Dear John,
Thank you for pointing out this article, I think the core gist of it does appear in Jamison and Brereton's 2014 translation, which I will quote in extenso here. I should note this is perhaps the only place in that translation where Jamison and Brereton produce different introductions to one hymn, because they radically disagreed on what this hymn was really about. I, for one, find both their readings really probative and interesting although I myself have a third reading I am working on, which builds on their work as well as Kuiper's and Proferes'. It's a pretty tough one to say the least. Here's Stephanie's remarks from 2014:
"Although, given the apparent failure of so many R̥gvedic interpreters to identify
the deserted party successfully, it is foolhardy to suggest my own candidate,
I will make an unemphatic essay in that direction. Note first that the figure most
clearly left behind by the deserting gods is a “father”—qualified once as Father
Asura/lordly father (3c), once just as father (4b). Note also the first half of verse
6, where Indra points to the sun and its previous preeminence on the scale of
value, but suggests that it is now eclipsed or rivaled by the light of the broad
midspace. Let us also remember the heads of the pantheons in Greek and Roman
mythology, Zeus Patēr and Iuppiter respectively, and the curious fact that the
cognate figure in ancient India, formulaically transparent Dyaus Pitar “Father
Sky/Heaven,” has no comparable prominence in Vedic mythology though he is
reasonably well attested in the texts. On putting these clues together, it seems
possible that the old sky-centered religion focused on the inherited paternal
divinity Dyaus quietly gave way to one located in realms closer to men, where
divinities concerned themselves with issues important to mankind, such as the
release of the waters (vss. 7–8), and actively sought the praise and sacrificial
offerings of men (vs. 9 and, by implication, throughout the hymn). Dyaus Pitar
remained a revered figure but played little role in the sacrificial system. There
was thus no violent rupture in the social or religious fabric, just a peaceful fading
into well-but-perfunctorily-honored irrelevance for Dyaus, displaced by
ritual-centered gods like Agni and Soma and those deeply involved with men’s
affairs, ethically (Varuṇa) or martially (Indra)."
For me, this peaceful power transfer is of paramount importance, but I disagree that there is a clean break between " an "ethical Varuṇa" and a "martial Indra," if anything the younger portions of the RV seem to be working hard to expanded Indra's character beyond pure martial application. I think, beyond a god of summertime to a year-round god, including the domain in which formerly Varuṇa was more prominent. This may, I think, be linked to certain structural changes to ritual organization (if not practice sensu stricto), which will culminate in a form of the ritual which compresses an entire ritual calendar into the thrice pressed Soma.
Let me now try to address Jamison's claim that "it seems possible that the old sky-centered religion focused on the inherited paternal divinity Dyaus quietly gave way to one located in realms closer to men."
I am not certain what she means by "sky-centered religion" as, I think from a comparative religious studies perspective, whatever a religion is theologically centered upon iti always "touches down" in ways that are meaningful, socially or materially, to its adherents. In the reconstructed PIE religious idiom of Djeus PHter, we may not be able to see that dimension but it seems ill-advised to assume it doesn't exist and that such a figure wouldn't be relevant to the formation of social constituency and material gain for a stable or unstable coalition of pastoralists.
I also, however, wanted to ask us---and i don't have an answer here---to pause and re-think what the heck "sky-centered religion" at the PIE level should even mean, or is it an empty signifier of something we know really nothing about. For instance, while the collocation may have endure it's perfectly possible that whatever character Jupiter had prior to contact with the Greeks, he has been wholly re-fashioned into a Zeus-like figure. Where does Zeus get his particular characteristics from? Well, not to speculate wildly---but in the interests of casting doubt on what seems certain---its well known that once upon a time in 14th century BCE Ugarit, Baal, the storm god, defeated the two favored sons of El, Yam and Mot, the Sea and Death. Some have remarked that this splitting of the world into three domains ruled by three (almost brothers) prefigures the Greek model in interesting ways. That is Heaven / Sea / Earth = Baal / Yam / Mot = the much later Zeus / Poseidon / Hades (these last two with rather uncertain etymologies).
So, what I want to suggest is this--is it valid to imagine a PIE with a Djews PHter who operated like Jupiter or Zeus, when the particular domain of these figures may be areal, that is part of a religious conceptual space that participated with Anatolia and the Levant. If that's so, can we talk about an Indo-Iranian diminishing of a sky-father figure if the primacy of Jupiter and Zeus is demoted? And if so, what does the PIE religious imagination look like in that scenario? What does the collocation of Djews PHter really indicate? What if Djews pHter was always a diminished deus otiosus going back to PIE? What if the marginal status we see for the collocation in Indic is older, and the new important in Greek and Roman religion secondary? That's all I wish to suggest here, not that it is in fact so, but that we not think about gods in this teleological way of needing to be originally more or less important, it's possible that there was a good political reason to have the idea of an Old Weak Father and a New Boss, and we don't have to actually imagine a time when Old Weak Father character was any different. Isn't this so for Cronus and Uranus? Do we need to imagine a phase of religious history where they were chief dedicands of devotion? Sorry for the long winded thought experiment, mainly just thinking out loud here.
Best,
Caley