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Proto-Indo-European religion
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The existence of similarities among the deities and religious practices of the Indo-European (IE) peoples allows glimpses of a common Proto-Indo-European (PIE) religion and mythology. This hypothetical religion would have been the ancestor of the majority of the pagan religions of Europe, and of the Indian religions as well as Zoroastrianism in Iran.
Indications of the existence of this ancestral religion can be detected in commonalities between languages and religious customs of Indo-European peoples. The scientific method of triangulation is used by historical linguists to reconstruct the names of gods and goddesses, the names and processes for religious rituals and many related elements of belief and practice. In addition, many texts relating to the Indo-European religions exist, such as mythological tales and descriptions of religious rituals, including explicit instructions on how to perform them. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the earliest period of the Indo-European culture, which is defined as the time when all Indo-European-speaking people could still understand each other and conservatively thought to be about 4000 BCE. However, there is a vast amount of archaeological evidence that can be connected to specific Indo-European cultures and especially religious topics, such as temple site digs, votive offerings and inscriptions. The names of gods are often the first words we find written in each of the Indo-European languages.
PandemoniumPandemonium is Jaan Puhvel's word for the mutual demonization that occurred when the (Younger-)Avesta demonized the daevas, and the (post-Rig-)Vedic 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 devas, and even in the later Vedas, the two groups (though thematically in opposition) also 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 yet to be 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. Prior to 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 (p. 408-9, Oxford Intro.). 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 *Daivas, the national gods.
MythologyThere seems to have been a belief in a world tree, which in Germanic mythology was an ash tree (Norse Yggdrasil; Irminsul), in Hinduism a banyan tree, in Lithuanian mythology Jievaras, and an oak tree in Slavic mythology, and a hazel tree in Celtic mythology. In classical Greek mythology, the closest analogue of this concept is Mount Olympus; however, there is also a later folk tradition about the World Tree, which is being sawed by the Kallikantzaroi (Greek goblins), perhaps a reborrowing from other peoples.
Dragon or SerpentOne common myth which can be found among almost all Indo-European mythologies is a battle ending with the slaying of a serpent, usually a dragon of some sort: examples include
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; Yahweh or 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, Saint George vs. 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 Ragnarok myth)). It is therefore most probable that there existed some kind of dragon or serpent, possibly multi-headed (cf. Se?a, the hydra and Typhon) and likely linked with the god of underworld and/or waters, as serpentine aspects can be found in many chthonic and/or aquatic Indo-European deities, such as for example the 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 *, or some name cognate with *Velnos/Werunos or the root *Wel/Vel-, or "serpent", or the root *dheubh- (Greek Typhon and Python).
SunRelated 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 Rigvedic 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 was represented as riding in a chariot.
Brothers- Latin (before CE 17). There are almost no mythological tales of 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; and
- 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. One of the original sources for the stories of Romulus and Remus is Livy's History of Rome Vol. 1, parts iv-vii and xvi. This has been published in an Everyman edition, transl. by W.M. Roberts, E.P. Dutton & Co. NY, 1912.
- 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, 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 names Allemagne and German(s) are interpreted (perhaps by folk etymology) as "all-men" the German 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." Among some of the less revolting 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." The original source is the last chapter of the Táin Bó Cúalnge, usually called in English, The Cattle Raid of Cooley. These quotations are from the The Ancient Irish Epic Tale, Táin Bó Cúalnge, transl. by Joseph Dunn, publ. David Nutt, London, 1914.
- In Lithuanian, a folktale tells of a bull and 3 cows which are beheaded by Aurine, (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." The original source for this is a folktale called Saule and Veju Motina (The Sun and the Mother of the Winds), pp. 309-13, of M. Davainis-Silvestraitis' Collection, Pasakos, Sakmes, Oracijos (Tales, Legends and Orations) publ. in Vilnius, 1973. The English version is from p. 67 Of Gods and Men by Algirdas J. Greimas, transl. by Milda Newman, Indiana Univ. Press, Indianapolis, 1992.
Other mythsOther 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 Partition 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 of the Dying Corn God, rebirth, causes seasons (Frazer, Vol. 8 and 9 of the Golden Bough esp. Vol. 9, p. 412-423; 4/11)
- Uncle Water melts the ice and releases the water causing flooding (G&I, 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 gods (e.g. Prometheus and Loki) sometimes have an intermediate position between gods and humans. 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. Mallory and Adams call them Craft Gods and argue that they are not linguistically reconstructable, however, Cox compares Greek Prometheus with Hindu Pramanthu (Cox, p. 421). Smith gods, a subset of the Culture gods, are slightly reconstructable according to Mallory and Adams.
DevelopmentThe 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
- Indo-Iranian
- Greek
- Italic
See also
External links DisplayLink("http://www.adf.org/articles/cosmology/ierelpos.html", "Neo-pagan article on PIE religion")
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