Proto-Indo-European religion: Encyclopedia II - Proto-Indo-European religion - Pantheon

Proto-Indo-European religion - Pantheon

Philological reconstructions of some PIE theonyms:

• *Dyeus Ph₂ter 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 (Deus Pater), Sanskrit Dyaus Pita, Baltic Dievas, Slavic Div, Germanic Tyr (also Tiwaz), and Armenian Astwatz (c.f. also deus pater in the Vulgate, e. g. Jude 1:1)
• *Plth₂vih₂ Mh₂ter (Dg'^hōm) is believed to have been the name of (Mother) Earth, see Prthivi.
• The original name of thunder god is a bit difficult to establish. From two different roots two different types of names appear in subseqeunt Indo-European mythologies. Thor, Taranis, Tarhunt originate from the root *tar, meaning "thunder", whilst Perun, Perkūnas, Parjayna, originate from the root *perk, meaning "to strike", "to hit", "to bash". There is a general agreement on a reconstruction of *Perkwúnos.

Additional gods may include:

• *H₂ausos is believed to have been 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, in Lithuanian mythology as Aušra or Auštaras in Armenian Astghik.
• 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, and Armenian Aray.
• 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, possibly called *Néptonos. [1] This god may be related to the Germanic water spirit, the Nix.
• They may have distinguished between different races of gods, like the Jotuns, Aesir, and Vanir of Norse Mythology. Possibly these were the *Deiw-os (Deva, Daimon, *Dyeus) and the *Ansu (Aesir, Asura, Ahura).

According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archtypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies^[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:

1. God of the Sky
2. God of Thunder
3. God of the Earth/Underworld
4. Cultural Hero
5. Great Goddess

The 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.

See also Semitic Pantheon.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Pantheon", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki