Amesha Spentas, who support him and represent beneficent aspects, along with numerous yazads, lesser beings worthy of worship. He then created the universe itself in order to ensnare evil. Ahura Mazda created the floating, egg-shaped universe in two parts: first the spiritual (menog) and 3,000 years later, the physical (getig). Ahura Mazda then created Gayomard, the archetypical perfect man, and the first bull. While Ahura Mazda created the universe and humankind, Angra Mainyu, whose instinct is to destroy, miscreated demons, evil yazads, and noxious creatures (khrafstar) such as snakes, ants, and flies. Angra Mainyu created an opposite, evil being for each good being, except for humans, which he found he could not match. Angra Mainyu invaded the universe through the base of the sky, inflicting Gayomard and the bull with suffering and death. However, the evil forces were trapped in the universe and could not retreat. The dying primordial man and bull emitted seeds. From the bull's seed grew all beneficial plants and animals of the world, and from the man's seed grew a plant whose leaves became the first human couple. Humans thus struggle in a two-fold universe trapped with evil. The evils of this physical world are not products of an inherent weakness, but are the fault of Angra Mainyu's assault on creation. This assault turned the perfectly flat, peaceful, and ever day-lit world into a mountainous, violent place that is half night.

In Lithuanian, a folktale tells of a bull and three cows which are beheaded by Aušrinė, (the morning star) and then the land appears. "The maiden upon returning released her bull. The bull knelt down and spoke in a man's voice: "Chop off my head!" The maiden did not want to chop it off, but she had to. She chopped the head off—a fourth of the seas disappeared, became land. Her brother emerged from the bull. She cut off the heads of all three cows, who were her sisters. All the seas disappeared, turned to land. The earth sprang to life."

Other myths

Other myths may have included:

Creation myths

Birth of the Horse Twins from the grain/horse mother (Cox, p. 234, found in 7/11 language groups, which is a very conservative statistic)

Danu killed and cut open to produce a river (a parturition creation myth, 3/11)

Cyclic myths

Spring kills Winter, usually with his sprinkler or his striker (Cox, p. 559, found in 4/11 language groups)

Cloud/cows stolen from the sun god by the wind god and then released (Cox, p. 232, 4/11)

Death and rebirth of the (often grain-associated) life-death-rebirth deity causes the seasons; Frazer calls him the "Dying Corn God" (Frazer, Vol. 8 and 9 of the Golden Bough esp. Vol. 9, pp. 412–423; 4/11)

Uncle Water melts the ice and releases the water causing flooding (Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995, 5/11)

Quest of the golden apples of immortality, usually by a wind god (Cox, p. 512, 4/11)

Culture myths

Culture myths, stories in which some godlike being teaches the "arts of civilization" (actually technologies) to humans, are found in all cultures. The culture myths of the Indo-Europeans tell how the culture gods taught humans such arts as how to make fire, the proper way to kill and butcher an animal (sacrifice), religious rituals and law codes, smithing, weaving, ploughing, and healing. Culture-giving figures (e.g. Prometheus and Loki) sometimes have an intermediate position between gods and humans (i.e., demigods). They are certainly supernatural, but they often die or are tortured by other gods for their beneficence to humans; nevertheless they are often revived and worshipped like regular gods or revered as heroes. Mallory and Adams call them Craft Gods and argue that they are not linguistically reconstructible; however, Cox compares Greek Prometheus with Hindu Pramanthu (Cox, p. 421). Smith gods, a subset of the culture gods, are slightly reconstructible according to Mallory and Adams.

Flood myth

Flood myth is a widespread myth, in Indo-European as in other cultures (for example, Noah and Utnapishtim myths). In Hindu mythology, there is a story of a great flood, wherein the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu warns the first man, Manu. In Greek mythology, Deucalion is the survivor of the flood, and his sons Aeolus, Ion and Dorus are the founders of the three main lines of modern Greeks.

Ritual and sacredness

Émile Benveniste states that "there is no common [IE] term to designate religion itself, or cult, or the priest, not even one of the personal gods". There are, however, terms denoting ritual practice reconstructed in Indo-Iranian religion which have root cognates in other branches, hinting at common PIE concepts. Thus, the stem *hrta-, usually translated as "(cosmic) order" (Vedic ṛta and Iranian arta). Benveniste states, "We have here one of the cardinal notions of the legal world of the Indo-Europeans to say nothing of their religious and moral ideas" (pp. 379–381). He also adds that an abstract suffix -tu formed the Vedic stem ṛtu-, Avestan ratu- which designated order, particularly in the seasons and periods of time. The same root and suffix, but a different formation, appears in Latin rītus "rite".

The following list of reconstructed PIE religious terms is based on EIEC and Lyle Campbell

*isH₁ro ‘holy’

*sakro- ‘sacred’ (derived from *sak- ‘to sanctify’) [p. 493, EIEC]

*k̂wen(to)- ‘holy’ [p. 493, EIEC]

*noib^ho- ‘holy’ [p. 493, EIEC]

*prek̂- ‘pray’

*meld^h- ‘pray’ [p. 449, EIEC]

*g^whed^h- ‘pray’ [p. 449, EIEC]

*H₁weg^wh- ‘speak solemnly’; [*ueg^wh-, p. 449, EIEC]

*ĝ^heuH_x- ‘call, invoke’ (perhaps English god < *ĝ^hu-to- from ‘that which is invoked’, but derivation from *ĝ^hu-to- ‘libated’ from *ĝ^heu- ‘libate, pour’ is also possible). [p. 89, EIEC]

*kowH₁ei- ‘priest, seer/poet’ [p. 451, EIEC]

*H_xiaĝ- ‘worship’

*weik- ‘consecrate’ (earlier meaning perhaps ‘to separate’), [*ueik-, p. 493, EIEC; p. 29, Grimm]

*sep- ‘handle reverently’ [p. 450, EIEC]

*spend- ‘libate’

*ĝ^heu- ‘libate’ and *ĝ^heu-mn̥ ‘libation’

*dapnom ‘sacrificial meal’ from *dap-, [p. 496, EIEC; p. 484, Benveniste]

*tolko/eH₂- ‘meal’ (at least late PIE) [p. 496, EIEC]

*nemos ‘sacred grove’ (used in west and centre of the IE world)

*werb^h- ‘sacred enclosure’

Benveniste also posits the existence of a dual conception of sacredness, divided into a positive side, the intrinsic, otherworldly power of deities; and a negative side, sacredness of objects in the world that make them taboo for humans. This opposition is found in word pairs such as the Latin sacer/sanctus and Greek ἅγιος/ἱερός.

Development

The various Indo-European daughter-cultures continued elements of PIE religion, syncretizing it with innovations and foreign elements, notably Ancient Near Eastern and Dravidian elements, the reforms of Zoroaster and Buddha, and the spread of Christianity and Islam.

Anatolian: see Hittite mythology

Indo-Iranian:

Indo-Aryan: see Vedic religion and mythology, Indian religions (Hinduism and Hindu mythology, Buddhism and Buddhist mythology, Jainism, Sikhism), and Kalasha (religion)

Iranian: see Zoroastrianism, Persian mythology, Ossetian mythology and Yazdânism

Greek: see Greek polytheism and mythology, Hellenistic religion, Decline of Hellenistic polytheism, Greek Orthodox Church

Italic: see Roman polytheism and mythology, Roman Catholic Church

Celtic: see Celtic polytheism and mythology, Celtic Christianity

Germanic: see Germanic mythology (Continental, Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology)

Baltic: see Latvian mythology, Lithuanian mythology

Slavic: see Slavic mythology, Christianization of the Slavs

Tocharian: little evidence, see Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Armenian: limited evidence, see Armenian mythology, Armenian Orthodox Church

Prehistoric Balkans: see Paleo-Balkanic mythology

References

Proto-Indo-European religion Wikipedia

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