Proto-Indo-European religion
The existence of similarities among the
deities and
religious practices of the
Indo-European peoples allows glimpses of a common
Proto-Indo-European religion and mythology. This hypothetical religion would have been the ancestor of the majority of the religions of pre-Christian
Europe, of the
Dharmic religions in
India, and of
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 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, where any can be found, 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.
The main functionaries of the hypothetical 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.
Divination was performed by priests, e.g. from parts of slaughtered animals, see (cf.
animal sacrifice,
haruspex).
Birds also played a role in divination, see
augur,
language of the birds.
Examples of the descendents of this class in historical Indo-European societies would be the Celtic
Druids, the Indian
Brahmins and the Persian
Magi. Historical Indo-European religions also had priestesses, either
hierodoules, dedicated virgins, or oraclular seeresses, e.g. the Roman
Vestal Virgins, the Greek
Sibyls or the Germanic
Völvas (see also
witch).
Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of some
PIE deities from names occurring in widely spread, old mythologies. Some of the proposed deities are more readilly accepted among scholars than others.
The Proto-Indo-Europeans may have distinguished between different races of gods, like the
Aesir, and
Vanir of
Norse mythology and the
Titans and
Olympians of
Greek mythology. Possibly, these were the
*, literally "celestial, those of the sky/daylight" (
Deva,
Daimon, ablaut variant
*) and the
*, literally "spirits, those with vital force" (
Aesir,
Asura,
Ahura, see
Aesir-Asura correspondence).
Widely Accepted Deities
*
* is believed to have been the original name of god of the daylit sky and the chief god of the Indo-European
pantheon. He survives in Greek
Zeus (also
Dias), Latin
Jupiter, Sanskrit
Dyaus/Dyaus Pita, Baltic
Dievas, Germanic
Tiwaz (
ON Tyr,
OHG Ziu), Armenian
Astwatz, and the
Gaulish Dispater (c.f. also
deus pater in the
Vulgate, e. g. Jude 1:1).
*
* (
) is believed to have been the name of an
Earth Mother goddess, see
Prthivi. Another name of the Indo-European Mother-Earth would be *, as in Albanian Dhe Motë, Avestan Zamyat, Slavic Mati Zemlja, Lithuanian Žemyna, Latvian Zemes Mate.
* A
thunder god, possibly associated with the
oak, and in some traditions syncretized with Dyeus. A name * root
* or
* is suggested by
Balto-Slavic , Norse
Fjörgyn, Albanian
Perëndi and Vedic
Parjanya. An onomatopoeic root
*tar is continued in Gaulish
Taranis and Hittite
Tarhunt. A word for "thunder" itself was
*, continued in Germanic
*Þunraz (thunder personified), and became
Thor.
* is believed to have been the goddess of dawn, continued in Greek mythology as
Eos, in Rome as
Aurora, in Vedic as
Ushas, in
Lithuanian mythology as
Aušra or
Auštaras, in
Armenian as
Astghik and possibly also in Germanic mythology as
Eastre.
Speculative Proposals
Additional gods may include:
*Greek
Poseidon was originally a
chthonic god, either a god of the earth or the underworld, from
poti daon "lord of Da", cf.
Demeter from
Da mater "Mother Da". Another etymology may be proposed,
don referring to "the waters", as the Vedic goddess of the rivers,
Danu. Poseidon being "the master of the waters", more conform to the functions of a god of the sea (and possibly also the (supposed) primordial seabed or watery abyss).
*, maybe a god of the night sky, or of the underworld, continued in Sanskrit
Varuna, Greek
Uranos (which is also a word for
sky), Slavic
Veles, Armenian
Aray and Lithuanian
Velnias.
*
Divine twins, brothers of the Sun Maiden or Dawn goddess, sons of the Sky god.
*There may have been a sea-god, in Persian and Vedic known as
Apam Napat, in Celtic as
Nechtan, in Etruscan as
Nethuns, in Germanic as
Njord and in Latin as
Neptune, possibly called
*Néptonos. [
1] This god may be related to the Germanic water spirit, the
Nix.
* The Sun,
*, and the Moon
* deities, possibly twin children of the supreme sky-god
Dyeus, continued in Hindu mythology as
Surya and
Mas, in Iranian mythology as
Hvar and
Mah, in Greek as
Helios and
Selene or, later,
Apollo and
Artemis, in Latin mythology as
Sol and
Luna, in German mythology as
Sol and
Mani, in Baltic mythology as
Saul" and
M"nō. 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 tend to vary among subsequent Indo-European mythologies.
Fantalov's Reduction
According to the Russian painter and scholar
Alex Fantalov, there are only five main
archetypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies. He also proposes that these five archetypes were possibly the original deities of the pre-PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:
#
God of the Sky#
God of Thunder#
God of the Earth/Underworld#
Cultural hero#
Great goddessThe sky and thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged into a single supreme god. On the other hand, the Earth god and the Cultural Hero were earthly gods, tied to nature, agriculture and crafts, and in subsequent cultures they were often split into more deities as societies grew more complex. And while it seems there existed some enmity between the Thunderer and the God of the Earth (which may be echoed in myths about battle of various thunder gods and a serpentine enemy, see below), the Cultural Hero seems to be a sort of
demigod son of either the sky god or the thunder god, and was considered to be the ancestor of the human race, and the
psychopomp. Together with the character of Great goddess, who was a wife of the ruling sky god, the cultural hero thus balanced between the heavenly god of the sky/thunder and the more chthonic god of the earth/underworld.
Other scholars contest the use of Fantalov's reduction to only 5 deities, or these particular deities, as original forms.
There 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 in
Slavic mythology. 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.
One 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
Thor vs.
Jörmungandr,
Sigurd vs.
Fafnir in
Scandinavian mythology;
Zeus vs.
Typhon,
Kronos vs.
Ophion,
Apollo vs.
Python,
Heracles vs. the
Hydra and
Ladon,
Perseus vs.
Ceto in Greek mythology;
Indra vs.
Vritra in the
Vedas;
Perun vs.
Veles,
Dobrynya Nikitich vs.
Zmey in Slavic mythology;
Teshub vs.
Illuyanka of
Hittite mythology;
Θra"taona, and later Kərəsāspa, vs.
Aži Dahāka in
Zoroastrianism. There are also analoguous stories in other neighbouring unrelated mythologies:
Anu or
Marduk vs.
Tiamat in
Mesopotamian 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.[
2] The myth symbolized a clash between forces of order and chaos (represented by the serpent), and the god or hero would always win.[
3] It is therefore most probable that there existed some kind of dragon or serpent, possibly multi-headed(cf.
Śeṣa, 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- (
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).
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 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.
There may have been a sort of nature spirit or god akin to the Greek god
Pan and the
Satyrs, the Roman god
Faunus and the
Fauns, the Celtic god
Cernunnos and the Dusii, Slavic Veles and the
Leszi, Vedic
Pashupati,
Prajapati and
Pushan, the Germanic
Woodwose and
Herne the Hunter; There may also have been a female cognate akin to the Greco-Roman
nymphs, Slavic
vilas, the
Huldra of
Germanic folklore, the
Hindu Apsaras, the
Persian
Peri. A possibly similar type of spirit may be found in Jewish mythology,
Azazel and the
Se'irim, as well as in
Arabic mythology, the
Jinn.
There may also have been a savage dog or wolf guarding the underworld, such as Greek
Kerberos, and Norse
Garm. It is also likely that they had three fate goddesses, see the
Norns in
Norse mythology,
Moirae in
Greek mythology, Sudjenice of
Slavic folklore 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.
The various Indo-European daughter-cultures continued elements of the hypothesized PIE religion, syncretizing it with innovations and foreign elements, notably
Ancient Near Eastern elements, the reforms of
Zoroaster and
Buddha, and the spread of
Christianity and
Islam.
*Anatolian
**
Hittite mythology*Greek
**
Greek mythology &
Greek religion**
Greco-Buddhism**
Greek Orthodox Church*Italic
**
Roman mythology &
Roman religion**
Roman Catholic Church*Indo-Aryan
**
Vedic religion**
Hinduism &
Hindu mythology**
Buddhism**
Jainism*Iranian
**
Zoroastrianism**
Islamic conquest of Iran*Baltic
**
Latvian mythology**
Lithuanian mythology*Slavic
**
Slavic mythology**
Russian Orthodox Church*Celtic
**
Celtic polytheism &
Celtic mythology**
Celtic Christianity*Germanic
**
Germanic paganism &
Norse mythology**
Germanic Christianity*Tocharian
**
Silk Road transmission of Buddhism*Armenian
**
Armenian Apostolic Church*Albanian
**
Illyrian gods**
Albanian Orthodox Church*Romanian
**
Getae / Dachae religion
# A. Fantalov, "Indo-European mythologies: genesis and evolution of characters." (materials presented at an international symposium at the Pyotr Veliky Anthropology and Ethnography Museum. Saint Petersburg, 1999). [
4]
*
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture (1997)
*
Chariot burial*
Soma*
Ashvamedha*
Comparing Eastern and Western religious traditions*
Proto-Semitic Pantheon*
Neolithic religion*
ceisiwrserith.com - What was the Proto-Indo-European religion like?*
Neo-pagan article on PIE religion
