Indo-European Mythology and Religion
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religious relations between the several Indo-European
cultures that extended in antiquity from Crete in the west
to the Indus Valley in the east.
***
I. The Origins of the Dionysiac Religion
If we attempt to identify the geographical location wherein
the widespread Dionysiac mythology was first developed,
we find that the name Zagreus used by the Cretans for
Dionysus (the Zeus that finds himself in the Underworld)
points to a Near Eastern origin of this god since it must
have been derived from the Zagros mountain range –
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which is a southern extension of the Caucasus beginning
in southeastern Turkey and running southwards between
Iraq and Iran. As this mountain range is also the region
in which Mt. Ararat is situated and the latter is general y
identified by the ancients as the resting place of the boat
that saves the First Man (‘Noah’, in Genesis 6-9), we may
assume that this is the cradle of the entire Indo-European
cosmological theology from which arose the several
variant mythologies that spread from there eastwards and
westwards.
We may recall also that, in the Indian Purānas, the
process of developing life on our earth is supervised by
the First Man, or Manu, and that the latter is described
in the Bhāgavata Purāna VIII,24, as being the King of
‘Drāvida’. This Manu is responsible for the continuance of
mankind on the earth as well as for its spiritual evolution.
In this task, he is assisted by seven Sages, who represent
the wisdom and culture of enlightened man and are
considered to be the ancestors of the Brāhmans. We
may, therefore, assume thus that the entire cosmological
mythology behind the Dionysiac religion, as well as of the
Brāhmanical religion of India, is the legacy of a proto-
Dravidian race.
As regards the proto-Dravidian folk, we may
remember Lahovary’s pioneering research into the
Mediterranean people, which he identified with the
Dravidian, as being the original inhabitants of the ancient
Near East ‘in its largest meaning’, that is, including
Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Caucasia, Persia,
Mesopotamia with its extensions towards India, as
well as Arabia and the African regions facing Arabia,
i.e. from the Nile valley to the high tablelands of East
Africa.436
436 See N. Lahovary, tr. K.A. Nilakantan, Dravidian Origins, p.2.
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Lahovary goes on to remark that
It was from this world of Anterior Asia, where the
foundations of civilization had been already laid,
that the bearers of the neolithic and chalcolithic
civilizations of the Near East spread, by successive
migrations, in general of relatively small groups,
over a period of more than three thousand years,
first towards North-East Africa, and later, during
the fourth, third and second millennium, towards
Europe.437
It is possible that one of the earliest regions to be settled
by the proto-Dravidians from neighbouring Armenia
was Anatolia. This is suggested by the great antiquity of
the Neolithic archaeological finds at Çatal Hüyük in (ca.
7th millennium B.C.). The civilisation of Syro-Palestine
may be even as old as that of Anatolia since settlements in
Jordan are traceable from the late 7th millennium B.C. and
in Byblos from the 6th.438
The early neolithic/chalcolithic sites of Yarim Tepe II
(7th millennium B.C.) in northern Iraq give some evidence
of fire rituals in connection with funerary practices and
fire-rituals signal an ethnic group associated with the
Indian and Iranian Āryans.439 The chalcolithic sites (ca.
5000 B.C.) of northern Mesopotamia also provide similar
evidence and these may point to the presences of early
Vedic peoples, whom we might call proto-Āryan.
437 For the possible relation of the proto-Dravidians to the Druids, see A. Jacob, Brahman, Ch.VI.
438 See G.W. Ahlstrom, Ancient Palestine; J. Cauvin, Religions néolithiques,1972; S.A. Cook, op.cit . For Jericho, see K.M. Kenyon, Digging up Jericho.
439 See P. Charvat, Mesopotamia Before History, p.90.
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Charvat has also recently revealed that the
fundamental social and religious forms of later
Mesopotamian culture, including that of Uruk, are evident
already in embryonic form in the early chalcolithic sites of
northern Mesopotamia.440 Crematory practices associated
with fire-rituals are noticed here441 and Tell Arpachiyah
(TT6) also gives the first evidence of the use of the white-
red-black colour triad which persists from chalcolithic
times to Uruk442 and is representative of three of the four
castes—the brāhman, kshatriya, and vaisya—amongst the
Indo-Āryans.443
The proto-Dravidians are most probably identifiable
with the proto-Hurrians. The Hurrians spoke a language
that possessed Dravidian characteristics and F. Bork444
and G.W. Brown445 have revealed the intimate linguistic
relationship between Hurrian (along with its Mitanni
dialect),446 Elamite, and Dravidian. The Hurrians, who are
found widespread throughout the ancient Near East, are
closely associated with the Indo-Āryans as well as with the
Hittites in the seventeenth century B.C. So we may assume
440 Ibid., pp.92,96.
441 Ibid. , pp.45,90.
442 Ibid. , p.92. This triad corresponds to the three basic energies in Indian philosophy, Tamas, Rajas, Sattva.
443 See, for instance, BrdP I,ii,15,18ff. The Vaisya caste is in India represented by the colour yellow since black denotes the shūdra caste.
The absence of yellow in the pottery of this period suggests that the original “caste”-system of the Hurrians was a tripartite one comprised of priests, warriors and agriculturists (these are the same as the three
“castes” mentioned in the Iranian Farvardin Yasht XIII,88).
444 See F. Bork, “Die Mitanni Sprache”, MVAG, I and II, 1909.
445 See G.W. Brown, “The Possibility of a Connection between
Mitanni and the Dravidian languages”, JAOS, 50 (1930), pp.273-305 .
446 For the dialectal relationship between the language of Tushratta’s letter to Amenophis III and Hurrian, see Knudtzon, Die el-Amarna Tafeln, no.24; cf. S. Smith, op.cit. , p.71; cf.
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that the Hurrians formed an integral part of the original
Āryans – Indians, Iranians and also Hittites.
In the eastern Mediterranean, the possibility that
Anatolia was the source of the Cretan and Greek religious
culture was suggested early by Arthur Evans, who
considered Crete,447 in its Neolithic period, to be merely
“an insular offshoot of an extensive Anatolian province”.448
A Linear B tablet of the 14th century B.C. from Knossos
also mentions the name ‘Ionians’ before the Dorians
dominated Crete.449 A.B. Cook too surmised that
Th
is name [Zagreus], we may suppose, travelled
from Mesopotamia, via Phoinike, to Crete at about
the same time and along much the same route as the
Assyrian influences manifest in [a bronze shield found
in the Idaean Cave in Crete dating from the eighth or
ninth century B.C.]. From Crete it would readily pass
to Argos, and so northwards to the rest of Greece.450
Further, the Cretan Zeus was original y called Kouros.451
This would be related to the term ‘kur’ (mountain) applied
to the Sumerian god of Wind, Enlil, as well as to his son,
Ninurta.
When we explore the rise of the Indic civilisation
around the Indus Valley, we note that the first settlements
in Afghanistan resembling those of Elam (western Iran)
and the Indus Valley are from ca.3000 B.C. in Mundigak,
447 See A.B. Cook, Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, (1914-25), I:644ff.; cf. M.L. West, The Orphic Poems, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, p.50.
448 Quoted in G. Childe, The Dawn of European Civilization, p.17.
449 M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek: Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 1973, p. 547.
450 See A.B. Cook, Zeus, I:651.
451 See M.L. West, op.cit. , p.131. 215
indo-european mythology and religion
which is somewhat later than that of the Sumerian Uruk
civilisation. From 2200-1700 B.C., there is clear evidence
of typical Indo-Āryan settlement in the BMAC complex,
which is not far north of Mundigak. It is difficult to
determine whether these Āryans represent a continuation
of the early Elamite Hurrians of Mundigak or are new
immigrants from the Andronovo culture (1800-900 B.C.)
north-east of the Aral Sea that is associated with the Indo-
Āryans. The latter is indeed the more probable.452
Of the three Noachidian tribes mentioned in the
‘Table of Nations’ in Genesis 10, Japhetic, Semitic and
Hamitic, the Japhetic or Āryan seem to have moved
northwards to the Pontic-Caspian steppes to create
the Yamnaya culture there (3300-2600 B.C.), which is
considered the major source of the Āryan tribes.453 The
Andronovo culture of the Indo-Āryans is itself derived
from the Hut Grave and Catacomb Grave culture of 2800-
2000 B.C. and the Sintashta culture of the southeast Urals
(2300-1900 B.C.),454 which may have been proto-Āryan
rather than proto-Indo-Āryan. The fact that there is clear
evidence of fire-worship in the BMAC and little evidence
of it in Mundigak suggests that the former is derived from
the Andronovo rather than from the Elamite colonies.
Elaborate fire altars are evident in the ruins of the BMAC
complex which correspond to the Āryan fire-sacrifices.
The temples also contain rooms with “all the necessary
apparatus for the preparation of drinks extracted from
poppy, hemp and ephedra” that may have been used for
452 Andronovo type pottery has been found in the early layers of Margiana (see A. Parpola, “The problem of the Aryans and the soma”, in G. Erdosy (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p.363).
453 See A. Parpola, Ibid. , p.356.
454 See J.P. Mallory and VH. Mair, The Tarim Mummies, p.260f.
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the soma-rituals.455 The BMAC may have thus been the
centre of cultural contact between the proto-Dravidian/
Hurrian peoples of Mundigak and the later Indo-Āryans.
The Indo-Āryan, both the Vedic Indians and the
Avestan Iranians, seem original y to have been nomadic
peoples, as is attested by the language of the Old Avesta,
wherein the cosmos is viewed as an enormous tent.456 We
may remember also Megasthenes’ report that
The Indians were in old times nomadic, like those
Scythians who did not till the soil, but roamed about
in their wagons, as the seasons varied, from one
part of Scythia to another, neither dwelling in towns
nor worshipping in temples;457 and that the Indians
likewise had neither towns nor temples of the gods,
but were so barbarous that they wore the skins of such
wild animals as they could kill … they subsisted also
on such wild animals as they could catch, eating the
flesh raw, - before, at least, the coming of Dionysus
into India. Dionysus, however, when he came and had
conquered the people, founded cities and gave laws to
these cities, and introduced the use of wine among the
Indians, as he had done among the Greeks, and taught
them to sow the land, himself supplying seeds for the
purpose … It is also said that Dionysus first yoked
oxen to the plough, and made many of the Indians
husbandmen instead of nomads, and furnished them
with the implements of agriculture; and that the
Indians worship the other gods, and Dionysus himself
in particular, with cymbals and drums, because he so
455 Ibid., p.262.
456 See P.O. Skjaervo, “The Avesta as source for the early history of the Iranians”, in G. Erdosy (ed.), op.cit., p.168.
457 The fact that the Scythians did not build temples or worship divine images is mentioned also by Herodotus, Histories, I,131.
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taught them … and that he instructed the Indians to
let their hair grow long in honour of the god ….458
Since Dionysus belongs to the tradition of a reviving god
prevalent in the Near East and Crete, we may assume that
the cultural contact being referred to by Megasthenes
is that between the early Scythian settlers of India and
Elamite Dravidians/Hurrians from the Zagros region.
Though the Orphic religion derived from the Dionysiac is
itself not attested much earlier than the 6th B.C., the name
of the god Dionysus, as we have noted above, is mentioned
already in a Mycenean Linear B tablet from the Bronze
Age.
Even the Indic Vedic culture itself seems to have been
developed by the Indo-Āryans after an original sojourn in
Iranian lands. This is suggested by the greater elaboration
of the name of the god ‘Tvoreshtar’ amongst the Iranians
—representing the older religion of the proto-Āryans—
compared to the shorter Vedic ‘Tvashtr’.459
The Mitanni, who were Indo-Āryans who called
themselves ‘kings of the Hurrians’ in northern Syria and
eastern Anatolia in the 16th century B.C. may also have
been derived from an early westward migration of the
BMAC folk in Afghanistan. The first coherent list of Indic
gods indeed appears in the treaty of the Mitanni-Hurrian
king Šattiwaza and the Hittite king Šuppililiumas I dating
from the sixteenth century B.C., which includes the names
Mitra-Varuna, Indra, and Nāsatyas.460 It is important to
458 See Arrian, Indica, VII (in R.C. Majumdar, The Classical Accounts of India, Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, p.220f.).
459 Cf. A. Jacob, “Cosmology and Ethics in the Religions of the
Peoples of the Ancient Near East”, Mankind Quarterly 140, no.1 (Fall 1999), p.96. .
460 The text (CTH 51 and 52 (see D. Yosh
ida, op.cit., p.12; cf. V. Haas, Geschichte, p.543) reads “Dingir MešMitraššiel, Dingir MešUruwanaššiel, DIndar, Dingir MešNašattiyana”, where the uncertain suffix “šiel” may be a dual 218
alexander jacob
note that the Hurro-Akkadian version of the Lord of the
Waters among the Mitanni is ‘Uruwana’ or ‘Aruna’. The
similarity of ‘Uruwana’ to the Greek “Ouranos” is evident.
And in the Vedic Gopatha Brāhmana, I,1,7, Varana461 is the secret form of the name Varuna.462 The form ‘Aruna’ is also
related to the Hittite term for ‘ocean’ ‘arunas’.463
Although the importance of fire-worship is typical of
the Vedic Indo-Āryans and the Avestan Iranians, there
is as yet not much evidence of fire-worship among the
Mitanni Hurrians. It should also be remembered that
the fire-worship of the Indo-Āryans is employed in the
celebration of deities who are little different from those of
the solar religions of the Sumerians or Egyptians. In the
Sumerian religion too, the chief sky-god An is equated to
Girra, the fire-god (in an Assyrian exegetical text)464 and
Re in Egypt is the same as the solar force, Agni. So that it
is possible that the adoration of the solar force as divine
fire may have been an integral part of the original proto-
Dravidian religion that was shared by Semites, Hamites,
and Japhetites. But the actual fire-rituals may have been
preserved more careful y by the Japhetic Indo-Āryan
stock that had migrated at a very early date northwards
to the Yamnaya and Andronovo cultures whence they
moved southwards again later, in the second millennium
B.C., towards northern Mesopotamia, Iran, and India.
indicator.
461 Following the example of the Latin pronunciation, we may assume that the original Sanskrit of this region also favoured the “u” sound for the phoneme later transcribed with a “v”.
462 “being Varana, he is mystical y called Varuna, because the gods love mysticism” (see U. Chouduri, op.cit., p.95).
463 See G. Wilhelm, “Meer” in RLA VIII:3.
464 RA 62-52,17-8 (see A. Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Texts of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholar s, Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, p.74).
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Pargiter suggested that the Brāhmanical institution
was original y Dravidian and considerably transformed
by the Āryans. While the original [proto-] Dravidian
priesthood was characterised by the practice of yogic