On Indo-European Cosmic Structure

On Indo-European Cosmic Structure: Models, Comparisons, Contexts JOHN SHAW ABSTRACT. It is observed that relatively little has been published in the field of Indo-European cosmology in relation to the output of comparative mythology as a whole. Lyle’s comprehensive scheme of cosmological structure is reviewed in the light of Georges Dumézil’s work, and sources are examined. On the basis of comparisons from Indic, Iranian, Greek, Anatolian, Celtic and Germanic traditions an alternative triad is suggested for the visible world. Both systems are examined and compared in terms of explanatory power; issues of geographical distribution; the likelihood of cultural contact with neighbouring ancient civilizations, e.g., Mesopotamia; change and development in Indo-European over the millennia before written texts; comparisons across the Indo-European linguistic area; and applications to other aspects of the cultures studied. On the basis of what has survived in the various language groups, an attempt is made to explain the differences between Lyle’s system and the one outlined below. The proposed model is extended to include Allen’s “fourth function” that deals with what is beyond or outside of the tripartite cosmos, providing a system intended to outline an earlier Indo-European vertical cosmic structure, as expressed in later literatures and iconography.

KEYWORDS: Indo-European, cosmology, Indo-European cultural contacts, cosmic structure

Considering the number of publications that have appeared on various aspects of Indo-European (IE) comparative mythology, it is noteworthy how little discussion has been devoted to how the protoIndo-European culture associated with that mythology conceived of the cosmos and its structure (Lyle 1990: 6). The reason given is that “a clearly reconstructible cosmology for proto-Indo-European eludes us, although there are certain major widespread patterns that suggest Cosmos 28 (2012), 57-76

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elements, possibly conflicting, of early IE cosmological systems” (Mallory and Adams 1997: 130). Recently, various systems have been suggested, relating, not surprisingly, to concepts well known to ethnologists and anthropologists. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995: 405, 749) posit a cosmic tree in three sections, consisting of upper, middle and lower worlds, along which all of creation, animate and inanimate, is distributed. The same idea, though with reservations as to its ultimate Indo-European origins, is examined by West (2007: 345-7), who draws attention to Vedic, Germanic and Greek traditions of a cosmic tree or pillar, to which we may add a possible Celtic parallel (Shaw 2007: 257); West (op. cit.: 346) notes, however, that the motif may have been borrowed from northern Asia.

HEAVEN – ATMOSPHERE – EARTH Bearing in mind the pervasiveness of his tripartite ideology within the Indo-European world, and the expectation that it would “dominate speculation on the macrocosm and microcosm”, Georges Dumézil has had remarkably little to say on the cosmos.1 His specific contribution has been to describe the vertical construction of the cosmos for IndoIranian as being tripartite, where the second (warrior) function is situated between heaven and earth (1995: 78). Lyle (1990: 7-25) demonstrates how the tripartite ideology developed by Dumézil may be extended beyond the social plane and applied to concepts of space. Her approach has the advantages of ready application to diverse aspects of IE culture, and the flexibility of being able to reconcile dyadic, triadic and quaternary aspects of the IE system with that originally proposed by Dumézil. Lyle takes Dumézil’s social triad priests – warriors – food producers as the level of the mesocosm, and describes the macrocosmic scale by the triad heaven – atmosphere – earth (op.cit.: 7). The greater part of Lyle’s discussion concerns the horizontal dimension, and she observes how concepts of space within a tripartite ideology can be integrated with cardinal directions, colours, sacrificial animals, etc. In addition to the hierarchy of three functions, she suggests a fourth, a trivalent goddess associated with all three functions and therefore on the vertical plane with the three levels of the cosmos.2 On the basis of comparisons

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from Roman and Indic traditions, her fourth function has a specific place in the hierarchy, located between the second and the third functions. In terms of her vertical description of the cosmos, this places the fourth (female) function between the atmosphere and the earth, which she defines as the “earth excepting its surface – the world below” (Lyle 1990: 22). In support of the placement of her fourth function in the hierarchy she cites the passage from the Homer’s Iliad 15.187-93, where Poseidon recounts how he, Hades and Zeus had cast lots for the three parts of the world, and were assigned in that order the realms of “the grey salt sea”, ”the dark gloom-ridden” and “the wide heaven in the aether and the clouds”; with the earth (Gea fem.) along with Olympus remaining common to all.3 Lyle Model with Earth Common to All 1

Heaven

2 4

3

Atmosphere Earth

Netherworld

Fig. 1. After Lyle (1990: 25)

No mention is made here of the atmosphere as a distinct level between heaven and earth, but it is clear from a passage found in an earlier book of the Iliad (5.768-69) that a “middle space” between heaven and earth figured in the gods’ activities. Here, Hera is sent by Zeus to Troy in her chariot: Hera whipped up the horses, and the pair unhesitant flew on in midspace (messēgus) between earth and heaven star-studded. (cf. Havelock 1987: 32) Turning to the Indic evidence, passages from the Atharva Veda refer clearly to an intermediate zone (West 2007: 124): The gods who are heaven-seated And those who are interzone-seated, And those who are on earth. (AV 10.9.12)

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Three regions are constructed after the pattern of the Brāhmana: yonder heaven, the earth, and the atmosphere (AV 12.3.20; http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/av.htm) The gods that dwell in heaven and those who dwell in the atmosphere, The mighty (gods) that are fixed upon the earth: may they deliver us from… (AV 11.6.12; op. cit.) Further support, though less direct, may be drawn from a passage in the earlier Rig Veda: All gods, listen to this invocation from me, you who dwell in the atmosphere and in heaven, You whose tongue is Agni, seat yourself upon this sacred grass and be joyful. (RV 6.52.13) (Geldner 2: 156) In the above passages antariksam, lit. “in-between domicile”, is the term used to designate the atmospheric realm. Its equivalent in Greek from the above passage in the Iliad, messēgus, is an epic form, indeclinable, that also occurs in the Odyssey and derives from IE *medhyo- “middle”. It is worth noting that the IE root also appears in the Skt. alternative term for gods of the atmospheric realm: madhyamasthāna- “of the middle station”, suggesting a possible (though not certain) lexical correspondence associated with the intermediate realm. A further important source to consider is the creation myth from the Rig Veda, in which a god, usually Indra, separates heaven and earth, creating a “midspace” (antariksam), and a cosmos consisting of three parts (tridhātu): heaven, mid-space and earth. This is the visible world we know, the “triple world of the senses” (Kramrisch 1962: 140-8). Although the cosmogony of the Rig Veda provides a generally coherent explanation for the tripartite cosmos described here, the creation myth involving a mid-space does not seem to occur elsewhere in the Indo-European world. Dumézil (1995: 261-3) on the basis of Vedic and other sources reconstructs a heaven-atmosphere-earth triad for Indic mythology. As he observes, the concept of a tripartite cosmos is further implicit in

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the exploits of Indra’s allay against the forces of evil, Vishnu, who traverses the entire cosmos in three giant steps, taking in earth, atmosphere, and heavens; or earth heaven and the mysterious regions beyond. Dumézil (op. cit.), and Puhvel (1987: 56) observe a surprisingly close parallel to the story of the Scandinavian god Vìðarr, who takes a great stride and with the help of his special shoe slays the Fenris Wolf at the final battle of Ragnarök (Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning ch. 51).4 Here there is no account of the cosmos through which Vìðarr strode; however the mythical and lexical parallels from two traditions at a great geographical remove indicate that we are dealing with the story of considerable antiquity incorporating the measuring out of cosmic space. What remains of the ancient cosmology of Iran prior to the Zoroastrian reformation is based largely on traditions of the god Vayu. Iranian Vayu’s associations are not as explicit as those of his Vedic counterpart Vayu, Indra’s comrade, but his associations are with the second (warrior) function. Just as importantly, he is situated between this world and the other, that is between earth and heaven, and thus in the realm of the atmosphere (Duchesne-Guillemin 1962: 179), providing a counterpart to the structure identified by Dumézil. To reconstruct for some stage of proto-Indo-European a system consisting of heaven – atmosphere – earth, however, is to rely on the Indo-Iranian evidence and the one passage from Homer; what has so far not been identified is a third point of comparison from another Indo-European tradition.

HEAVEN – EARTH – SEA Passages from the Rig Veda suggest an alternative system for IndoEuropean mythologies that is likewise tripartite and more empirical in its content and appearance: a triad consisting of heaven – earth – sea/waters. Consider RV 1.139.11 (cf. West 2007: 124) where the realms are given in descending order, reflecting the hierarchy of the three functions:

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You gods who number eleven and dwell with might in heaven, on earth and in the waters, accept this sacrifice, O Gods, with pleasure. or

We invoke the Ādityas, Aditi, (and the gods) who are on the earth, in the waters, and in heaven. (RV 10.65.9) (Geldner 1: 194, 3: 239).

Further examples of the triad are to be found in RV 6.52.15; 7.35.11; 10.49.2. In the later Atharva Veda (AV 10.10.4), we find the following prayer to the sun: In the waters is thy origin, upon the heavens thy home, in the middle of the sea, and upon the earth thy greatness AV 6.80.3; http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/av.htm).5 In a more recent account, the post-Vedic epic of the Mahābhārata (5, 9, 2, et seq.) recounts how the dragon-slayer Indra, warrior par excellence, having committed the sin of slaying the serpent Vrtra (a Brahman), becomes a cosmic fugitive concealing himself in a lotus plant in the watery realm, and a search throughout the upper, earthly and watery divisions of the cosmos is made until he is found by the god Agni (Dumézil 1938: 155-60). Accounts from peripheral Iranian traditions attest that a heavens – earth – waters triad may have been present in Indo-Iranian times as well. Further, recalling the theme of the cosmic fugitive,6 Herodotus (4: 131-2) recounts the meeting between the Persian King Darius and the Scythians, who presented him with a gift of a bird, a mouse and a frog, intended as a warning that he will be relentlessly pursued as if through the celestial, terrestrial and aquatic realms of the visible world: Unless, Persians, ye can turn into birds and fly up into the sky, or become mice and burrow under the ground, or make yourselves frogs, and take refuge in the fens, ye will never make escape from this land, but die pierced by our arrows. (cf. Rawlinson: 350-1)

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Dumézil (1938) draws attention to a second peripheral source, the story of the Armenian god Vahagn (a theonym derived from Iranian dragon-slayer Vrθragna embodying the second function), who, with heaven, earth and sea in tumult, emerges with a flame out of a reed, recalling the story of Indra from the Mahābhārata above. Due to its geographical location in the ancient world, Greece “is a special case for the comparative mythologist” (Puhvel 1987: 126-7). Much in the mythology has been attributed to a pre-Greek cultural substratum, and there are abundant and undeniable “adstratal” elements derived from developed ancient civilizations in neighbouring Anatolia, the Near East and Mesopotamia (West 1997: passim). Predictably, the accounts of the cosmos described or alluded to in Homer, the oldest literary source, are far from consistent. According to Havelock, in addition to the scheme of heaven and earth separated by an intermediary space that we have seen described in the Iliad above, Homer (Iliad 8.13-27; Havelock 1987: 36 ) also provides the components: upper regions – mid-space – earth – sea –Tartarus (the abyss). Havelock observes (51-2) that the most common structure is heaven – sea – Tartarus, which seems to be echoed later by Hesiod. Alternatively, Havelock notes a quadripartite structure, as quoted above, consisting of heaven – sea – underworld (Hades) with the earth distinct and serving as a common ground. Tartarus is conceived of as a deep chasm and a world apart.7 There are numerous further instances in Homer and elsewhere of a specific heaven – earth – sea triad to be considered. For comparative mythologists a source of great interest is the description of Achilles shield (Iliad 18: 483 et seq.), studied primarily as an illustration of the social functions central to Dumézil’s interpretation (cf. Littleton 1973: 206). Preceding these valuable descriptions of dedicated activity we find a concise description of a cosmic system consisting of the heaven – earth – sea triad together with the heavenly bodies: He pictured on it [the shield] earth, heaven, and sea, Unwearied sun, moon waxing, all the stars … (18.483-5). (cf. Fitzgerald 1974: 334). In the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (ll. 496 – 511), Orpheus entertains the heroes with a creation myth in song, describing how

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earth, heaven and sea, once undistinguished, were separated and how the heavenly bodies assumed their places, and the origins of the gods. In Hesiod’s Theogony (677-81), the triad, bracketed by Olympus and Tartarus, is featured in dramatic terms in the Titanomachy – the final battle between Zeus and the Titans: The boundless sea rang terribly around, and the earth crashed loudly: wide heaven was shaken and groaned, and high Olympus reeled from its foundation under the charge of the undying gods, and a heavy quaking reached dim Tartarus. (cf. Evelyn-White 1943: 129). Further on, in Zeus’s epic contest with Typhoeus (820-85), the triad again appears: But he [Zeus] thundered hard and mightily: and the earth around resounded terribly and the wide heaven above, and the sea and Ocean’s streams and the nether parts of the earth. The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea, and the long waves raged along the beaches round and about … (op. cit.: 139-43). Pre-Homeric written sources, namely the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean era, contain theonyms derived from Indo-European, but provide no hints as to an early cosmology. There is, however, an iconographic representation from that period of prehistory where the triad is portrayed. It is a gold ring, known as the “Ring of Minos” found at Knossos, and evidently made in a workshop in Crete 1450 – 1400 BCE – a proposed date compatible with the Mycenaean Linear B tablets discovered at the Palace. It may be the oldest depiction found in Greece of a cosmology inherited from Indo-European times. The representation is clearly a religious one with symbolism well known from other contemporary objects in Crete. It depicts a goddess in what has been interpreted as a three stage “epiphany cycle”. In the first stage she is portrayed in miniature to indicate distance, descending from the heavens; the second stage shows the goddess arrived on earth, sitting on a sacred shrine witnessing a religious ritual of tree

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worship; in the third she is on the water (conventionally represented), steering a boat that transports a shrine. As the authors observe, “the passage of the goddess through the three elements of nature – air, land and sea – symbolically unites the visible world...” (Diomopoulou and Rethemiotakis 2004: 15-19). 1

2

3 Fig. 2. The “Ring of Minos”. Knossos 1450-1400 BCE8

The triad appears as well in oath formulae, attested twice in Homer. In the Odyssey, as Odysseus is preparing to leave Calypso, she swears by the cosmos itself that she will cause him no hardship (Odyssey 5: 1846):9 Now let Earth be my witness, with the broad sky above, and the falling waters of the Styx – the greatest and most solemn oath the blessed gods can take… (cf. Rieu 1946: 92-3). An oath from the Iliad (3: 276 – 80) uttered by the Trojans incorporates the same cosmic triad, but may have different origins from those we would initially suppose: Father Zeus, who rule from Ida, most famed and great, and Sun, who see all and hear all, and Rivers, and Earth, and you who in the netherworld punish dead men who have forsworn themselves, you be witnesses and guard faithful oaths!

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In his study of the passage, Puhvel notes parallels to formulas in Hittite documents requiring to be sealed by an oath, possibly arising from Homeric Trojan and Luwo-Hittite contacts (1992: 265-6). If we accept his suggestion, it may be a unique instance of the cosmological triad surviving from Anatolian traditions. Thus far we have dealt with the Indo-Iranian and Greek traditions from the eastern and central regions of the Indo-European world. The same features of cosmic structure can be identified in traditions of the western periphery, particularly those of Ireland (Shaw: passim). The Táin Bó Cuailnge, “The Cattle Raid of Cooley”, the most famous of the Old Irish epics, contains the following oath (LL version ll. 4731ff.): Unless the firmament with its showers of stars fall upon the surface of the earth, or unless the blue-bordered, fish-abounding sea come over the face of the world, or unless the earth quake ... we shall never… (cf. Sayers 1986: 100) The same formula: heaven – land – sea + heavenly bodies/constellations, that we have encountered in early Greek sources is paralleled in another Medieval Irish text, the Senchas Mór (1, 22 cited in Lincoln 1986: 63) recording claims by the druids to have created the sky, the earth and the sea along with the sun and the moon. In the Germanic world, the components, along with the eschatological overtones of the oath from the Táin, are present in the description of the old Norse Ragnarök, the final battle and the end of the cosmic order, from the Völuspá, “The Sybil’s Prophecy” (cf. Pálsson 1996: 54, 89):10 The sun will turn black, the earth will sink into the sea; bright stars will vanish from the sky. Fires will burn against flames, and immense heat play against heaven itself.

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The above examples, by no means complete, are intended to demonstrate the geographic extent of the heaven – earth – sea model for the cosmos over the Indo-European area, arrived at by comparison and reconstruction. It is a model which at this stage does not exhibit a high degree of sophistication, yet it is worth our while listing the contexts in which it is been found as an indication of its pervasiveness. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Abodes of the gods (Indic) Oaths (Ireland, Greece, [Anatolia]) Cosmic fugitive (I-Ir, Greek) Eschatologies (Celtic, Germanic, Greek (Hesiod’s Theogony)

GEOGRAPHY, MILLENNIA, CO-OCCURRENCE Comparing the apparently simplistic triad arising from comparison with Lyle’s model from structural analysis can only lead to an improved understanding of a likely cosmological structure for some stage of Indo-European. Lyle’s structural model, in my view, contains considerable explanatory power in its ability through interpretation to place spatial data from a number of traditions into a variety of cultural contexts. In this respect, on a theoretical level, it exhibits elegance and is heuristic in its ability to address “deeper issues”. It is capable of elucidating cultural themes and preoccupations in various forms, and can bring out and express consistency within a culture or within a group of related cultures. Being based on the tenets of structuralism, it is capable of clarity and to some extent, replication. The triad of cosmic realms that I have identified here and elsewhere is founded far more on observation and comparison than on motivations arising from a body of theory, and its main foundations will appeal primarily to the comparatist. It is not clear, at present at least, what light it can throw on other aspects of Indo-European tradition, or how it can contribute to more complete understanding of Indo-European ideology. Regarding the Indo-Iranian material cited by Dumézil, we can note, interestingly, that both triads (heaven – atmosphere – earth; heaven – earth – sea) are present in the oldest Indic sources. The same applies to the Iranian sources, sparse as they

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are, if we accept the testimony of the peripheral accounts that have come down through Armenian and ancient Greek. To the comparatist, the appearance of the heaven – earth – sea triad on the far western periphery and its distribution over the east-west axis is important, and may be a sign of relative antiquity; so too, its distribution over genres and contexts, indicating the depth of its integration within a range of traditions. How can we best account for the co-occurrence of two models within the Indo-European area, e.g. Can they be explained geographically or sequenced chronologically? The Greek evidence, specifically that from Homer, seems to support a model for some stage of Indo-European that incorporates a “middle region” between earth and heaven, like that proposed by Dumézil for Indo-Iranian. We should remain aware that there is but a single attestation in Greek, and no third supporting counterpart tradition. There is also the matter, for the Indo-European world, of the relative proximity of the three language groups (Indic, Iranian, Greek) sharing the feature, raising the question as to whether it is one that was inherited from Indo-European, or arose from later cultural contact. Puhvel (1987: 22) reminds us that ‘‘one must be very careful about postulating any genetic Indo-European reconstruct based on, for example, Iranian, Hittite and Greek material, since their mutual contiguities strengthen the probabilities of later contact, secondary interaction, and joint exposure to extraneous influences”. The importance of such contacts from prehistoric times for Greece, and to a lesser extent India, has become increasingly evident recently from the publications of West (1997), with the civilizations of Mesopotamia being a key point of diffusion of religious and literary tradition. West has shown persuasively, for example, that both the Iliad and the Odyssey incorporate borrowings from the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, and points to close parallels between a Hebrew description of Yahweh’s fury and the conflict between Zeus and Typhoeus in Hesiod’s Theogony (op. cit.: 401, 587, 627, 297). No less relevant for our purposes is his observation that a variant of the flood story, known in Babylonia from the mid-second millennium BCE found its way some centuries later east to India and west to Greece (op. cit.: 482). The Mesopotamian plan for the cosmos is described as tripartite, consisting of heaven – earth – sea (Apsu, the subterranean waters), or

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alternatively, heaven – earth – underworld (the realm of the dead). A more detailed version lists an upper, middle, and lower heaven; an upper earth peopled by mankind, with a middle and lower earth below, recalling the Greek Tartarus (op. cit.: 138-9). The cosmological system of the Rig Veda provides a parallel, in that it features three heavens, the lowest one corresponding to our own universe and the others to the two light worlds above (Kramrisch 1962: 149). The multiple realms of heaven arching above the earth known to mankind lead us to wonder whether such a model could explain the 'mid-space' alluded to in the Indo-Iranian and Greek systems, which by one means or another may have been introduced through contact with Mesopotamia. Records attest to an active maritime traffic in goods between Ur and Meluhha, the civilization of the Indus (Oppenheim 1954: 12). Robert Drews (1988: 182 -5) suggests that the arrival of speakers of Proto-Indic in the Indus Valley was via Mesopotamia and thence by sea, following the established trade routes, and a route through Mesopotamia would have provided ample opportunity for cultural contacts. Such contacts are the very language context that Szemerényi (1964 passim) advances to explain the reduction of the Indo-European 5-vowel system to a simpler one of three vowels for Indo-Iranian, noting that the reduced system is identical to that of Semitic (Akkadian), and may well result from language contact (cf. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov 1995: 809). For an alternative explanation, we can turn to models proposed for the early history of Indo-European itself. When models arrived at by comparison for (proto-) Indo-European can reflect at least two and up to five millennia of prehistory before the appearance of the first written sources, change and evolution in the religious system(s), whether unified or loosely linked, is a certainty. Such a time frame easily allows for the coexistence or sequencing of two or more cosmological systems. Following the spatial and derivational model of Indo-European dialect formation developed by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995: 363, 850-1), Indo-Iranian and Greek, along with Armenian, at one time formed a distinct group, within which there was ample time for a variant cosmological system to develop alongside the inherited one, and to persist into the earliest recorded verse in Indic and Greek.11 Whether such a development during the time of a Greek- Indo-Iranian dialect grouping would go as far back

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as an original creation myth describing the separation of earth and heavens cannot be determined from the evidence that survives. The system later to be recorded in Celtic and Germanic traditions may have entered Europe sometime during the third millennium BCE from a “secondary homeland” in the northern Black Sea and Volga region (op. cit.: 836-7, 844, 850-1).

EXTENDING SPACE WITH A FOURTH FUNCTION Allan (1987; 1996) in his discussion of Dumézil’s scheme has proposed that a fourth function, designated by him as F4, should be added. Allen’s fourth function is not identical to the trivalent function described by Lyle, but is similar in that both propose to enhance and extend Dumézil’s system, rather than challenge it. Allen’s F4, which he perceives as containing positive (F4+) as well as negative (F4-) aspects, is intended to deal with “otherness”: that which is beyond or outside the tripartite scheme (Allen 1987: 28; 1996: 13-15; cf. Shaw 2007: 268). As he hints (1996: 32), literatures of the Indo-European peoples abound in references to the unknown, the unperceived, and the forces of chaos. The applications of a function of “otherness” or “remoteness” can be readily seen in the cosmology of the Rig Veda, where Indra in the act of creation separated existence (sat) from nonexistence (asat). Sat is “the manifest cosmos”, the tridhātu; asat is outside of the realm of existence and is portrayed as “the Rig Vedic equivalent of hell” (Kramrisch 1962: 140-5). Speculations regarding the Otherworld frequently include the realm of the dead, and descriptions of this realm across Indo-European cultures display some consistent traits. A typical one is found in the Odyssey (4.563-69) where Proteus addresses Menelaus: It is not ordained by the gods for you, O Menelaos, beloved of Zeus, To die in the Argive fields and reach your fate, But the immortals will lead you to the Elysian field At the ends of the earth, where fair-haired Rhadamanthys dwells And where life is most free from care for men. There is neither snow, nor much of cold, nor rain,

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But always Okeanos rouses blasts of the whistling-breathed Zephyr to cool men, For you possess Helen; and to the gods are a son-in-law of Zeus (cf. Lincoln 1981: 237) The portrayal of the realm of the dead as a place of joy is commonplace across the Indo-European world (op. cit.: 239), providing a good fit with Allen’s F4+. Greek and Hittite sources agree in depicting it as a flowered meadow, often abounding in colts, and in some cases relegated to an elite (Puhvel 1969; 1987: 138-9). The dwelling of the god of death, Yamá, in the Rig Veda also features a pastureland as well as further positive aspects of human existence: “feasting, light, beauty and happiness” (Lincoln 1981: 227). The Irish Otherworld, Mag Mell, “the Plain of Delight”, is characterized in a remarkably similar way. A woman describes to the voyager Bran Otherworld islands that lie over the sea, free of the physical trials and social ills of this world, covered in flowers and abundant livestock (Rees and Rees 1961: 314-15). A similar picture of an afterlife paradise is found in a late Icelandic saga (Hervarsaga), depicting a “shining meadow” where old age and sickness are absent; in the medieval account by the Dane Saxo Grammaticus, during King Hadding’s visit to the underworld, although it is winter, he is led to a sunny realm with abundant herbs (Lincoln 1981: 231; Turville-Petre 1964: 214). The god associated with the realm of the dead in the Hervarsaga is the god Ymir, often compared to the Vedic Yamá; both theonyms derive from IE *yemo- “twin”, reflecting an old IndoEuropean cosmogonic myth (Lincoln 1981: 238-9 et passim). The parallels for the ruler of the dead also extend to the Celtic world and the god Donn of medieval Irish traditions (Rees and Rees 1961: 1078). Donn’s name means “dark” or “obscure” and his realm, tech Duinn, “the house of Donn”, is situated to the south of Ireland. His world serves as a common ground for the dead; in his words: Cucum dom thig tíssaid uili / íar bar n-écaibh (“to me, to my house you shall all come after your deaths”) (op. cit.: 97) recalling a famous passage from the Rig Veda (10. 14):

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Yamá first found the way for us; this cattle pasture is not to be borne away from us; Where our fathers of old [have gone], by this path those who are born after, themselves should go. (cf. Lincoln 1981: 226). There may also be an echo of a communal aspect of the realm of the dead in Greek sources. Puhvel (1987: 109) ingeniously proposes for Greek Hades an Indo-European etymology, supported by linguistic parallels from Indic and Slavic, with the meaning of “Uniter” where all are gathered together. The afterlife had its negative (F4-) aspects as well for IndoEuropeans. We need only recall the descriptions in the Nekuya, “Book of the Dead” (Book 11 of the Odyssey) of Odysseus’s visit to the halls of Hades with its gloom, insubstantiality and adversity. The Old Norse account of Hel in Snorri Sturlasson’s Gylfaginning is hardly more attractive, with its allusions to dampness, hunger, obstacles and misfortune (Lindow 2002: 172). That paradisiacal and infernal portrayals of the abode of the dead should co-occur across a number of Indo-European traditions has led some to question whether they actually refer to the same Otherworld (Lincoln 1981: 240). I would maintain that they are merely positive and negative aspects of “otherness” such as occur elsewhere in the Indo-European world. Reconstruction from the widely distributed Indo-European traditions reviewed yields a scheme for Indo-European cosmic structure on the vertical plane that can be expressed below: F4+ Otherworld Positive Heaven (F1) Earth (F2) Sea/Water (F3) F4- Otherworld Negative We have seen that an alternative triad exists in some Indo-Iranian sources and in Greek where F2 is associated with the atmosphere and F3 with the earth and/or what lies below its surface. As for the heaven – earth – sea triad, comparisons between traditions indicate that it is to be understood as the world open to direct perception, and in that sense is primarily empirical. This empirical nature is evidenced by

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reference, direct or indirect, to the sensory modalities associated with the triad. In the Theomachy of Hesiod’s Theogony the cosmic drama is expressed through visual, auditory, and tactile sensory modalities. The Armenian Moses of Khoren’s account of heaven, earth and purple sea in travail during the birth of Vahagn provides a parallel, though with less detail. In the Gaelic world of Scotland and Ireland, as I have shown elsewhere, the same three sensory modalities are featured in the group of folktales incorporating ordered formulae and derived from a pre-Christian eschatological myth (Shaw 2007: passim). Our scheme is intended to account for the major features of IndoEuropean cosmology that have come down to us, fragmentary as they are. Within each tradition there will be inevitable questions regarding the compatibility of the evidence with a scheme of this kind, and we must be prepared to regard such evidence, across traditions or within a single tradition, as reflecting multiple points in time over millennia. John Shaw is an Honorary Fellow at the Department of Celtic and Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh; [email protected]

Notes 1

For a summary of Dumézil’s tripartite system, see Littleton (1973: 217); Lyle (1990: 6-7).

2

Allan (1987: 28) points out that Dumézil, also “sometimes recognizes representatives of the totality per se”.

3

Cf. Dumézil (1948: 201-2) who provides a version of a similar distribution of the cosmic realms among the gods by lot from the mythographer Apollodorus: Zeus receives the heavens, Poseidon the sea and Pluto Hades.

4

Cf. the three leaps of the Irish St Moling with the Indic parallels in Rees and Rees (1961: 76-9).

5

Cf. AV 10.10.4 where heaven, earth and the waters are preserved by a cow (Dillon 1975: 123).

6

The theme and its tripartite cosmological context have also been identified in Greek, Germanic and Celtic. See Shaw (2007: 263, 267).

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7

Cf. West (1997: 137) for a similar survey.

8

Illustration: http://stigmes.gr/br/brpages/articles/minosring.htm

9

See also Il 15, 36-38; Homeric hymn to Apollo 84-86.

10 Cf. the description in Völuspá 3 of the creation of the world: “There was not sand nor sea nor the cool waves; earth was nowhere nor heaven above; Ginnunga Gap there was, but grass nowhere.” (quoted in West 2007: 356). 11 With regard to cultural/linguistic contacts and a Greek-Indo-IranianArmenian dialect area of IE, it is instructive to consider the IEMesopotamian (Semitic) lexical correspondence Greek pélekus: Sanskrit paraśú: Akkadian pilakku “axe” which due to its root formation Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995:620, 771) regard as originally a Semitic word borrowed into this IE dialect group.

References Allen, N. J. (1987). The Ideology of the Indo-Europeans: Dumézil’s theory and the Idea of a Fourth Function. International Journal of Moral and Social Sciences 2(1), 23-39. ---- (1996). Romulus and the Fourth Function. In Indo-European Religion after Dumézil. Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series 16, ed. Edgar Polomé, pp. 13-36. Apollonius of Rhodes. Argonautica (2008). William H. Race, ed. and tr. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press. Atharva Veda = Hymns of the Atharva Veda (1897). Bloomfield, Maurice, tr. Sacred Books of the East vol. 42. Oxford: Clarendon Press. http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/av.htm Dillon, Myles (1975). Celts and Aryans: Survivals of Indo-European Speech and Society. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study. Dimopoulou, Nota and Yorgos Rethemiotakis (2004). The Ring of Minos. Athens: Ministry of Culture. Drews, Robert (1988). The Coming of the Greeks. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Duchesne-Guillemin, Jacques (1962). La religion de l’Iran ancien. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

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Dumézil, Georges (1938). Vahagn. 117(2), 152-70.

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---- (1948). Mitra-Varuna. Paris: Gallimard. ---- (1995). Mythe et Épopée I.II.III. Paris: Éditions Gallimard. Gamkrelidze Tomas and Vjačeslav Ivanov (1995). Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Havelock, Eric A. (1987). The Cosmic Myths of Homer and Hesiod. Oral Tradition 2(1), 31-53. Herodotus. Histories. 1996 [1858]. George Rawlinson, tr. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. Hesiod. Theogony. In Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Hugh G. Evelyn-White, tr. (1943). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Homer. The Iliad (1974). Robert Fitzgerald, tr. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ----. The Odyssey (1946) E.V. Rieu, tr. London: Penguin Books. Kramrisch, Stella (1962). The Triple Structure of Creation in the Rg Veda. History of Religions 2(1), 140-75. Lincoln, Bruce (1981). The Lord of the Dead. History of Religions 20(3), 224-41. ---- (1986). Myth, Cosmos and Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Lindow, John (2002). Norse Mythology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Littleton, C. Scott (1973). The New Comparative Mythology. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: The University of California Press. Lyle, Emily (1990). Archaic Cosmos: Polarity, Space and Time. Edinburgh: Polygon. Mahābhārata (2009). John D. Smith, tr. London: Penguin Classics. Mallory, James P. and D. Q. Adams, eds (1997). Encyclopedia of IndoEuropean Culture. London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. Oppenheim A. L. (1954). The Seafaring Merchants of Ur. Journal of the American Oriental Society 74(1), 6-17. Pálsson, Hermann (1996). Völuspá: The Sibyl's Prophecy. Edinburgh: Lockharton Press.

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Puhvel, Jaan (1969). “Meadow of the Otherworld” in Indo-European tradition. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 85, 64-9. ---- (1987). Comparative Mythology. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ---- (1992). Philology and etymology, with focus on Anatolian. In Reconstructing Languages and Cultures, ed. Edgar C. Polomé, Werner Winter, pp. 261-70. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Rees, Alwyn and Brinley Rees (1961). Celtic Heritage. Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales. London: Thames and Hudson. RV = Der Rig-Veda (1951). Karl Friedrich Geldner, tr. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Sayers, William (1986). ‘Mani maidi an nem.’: Ringing Changes on a Cosmic Motif. Ériu 37: 99-117. Senchas Már. Ancient Laws of Ireland (1865-1901). 6 vols. Dublin and London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green. Shaw, John (2007). A Gaelic Eschatological Folktale, Celtic Cosmology and Dumézil’s “Three Realms”. Journal of Indo-European Studies 35(3-4), 254-73. Sturluson, Snorri (c. 1220; 1971). The prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology. Jean I. Young, tr. Berkeley, Calif.; London: University of California Press. Szemerényi, Oswald (1964). Structuralism and Substratum – Indo-Europeans and Semites in the Ancient Near East. Lingua 13, 1-29. The Tain (1970). Thomas Kinsella, tr. London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Turville-Petre, E. O. G. (1964). Myth and Religion of the North. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. West, Martin L. (1997). The East Face of Helicon. West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ---- (2007). Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.