Indo-European Mythology and Religion
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austerities (tapas) which gave them magical powers,
the Āryan seem to have been preoccupied with the
performance of sacrifices, especial y revolving around the
worship of fire.465 The Indo-Āryan religion thus seems to
have combined the ancient proto-Dravidian wisdom of
the Elamite/Mesopotamian Hurrians with more northerly
fire and soma-rituals and horse-sacrifices. Also, the
original proto-Dravidian or Noachidian wisdom466 is
best preserved in the cultivated [sanskrit=refined] and
inflected language of the upper castes of the Indo-Āryans.
As for the modern Dravidians (whom we may call
Tamils, to distinguish them from the proto-Dravidians),
the historical evidence of their entrance into South
India is of relatively recent date, perhaps around the 13th
century B.C. This means that there are only a few dim
hints of the Near Eastern origins of the Dravidian peoples
in the earliest archaeology and literature of South India.
The earliest archaeological evidence (ca. 1200-80 B.C.)
of the entrance of the Tamils into South India is from
dolmen burial sites in Adichanal ur (similar to those
in Palestine and Cyprus), where some of the finds such
as golden “mouth-pieces”, bronze representations of
cocks and spear-heads may be related to the worship of
Muruga/Marduk/Ninurta.467 The megalithic graves of the
465 See F.E. Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, London: Milford, 1922, p.308f.
466 That the biblical Noah, a descendant of Adam’s son, Seth,
represents the wisdom of Seth is evident from the Gnostic tradition (see G.G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology, Leiden:E.J. Bril , 1984, p.107).
467 See K. Zvelebil, Tamil Traditions on Subrahmanya-Murugan, Madras: Institute of Asian Studies, 1991, p.75f.
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Madurai district dating from around 1000 B.C. also reveal
resemblances to the early Iron Age graves of the Caucasus
and the Central Iranian Sialk Necropolis B.468
II. The Dionysiac Theogony
In order to decipher the nature of the principal deities
associated with the Dionysiac religion, we must study the
original cosmological theogony of the Indo-Europeans.
This is especial y necessary in view of the fact that even a
significant Indologist like Alain Daniélou has, in spite of
his several fascinating studies of Shaivism,469 expressed the
rather misleading view that Shaivism—which he considers
the Indic counterpart of the Dionysiac religion—‘is
essential y a nature religion.’470 In fact, Shaivism and Yoga
are the bases of all the major Dravidian and Āryan religio-
philosophical systems of India and they are derived not
from an adoration of natural phenomena but from a
spiritual vision of the formation of the cosmos and of its
reflection in the human microcosm.
The ancient Indo-European cosmogony—which
I have reconstructed in my work Ātman 471—begins
468 See B. and R. Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968, p.230.
469 See (in translation) A. Daniélou, Shiva and Dionysus: The Omnipresent Gods of Transcendence and Ecstasy, London: East-West Publications, 1982; (revised edition) Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus, N.Y.: Inner Traditions, 1992; Shiva and the Primordial Tradition: From the Tantra to the Science of Dreams, N.Y.: Inner Traditions, 2006.
470 Alain Daniélou, Gods, p.15.
471 For a full reconstruction of this cosmology see A. Jacob, Ātman: 221
indo-european mythology and religion
after the cosmic deluge that ended the first cosmic age
(kalpa), when the Divine Soul/Self (Ātman) present
within the cosmic ocean gradual y recreates the cosmos
by first assuming the form of an Ideal Macroanthropos
(Purusha). The breath or life-force (Vāyu/Wotan) of this
macroanthropos first unites with the matter of the cosmic
ocean to form a closely united complex of Heaven (the
substance of the Purusha) and Earth. But the temporal
aspect (Kāla, Chronos/Shiva) of the rapidly moving
breath or wind also separates the two elements, an event
represented as a castration of the Purusha. The semen that
fal s from the castrated phal us impregnates the Purusha
himself with a cosmic Egg from which emerges the
manifest cosmos comprised, again, of Earthly substance
and Heavenly light (Brahman). This luminous Brahman is
also represented anthropomorphical y as a Cosmic Man.
However, this light that is represented in
anthropomorphic form continues to possess a stormy
quality that is a persistence of Chronos in the manifest
cosmos. The violence of Chronos (Hurrian: Kumarbi),
who caused the castration of the Ideal Man, persists
particularly in the turbulent nature (Angra Manyu) of his
offspring, Ganesha/Zeus/Teshup.472 This force castrates
the anthropomorphic Light and forces it to descend to the
lower regions of Earth (the ‘Underworld’), where it lies
moribund as Osiris/Varuna.
A Reconstruction of the Solar Cosmology of the Indo-Europeans, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2005.
472 This attack on the initial Light of the cosmos may be reflected in the speculation of modern astronomers too that the first gigantic firebal , as the source of all the suns of the incipient universe (or ‘Mid-region’, between ‘Heaven’ and ‘Earth’), col apsed after about 3 million years and thus created the seeds for all the future stars and solar systems of the universe (see T. Folger, “The real Big Bang”, Discover, Dec. 2002, p.45).
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However, the same storm-force represented by Zeus
has, in its assault on the manifest Light, swallowed the
divine phal us and eventual y revives the moribund Light
in the Underworld and its sexual potency. Infused with the
divine ‘soma’, Zeus/Indra emerges as a universal phal us
(or Tree) of Life that separates the substance of Earth (the
Underworld) into the nether and heavenly edges of our
own universe and rises through the cleft between them
into the ‘mid-region’ of the stars. The seed of this newly
erect universal phal us is then emitted within our galaxy –
first as the moon, and then, at the top of the Tree/Phal us.
as the sun. It is this divine seed that is deified as Dionysus/
Skanda/Muruga.
A: Zeus in the Primal Cosmos
When we turn to the individual gods of the ancient
Indo-European pantheon, we find that the god Zeus is
recognisable under different names among the Hurrians
as well as the Mesopotamians, Egyptians, and Indians.473
Since the proto-Hurrians are closely associable with
the proto-Dravidians, we may consider the Hurrian
mythology first in order to comprehend the nature of the
gods Zeus/Ganesha and Dionysus/Skanda (Muruga).
In the Hurrian epic of the ‘Kingship in Heaven’, one
of the offspring formed in Kumarbi’s bel y when Kumarbi
473 The Hebrew god Yahweh is the same god as Zeus but robbed of his original cosmological significance by the Hebrews who made him the focus of a new, strictly tribal, monotheism. The Abrahami
c aversion to cosmological religion is evident from the references in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, I,157 and Philo the Jew’s De mutatione nominum, 72-6. The identity of Yahweh to the storm-gods under consideration is confirmed by the “wrathful” nature frequently attributed to him in the OT (see.
A.R.W. Green, The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East, Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003, Ch.IV). 223
indo-european mythology and religion
(Chronos)474 bites off the genitals of the sky-god An is
Teshup, the Weather-god,475 along with the other gods
of the Mid-region including Ta-shmishu (Suwalliyat,
the sun-god), and Marduk. All of these three major
Hurrian gods are intimately related to, and sometimes
indistinguishable from, one another. Teshup is indeed
regularly coupled with his “pure brother” Suwalliyat, just
as the Akkadian Adad476 is with Shamash.
Teshup is not merely a son of Kumarbi, but also of his
‘grandfather’ An (Heaven/Ouranos), since it is the latter’s
seed that is preserved in Kumarbi when Kumarbi bites off
An’s genitals. Teshup’s mother is thus said to have been
Earth,477 who is the consort of Heaven.
Just as Seth in Egypt is represented as having ‘felled
the sky’478 and dragged Osiris down into the Underworld
of Earth, and just as Zeus, in the Orphic theogony,479
swallows Phanes, the divine Light, or his genitals, their
Hurrian counterpart Teshup uses a sickle (much like that
used by Kumarbi to castrate An) to sever the phal us of
Heaven, Ullikummi, from off the shoulders of the giant
Uppel uri (Atlas) who bears Heaven and Earth. The
figure of Uppel uri represents the Cosmic Egg constituted
of Heaven and Earth and the severing of the “stone”
474 Chronos is the same as the Canaanite god El who was original y worshipped by the Hebrews as wel . This is clear from the Phoenician (=Canaanite) mythology reported by Sanchuniathon in the work of
Philo of Byblos cited in Eusebius’ Praeparatio evangelica (i.9; iv.16).
475 Teshup is the Hurrian form of the earlier Hattian deity adored in the form of a bul , Taru, Taurit (see V. Haas, Geschichte der hethitischen Religion, Leiden: E.J. Bril , 1994, p.322).
476 See below.
477 Text Ib9 of the epic (see H.G. Güterbock, Kumarbi, Istanbuler Schriften, 16, 1946. p.87).
478 Pap. Bremner-Rhind, 5,7,8 (see H. Te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion, p.85).
479 See M.L. West, The Orphic Poems, p.85.
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Ullikummi from it denotes Teshup’s seizure of the phal us
of An (Heaven/Ouranos) from it. From the Orphic
evidence considered below, we may assume that Teshup
final y swallows this phal us so that the universal life that
it contains moves into his own body.
The storm-force represented by Teshup also
encourages the resurgence of the solar energy in the form
of the incipient sun of our system. In the cuneiform treaty
of alliance between Hattusilis and Rameses II, Shamash
(the Akkadian original of the Hurrian Tashmishu/
Suwalliyat) and Teshup are mentioned in the same way as
Shamash and Adad in Assyria are.480 The “vizier” [brother]
of Teshup is said to be Ninurta [Marduk],481 The solar
gods (Ninurta/Marduk and Tashmishu) and the weather-
god (Teshup) are thus two aspects of the same deity and
co-operate in the formation of the sun of our system.
That is why the two are often considered as dual deities
(Tashmishu-Teshup/Shamash-Adad).
When we turn to the Greek Theogony of Hesiod,
the castration of Ouranos is followed by the reign of
his enemy Chronos (who, in the Orphic Theogony is
responsible for the birth of the cosmic Light of Phanes
from the Egg formed in the body of Ouranos as Ideal
Man).482 Unfortunately, Chronos has an alarming habit
of swallowing his children and thereby preventing them
from becoming manifest. So, in order to save the life of
her baby Zeus, Chronos’ consort Rhea, on the advice of
her parents, Heaven and Earth, resorts to a special ruse.
480 S. Langdon and A.H. Gardiner, “The treaty of alliance between Hattusili, king of the Hittites, and the pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt”, JEA 6 (1920), p.187.
481 See H.G. Güterbock, “The God Suwalliyat”, p.4. Suwalliyat (Skt.
Sūrya/Hurrian Tashmisu) is considered to be the “pure brother” of Teshup in Kbo V2 ( ibid.).
482 See M.L. West, The Orphic Poems, p.70.
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indo-european mythology and religion
This involves the substitution of a stone for the baby so
that Chronos swallows the stone and thereby allows the
baby to be born. This stone is an analogue of the phal us of
Phanes, who is a product of Chronos and the Cosmic Egg,
according to the Orphic theogony.
It is interesting to note also that, according to Pseudo-
Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca (I,1,5-7), Rhea travelled to Crete to give birth to Zeus, and that Zeus was guarded at his
birth by Kouretes (Korybantes) who clashed their spears
on their shields in order to prevent Chronos from hearing
the baby cry.
In Homer, Zeus is recognizable as a storm-god, and,
according to Diogenes of Apollonia, the Homeric Zeus
is the “apotheosis of air [Vedic: Vāyu/Avestan: Wāta/
Germanic: Wotan]”.483 From the Orphic theogony, we
know that Zeus as a storm-force destroys his father
Chronos and then swallows the phal us of Ouranos/
Phanes which had been stuffed into Chronos. In this way,
he forces the life and light of Ouranos down into Earth,
from whence however he himself will help it rise into our
universe as the sun.
The Indic counterpart of the Near Eastern storm-god
is Ganesha, who is considered to be a ‘son’ of Shiva (who is
the same as Kāla/Time/Chronos) and ‘brother’ of Skanda.
In the Shiva Purāna, Ganesha, who is delineated with
sinister traits, attacks Brahma (Phanes) after he attacks his
father Shiva (Chronos). This is probably a reference to the
attack on Kumarbi by Teshup after An had similarly been
attacked by Kumarbi. Also, like Zeus, who, according to
the Orphic Theogony, swallows the phal us of Ouranos/
Chronos, Ganesha too is depicted with a “pot-bel y”
which contains the entire universe.484
483 See A.B. Cook, Zeus, I:351.
484 See S.L. Nagar, The Cult of Vinayaka, N.Delhi: Intellectual Publishing House, 1992, p.115.
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Further, Ganesha obstructs the sacrificial devotions
of the gods ( Brahma Purāna) and hinders men
from worshipping Soma ( Skanda Purāna).485 In the
Brahmavaivarta Purāna, Ganesha is visited at birth by Sani (Saturn, who is the same as Shiva/Kāla/Chronos himself),
whose maleficious gaze causes Pārvatī’s son to lose his
head, which is then replaced by Vishnu (a god representing
the sun) with the head of an elephant.486 The trunk of this
elephantine head is a clearly phallic representation.487 In
the Shiva Purāna and the Skanda Purāna too, it is Shiva who beheads his son, though, on Pārvatī’s pleading, he
himself finds an elephantine replacement for it.488
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Like the Egyptian Seth, Ganesha was apparently
considered original y as a malevolent deity called
Vināyaka who caused obstacles to men and inflicted
barrenness and delirium on them.489 The licentious aspect
of the Sethian cults is reflected in some of the Tantric
Ganesha cults in India, which are given to worshipping
an obscene image of the god in the course of drunken
and sexual y promiscuous revels.490 However, Ganesha is
also identified in the RV and the Aitareya Brāhmana with Brahmanaspati, the power of light.491
485 Ibid., pp.16, 49, 52.
486 Ibid., p.12f.
487 Indeed, in some Tantric statuary representations of Ganesha, the deity is depicted with a female counterpart, also with an elephantine head, representing his Shakti (energy) into whose ‘yoni’ (female organ) the tip of his trunk is inserted (see L. Cohen, ‘The wives of Ganesha’ in R.L. Brown (ed.), Ganesh: Studies of an Asian God, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1991, p.121).
488 S.L. Nagar, op.cit. , p.8f.
489 See the Mānavagrihyasutra and the Vājapayagrihyasutra (in S.L.
Nagar, op.cit., p.45).
490 See ‘Ganesa’ in Hindu World 1:378.
491 RV II,23,1; X,112,9; AB IV,4; I,21 (cf. S.L. Nagar, op.cit., p.44).
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Another, more famous, Indic god who bears a close
resemblance to Ganesha is Indra. Indra is identifiable
with Ganesha as the assailant of his Heavenly father
Dyaus (Ouranos), who survives as Prajāpati (Brahman)
at the stage of the formation of the Cosmic Egg. Indra’s
father is indeed said to be Dyaus in RV IV,17,5, and in RV
IV,18,12 Indra is said to have “slain” his father: “What God,
when by the foot thy Sire thou tookest and slewest, was at
hand to give thee comfort?” However, in KYV V,7,1, Indra
is directly identified with Prajāpati (the creator of the
manifest cosmos), suggesting that he is not merely a son
of Prajāpati but indeed an aspect of him and the sacrifice
of Prajāpati is indeed a self-sacrifice.
The birth of Indra, the chief of the gods, resembles
that of Seth, who is said to have emerged “sideways from
his mother”.492 At RV IV,18,1-2 Indra is said to have issued sideways from his mother Aditi and, on his birth, his
mother hid him (IV,18,5). This awkward manner of his
birth associates Indra with Seth, as well as with Zeus.
Indra’s vital and heroic quality—that of Zeus/Teshup—