Dyaus Pita
Encyclopedia
In the Vedic pantheon or or Dyaus Pitar is the Sky Father
, divine consort of the Prithvi
and father of Agni
, Indra
(RV 4.17.4), and Ushas
, the daughter representing dawn
. In archaic Vedic lore, Dyauṣ Pitṛ and Prithivi Matṛ were one, single composite dvandva
entity, named as the Dyavaprthivi
. He was cursed by Vasishta maharishi for hurting Nandini
, the sacred cow with a thorny stick. He is believed to have taken rebirth as Bhishma
and die according to his Karma
, after being pierced by many arrows, for inflicting wounds on Nandini.
In Rig Veda, the abode of Dyaus Dyulok is regarded as Fountain-head of God - the Primeval Purusha
.
(RV), mortal life emerged from the procreation by Dyauṣ Pitā, whereby the mother Earth, goddess Prithivi was impregnated by the Dyauṣ Pitṛ by way of rains.
In the Rig Veda, Dyaus Pitar appears in hymns 1.89, 1.90, 1.164, 1.191 and 4.1 in simple invocations.
In RV 1.89.4b, Pitar Dyaus meaning the "Father Sky" appears alongside Mata Prithvi "Mother Earth".
In the Purusha Suktam
, Dyaus is described to have been created from the head of the primaeval being, the Purusha
.
Dyauṣ Pitṛ has been depicted during the day-time as a red bull
who bellows thunder (in juxtaposition to the Prithvi Mata, represented as a cow), or as the night heavens in form of a black horse
adorned with pearls, symbolizing the stars. The dark Dyaus also holds a thunder-stone. In art, Dyaus appears in both the above two different forms.
Details of the Dyauṣ Pitṛ myth are sketchy. Ultimately, Dyaus is taken as having been killed by Indra
, his elder son, who throws him out of the sky to fall to death (RV 4.18.12).
Dyaus could be seen to have been transfomed into Shiva, the supreme God of Shaivite religion.
root word morpheme
*dyeu- (zero-grade forms *dyu- and *diw-) with the meaning 'to shine'. Words related to Dyaus in Sanskrit include divasa 'day', divya 'divine, celestial', dyota 'light, shining', etc.
Dyauṣ Pitṛ is the Sanskrit version of the Proto-Indo-European
sky god concept personified by *Dyeus
, who appears in many other Indo-European religions with similar attributes. Dyeus was addressed as Dyeu Ph2ter, literally "Sky Father" or "shining father", as reflected in Latin Jupiter; Diēspiter and Greek Zeus pater.
In his aspect as a father god, his consort was Pltwih2 Mh2ter, "Earth Mother". Related names to Dyauṣ Pitṛ appear in the Greek
as Zeus
Pater (accusative
Día, genitive
Diós), in Latin
as Jupiter
(from archaic Latin Iovis Pater, "Sky father"), in Slavic mythology
as Div
, and Germanic and Norse mythology
as Tyr or Ziu.
Sky father
The sky father or heavenly father is a recurring theme in mythology all over the world. The sky father is the complement of the earth mother and appears in some creation myths, many of which are Indo-European or ancient Near Eastern. Other cultures have quite different myths; Egyptian mythology...
, divine consort of the Prithvi
Prithvi
Prithvi is the sanskrit name for earth and its essence Prithivi Tattwa, in the form of a mother goddess or godmother. Prithvi is also called Dhra, Dharti, Dhrithri, meaning that which holds everything. As Prithvi Devi, she is one of two wives of Lord Vishnu. His other wife is Lakshmi. Prithvi is...
and father of Agni
Agni
Agni is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is the god of fire and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods...
, Indra
Indra
' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...
(RV 4.17.4), and Ushas
Ushas
Ushas , Sanskrit for "dawn", is a Vedic deity, and consequently a Hindu deity as well.Sanskrit is an s-stem, i.e. the genitive case is . It is from PIE , cognate to Greek Eos and Latin Aurora....
, the daughter representing dawn
Hausos
One of the most important goddesses of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion is the dawn goddess. Her name is reconstructed as Ausōs , besides numerous epithets....
. In archaic Vedic lore, Dyauṣ Pitṛ and Prithivi Matṛ were one, single composite dvandva
Dvandva
A dvandva or twin or Siamese compound refers to one or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and', where the objects refer to the parts of an agglomeration described by the compound...
entity, named as the Dyavaprthivi
Dyavaprthivi
Dyavaprthivi is a Sanskrit dvandva, or compound word, meaning heaven and earth. The term occurs 65 times in the Rig Veda. Dyavaprthivi has mistakenly been labeled a Hindu god who later split into Dyaus, the Sky Father, and Prthivi, the Earth Mother....
. He was cursed by Vasishta maharishi for hurting Nandini
Nandini
In Sanskrit, it means daughter.It is generally used as a first name for girls.The root, nand, refers to delight, pleasure, enjoyment. The Sanskrit word nadana...
, the sacred cow with a thorny stick. He is believed to have taken rebirth as Bhishma
Bhishma
Bhishma or Bheeshma or Devavrata or 'Bhishma Pitamah' was the eighth son of Kuru King Shantanu who was blessed with wish-long life and had sworn to serve the ruling Kuru king. He was one of the most prominent characters of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. He was the grand uncle of both the...
and die according to his Karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
, after being pierced by many arrows, for inflicting wounds on Nandini.
In Rig Veda, the abode of Dyaus Dyulok is regarded as Fountain-head of God - the Primeval Purusha
Purusha
In some lineages of Hinduism, Purusha is the "Self" which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are interpretations of the many facets of Purusha...
.
In the Rig Veda
According to one version of Creation as embodied in the RigvedaRigveda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...
(RV), mortal life emerged from the procreation by Dyauṣ Pitā, whereby the mother Earth, goddess Prithivi was impregnated by the Dyauṣ Pitṛ by way of rains.
In the Rig Veda, Dyaus Pitar appears in hymns 1.89, 1.90, 1.164, 1.191 and 4.1 in simple invocations.
In RV 1.89.4b, Pitar Dyaus meaning the "Father Sky" appears alongside Mata Prithvi "Mother Earth".
In the Purusha Suktam
Purusha sukta
Purusha sukta is hymn 10.90 of the Rigveda, dedicated to the Purusha, the "Cosmic Being". One version of the Suktam has 16 verses, 15 in the meter, and the final one in the meter...
, Dyaus is described to have been created from the head of the primaeval being, the Purusha
Purusha
In some lineages of Hinduism, Purusha is the "Self" which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are interpretations of the many facets of Purusha...
.
Dyauṣ Pitṛ has been depicted during the day-time as a red bull
Bull
Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...
who bellows thunder (in juxtaposition to the Prithvi Mata, represented as a cow), or as the night heavens in form of a black horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
adorned with pearls, symbolizing the stars. The dark Dyaus also holds a thunder-stone. In art, Dyaus appears in both the above two different forms.
Details of the Dyauṣ Pitṛ myth are sketchy. Ultimately, Dyaus is taken as having been killed by Indra
Indra
' or is the King of the demi-gods or Devas and Lord of Heaven or Svargaloka in Hindu mythology. He is also the God of War, Storms, and Rainfall.Indra is one of the chief deities in the Rigveda...
, his elder son, who throws him out of the sky to fall to death (RV 4.18.12).
Dyaus could be seen to have been transfomed into Shiva, the supreme God of Shaivite religion.
Other, similar deities
Etymologically, the name Dyaus is derived from Proto-Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
root word morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
*dyeu- (zero-grade forms *dyu- and *diw-) with the meaning 'to shine'. Words related to Dyaus in Sanskrit include divasa 'day', divya 'divine, celestial', dyota 'light, shining', etc.
Dyauṣ Pitṛ is the Sanskrit version of the Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European religion
Proto-Indo-European religion is the hypothesized religion of the Proto-Indo-European peoples based on the existence of similarities among the deities, religious practices and mythologies of the Indo-European peoples. Reconstruction of the hypotheses below is based on linguistic evidence using the...
sky god concept personified by *Dyeus
Dyeus
*Dyēus is the reconstructed chief deity of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon. He was the god of the daylight sky, and his position may have mirrored the position of the patriarch or monarch in society....
, who appears in many other Indo-European religions with similar attributes. Dyeus was addressed as Dyeu Ph2ter, literally "Sky Father" or "shining father", as reflected in Latin Jupiter; Diēspiter and Greek Zeus pater.
In his aspect as a father god, his consort was Pltwih2 Mh2ter, "Earth Mother". Related names to Dyauṣ Pitṛ appear in the Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
Pater (accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
Día, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
Diós), in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
as Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
(from archaic Latin Iovis Pater, "Sky father"), in Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology
Slavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation.The religion possesses many common traits with other religions descended from the Proto-Indo-European religion....
as Div
Rod (god)
Rod is a Slavic deity, often mentioned in the Old Church Slavonic didactic literature which was directed against pagans...
, and Germanic and Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
as Tyr or Ziu.
In popular culture
- Dyaus Pita was used in the Playstation Portable game, God EaterGod EaterGods Eater Burst is a 2011 action-adventure video game exclusively for the PlayStation Portable developed and published by Namco Bandai Games in Japan and published by D3Publisher, a sister company of Namco Bandai Games, in North America. The game was originally released in Japan as on February...
. His incarnation was a large lion-like creature, Aragami, that supposedly killed one of the main characters, Lindow Amamiya.
See also
- Dis PaterDis PaterDis Pater, or Dispater was a Roman god of the underworld, later subsumed by Pluto or Hades. Originally a chthonic god of riches, fertile agricultural land, and underground mineral wealth, he was later commonly equated with the Roman deities Pluto and Orcus, becoming an underworld deity.Dis Pater...
- Hindu deitiesHindu deitiesWithin Hinduism a large number of personal gods are worshipped as murtis. These beings are either aspects of the supreme Brahman, Avatars of the supreme being, or significantly powerful entities known as devas. The exact nature of belief in regards to each deity varies between differing Hindu...
- Hindu idealismHindu idealismThere are currents of idealism in classical Hindu philosophy.Idealism and materialism are the principal monist ontologies.A related branch is the Buddhist concept of consciousness-only.Idealist notions have been supported by the Vedanta and Yoga schools...
- Hindu mythologyHindu mythologyHindu religious literature is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Nepali and Indian culture...
- Purusha suktaPurusha suktaPurusha sukta is hymn 10.90 of the Rigveda, dedicated to the Purusha, the "Cosmic Being". One version of the Suktam has 16 verses, 15 in the meter, and the final one in the meter...