[INDOLOGY] the late fate of the the Rig Vedic Dyaus Pater?

Tue May 31 18:47:22 UTC 2022

What Dean was talking about is the specific word dyau.h and the collocation dyau.s pitā, the latter of which is compared to Greek zeus patēr and Lat. iuppiter. Obviously there are many other deities connected with the sky, but that was not the point of the query and the response

All the best

Hans Henrich

On May 31, 2022, at 12:18, Caley Smith <smith.caley at gmail.com> wrote:

It seems to me speaking of an Indic diminishing of a dyaus pitar as maybe jumping the gun. There are plenty of heavenly figures (tvastr and savitar are often characterized as deva/divya) but the importance of a dyaus pitar can't even really be reconstructed to the indo-Iranian level. Important father figures are the Father Asura from RV 10.124, Kuiper has some interesting thoughts on this. And of course there is a heavenly mother in Aditi, I think it's first in Breretons the Rgvedic Adityas he suggests an adj a-diti "unbound" that applied to heavenly could be reanalyzed as the femimine partner of Heaven and become a goddess in her own right. If I misremember these things please forgive, I'm on my phone bouncing my newborn currently.

It seems to me a particulary important part of Indra's character that he is not a biological father, and thus perhaps any study of the figure of a dyaus pitar might have to really re think what the family as an in situ political unit means in PIE and IIr. It's not really obvious to me that a steppe clan based family in a segmentation society should in any way have a similar concept of family and paternity as the fixed field agrarian Greek or Roman one. Sorry is not more helpful.

Best,
Caley

On Mon, May 30, 2022, 2:27 PM Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
Thanks Hans Henrich,

I was aware that he was not widely mentioned in RV but I hadn't thought of the ramifications of that until your post.

I realize this may be the wrong place to ask this, but are you aware of any studies on the origin and fate of Dyaus/Zeus/Tiu across or within the other Indo-European languages?

Best,

Dean

On Monday, May 30, 2022, 10:21:02 PM GMT+5:30, Hock, Hans Henrich <hhhock at illinois.edu<mailto:hhhock at illinois.edu>> wrote:

Dear Dean,

Even in the RigVeda dyauṣ pitṛ appears only six times; dyauḥ by itself, of course, occurs frequently, but often in feminine gender. In addition, there is the compound dyāvāpṛthivī.

So, while dyauṣ pitṛ (and his relation to pṛthivī mātṛ) may be important from the perspective of comparative Indo-European mythology, his role in the Vedic tradition is highly diminished from the beginning. Other deities (Agni, Indra, Mitra, Varuṇa, etc.) play a more important role, and in Vedic Prose, Viṣṇu, as personification of the sacrifice, becomes more important (as well as Rudra), and of course Prajāpati, the ‘lord of creatures’.

I hope this at least partly answers your query.

All the best,

Hans Henrich

On 30 May2022, at 08:43, Dean Michael Anderson via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:

Dear Indology List,

Can anyone point me to any studies that discuss what happened to the Vedic Dyaus Pater who was important in the Rig Veda but who seems to have been supplanted in later times?

It's particularly interesting for Indo-European studies because Dyaus is related to the Greek Zeus and the Germanic Tyr/Tius and Dyaus Pater to the Roman Ju-piter.

Best,

Dean

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