Proto-Indo-European religion
From Freepedia
The existence of similarities among the gods and religious practices of the Indo-European peoples suggests that whatever population they actually formed had some form of polytheistic religion. This theoretical religion therefore would have been the ancestor of the majority of the polytheistic religions of pre-Christian Europe, of the Dharma Faiths in India, and of Zoroastrianism in Iran.
Enough tantalizing hints of this ancestral religion can be detected in commonalities between languages and religious customs of Indo-European peoples to presuppose this ancestral religion did exist, though any details must remain conjectural. While similar religious customs among Indo-European peoples can provide evidence for a shared religious heritage, a shared custom does not necessarily indicate a common source for such a custom; some of these practices may well have evolved in a process of parallel evolution. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is difficult to match to a specific culture. The best evidence is therefore the existence of cognate words and names in the Indo-European languages.
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Priests
Proto-Indo-European religion would have been maintained by a class of priests or shamans. There is evidence for sacral kingship, suggesting the tribal king at the same time assumed the role of high priest. This function would have survived as late as 11th century Scandinavia, when kings could still be dethroned for refusing to serve as priests (see Germanic king). Many Indo-European societies know a threefold division of a clerical class, a warrior class and a class of peasants or husbandmen. Such a division was suggested for the Proto-Indo-European society by Georges Dumézil.
Examples of the descendents of this class in historical Indo-European societies would be the Celtic Druids and the Indian Brahmins.
The Germanic tribes may have been an exception in allowing women to become priests: the Völvas (see also witches).
Divination was performed by priests, e.g. from parts of slaughtered animals, see animal sacrifice, haruspex. Birds also played a role in divination, see augur, language of the birds.
Pantheon
- *Dyeus Ph2ter(1), the god of the daylit sky was the chief god of the Indo-European pantheon. He survives in Greek Zeus (also Dias), Latin Jupiter (Iovis Pater), Sanskrit Dyaus Pita, Baltic Dievas, Slavic Div and Germanic Tyr (also Tiwaz) (c.f. also deus pater in the Vulgate, e. g. Jude 1:1)
- *Plth2vih2 Mh2ter (Dg'hōm) was the (Mother) Earth, see Prthivi.
- *H2ausos was the goddess of dawn, continued in Greek mythology as Eos, in Rome as Aurora, in Vedic as Ushas, and possibly also in Germanic mythology as Eostre and in Lithuanian mythology as Aušra or Auštaras.
Other theonyms cannot be reconstructed with certainty, and are disputed:
- Greek Poseidon was originally an Earth-god, or a god of the underworld, from poti daon "lord of Da", c. f. Demeter from Da mater "Mother Da".
- *Velnos, maybe a god of the night sky, or of the underworld, continued in Sanskrit Varuna and Greek Uranos (which is also a word for sky), Slavic Veles.
- There also seems to have been a god of thunder, maybe originally identical to Dyeus, but later known under other names, as Thor, Taranis, Tarhunt, Perun, Perkūnas and Indra. The thunderer wielded the vajra or thunderbolt.
- There may have been a sea-god, in Persian and Vedic known as Apam Napat, in Celtic Nechtan, in Etruscan as Nethuns, and in Latin as Neptune.
- They may have distinguished between different races of gods (Jotuns, Titans), and (Aesir, Vanir, Asuras, Ahuras).
Note 1: See Proto-Indo-European language for the transcription used to represent reconstructed words.
Mythology
There seems to have been a belief in a World tree, which in Norse mythology was an ash tree (Germanic Yggdrasil, Irminsul, in Hinduism a banyan tree, in Lithuanian mythology Jievaras). Although this concept is absent from Greek mythology, 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.
It is also likely that they had three fate goddesses, see the Norns in Norse mythology, Moirae in Greek mythology and Deivės Valdytojos in Lithuanian mythology.
The first ancestor of men was called *Manu-, see Germanic Mannus, Hindu Manu.
The Sun was represented as riding in a chariot, see Sun chariot.
See also
- Celtic mythology
- Greek mythology
- Hindu mythology
- Latvian mythology
- Lithuanian mythology
- Norse mythology
- Polish mythology
- Roman mythology
- Slavic mythology
- Vedic civilization
- Zoroastrianism
External links
- ceisiwrserith.com - What was the Proto-Indo-European religion like?
- Neo-pagan article on PIE religion
