Indo European Religion

4450 INDIAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY
text. Furthermore, because of the pervasive role of religion resent clearly distinguishable types of scholarly interest and
in India, its study has to be based upon a wide variety of orientation.
sources, including, for example, the Dharmaśāstras (law
books); the work of such Dharmaśāstra scholars as P. V. Finally, the development of Indological studies in the
Kane is immediately relevant for the study of Indian religion. West has had a remarkable influence on India’s interpreta-
More specifically, philosophical literature supplements reli- tion of its own traditions. Not only do Indians now partici-
gious literature because it is, with few exceptions, built upon pate in the Western study of their religious past, but they also
religious foundations or motivated by religious goals; it also respond to it and to the challenge of Western thought in gen-
provides religious practices and ideas with a theoretical eral, thus opening a religious dialogue with potentially far-
framework that at times challenges conventional Western reaching implications. Traditional Indian thought had not
understanding of such theological concepts as revelation, previously sought such dialogue or shown interest in non-
grace, or creation. Such interdependence gives the work of Indian traditions, and yet it has produced a rich heritage of
historians of Indian philosophy—for example, Surendranath debate and refutation, as well as of coordination and harmo-
Dasgupta—obvious importance for the study of Indian nization of different standpoints. But foreign religions, in-
religion. cluding Islam and Christianity, did not become part of this
process until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when
In the past few decades, the relationship of textual Hinduism opened itself to the impact of Western ideas and
norms and theories to actual religious life has become an in- entered into a fundamentally new relationship with the non-
creasingly significant issue. A variety of nontextual approach- Indian world. At that time, Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833)
es have been suggested to correct or supplement the under- and others initiated a movement of reform and moderniza-
standing that can be gained from the texts alone. tion of Hinduism that combines apologetics and self-
Combinations of textual and nontextual methods have been affirmation with reinterpretation, adaptation, and universal-
applied to such topics as the caste system, world renuncia- ization.
tion, religious devotion (bhakti), and the doctrine of karman
and rebirth in order to clarify not only their theoretical Thus, Western ideas and terms have been used not only
meaning but also their practical functions in the life of the to interpret the Indian religious tradition to foreigners but
Indian people. By means of such combined methods, local also to articulate a new Indian self-understanding. Modern
cults are correlated and contrasted with the standards of the reinterpretations of such key concepts as dharma exemplify
great traditions; precept and practice, text and social context the ambiguity of India’s reaction to the Western challenge
are investigated in their mutual relations. The pioneering and specifically to the Christian notion of religion. In re-
works of Max Weber (1864–1920) continue to have an im- sponse to missionary activities, Christianity and other reli-
pact upon the sociological study of Indian religion. Anthro- gions have been readily incorporated into traditional Hindu
pologists and other specialists have tried to construe theoreti- schemes of concordance, where they appear as different ap-
cal frameworks to be applied to the textual-contextual proaches to the same goal or as preliminary stages on a path
continuum and to provide heuristic models for further re- often seen as culminating in the philosophical religion of Ad-
search in this direction. vaita Vedānta. In this context, “comparative religion” has
In a general and inevitably simplifying sense, it may be found many advocates in India; similarly, against the Hegeli-
said that three basic attitudes dominate the current study of an subordination of Asian thought to that of the West, Bra-
Indian religion: jendranath Seal (1864–1938) formulated his program of
“comparative philosophy.” In general, there has been a ten-
(1) the historical and philological approach, which derives dency to respond to science and technology and to Western
its data and its direction from the Indian texts them- political domination by invoking religion and spirituality,
selves and is primarily interested in historical recon- which have been presented as genuinely Indian phenomena
struction; by such successful advocates of neo-Hinduism as Vivekanan-
(2) the sociological and anthropological approach, which da (1863–1902; represented Hinduism at the World Parlia-
tries to understand religious life in a functional manner, ment of Religions, Chicago, 1893). The concept of religious
with reference to—or even directly in terms of—social, experience plays a crucial role in the modern self-
economic, ethnographic, political, and behavioral phe- presentation of Hinduism in the West. In increasing num-
nomena; and bers, Indian scholars, teachers, gurus, and founders of syncre-
tistic movements have come to the West and contributed to
(3) the more existentially or ideologically involved ap- a growing awareness of the Indian religious tradition. At the
proaches, which find in the Indian religious tradition a same time, these developments are themselves continuations
genuine religious, philosophical, or theological chal- and transformations of the tradition, and they are a legiti-
lenge and which respond to it in the name of specific
mate topic of study and research. Among those who have
worldviews or religious convictions.
contributed to the scholarly and critical evaluation of Neo-
These three approaches are not mutually exclusive; they can Hinduism, Paul Hacker (1913–1979) ought to be men-
be and have been combined with one another. Still, they rep- tioned especially.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

INDIAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY 4451
The hermeneutic and religious position of neo- Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. The Hindu View of Life (1927). Lon-
Hinduism is still problematic and tentative and has had diffi- don, 1968. Not a contribution to the academic study of Hin-
culties in finding an adequate language for presenting the In- duism, but one of the most eloquent and successful state-
dian religious tradition to the modern world. Accordingly, ments of neo-Hinduism, exemplifying its basic patterns of
reinterpretation and modernization.
the situation of the religious dialogue between India and the
West is still precarious. Nonetheless, the fact that the Indian Renou, Louis. Bibliographie védique. Paris, 1931. An exemplary
religious tradition is no longer just an object of Western bibliography of scholarly literature on the Vedas. A sequel to
study but now speaks back to the West, questioning some this work is R. N. Dandekar’s Vedic Bibliography, 3 vols.
(Bombay and Poona, 1946–1973).
of the very basic presuppositions of Western historical re-
search, is in itself a highly significant event. It affects not only Schwab, Raymond. La renaissance orientale. Paris, 1950. Translat-
the modern Western perception of India but also the relied by Gene Patterson-Black and Victor Reinking as The Ori-
ental Renaissance (New York, 1984). A comprehensive and
gious and philosophical situation of the modern world.
richly documented account of the seminal period between
1770 and 1850, when the foundations were laid for modern
BIBLIOGRAPHY Indology and for a new appreciation of Indian religion and
Dandekar, R. N., and V. Raghavan, eds. Oriental Studies in India. philosophy; equally detailed on academic and nonacademic
New Delhi, 1964. A survey of Asian, primarily Indian, developments; analyzes thoroughly the intellectual back-
studies with sections on Vedic, Dravidian, and Islamic ground of Indian and Oriental studies. The translation is not
studies, philosophy and religion, archaeology, and so on, in- always reliable.
cluding a list of centers of teaching and research in India.
Smith, Bardwell L., ed. Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Re-
Dell, David, et al. Guide to Hindu Religion. Boston, 1981. A gen-
ligions. Leiden, 1976. A collection of eight contributions, ex-
erously annotated bibliography of studies of Hinduism, cov-
emplifying recent approaches to the study of Hinduism, in-
ering such areas as history of Hinduism, religious thought,
cluding structuralism.
sacred texts, rituals, sacred locations, soteriology; emphasis
on more recent contributions; not always fully reliable. Windisch, Ernst. Geschichte der Sanskrit-Philologie und indischen
Gonda, Jan, et al. Die Religionen Indiens. 3 vols. Stuttgart, 1960– Altertumskunde. 2 vols. Strasbourg, 1917–1920. Though in-
1963. One of the most comprehensive surveys of research on complete, somewhat obsolete, and not extending beyond
the religions of India, primarily from the standpoint of textu- 1900, this remains the most thorough and comprehensive
al and historical studies. This survey is further extended in survey of the history of Indology and of the textual explora-
Gonda’s Vis: n: uism and Śivaism: A Comparison (London, tion of Indian religion.
1970). Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civiliza-
Hacker, Paul. Kleine Schriften. Wiesbaden, 1978. A comprehen- tion (1946). Edited by Joseph Campbell. Princeton, 1972.
sive collection of articles in German and English by a scholar A somewhat idiosyncratic, yet stimulating and influential
whose studies of Indian religion combine a thoroughly philo- study of Hindu religion and mythology, with particular ref-
logical orientation with theological and philosophical com- erence to its visual illustrations.
mitment; important methodological discussions and refer- New Sources
ences to neo-Hinduism. Baird, Robert D. Essays in the History of Religions. New York,
Halbfass, Wilhelm. Indien und Europa: Perspektiven ihrer geistigen 1991.
Begegnung. Basel, 1981. A study of the intellectual and spiri- Bhargava, Rajeev. Secularism and Its Critics. New York, 1998.
tual encounters between India and Europe, of the patterns
of mutual understanding in the areas of religion and philoso- Bosch, Lourens van den. Friedrich Max Müller: A Life Devoted to
phy, and of the beginnings of Indological research. Humanities. Boston, 2002.
Holland, Barron. Popular Hinduism and Hindu Mythology: An An- Gilmartin, David, and Bruce B. Lawrence, eds. Beyond Turk and
notated Bibliography. Westport, Conn., 1979. A useful bibli- Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South
ographical guide (including sections on “sacred literature,” Asia. Gainesville, Fla., 2000.
etc.), although the annotations are extremely short and often Jones, Kenneth W., ed. Religious Controversy in British India. Al-
not very helpful. bany, 1992.
Mandelbaum, David G. Society in India. 2 vols. Berkeley, Calif., Lopez, Donald S., ed. Religions of India in Practice. Princeton,
1970. This general introduction to the anthropological study N.J., 1992.
of Indian civilization also contains (in chapters 28–31 of vol-
Madan, T. N., ed. Religion in India. New York, 1991.
ume 2) the best introduction, for the nonspecialist, to the so-
cial and historical dynamics of Indian religions. Young, Katherine K. Hermeneutical Paths to the Sacred Worlds of
O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger, ed. Karma and Rebirth in Classical India: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Stevenson. Atlanta, 1994.
Indian Traditions. Berkeley, 1980. A collection of essays, by WILHELM HALBFASS (1987)
authors with varied backgrounds, on one of the most funda- ARJUN APPADURAI (1987)
mental ideas in Indian religious thought. Revised Bibliography
Otto, Rudolf. Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of
the Nature of Mysticism (1932). New York, 1960. Although
somewhat obsolete, still an exemplary approach to the Indian INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS
religious tradition by a liberal Christian theologian. This entry consists of the following articles:

4452 INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW
AN OVERVIEW ed in other terminology that identifies them as “mortals” and

HISTORY OF STUDY
“immortals” respectively.
This relatively simple example reveals some of the possi-
INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW bilities and some of the pitfalls of research into Indo-
The study of Indo-European religion has a relatively recent European religion. Careful examination of lexical items pro-
origin, for the very existence of the Indo-European language vides insight into the nature of thought on religious topics.
grouping was not recognized until a celebrated lecture given But each of the separate Indo-European families differs from
by Sir William (“Oriental”) Jones in 1786. Speaking to the the other families in important regards, and just as Latin
Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Jones first observed that phonology differs from Iranian phonology for all that they
there were striking philological similarities between Greek, are related (to cite but one example), so Roman religion is
Latin, Sanskrit (the ancient language of India), and Persian, not identical to Iranian: a deus is not the same thing as a
too numerous and precise to be explained by simple borrow- daēva.
ing or chance. Going further, he suggested that the Celtic
Reconstruction that proceeds along linguistic lines is
and Germanic languages exhibited many of the same features
relatively safe, however, compared to research that seeks out
and argued that all of these geographically and historically
correspondences in the myths, rituals, laws, cosmologies, and
far-flung languages were best understood as separate deri-
eschatologies of the various Indo-European peoples and that
vates of a common parent language, a language nowhere pre-
attempts to recover their hypothetical antecedents. Such re-
served in written form, but which might be reconstructed
search is possible, to be sure, but in all instances it is extreme-
through systematic comparison of the derivate stocks.
ly risky and difficult, involving the adducement of parallel
Later research has confirmed the relations among these phenomena (usually called “correspondences” or “reflexes”)
languages, adding not only Germanic and Celtic firmly to attested in the religions of several different Indo-European
the family now known as Indo-European but also Baltic, families; the study of each reflex in its cultural specificity; the
Slavic, Armenian, Albanian, Anatolian (chiefly Hittite), and isolation of those features that the scattered reflexes hold in
Tokharian (an obscure language found in western China and common; the explanation of those features that diverge
Turkestan). Rigorous and systematic comparison of words (often called “transformation”); and the positing of a hypo-
in these various languages has permitted scholars to posit nu- thetical prototype that is capable of accounting for evident
merous prototypes as a means to explain the systematic re- similarities, along with a train of historical development that
semblances that have been adduced. As a simple example of explains the forces producing each transformation. Finally,
how this is done one might consider certain words for “god,” the reconstructed prototype ought to be set within a plausi-
assembling a set of correspondences (to which other reflexes ble set of assumptions regarding the nature of Indo-
might be added) as shown in table 1. European culture in general.
From these correspondences, along with the knowledge Based on linguistic and archaeological research, the an-
of Indo-European phonetics gained from hundreds of other cient Indo-European peoples are generally considered to
such comparisons, linguists can reconstruct a prototype have been semisettled pastoralists, whose wealth consisted of
*deywo-s (the asterisk denotes a reconstructed form unattest- relatively large herds, including domesticated sheep, pigs,
ed in any written source), which means “god, deity.” Phonet- goats, and, most important, cattle. Horses were also highly
ic rules explain the various sound shifts in each language, but significant, especially when yoked to chariots and used in
one must also note semantic changes in certain stocks, each warfare, but cattle remained the normal draft animals for
of which is instructive for the history of the corresponding peaceful purposes, the source of most foods, and the funda-
religion. Thus, for instance, the old word for “god” has be- mental measure of wealth. Some agriculture seems to have
come the most important word for demonic beings in Aves- been practiced, although this was much less important and
tan (the Iranian language in which the most ancient Zoroas- prestigious an activity than herding or war. The pursuit of
trian scriptures were composed), a transformation that seems warfare, especially the raiding of livestock from neighboring
to originate in the prophet Zarathushtra’s renunciation of peoples, was facilitated not only by use of chariots but also
the old Indo-Iranian pantheon. by an elaborate weaponry built on a single metal, probably
copper or bronze.
The Greek reflex of *deywo-s has also lost its sense as
“deity,” being replaced in this usage by theos. The older term Linguistic data are insufficient to posit the existence of
survives as an adjective, however, which reveals one of the either a homeland or a proto-Indo-European community,
fundamental attributes of deity in Indo-European thought: and it is possible to view the similarity of the various Indo-
gods are celestial beings, characterized by light, for the word European languages as the cumulative result of complex bor-
*deywo-s (whence the Greek dios, “celestial”) is derived from rowings, influences, and cultural interrelations between mul-
a verb that means “to shine.” In contrast, one of the most tiple social and ethnic groups over many centuries. Some
important words for “human” identifies people as “terrestri- scholars have sought to employ archaeological evidence to
al” beings (note the relation of the Latin homo, “man,” and demonstrate a specific point of origin for proto-Indo-
humus, “soil”), while humans and deities are further contrast- European society. Of such theories, the most widely accepted

INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW 4453
is that of Marija Gimbutas, who has delineated what she calls

the Kurgan culture, dating to the middle of the fifth millen-
Language Phonetic Form Semantic Sense
nium BCE and located in the southern Russian steppes, in the
Latin deus “deity”
area that stretches from the Urals to the land north of the Lithuanian dievas “deity”
Black Sea, and including such groups as the Jamna culture Greek dios “celestial”
d
of the Ural-Volga region north of the Caspian and the Sred- Hittite Sius “deity”
nii Stog II culture north of the Black Sea. Sanskrit devah “deity”
Avestan daeva “damon”
MYTHIC LEGITIMATIONS OF SOCIETY, ECONOMY, AND
POLITY. Comparison of texts in which are described the pat-
terns of social organization among the Indian, Iranian, and T A B L E 1 . Indo-European words for “God”
Celtic peoples reveals a common structure, which is also pre-
served in the ideal republic envisioned by Plato. This system
is characterized by the distinction of three hierarchically dif- From the holy knee of Adam.
ferentiated classes—or “functions,” as they are called by Although this article shall return to the cosmic dimensions
Georges Dumézil (1958), who was first to recognize their of this myth, it is its social contents that are of concern now.
importance. Moreover, it is possible to reconstruct a number Among these, the following four should be noted:
of myths that describe the origin of these classes, their nature,
(1) Society consists of vertically stratified classes, with
and their sometimes problematic interrelationships.
priests or sovereigns in the first position, warriors in the
Most important of these is the creation myth, a com- second, and commoners—those entrusted with the bulk
plex, polyphonic story that told how the world was created of productive labor—in the third. To these, a fourth
when the first priest (often bearing the name Man, *Manu) class of relative outsiders—servants, or the like—was
offered his twin brother, the first king (often named Twin, sometimes added, as in the Indian example cited above.
*Yemo), in sacrifice, along with the first ox. From Twin’s
(2) The characteristic activity of each of these classes is ex-
body, the world was made, in both its material and social
plained and chartered by the part of Twin’s body from
components. Portions of two reflexes of this myth may con-
which they originated. Thus, the intellectuals who di-
veniently be cited: the first, from the Indic “Song of Purusa”
rect society by exercise of thought and speech come
(R: gveda 10.90.11–14) dates to about 900 BCE; the second,
from his head; those who defend society by their physi-
the Old Russian Poem on the Dove King, is mentioned in
cal prowess come from his chest (heart) and arms; those
sources dating to the thirteenth century CE and was still cir-
who produce food, reproduce, and provide material
culating orally in the nineteenth century:
support for the other classes come from the lower body,
When they divided Purusa, how many pieces did they including belly, loins, legs, and feet.
prepare?
What was his mouth? What are his arms, thighs, and feet (3) The priest, following the model of Man, has as his
called? prime responsibility the performance of sacrifice, sacri-
The priest was his mouth, the warrior was made from his fice being the creative act par excellence.
arms; (4) The king, following the model of Twin, combines with-
His thighs were the commoner, and the servant was born in himself the essence of all social classes and is expected
from his feet. to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole.
The moon was born of his mind; of his eye, the sun was
born; Another myth, which has as its central character the first war-
From his mouth, Indra and fire; from his breath, wind rior, whose name was Third (*Trito), provided an analysis
was born; of the warrior class. Within this story, it was related that cat-
From his navel there was the atmosphere; from his head, tle originally belonged to Indo-Europeans but were stolen by
heaven was rolled together; a monster, a three-headed serpent who was, moreover, spe-
From his feet, the earth; from his ears, the directions. cifically identified as a non-Indo-European. Following this
Our bright light comes from the Lord,
theft, it fell to Third to recover the stolen cattle, and he began
The red sun from the face of God,
his quest by invoking the aid of a warrior deity to whom he
The young shining moon from his breast,
offered libations of intoxicating drinks. Having won the
The bright dawn from the eyes of God,
god’s assistance, and himself fortified by the same intoxicant,
The sparkling stars from his vestments,
Third set forth, found the serpent, slew him, and recovered
The wild winds from the Holy Spirit.
the cattle, which had been imprisoned by the monster.
From this our little Tsars are on earth— This myth, which is attested in more reflexes than any
From the holy head of Adam; other (its traces are still apparent in countless fairy tales),
From this princes and heroes come into being— speaks to the eternal themes of wealth and power. It asserts,
From the holy bones of Adam; first, that cattle—the means of production and of exchange
From this are the orthodox peasants— in the most ancient Indo-European societies—rightly belong

exclusively to Indo-Europeans, falling into other hands only Speculation on the nature of the cosmos also forms an
as the result of theft. Theft is condemned here because of its important part of the creation myth, the social contents of
reliance on stealth and treachery, and it is set in contrast to which was touched on above. It must be noted, however,
raiding, which—far from being condemned—is heartily en- that beyond this social discourse, the myth established a se-
dorsed. Raiding emerges as a heroic action sanctioned by the ries of homologic relations between parts of the human body
gods, hedged with ritual, and devoted to regaining what and parts of the physical universe—that is to say, an extend-
rightfully belongs to the Indo-European warrior or his peo- ed parallelism and consubstantiality was posited between the
ple. Throughout Indo-European history, Third in his vari- microcosm and the macrocosm. Many texts thus tell of the
ous reflexes has remained the model for warriors, who repeat- origin of the sun from the eyes of the first sacrificial victim,
edly cast themselves in his image—raiding, plundering, and stones from his bones, earth from his flesh, wind from his
killing their non-Indo-European neighbors, convinced all breath, and so forth, while others invert the account—as for
the while that they were engaged in a sacred and rightful instance, in the following medieval accounts, the first Ger-
activity. manic and the second Slavic:
Yet another myth emphasized the importance of the God made the first man, that was Adam, from eight
commoner class to the social totality, although no individual transformations: the bone from the stone, the flesh
heroic figure was provided as a model for commoners. Rath- from the earth, the blood from the water, the heart
er, the myth begins with separation and even hostility exist- from the wind, the thoughts from the clouds, the sweat
from the dew, the locks of hair from the grass, the eyes
ing between the generalized representatives of the upper
from the sun, and he blew in the holy breath. (from the
classes and those of the commoners. After an inconclusive
Old Frisian Code of Emsig)
struggle, however, members of all classes recognize their need
for one another, and they merge into a larger, all- And thus God made man’s body out of eight parts. The
encompassing society. Thereafter the classes are expected to first part is of the earth, which is the lowliest of all parts.
cooperate and live harmoniously, although the commoners The second is of the sea, which is blood and wisdom.
continue to occupy a subordinate position, a considerable The third is of the sun, which is beauty and eyes for
portion of their labor being diverted for the support of the him. The fourth is of the celestial clouds, which are
thought and weakness. The fifth is of the wind—that
noble classes of priests, warriors, and kings. At the level of
is, air—which is breath and envy. The sixth is of stones,
mythic ideology, however, if not of actual social process, that is, firmness. The seventh is of the light of this world
commoners were assured of their superiority to even the which is made into flesh, that is humility and sweetness.
most privileged members of society, for an important set of The eighth part is of the Holy Spirit, placed in men for
myths, recently studied by Cristiano Grottanelli, focused on all that is good, full of zeal—that is the foremost part.
the conflict of a humble woman who was the mother of twins (from the Old Russian Discourse of the Three Saints)
(thus signifying abundant reproductive power) with a king’s
horses (the emblem of martial and royal power), in which In these and other texts the elements of the physical universe
the lowly woman emerged victorious. are converted into the constituent parts of a human body,
as cosmogony (a story of the creation of the cosmos) becomes
COSMOLOGY AND THE GODS. While Georges Dumézil and anthropogony (a story of the creation of humankind). In
his followers have consistently argued that the Indo- truth, cosmogony and anthropogony were regarded as sepa-
European pantheon mirrored the organization of social class- rate moments in one continuous process of creation, in
es, other scholars have at times been skeptical of this view. which physical matter eternally alternates between microcos-
Chief among its difficulties is the fact that Dumézil’s propos- mic and macrocosmic modes of existence. Bones thus be-
als include none of the gods for whom names can be linguis- come stones and stones become bones over and over again,
tically reconstructed, all of whom are personified natural matter and change both being eternal, while the body and
phenomena—Shining Sky (*Dyeus), Sun (*Swel), Dawn the universe are only transient forms, alternate shapes of one
(*Ausos), and so forth—while reconstructible names exist for another.
none of the deities he proposes.
RITUAL ACTION. The myths that have been under consider-
In general, as noted above, deities were characterized as ation were closely correlated with and regularly represented
radiant celestial beings. In addition to the *deywo-s, however, in numerous ritual forms. Thus, the creation myth was inex-
there was another class of divinities associated with the wa- tricably connected to sacrifice, the most important of all
ters beneath the earth’s surface and with darkness. These dei- Indo-European rites. Insofar as the first priest created the
ties—whose names were regularly formed with the preposi- world through the performance of a sacrifice in which a man
tion signifying downward motion (*ne-, as in Latin and an ox were the victims, so each subsequent priest recreat-
Neptunus, Greek Nēreus, Germanic Nerthus, Sanskrit ed the cosmos by sacrificing humans or cattle. This was ac-
Nirr: ti)—figure in myths that are nothing so much as medita- complished through manipulation of the homologies of mac-
tions on the interconnections between “above” and “below,” rocosm and microcosm, such that when the victim was
involving immergence into and emersion out of the world dismembered, its material substance was transformed into
ocean, as has recently been demonstrated by Françoise Bader. the corresponding parts of the universe. Thus, for example,

INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW 4455
an Indic manual of ritual practice, the Aitareya Brāhman: a While the use of intoxicants was an important part of
(2.6), provides instructions for the sacrificial dismember- warrior ritual, these had other applications as well. The old-
ment of an animal victim in terms drawn directly from the est Indo-European intoxicating beverage was mead, later fol-
creation myth: lowed by beer, wine, and a pressed drink known as soma to
the Indians and haoma to the Iranians; the symbolism and
Lay his feet down to the north. Cause his eye to go to ideology surrounding all of these remained relatively cons-
the sun. Send forth his breath to the wind, his life-force
tant. In all instances, the drink appears as a heightener of
to the atmosphere, his ears to the cardinal points, his
flesh to the earth. Thus, the priest places the victim in abilities and activities. When consumed by a priest, it in-
these worlds. creases his powers of vision and insight. Similarly, it makes
a poet more eloquent, a warrior more powerful, a king more
Without this matter drawn from the bodies of sacrificial vic- generous and just.
tims all the items of the material world—earth, stones, sun,
wind, water, and the like—would become depleted; it is only A large group of rituals served to forge bonds of commu-
because they are replenished in sacrifice that the cosmos con- nity and to cement important social relations. Extremely im-
tinues to exist. portant in this regard were certain formalized reciprocal obli-
gations, including hospitality and gift exchange, whereby
If sacrifice is thus a sort of “healing” of the cosmos based individuals, lineages, and even larger units were brought into
on principles articulated in the creation myth, medical prac- repeated contact and friendly interchange. Marriage also
tice was also based on the same principles and bears a curious must be considered as a prolonged exchange relationship be-
relation to sacrifice. For if in sacrifice the priest shifted matter tween social groups, given the predominant preference for
from the body to the universe, then in the healing of a bro- exogamy. An individual marriage was thus as much a part
ken limb—as attested in the famous Second Merseberg of an ongoing exchange between lineages or clans as it was
Charm and corresponding materials throughout the Indo- a permanent bond between two individuals.
European world—the healer took matter from the universe
and restored it to a broken body, creating new flesh, bones, Verbal rituals—including those of vow, oath, and trea-
blood, and the like out of earth, stones, and water. ty—played a highly important part in the establishment and
preservation of social bonds; accordingly, truth and fidelity
Royal investiture was based on yet another elaboration were cardinal virtues. Initially, this must be related to the
of ideas contained within the creation myth, as is suggested lack of literacy among the most ancient Indo-European peo-
by the researches of Daniel Dubuisson. Investigating ac- ples, a state of affairs that also contributed to the high devel-
counts of ancient “coronation” rituals in Ireland and India, opment of verbal art (epic poetry, for instance) and mne-
he has shown that a king was ritually constructed by having monic techniques. But even after the introduction of writing
the essential properties of the three Indo-European social among the scattered Indo-European peoples, a marked pref-
classes placed within his body, symbolic gifts, clothing, unc- erence for the oral transmission of religious lore remained,
tions, and the like being employed toward this end. for the spoken word was perceived as a live vehicle, in
contrast to the dead written letter, and was preferred accord-
Other rituals were closely related to the myth of Third. ingly.
Embarking on cattle raids—which were raised to the status
of a sacred act as a result of this mythic charter—Indo- If verbal rituals could serve to establish social connected-
European warriors invoked the assistance of martial deities, ness, they could also be used to sunder unwanted connec-
poured libations, partook of intoxicating drinks, and aspired tions, as is attested in a formula of outlawry that survives in
to states of ecstatic frenzy. Moreover, each young warrior had Hittite and Germanic reflexes, the former dating to 1600
to pass through certain initiatory rituals before he attained BCE. Here, particularly disreputable individuals (an abductor
full status as a member of the warrior class. Regularly his first and murderer in the first instance, a grave robber in the sec-
cattle raid was something of a rite of passage for the young ond) are told “You have become a wolf” and “May he be a
warrior, and other initiations were consciously structured on wolf” respectively, the wolf being the most feared predator
the myth of Third and the serpent. It appears that in some of pastoral societies, a dangerous outsider ever to be kept at
of these, a monstrous tricephalous dummy was constructed, bay. Ironically, however, it was not only outlaws who were
and the initiand was forced to attack it. If able to summon regarded as wolves, for Indo-European warriors also styled
up the necessary courage to do so, he discovered that his themselves wolflike beings, as is attested by the many ethnic
seemingly awesome opponent was only a joke, with the im- names derived from the word for “wolf” (thus the Luvians,
plicit lesson that all of his future enemies, however fearsome Lykians, Hirpini, Luceres, Dacii, Hyrcanii, and Saka Hau-
they might seem, would be no more formidable than this mavarka), personal names so formed (Wolfram, Wolfhart,
dummy. Those enemies, of course, were to be cast in the role Wolfgang), and the Greek term lussa (“rabies, wolfish rage”),
of the serpent—a monster, a thief, and, what is most impor- which denotes the highest pitch of fury attained by heroes
tant, an alien (i.e., a non-Indo-European)—the plunder and such as Achilles and Hector in the Iliad. Apparently what le-
murder of whom was established by myth as not only a right- gitimated the wolfish violence of these heroes is that it was
ful but also a sacred act. directed outside the community of Indo-Europeans, in con-

trast to that of outlaws, which was directed internally, an in- world age, there is an apocalyptic collapse, followed by the
ference that is supported by the fascinating name of a heroic creation of a new, pure, and regenerated world. One of the
warrior attested in the R: gveda: Dasyave Vr: ka, “wolf to the cardinal features of the eschatological destruction of the cos-
Dasyu,” that is, to the non-Indo-European. mos, however, is the resurrection of the dead, their bodies
DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND ESCHATOLOGY. A central being formed out of the material substance freed when the
issue in Indo-European religions, as in most religions, was cosmos falls apart. The new creation that follows is then in
what becomes of an individual after death. Although several most versions accomplished with an initial act of sacrifice.
scholars have devoted attention to certain details of funerary Descriptions of the resurrection are preserved, inter alia, in
ideology, the full nature of Indo-European thought on this the Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādistān i dı̄nı̄g, a Zo-
topic remains to be worked out. Among the major contribu- roastrian text of the ninth century CE, and in Plato’s Politicus:
tions thus far are the studies of Hermann Güntert (1919), [In order to accomplish the resurrection] Ohrmazd
who showed that there was a goddess *Kolyo (“the coverer”) summons the bone from the earth, the blood from the
whose physical form incarnated the mixture of fascination water, the hair from the plants, and the life from the
and horror evoked by death, for she was seductively beautiful wind. He mixes one with the other, and in this manner,
when seen from the front, while hiding a back that was repul- he keeps on creating. (Pahlavi Rivayat 48.98–107)
sive—moldy and worm-eaten—in the extreme. Paul Thieme When the transition of the old people to the nature of
(1952) has also contributed an important study of the view a child is completed, it follows that those lying [dead]
of death as a reunion with departed ancestors, and Kuno in the earth are put back together there and brought
Meyer (1919) has shown that in Ireland as in India it was back to life, the process of birth being reversed with the
the first mortal (*Yemo, the twin) who founded the other- reversal of the world’s rotation. (Politicus 271b)
world. Behind these formulations stand several very simple, yet very
If ideas regarding the fate of the soul are unclear—no profound, principles: (1) matter is indestructible; (2) matter
reconstructible word approximates the semantic range of the is infinitely transmutable; (3) living organisms and the physi-
English soul, the nearest equivalent being a term for “life- cal universe are composed of one and the same material sub-
breath”—those on the fate of the body are extremely precise stance; (4) time is eternal. While change is thus constant, it
and reveal a remarkable religious content. For death is seen is also meaningless, for nothing that is essentially real is ever
as the last sacrifice that an individual can offer, in which his created or destroyed. Worlds come and go, as do individuals
or her own body is itself the offering. Moreover, that body of whatever species, but being—material being—is always
is transformed into the elements of the physical universe, just there.
as were those of Twin at the time of creation, each death The gods are also subject to the same rhythms of disso-
being not only a sacrifice but a representation of the cosmo- lution and reemergence, but in truth the gods seem to have
gonic sacrifice. Such a view is preserved, for instance, in Eu- been of much less concern than mythic ancestors such as
ripides’ The Suppliant Women: Man, Twin, and Third. Certain statements made above,
however, must be corrected in light of what has just been said
Let the corpses now be covered with the earth,
about the nature of time and the cycles of creation and de-
From which each of them came forth to the light
struction. For whereas this article initially called these figures
Only to go back thither: breath to the air
the “first” king, priest, and warrior respectively, it must now
And body to earth. (531–534)
be concluded that they were merely the first of the current
Or in the funeral hymn of the R: gveda: world age, time and the world receding infinitely into the
past as well as stretching eternally into the future.
Your eye must go to the sun. Your soul must go to the
wind. You must go to the sky and the earth, according
BIBLIOGRAPHY
to what is right. Among the most interesting and important general studies of
Go to the waters, if you are placed there. You must Indo-European religion are (in chronological order): Joseph
establish the plants with your flesh. (10.16.3) Vendryes’s “Les correspondances de vocabulaire entre l’indo-
This is not a final fate, however, for it would seem that noth- iranien et l’italo-celtique,” Mémoires de la Société de Linguis-
tique de Paris 20 (1918): 265–285; Hermann Güntert’s Der
ing within the cosmos was perceived as final. Just as cosmog-
arische Weltkönig und Heiland (Halle, 1923); Paul Thieme’s
ony was seen to alternate with anthropogony, so also death Mitra and Aryaman (New Haven, 1957); Georges Dumézil’s
and resurrection. That matter that assumes its cosmic form L’idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens (Brussels, 1958);
when one specific human body dies will once again assume Émile Benveniste’s Indo-European Language and Society,
bodily form when that specific cosmos itself dies, as must in- translated by Elizabeth Palmer (Coral Gables, Fla., 1975);
evitably happen. Greek, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian evi- Franco Crevatin’s Ricerche d’antichità indeuropee (Trieste,
dence permits reconstruction of a temporal scheme involving 1979); and my own Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in
four world ages, the first of which is most pure and stable, the Ecology of Religions (Berkeley, Calif., 1981).
followed by ages in which human virtue and the very order Specialized studies of particular merit are Marija Gimbutas’s nu-
of the cosmos gradually break down. At the end of the fourth merous articles on the archaeological record of the Indo-

INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY 4457
Europeans, most complete of which to date is “An Archaeol- INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF
ogist’s View of PIE in 1975,” Journal of Indo-European STUDY
Studies 2 (Fall 1974): 289–308; Georges Dumézil’s three- Strictly speaking, the history of comparative Indo-European
volume Mythe et épopée (Paris, 1968–1973), in which he
studies begins in the late eighteenth century as a direct result
demonstrates the ways in which many myths were trans-
formed into epic, pseudohistory, and other genres; Stig Wi-
of the momentous discovery that the ancient languages now
kander’s Der arische Männerbund (Lund, 1938) and Lily classified as “Indo-European” (e.g., Latin, classical Greek,
Weiser’s Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbunde Sanskrit, Old English, Old Persian, Old Icelandic, Old
(Baden, 1927) on warriors; Wilhelm Koppers’s “Pferdeopfer Church Slavonic, Old Irish, Hittite, etc.) all stemmed ulti-
und Pferdekult der Indogermanen,” Wiener Beiträge zur Kul- mately from a common source, that is, Proto-Indo-
turgeschichte und Linguistik 4 (1936): 279–411, and Kasten European. As shall be seen, it soon became apparent that the
Rönnow’s “Zagreus och Dionysos,” Religion och Bibel 2 speakers of these languages, which can be considered along
(1943): 14–48, on sacrifice (both to be used with caution, with their progeny as members of a grand “family” of lan-
however); Daniel Dubuisson’s “Le roi indo-européen et la guages, shared more than simply a common linguistic heri-
synthèse des trois fonctions,” Annales économies sociétés civili- tage, and that among the most important features of this ex-
sations 33 (January–February 1978): 21–34, on kingship;
tralinguistic, Indo-European heritage was a common body
Hermann Güntert’s Kalypso (Halle, 1919); Kuno Meyer,
“Der irische Totengott und die Toteninsel,” Sitzungberichte of religious beliefs and practices.
der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1919): To be sure, the taproots of the discipline can be traced
537–546; and Paul Thieme’s Studien zur indogermanischen back to classical antiquity, to the theories of Euhemerus (fl.
Wortkunde und Religionsgeschichte (Berlin, 1952) on death
300 BCE) and other Greek and Roman scholars who attempt-
and the otherworld; and my own Myth, Cosmos, and Society:
Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction (Cam- ed to come to grips with the origin and meaning of myth.
bridge, Mass., 1986) on the creation myth. It is also possible to trace the immediate source of the ideas
that flowered in the nineteenth century to the ideas of such
Two papers presented at a panel on Indo-European religion held
eighteenth-century precursors as Bernard de Fontenelle
during the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological
and Ethnographic Sciences (Vancouver, 1983) were of con- (1657–1757), Giovanni Battista Vico (1668–1744), and
siderable importance: Françoise Bader’s “Une mythe indo- Charles de Brosses (1709–1777), who first suggested that a
européene de l’immersion-émergence” and Cristiano Grotta- search for natural metaphors might be preferable to the tradi-
nelli’s “Yoked Horses, Twins, and the Powerful Lady: India, tional euhemeristic and allegorical approaches that had here-
Greece, Ireland and Elsewhere.” tofore been the rule. These ideas may also be traced as well
On the problems and insecurities of research in this area in gener- to that curious (albeit all-pervasive) philosophical, literary,
al, see Ulf Drabin, “Indogermanische Religion und Kultur? and artistic movement called Romanticism, adumbrated in
Eine Analyse des Begriffes Indogermanisch,” Temenos 16 the works of J. G. Herder (1744–1803), which profoundly
(1980): 26–38; Jean-Paul Demoule, “Les Indo-Européens influenced most of the scholars who first began to conceive
ont-ils existé?” L’histoire 28 (1980): 108–120; and Bernfried of a distinctly Indo-European religious tradition in the early
Schlerath, “Ist ein Raum/Zeit Modell für eine rekonstruierte nineteenth century. But these ideas belong properly to the
Sprach möglich?” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachwissen- general history of comparative mythology and religion; for
schaft 95 (1981): 175–202. the purposes of this article, the survey begins with the discov-
New Sources ery of the Indo-European language family.
Ballantyne, Tony. Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British
Empire. New York, 2002. DISCOVERY OF THE INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGE FAMILY.
Until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, most theo-
Berry, Ellen E., and Anesa Miller Pogacar. Re-Entering the Sign:
ries about the nature and origin of language were grounded
Articulating New Russian Culture. Ann Arbor, 1995.
in philosophical speculation, much of it centering on the
Davidson, H. R. Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scan- idea of degeneration. Thus, the primordial language was
dinavian and Celtic Religions. Syracuse, N.Y., 1989. often held to be Hebrew, since it must have been spoken in
Davidson, H. R. The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe. New York, the Garden of Eden. Following the ancient notion of degen-
1993. eration from an assumed “Golden Age,” many writers on the
Green, Miranda. Symbol and Image in Celtic Religious Art. New subject maintained that Greek was a degenerate form of He-
York, 1989. brew, Latin a degenerate form of Greek, and that the modern
Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeol- languages of Europe were all degenerate offspring of Latin.
ogy and Myth. London, 1991.
However, thanks to the voyages of discovery and the
Siebers, Tobin. Religion and the Authority of the Past. Ann Arbor, rapid expansion in European awareness of the range and di-
1993. versity of human languages, and impelled by the romantic
Winn, Shan M. M. Heaven, Heroes, and Happiness: The Indo- emphasis on national origins, which effectively precluded the
European Roots of Western Ideology. Lanham, Md., 1995. notion that all languages were necessarily descended from
BRUCE LINCOLN (1987) Hebrew, scholars had begun to suspect that the degeneration
Revised Bibliography hypothesis, whether secular or religious, was inadequate to

4458 INDO-EUROPEAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY
explain the historical relationships among languages. No- developed, that is, the comparative method, which is predicat-
where was this more obvious than in India, which, by the ed on the assumption that anterior stages and/or prototypes
latter part of the eighteenth century, had become in effect can be systematically reconstructed from attested evidence,
the private preserve of the British East India Company. As linguistic or otherwise. Thus, comparative mythology, and
European awareness of this vastly complex region deepened, especially comparative Indo-European mythology, rapidly
it became clear that Sanskrit, the ancient language of the took its place as a sister discipline of comparative philology.
Hindu sacred texts, occupied a position in religious and liter-
EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY. As might be expected, many
ary affairs similar to that occupied by Latin in Europe during
early nineteenth-century scholars, even those who were not
the Middle Ages. Indeed, several scholars, beginning with
directly concerned with Indo-European linguistic studies,
Filippo Sassetti in 1600, had remarked on the curious simi-
had something to say about various aspects of the newly dis-
larities between Latin and Sanskrit, but these similarities de-
covered parallels among the several Indo-European panthe-
fied explanation in terms of the “degeneration hypothesis,”
ons. This was especially true in Germany, where romantic
as Sanskrit was patently as ancient as either Latin or classical
concern with the origins of the Volk (German and otherwise)
Greek. Furthermore, the modern languages of North
had become almost a national passion. Thus, Karl O. Müller
India—Hindi, Bengali, and the rest—seemed to bear the
(1797–1840) and G. F. Creuzer (1771–1858) drew heavily,
same immediate relationship to Sanskrit as French, Spanish,
albeit selectively, upon the linguistic evidence in their at-
Italian and other members of what later came to be called
tempts to reconstruct the prototypes of Greek and other
the Romance languages did to Latin.
Indo-European gods and heroes. Even the philosopher
The problem was finally solved in 1786 by William G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), in whose works Romantic ide-
Jones (1746–1794), who is generally considered the founder alism reached the apex of its development, seems to have
of scientific linguistics. An amateur philologist (he was reput- been strongly influenced by the new comparativism, and, as
ed to have been fluent in some twenty-two languages), Jones Richard Chase puts it, “longed for a ‘polytheism in art’ and
had recently been appointed chief justice of the East India imagination, a plastic and mythological philosophy” (Quest
Company’s establishment at Calcutta, and in his off-hours for Myth, 1949, p. 39).
he immediately set about learning Sanskrit. In September
Most of the pioneer philologists, among them Franz
1786, at a meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal,
Bopp (1791–1867), Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), and
he gave an after-dinner speech in which, for the first time,
Rasmus Rask (1787–1832), also made important contribu-
the idea of the language family was first clearly articulated.
tions to comparative Indo-European mythological and reli-
As Jones saw it, the relationship among Sanskrit and the an-
gious studies. In many respects, the most distinguished
cient languages of Greece and Rome, as well as those spoken
member of this group was Jacob Grimm (1785–1863), who,
by the ancient Germans and Iranians, was that of a set of or-
with his brother Wilhelm (1786–1859), was responsible for
phaned siblings: all were descended from a common parent
amassing the great collection of tales that bears their name.
language that had long since disappeared. That parent lan-
However, Jacob Grimm was more than a mere collector of
guage, however, might be reconstructed by rigorously com-
folk tales; he was also a preeminent philologist, and in 1823
paring the grammars and lexicons of these attested languages.
he articulated the principle that later came to be known as
The whole ensemble could be described as a family tree, one
“Grimm’s law,” which firmly established the phonological
to which Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages did
connections among Latin, Greek, and the ancient Germanic
not belong, for they were members of another, wholly dis-
languages. His most important single contribution to Indo-
tinct language family.
European religious studies was a two-volume work entitled
Thus was born both comparative philology and the idea Deutsche Mythologie (1835). In it he developed the thesis that
of the Indo-European language family. Although Jones him- the Märchen he and his brother had collected were the detri-
self never followed up his monumental discovery, others tus of pre-Christian Germanic mythology. This argument is
soon did, and by the beginning of the third decade of the bolstered by a host of etymologies, as well as comparisons to
next century the science of comparative philology, together other Indo-European traditions. A good example of the latter
with the discipline now referred to as comparative Indo- is Grimm’s suggestion that the ancient Scandinavian account
European religious studies, was well under way. of a war between the gods (Óðinn, Vili, and Vé) and an earli-
er generation of giants (Ymir et al.) is cognate to the Greek
Almost from the outset, the practitioners of this new sci- Titanomachy, or the war between the Olympians and the Ti-
ence, almost all of them steeped in romantic idealism, found tans (that is, between Zeus and his siblings and the supernat-
themselves confronted by more than simply a set of linguistic ural beings of the previous generation, led by Kronos).
similarities. The primary source materials—the R: gveda, the
Mahābhārata, the Iliad, the Iranian Avesta, the Icelandic Elsewhere in Europe and in America interest in mythol-
Eddas, and so forth—were religious and/or mythological ogy, if not exclusively Indo-European mythology, also ran
texts, and it soon became apparent that the gods, heroes, rit- high. In Britain, for example, most of the Romantic poets—
uals, and events described in these texts could be compared Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley, Keats, Byron, and
using the same basic methodology that Jones and others had others—drew extensively upon mythological themes; and

Thomas Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable (1855) popularized the François Dupuis (1742–1809) had suggested that Jesus
study of mythology like no other work before it. Thus, by Christ was a solar metaphor and that the twelve apostles
the middle of the nineteenth century, the science of compar- could be interpreted as the signs of the zodiac. But it was
ative philology had reached maturity, interest in mythology Müller who escalated the notion into a full-blown paradigm,
and the history of religions had become widespread, and the one that had special relevance to the ancient Indo-European-
stage was set for the appearance of the first grand paradigm speaking domain. Moreover, as a philologist, Müller insisted
in the history of Indo-European religious studies. that the key to understanding these solar metaphors lay in
THE FIRST GRAND PARADIGM: F. MAX MÜLLER AND THE the etymologies of divine names.
NATURISTS. In his seminal book, The Structure of Scientific Müller asserted that language, including Proto-Indo-
Revolutions (1970), the eminent philosopher of science European, which he identified in effect with the earliest form
Thomas S. Kuhn makes a persuasive case for the proposition of Sanskrit, was in its pristine state eminently rational. Ob-
that all scientific knowledge expands in what amounts to an jects such as the sun, the moon, stars, and other natural phe-
ascending and ever-widening spiral. In its earliest stages a nomena were labeled without reference to any divine beings
new discipline necessarily finds itself groping for a central or concepts, as the earliest dialects were incapable of express-
focus, for an overarching model in terms of which theories ing abstractions. But as time went on, Müller concluded, a
can be generated. Eventually, however, thanks to the efforts curious malady set in, a “disease of language,” the prime
of a few scholars, a breakthrough is made, and there emerges symptom of which was metaphor. What had begun as sim-
a grand paradigm, which not only organizes the knowledge ple, descriptive terms gradually evolved into increasingly
heretofore gained, but by its very nature generates a host of complex and abstract metaphors, and these in turn came to
new discoveries and/or interpretations. The emergence of take on a life of their own. In short, by the time the earliest
such a paradigm is revolutionary in its impact, and consti- religious texts (e.g., the R: gveda and Hesiod’s Theogony) were
tutes a quantum leap forward in the history of a discipline. composed, the disease of language had become terminal;
Kuhn, of course, focuses his attention upon the growth myth and religion had replaced reason and rationality. By ju-
of the physical sciences, which so far have known at least two dicious use of the comparative method, however, one could
grand paradigms—Newtonian mechanics and quantum me- cut through the layers of metaphoric accretion and arrive at
chanics/relativity—and which may well be on the verge of the root meanings underlying divine and heroic names.
a third. But the model applies generally. For example, in the Thus, for example, the equation between Zeus and the Indi-
history of linguistics, William Jones’s discovery led to that an figure Dyauh, which clearly stemmed from a Proto-Indo-
discipline’s first grand paradigm, which indeed precipitated European conception of the sky god, could be traced back
the study of Indo-European religions. However, it was not to a series of abstract conceptions relating to light, bright-
until the 1850s, almost sixty years after Jones’s death, that ness, dawn, and so on, which, in turn, ultimately derived
Indo-European religious studies finally achieved its own from metaphors for various solar attributes. Although he ad-
grand paradigm. mitted that other natural phenomena play a part in generat-
ing mythical metaphors, Müller constantly emphasized the
The person most responsible for this “revolution” was sun as the prime source of Indo-European religious inspira-
F. Max Müller (1823–1900), a German-born Sanskrit schol- tion: “I am bound to say that my own researches have led
ar, philologist, and student of Indian religions who had stud- me again and again to the dawn and the sun as the chief bur-
ied with Bopp and the eminent French Sanskritist Eugène den of the myths of the Aryan race” (Lectures on the Science
Burnouf. Shortly after completing his formal studies, Müller of Language, 1864, p. 520).
accepted a position at Oxford University as a lecturer in San-
skrit and Indian religions; as it turned out, he spent the rest Müller’s solar mythology rapidly began to gain adher-
of his career there, eventually becoming one of the Victorian ents, both in Great Britain and abroad. Perhaps the most im-
era’s most distinguished men of letters. portant of these was the English classicist George W. Cox
(1827–1902), author of The Mythology of the Aryan Nations
In 1856, seven years after arriving at Oxford, Müller
(1887). Despite his obsession with “pan-Aryanism” and with
published a long essay entitled simply “Comparative My-
solar and other natural metaphors, Cox added a new and im-
thology” (published in Oxford Essays, 1856), and the revolu-
portant dimension to comparative Indo-European mytholo-
tion was launched. Although he went on to publish a verita-
gy through his emphasis upon structural as well as etymolog-
ble library of books, as well as innumerable collections of
ical equations. As shall be seen, this prefigured more recent
essays, articles, introductions, and so forth, most of his basic
theories about the nature of the Indo-European religious tra-
ideas were laid out in “Comparative Mythology.”
dition. Another major disciple was the Semitist Robert
Solar mythology and the “disease of language.” First Brown (b. 1844), who extended the paradigm far beyond the
and foremost among Müller’s ideas was the notion that the Indo-European domain and used it to explain the ancient
gods and heroes of the “Aryan” (i.e., Indo-European) peoples Near Eastern divinities as well as those of the R: gveda. Two
were basically metaphors for the sun, in all its aspects. To American scholars, John Fiske (1842–1901) and Daniel G.
be sure, this was not a brand-new idea. In 1795, Charles- Brinton (1837–1899), also made significant contributions to

the literature of solar mythology. In Myths and Mythmakers drew Lang (1844–1912). A sometime disciple of Tylor, Lang
(1888) Fiske attempted to reconcile the meteorological and set about to destroy naturism in general and the theories of
solar varieties of naturism, and Brinton, in The Myths of the Max Müller in particular. In a series of books, essays, and
New World (3d ed., 1896), sought to demonstrate the paral- popular articles he hammered at Müller’s assumptions and
lels between North American Indian and Indo-European etymologies, and by the end of the century had effectively
mythological figures. demonstrated the weaknesses in the naturistic paradigm so
effectively that it did not long survive the death of its chief
It should be pointed out that Müller’s was by no means proponent in 1900.
the only naturistic school of comparative Indo-European
mythology to flourish in the late nineteenth century. Indeed, It would be impossible here to trace all of the thrusts
the “first paradigm,” as it has been termed here, actually in- and counterthrusts that marked this famous scholarly debate,
cluded several rather distinct subparadigms, all of which but Lang’s principal objections can be summed up as follows:
shared essentially the same methodology and basic assump- (1) Müller’s theory—and, by extension, the theories of
tions. For example, in 1859 Adalbert Kuhn (1812–1881) Kuhn, Cox, Fiske, and the rest—was implicitly based on the
published his famous Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göt- fallacious linkage of “degradation” to Original Sin, which,
tertranks, in which thunderstorms and their attendant bolts although the chosen people in this instance were the so-
of lightning, rather than the sun, were conceived to be the called Aryans (i.e., Indo-Europeans) rather than the Jews,
prime source of Indo-European (and other) mythological was modeled on traditional Judeo-Christian historiography
and religious metaphors. Kuhn’s most famous onomastic and did not take into account the comparative data from
equation, later shown to be totally incorrect, was the as- contemporary non-Western cultures; (2) too much emphasis
sumed etymological connection between Prometheus and was placed upon language and linguistic processes, especially
the Indian figure Pramantha. Both were seen as archetypal metaphor and etymology, and too little on the differential
“fire bringers,” and Kuhn and his followers were as assiduous effects of the social, cultural, and physical setting wherein
in discovering other Indo-European fire gods as Müller and myths and religious concepts originated; and (3) there was
others were in discovering their solar divinities. Another too much concern with origins and not enough with the his-
prominent naturist was the Italian philologist Angelo de torical development of myths and mythmaking, nor was
Gubernatis (1840–1913), who emphasized animal meta- enough attention paid to the universal, evolutionary stages
phors; thus, where Müller and Kuhn saw the sun and the evident in the Indo-European tradition. Needless to say,
lightning bolt, Gubernatis saw wild beasts, especially beasts Müller attempted to answer these charges as best he could,
of prey. Still others sought to find lunar and/or stellar meta- and indeed his criticisms of unilineal evolutionism are re-
phors in the Indo-European and other ancient mythological markably similar to those of later critics. But in the end Lang
traditions. was triumphant, and solar mythology, together with the
other varieties of naturism that had flourished since the mid-
Collapse of the first paradigm. While Müller, Kuhn,
dle of the century, went into a permanent eclipse.
Cox, and the rest were developing their naturistic models,
another scholarly approach to myth and religion per se was EMPIRICAL REACTION AND EMERGENCE OF NEW MODELS:
quietly taking a shape that would ultimately prove to be the 1900–1920. Thus passed the first grand paradigm in com-
undoing of these models. This approach was fostered by the parative Indo-European religious studies. As the new century
pioneer anthropologists, such as E. B. Tylor (1832–1917), dawned, the majority of scholars working in the field—
John Lubbock (1834–1913), and John McLennan (1827– classicists, Indologists, Germanists, Celticists, and so forth—
1881), who, as might be expected, came to focus their atten- rapidly abandoned the naturistic/etymological approach in
tion not on the Indo-European tradition, but rather on the favor of more intense efforts to explain the various Indo-
vast corpus of data that had come to light relative to the be- European religious traditions on their own terms. As in other
liefs and practices of contemporary “primitive” peoples. In disciplines at this time, including anthropology, a new spirit
his Primitive Culture (1871), for example, Tylor laid the of empiricism came to the fore, marked by a growing distrust
foundations for the theory of animism, that is, the notion of comparativism. Most of these specialists, as they may be
that all religious beliefs are rooted in the concept of the termed (e.g., the Celticist Joseph Vendryes), relied heavily on
human soul. The anthropologists were for the most part not the methods of textual criticism, phrasing their analyses in
trained philologists—although they did, of course, make use terms of new translations, new specific etymologies, and the
of the comparative method in its broadest sense—and there- like. Indeed, save for the purposes of linguistic reconstruc-
fore were not as attuned to etymologies and the metaphoric tion, the idea of a common Indo-European religious and/or
significance of names. The result was a profoundly different mythological heritage was rarely mentioned in the first two
conception of the origin and evolution of human religious decades of the twentieth century.
beliefs.
At the same time, unrelated, for the most part, to Indo-
By the late 1880s the naturists and the anthropologists European studies, several new theoretical models for the
found themselves on a collision course. The anthropological study of religion emerged, two of which were to have an im-
attack was led by a brilliant and iconoclastic Scotsman, An- portant impact on the future development of this discipline.

In his massive survey of primitive religion, The Golden Bough among the several ancient Indo-European pantheons re-
(3d ed., 12 vols., 1911–1915), James G. Frazer (1854–1941) mained, and in the early 1920s the pendulum began to swing
came to the conclusion that religion everywhere was rooted once again in the direction of what can best be labeled neo-
in magic, and that all belief systems, including those of the comparativism. For example, Albert Carnoy began to speak
ancient Indo-European-speaking communities, were predi- in no uncertain terms about a “religion indo-européenne,”
cated on a sacrificial ritual wherein a god was killed and re- and shortly thereafter, although they differed widely in inspi-
placed so as to renew the world. Among Frazer’s prime exam- rations and orientation, a number of German scholars,
ples was the death of Baldr, the Apollo-like son of the chief among them Walter F. Otto, Hermann Güntert, Friedrich
Norse god, Óðinn, who, thanks to the machinations of Loki, Cornelius, and F. R. Schröder, came to the same general con-
was unintentionally killed at the peak of his youthful vigor clusion: that it is impossible to understand any single ancient
by his sibling, the blind god Hoðr. Thus, through a form of Indo-European religious system without reference to a com-
“sympathetic magic” the gods, Eand the forces they incarnat- mon set of deities, rituals, and myths, and that it is indeed
ed, were periodically manipulated so as to keep them perpet- possible to conceive of such a common Indo-European tradi-
ually vigorous and fertile. Although largely rejected by subse- tion without reference to the discarded theories of Müller
quent generations of anthropologists, Frazer’s influence and Kuhn. Another driving force in this new effort was pro-
lingered on in the so-called ritualist school of mythology as- vided by Meillet, who, although he himself never attempted
sociated with Jane E. Harrison, Francis M. Cornford, Jessie with Indo-European mythological materials the kind of
L. Weston, Gilbert Murray, F. R. S. Raglan, and H. J. Rose, broad synthesis that characterizes his Introduction à l’étude
all of whom drew heavily on Greco-Roman beliefs and prac- des langues indo-européennes (1922), encouraged his students
tices in the formulation of their theories (indeed, most were to undertake such studies. One of these students was Georges
classicists by academic training). Dumézil (1898–1986), a young philologist and historian of
religions who took his doctorate under Meillet in 1924.
A second theoretical development occurred in France
under the aegis of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), one of the Like the other neo-comparativists, Dumézil sought to
founding fathers of contemporary social science. In 1903, in find a viable theoretical basis upon which to build a new par-
collaboration with his principal student and disciple, Marcel adigm for comparative Indo-European mythology. In his
Mauss (1872–1950), Durkheim published a short mono- early studies, for example, Le festin d’immortalité (1924), Le
graph entitled “De quelques formes primitives de classifica- crime des Lemniennes (1924), and Le problème des Centaures
tion: Contribution à l’étude des représentations collectives” (1929), which focused on what he came to call the “ambrosia
(Année sociologique 6, 1903, pp. 1–72), which argued that so- cycle,” that is, the common Indo-European traditions sur-
cial classification systems are necessarily “collectively repre- rounding the preparation and consumption of a deified bev-
sented” in a society’s belief systems. This was followed in erage (soma, mead, ambrosia, and so forth), he drew heavily
1912 by his magnum opus, Les formes élémentaires de la vie on Frazer’s theory of death and rebirth and of the ritual sacri-
religieuse (translated as The Elementary Forms of the Religious fice of the king. But as he himself later observed, the Frazeri-
Life, 1917), in which he persuasively demonstrated that soci- an model ultimately proved to be insufficient for his pur-
ety itself is the stuff of the divine and that humans necessarily poses; it simply could not explain the multitude of common
fashion their gods as collective representations of fundamen- motifs that pervaded the several Indo-European traditions.
tal “social facts.” To be sure, Durkheim’s prime examples
were drawn from the belief systems of the Australian Aborigi- After a decade of grappling with the problem, Dumézil
nes, but the implications for the study of religion per se were took an extended leave from his academic duties in the early
clear: a new primary source of religious metaphors had been 1930s and undertook the study of ancient Chinese religion
identified, and the immediate implications for the study of under the guidance of Marcel Granet (1884–1940), an emi-
Indo-European belief systems were also clearly present from nent Sinologist who had also been one of Durkheim’s most
the outset, as Durkheim’s ideas themselves were in some devoted disciples. Yet although the project began as an at-
measure influenced by the demonstration (1907) of Antoine tempt to gain a perspective on the Indo-European tradition
Meillet (1866–1936) that the Iranian god Mithra (equiva- by coming to grips with a wholly different ancient belief sys-
lent to the Vedic god Mitra) was the personification of the tem, it ended by providing Dumézil with the framework he
idea of “contract.” Indeed, as shall shortly be demonstrated, had been searching for and that he came to call la méthode
Meillet, perhaps the most eminent Indo-European philolo- sociologique. Thus, in 1938, not long after he had completed
gist of his time, had more than a little to do with the develop- his studies with Granet, Dumézil achieved the breakthrough
ment of the second grand paradigm in Indo-European he had been seeking, and the second grand paradigm in
studies. Indo-European studies was born.
NEO-COMPARATIVISTS AND THE SEARCH FOR A NEW PARA- THE SECOND GRAND PARADIGM: DUMÉZIL AND THE NEW
DIGM: 1920–1938. Although comparative Indo-European COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. Although the breakthrough it-
religious studies suffered a marked decline in the generation self came in 1938, the first hint of what Dumézil now refers
following Müller’s death, the basic questions he and his col- to as the tripartite ideology actually surfaced shortly before
leagues had addressed regarding the fundamental similarities he began his Chinese studies. In 1930 he published an article

comparing the three divisons of ancient Scythian society— and cultivators upon whom the other two classes depended
the “Royal Scyths,” the “Warrior Scyths,” and the “Agricul- for nourishment.
tural Scyths,” each of which was believed to have descended Dumézil’s discovery was in large measure confirmed by
from one of the sons of the primeval figure Targitaus (Hero- his Swedish colleague Stig Wikander’s conclusive demonstra-
dotos, 4.5–4.6)—with the three varn: as, or classes (later to tion that among the most prominent features of ancient
become full-fledged castes) of Vedic India: the Brāhmas Indo-European social organization was the comitatus (“war
(priests), the Ks: hatriyas (warriors), and the Vaiśhiyas (her- band”), which typically formed itself around the person of
ders and cultivators, that is, the food producers). He also rec- a chief. According to Wikander, the comitatus was mytholog-
ognized that the sovereignty of the Royal Scyths was based ically reflected by such otherwise diverse phenomena as Indra
on the myth that their ancestor, Targitaus’s youngest son, and his Marut (i.e., the Rudriyas) and the war bands that fol-
had managed to recover three fiery golden objects, a cup, an lowed Irish heroes like Cú Chulainn and Finn (see Der aris-
ax, and a yoked plow, each symbolic of one of the social divi- che Männerbund, 1938). Thus, thanks to Wikander, who be-
sions, that had fallen from the sky, although the full import came one of Dumézil’s earliest and most productive
of this symbolism did not become apparent until the new supporters (see below), a major piece of the puzzle had fallen
paradigm had fully crystallized. Two years later, in 1932, the into place.
linguist Émile Benveniste arrived independently at a similar
A preliminary statement of the new model appeared in
conclusion relative to the parallels not only between the
Les dieux des Germains (1939), which was based on the lec-
Scythian and Indian situations, but also among these two
tures Dumézil had given in Sweden, and for the next decade
and the social classes of ancient Iran. However, all of the so- the discoveries came thick and fast. Dumézil rapidly came
cieties concerned belonged to the Indo-Iranian substock, and to the conclusion that the sovereign level, shortly to be la-
at the time there seemed to be no reason to conclude that beled the “first function,” was in fact represented by two
this tripartite hierarchy of priests (or priest-kings), warriors, complementary divinities: Varun: a, Jupiter, and Óðinn were
and cultivators was necessarily pan-Indo-European. primarily concerned with the maintenance of cosmic order
Nevertheless, in the years that followed, Dumézil began (e.g., the Vedic concept of r: ta), while Mitra, Týr, and the
to pick up hints of an analogous structure in the Roman tra- otherwise obscure Roman divinity Dius Fidius were con-
dition (see, for example, Flamen-Brahman, 1935), especially cerned with social and juridical sovereignty. This idea of the
in the makeup of the most ancient of the Roman priestly col- “joint sovereignty” formed the major focus of Mitra-Varuna:
leges, the flamines maiores. Could the distinctions between Essai sur deux représentations indo-européennes de la souverai-
the flamen Dialis, or chief priest of Jupiter, the flamen Mar- neté (1940). The first comprehensive statement of the new
paradigm appeared a year later in a book entitled Jupiter,
tialis, who presided over the cult of the war god Mars, and
Mars, Quirinus (1941). Although Dumézil here focuses on
the flamen Quirinalis, who served the popular divinity
Rome and its mythological origins, this book spelled out in
Quirinus, an incarnation of the mass of Roman society, re-
detail for the first time the concept that came to be known
flect the same structure he and Benveniste had discovered in
as the “three functions” of social organization, that is, the
the Indo-Iranian tradition, especially in light of the probable
“first function” (cosmic and juridical sovereignty in all its
etymological connections between the two terms flamen and
manifestations), the “second function” (the exercise of mili-
brahman? It was not until he had focused his attention upon
tary prowess), and the “third function” (the provision of
the ancient Germanic pantheons in the course of giving a se-
nourishment, health, physical well-being, wealth, the welfare
ries of lectures at the University of Uppsala in Sweden in the
of the masses, etc.).
fall of 1938 that he finally came to the realization that this
threefold hierarchy was in fact pan-Indo-European, and that In short, by the end of the 1940s, in a remarkable series
it was reflected in both the structure of the pantheons and of books, monographs, and shorter works, Dumézil had fully
the structure of society itself, especially in the system of social articulated the basic elements of the second grand paradigm
stratification. And here, of course, his recent exposure to in comparative Indo-European religious studies. The Iranian
Durkheimian theory in the course of his studies with Granet and Celtic traditions had been brought into the picture, and
served him well. The Old Norse gods Óðinn, Thórr, and a great many secondary themes had been discovered; for ex-
Freyr reflected the same basic type of social organization, ample, the recognition that the juridical sovereign (e.g.,
even though the priestly, or Brahmanic, level had long since Mitra and Týr) typically had two ancillary manifestations,
disappeared as a viable social entity by the time the myths each of whom was concerned with an aspect of this function.
were transcribed by Snorri Sturluson and Saxo Grammati- In the Vedic texts, these were the figures Aryaman and
cus. Óðinn (Odin), like Jupiter and the Vedic god Varun: a, Bhaga, who represented, respectively, the Aryan community
was a collective representation of ultimate sovereignty; Thórr itself, along with its most basic social relationship, marriage;
was the incarnation of the warrior stratum and thus was cog- and the equitable distribution of goods and rewards. This
nate to Mars and Indra; while Freyr (together with his father idea was first enunciated in Le troisième souverain (1949).
Njorðr), like Quirinus and the Vedic Asvins (“divine horse- In his first articulations of the new paradigm Dumézil
men”), represented the producing classes, that is, the herders had relied heavily on the previously mentioned Durkheimian

proposition that “social facts” give rise to “supernatural through his discovery that Indo-European warrior figures
facts,” or “collective representations.” However, as he himself such as the Vedic character Śiśupāla are in the final analysis
observed, around 1950 his orientation began to shift, and he but counters in a game played by the gods, and that the gods
took what amounted to a long step beyond strict Durkheimi- themselves can be sorted into “dark” and “light” categories—
anism and “la méthode sociologique.” Adopting what in re- that is, those who represent the chaotic forces of nature and
trospect may be called a more structuralist perspective, he those who seek to control these forces. In the Indian tradi-
began to conceive of the three functions as expressions of a tion this dichotomy is reflected in the difference between the
deep-seated, tripartite ideology that was manifest in both so- “dark” divinity Rudra and the “light” divinity Vis: n: u; in an-
cial and supernatural contexts, but which ultimately lay out- cient Scandinavia it appears in that between Óðinn and
side either sphere. Thus, the functions were gradually rede- Thórr. The full implications of this discovery are being
fined as “un moyen d’analyser,” a method of analysis, and probed by several of Dumézil’s disciples, among them Udo
this revised orientation is, in some respects, not dissimilar to Strutynski and the author of this article.
the structuralist vision espoused by Claude Lévi-Strauss (b.
1908). There is, however, a major difference between the two In the course of what may be termed his phase de bilan,
French scholars: Lévi-Strauss (in such works as Le cru et le Dumézil’s remarkable scholarly output continued unabated.
cuit, 1964) is concerned primarily with the “deep structure” Among his subsequent books were a reexamination of the
of the human mind per se, while Dumézil remains commit- Indo-European concept of sovereignty (Les dieux souverains
ted to the proposition that the tripartite ideology is uniquely des Indo-Européens, 1977) and a disquisition on Indo-
Indo-European, and that other major language families, such European attitudes toward marriage (Mariages indo-
as the Sino-Tibetan, the Hamito-Semitic, and the Uto- européens, 1979). He also published several collections of ear-
Aztecan, are probably characterized by their own unique ide- lier writings, all of which bear on one or another aspect of
ologies. Perhaps the best way to describe this approach is to the tripartite ideology. Dumézil’s career was capped in 1979
label it “structural relativism.” when he was elected to the Académie Française.
In the course of the next three decades more important This is not to imply that the “new comparative mythol-
discoveries were made, not only by Dumézil himself, but also ogy” has become universally accepted by Indo-Europeanists.
by the scholars who have come to adopt the paradigm. One Indeed, almost from the outset it has been the subject of in-
of the earliest of these was Stig Wikander, who in 1947 dem- tense and persistent criticism from a variety of scholars, many
onstrated the extent to which the heroes of the Mahābhārata of whom have suggested that Dumézil imposed the tripartite
(Yudhis: t: hira, Arjuna, Bhı̄ma, Nakula, and Sahadeva) were model on the data, and that it has no existence save in the
at bottom transpositions of the major Vedic divinities minds of the researchers concerned. Among the most persis-
(Mitra, Varun: a, Indra, and the Nāsatya) and showed that the tent of these critics was Paul Thieme, an Indologist, who as-
tripartite ideology could be detected at the epic as well as the serted on numerous occasions that Dumézil’s interpretation
mythological level. Other early followers of Dumézil were of the Indic pantheon, especially the role played by the god
Lucien Gerschel, Jan de Vries, Edgar Polomé, Robert Schil- Aryaman, was wholly incorrect. Thieme interpreted the San-
ling, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, François Vian, and skrit root ari- to mean “stranger” rather than “the people”
Marie-Louise Sjoestedt. (or “the shining ones”), the common meaning of most ethnic
self-identification terms, modern as well as ancient—for ex-
In the late 1950s and early 1960s a new generation of ample, Hopi, Diné (Navajo), and so forth. Other prominent
scholars was attracted to the Dumézilian model, including critics have included H. J. Rose (who took Dumézil to task
Jaan Puhvel, Donald J. Ward, Françoise Le Roux, and my- for ignoring the “manaistic” basis of Roman religion), Jan
self, and the paradigm was extended even more broadly. Gonda, Angelo Brelich, the Germanist E. A. Philippson, and
Among the major subthemes discovered by Dumézil and his John Brough, a Sanskrit scholar who claimed to have discov-
colleagues over the years, in addition to Wikander’s 1947 ered the tripartite ideology in the Bible and therefore asserted
breakthrough, were (1) the “three sins of the warrior,” that that it was not uniquely Indo-European.
is, the recognition that Indo-European warrior figures (e.g.,
Indra, Herakles, and the Norse figure Starkaðr) typically Dumézil vigorously responded to these and other criti-
commit three canonical “sins,” one against each of the func- cisms, and to date no single critic has emerged as a potential
tions, and (2) the “war between the functions,” manifested “Andrew Lang” as far as this paradigm is concerned. Indeed,
principally in the Roman and Germanic traditions, wherein it is fair to say that the majority of contemporary scholars in
representatives of the first two functions defeat representa- the field of comparative Indo-European mythology and reli-
tives of the third and incorporate them into the system, ren- gion continue to make effective use of the general theoretical
dering it complete (e.g., the Sabine war and the conflict be- and methodological framework developed by Dumézil and
tween the Æsir and Vanir). his colleagues in the course of the last five decades. A good
example is Joël Grisward, whose brilliant analysis of the me-
In the early 1970s Dumézil pushed the paradigm in yet dieval French legends of Aymeri de Narbonne and the extent
another important direction (see Mythe et épopée, vol. 2, to which they have Indo-Iranian counterparts (see his Ar-
1971, especially “L’enjeu du jeu des dieux: Un héros”) chéologie de l’épopée médiévale, 1981) is, as Dumézil himself

noted, perhaps the most important contribution to the new studies have involved matters that transcend the tripartite
comparative mythology since Wikander’s discovery of epical ideology. One of these is the matter of “dark” and “light” di-
transposition in 1947. Another excellent example can be seen vinities mentioned earlier. Indeed, Dumézil himself suggest-
in Udo Strutynski’s convincing demonstration that the En- ed that this dichotomy cuts across the three functions, and
glish weekday names, at least from Tuesday through Friday, perhaps reflects a more fundamental binary structure that
and their cognates in other modern Germanic languages, underlies social and supernatural tripartition. If this proves
represent a persistence of a tripartite ideological formula— to be the case, it may well be that the ideological model
that is, “Týr’s day,” “Óðinn’s day,” “Thórr’s day,” and Dumézil first detected some fifty-odd years ago is but a spe-
“Frigg’s day” (see his “Germanic Divinities in Weekday cial case of a broader and more deep-seated mental template,
Names,” Journal of Indo-European Studies 3, 1975, as it were, that is shared by homo religiosus as a whole. Such
pp. 363–384). a template, if it exists, would closely parallel the presumably
It would be impossible in the space of this brief article universal “deep structure” of the human psyche posited by
even to mention, let alone discuss in any detail, all of the sig- Lévi-Strauss.
nificant research that has been pursued since the late 1960s Another extremely significant development involves the
by specialists in comparative Indo-European religion and nature of the common Indo-European cosmology, some-
mythology who have oriented their work around the thing Dumézil never really came to grips with and which,
Dumézilian paradigm. For example, Atsuhiko Yoshida, a heretofore, had defied all attempts at elucidation via the tri-
Japanese Hellenist who studied with Dumézil for the better partite ideology. In 1975, Puhvel and Lincoln, working inde-
part of a decade, has demonstrated the strong probability pendently, reached compatible conclusions; they agreed that
that the development of Japanese mythology was profoundly the elusive cosmology was in fact embedded in a theme, pres-
influenced, either directly or indirectly, by Indo-European ent in the Roman, Indo-Iranian, and Norse traditions,
themes in the late prehistoric period (that is, the fourth and wherein a primeval being kills his twin and makes the world
fifth centuries CE), and that the most likely source of this in- from the latter’s remains. This theme closely approximates
fluence was one or another tribe of North Iranian-speaking the nearly universal concept of what Adolf E. Jensen calls the
steppe nomads (Scythians, Alans, etc.) that managed to reach “dema deity,” that is, a sacrificial victim whose body parts
East Asia during this period (Yoshida, 1977). The late provide the materia prima of either the world itself or some
Ōbayashi Taryō, an anthropologist at the University of important part thereof (as in the Ceramese myth of Hainu-
Tokyo, and the author of this article subsequently joined wele; see Jensen, Myth and Cult among Primitive Peoples,
Yoshida in this effort. Bruce Lincoln has published a book 1963).
comparing Indo-Iranian and contemporary East African reli-
gious attitudes toward cattle (Priests, Warriors, and Cattle, For Puhvel, the point of departure was the pseudo-
1981). David Cohen has expanded the understanding of the historical account of Romulus and Remus, in which the lat-
“three sins” typically committed by the Indo-European war- ter is killed shortly after the founding of Rome. Underlying
rior (see above) in a penetrating analysis of the Irish hero the names Romulus and Remus, Puhvel suggests, are *Wironos
Suibhne (“Suibhne Geilt,” Celtica 12, 1977, pp. 113–124). (“man”) and *Yemo(no)s (“twin”), to which may be com-
pared Yama (Skt.), Yima (Av.), and Ymir (ON), as well as
In France, Daniel Dubuisson, who took his doctorate Mannus and Tuisto, mentioned in Tacitus’s Germania. Al-
under Dumézil in 1983, has attempted to develop a quasi- though Romulus/*Wironos did not explicitly “make the
mathematical approach to Indo-European myth, based in world” from Remus/*Yemos’s remains, Remus’s death seems
large part on his Indological research. More recently, in clearly to have been somehow essential to the building of the
1994, he published a major overview of the current status city, like a sacrificial offering, and the fact that Remus’s
of comparative Indo-European mythology. Bernard Sergent “crime” consists of jumping over the newly dug foundation
has illuminated the dual kingship at Sparta by judicious ap- for the city wall implies that the victim’s essence was in one
plication of the Dumézilian paradigm (“La représentation
way or another mixed with the mortar that eventually filled
spariate de la royauté,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 189,
the ditch. Lincoln’s point of departure was the Indic mani-
1976, pp. 3–52). And in 1984 Dean A. Miller investigated
festation of the theme and its implications as they relate to
the trifunctional implications of the “three kings” in Sopho-
the dema-deity concept, that is, the account in R: gveda 10.90
cles’ Oedipus at Colonus from what can best be termed a neo-
wherein Manu (i.e., “man”) sacrifices Yama (or Purus: a, as
Dumézilian standpoint. Other scholars who have extended
he is called in the Vedic text) and creates the world from his
the paradigm in a variety of new and potentially important
corpse. (Unlike Remus/*Yemos, Purus: a was a willing victim,
directions include Steven O’Brien, Miriam Robbins, Alf
and Manu is credited with originating the institution of reli-
Hiltebeitel, David B. Evans, and Jean-Claude Rivière.
gious sacrifice; however, the basic context of the two ac-
SOME RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. Like all grand paradigms counts is remarkably similar.) As luck would have it, Lincoln
that have been pushed to their effective limits, the Dumézili- sent a draft of his manuscript to Puhvel for comment and
an paradigm is fraying a bit at the edges, and several of the criticism, and the result was a pair of seminal articles that in
most important recent advances in Indo-European religious 1975 appeared back-to-back in History of Religions.

The paradigmatic implications of this discovery are still traditions dating as far back as the Upper Paleolithic (that
under investigation, and various questions have been raised is, prior to 10,000 BCE), has begun to be recognized (see Lit-
by scholars. Does the ideology itself spring from this primor- tleton 2002). Indo-European religion is thus beginning to
dial sacrifice? Is it possible that the account of Romulus and be grounded in the broader context of the Eurasian tradition,
Remus, who began life as the foster children of a shepherd, which took shape in Central Asia millennia before anything
became warriors, and finally went off to found a city, is a eu- identificable as Proto-Indo-European appeared on the scene.
hemeristic survival of an ontological myth wherein the three In sum, as the field of Indo-European religious studies
functions emerge successively after a primeval fratricide? And enters its third century it remains a vigorous and intellectual-
is there a connection between the dramatis personae of this ly viable discipline. In the course of the last two hundred-
primeval drama and the dark/light dichotomy (see above)? plus years it has managed to develop and then transcend one
Or does the theme in question lie totally outside the parame- grand paradigm (naturism) and is currently dominated by a
ters of the paradigm? As yet no clear answers have been pro- second (the new comparative mythology). How long this
vided to these questions. second paradigm will continue to reign is uncertain; as has
Yet another extremely significant discovery relating to been indicated, there are already signs that it may have begun
Indo-European religion was N. J. Allen’s 1987 compelling to outlive its usefulness. But whatever may be the ultimate
case for the existence of a “fourth” ideological function (or fate of the Dumézilian model—and one suspects that it will
“F4,” as he labels it) that lies outside the tripartite paradigm eventually become a “special case” of a much broader para-
per se and can thus be described as “other.” A good exmaple digm, the outlines of which cannot yet be clearly perceived,
of a “fourth function” phenomenon in the Indic tradfition although Allen’s aforementioned seminal discovery of a
the Shurdra caste, that is, the non-Aryan outisders, who are fouth function does provide a glimpse of what may lie
“other” to the three twice-born Aryan varna (that is, the ahead—the discipline itself will almost certainly persevere,
Brāhman: s, Ks: hatriyas and Vaiśhiyas, who reflect “F1,” “F2” and will continue to contribute important insights not only
and “F3,” respectively). This concept adds a new and ex- into a fundamental aspect of the heritage shared by all Indo-
tremely important dimesion to the Dumézilian paradigm, European speakers, but also into the nature of religion
the implications of which are only just beginning to be ap- per se.
preciated.
SEE ALSO Comparative Mythology.
The common denominators among the the several
Indo-European epic traditions have also been the subject of BIBLIOGRAPHY
some important recent research. For example, Dean A. Mil- Allen, N. J. “The Ideology of the Indo-Europeans: Dumézil’s
ler’s book The Epic Hero (2000) has materially advanced the Theory and the Idea of a Fourth Function.” International
understanding of this most important aspect of the Indo- Journal of Moral and Social Studies 2 (1987): 23–39. A signif-
European worldview, while Julian Baldick’s (1994) convinc- icant discovery that adds an important new dimension to the
ing demonstration that the Iliad is fundamentally cognate study of Indo-European religion.
not to the Mahābhārata, as has long been held, but rather Baldick, Julian. Homer and the Indo-Europeans: Comparing My-
to the Rāmāyana, has led some scholars, including the author thologies. London, 1994. The author contends that the Iliad
of this article, to the conclusion that the two epics in ques- is cognate to the Rāmāyana in that both reflect an “abducted
tion are, at bottom, reflexes of a common Indo-European bride” mythologem, while the Mahābhārata is cognate to the
concern with abducted brides and their rescurers. Other re- Odyssey. An important reassessment.
flexes of this concern may include the medieval European Dorson, Richard. “The Eclipse of Solar Mythology.” In Myth: A
tale of Tristan and Isolde and the Middle High German Ku- Symposium, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok, pp. 25–63.
drun epic, both of which involve figures broadly similar to Bloomington, Ind., 1965. The definitive study of the Mül-
ler-Lang controversy.
Helen, Sı̄tā, Rāma, Menelaus, Agamamnon, and the rest.
Moreover, Baldick has gone on to suggest that the Dubuisson, Daniel. Mythologie du xxeme siecle (Dumézil, Lévi-
Mahābhārata is cognate to the Odyssey, in that they both in- Strauss, Eliade). Lille, 1993. An important overview of con-
volve accounts of exiled kings who eventually return to re- temporary comparative Indo-European mythology and reli-
gion by one of Dumézil’s chief students.
claim their thrones after a climactic battle (e.g., the Battle of
Kurukshetra in the Mahābhārata, in which the Pāndava de- Dumézil, Georges. L’idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens. Brus-
feat their enemies and restore Yudhisthira to his rightful sels, 1958. Remains the most succinct overview of Dumézil’s
thesis.
throne, and Homer’s account of the slaying of Penelope’s
suitors by Odysseus and Telemachus). Dumézil, Georges. Camillus. Berkeley, Calif., 1980. A translation
by Annette Aronowicz and Josette Bryson of the “Camillus”
Finally, the importance of binarism in the Indo- sections from Mythe et épopée, vol. 3 (Paris, 1973) and related
European tradition, that is, the all-pervasive difference be- passages from Fêtes romaines d’été et d’automne (Paris, 1975).
tween “light” and “dark,” which, as has been noted, Dumézil Includes a definitive introduction by Udo Strutynski.
came to recognize late in his career, is something that may Dumézil, Georges. The Stakes of the Warrior. Berkeley, 1983. A
link it to far older Nostratic and even, perhaps, Eurasiatic translation by David Weeks of the “L’enjeu du jeu des dieux:

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4450 INDIAN RELIGIONS: HISTORY OF STUDY

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

AN OVERVIEW ed in other terminology that identifies them as “mortals” and

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

is that of Marija Gimbutas, who has delineated what she calls

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

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