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

Caley Smith smith.caley at gmail.com
Tue May 31 19:19:30 UTC 2022


I understand, but it nevertheless seems relevant to the notion of "origin
and fate" of a collocation if it's importance and use in most branches of
PIE is vastly different than 2 branches taken, perhaps ad hoc, as
representing some original or default state. That's all I wished to express.

Best,
Caley

On Tue, May 31, 2022, 2:47 PM Hock, Hans Henrich <hhhock at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> 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> 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> 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> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>>
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology__;!!DZ3fjg!7kj2gkm6ov_nmpxuZH8yOeYleSLqWZUDRCrpHF3UZzpy_BiGWZ70qOTnu7rGMtxe4ufqc6WjQhUyNEjA3C67xs_e8luE$
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology__;!!DZ3fjg!840hQA3HmsvvWgmkHLGb4vr9sZclYnhYAwV9yD4H8YwJVOdPXKljV_SksLrhXueBdPTtLwAxTKaSvwZN3_K4Mw$>
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20220531/356a5a90/attachment.htm>


More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list