Dyeus


Dyḗus, also Dyḗus ph₂tḗr, is the reconstructed name of the daylight-sky god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Dyēus was the bright sky of the day conceived as a divine entity and as the seat of the gods, the *deywṓs. Associated with the vast diurnal sky and with the fertile rains, Dyēus was often paired with *Dhéǵhōm, the Earth Mother, in a relationship of union and contrast.
While its existence is not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, Dyēus is considered by scholars the most securely reconstructed deity of the Indo-European pantheon, as identical formulas referring to him can be found among the subsequent Indo-European languages and myths of the Vedic Indo-Aryans, Latins, Greeks, Phrygians, Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians and Hittites.

Name

Etymology

The divine name *Dyēus stems from the root *dyeu-, denoting the "diurnal sky" or the "brightness of the day", ultimately deriving from *di or dei-. Cognates in Indo-European languages revolving around the concepts of "day", "sky" and "deity" and sharing the root *dyeu as an etymon suggest that Dyēus was the vast and bright sky of the day conceived as a divine entity.
A vṛddhi-derivative appears in *deywós, the common word for "god" in proto-Indo-European. In classic Indo-European, associated with the late Khvalynsk culture, *Dyēus also had the meaning of "Heaven", whereas it denoted "god" in general in the Anatolian tradition.' The suffix-derivative *diwyós is also attested in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit.
The root *deynos, interpreted as a back-formation of *deywós, has descendant cognates in Vedic Sanskrit divé-dive, Latin diēs and Dies, goddess of the day and counterpart to Greek Hemera, Hittite siwat, Palaic Tīyat-, Ancient Greek endios, Old Armenian tiw, Old Irish noenden, Welsh heddyw,' or Slavic Poludnitsa.
While the Greek goddess Pandeia or Pandia may have been another name for the Moon Goddess Selene, her name still preserves the root *di-/*dei-, meaning "to shine, be bright".

Epithets

The most constant epithet associated with *Dyēus is "father". The vocable "Father Dyēus" was inherited in the Vedic Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́, Greek Zeus Patēr, Illyrian Dei-pátrous, Roman Jupiter , even in the form of "dad" or "papa" in the Scythian Papaios for Zeus, or the Palaic expression Tiyaz papaz. The epithet *Ph₂tḗr Ǵenh₁-tōr'' is also attested in the Vedic, Iranian, Greek, and perhaps the Roman ritual traditions.

Role

Dyēus was the Sky or Day conceived as a divine entity, and thus the dwelling of the gods, the Heaven.' As the gateway to the deities and the father of both the Divine Twins and the goddess of the Dawn, Dyēus was a prominent deity in the Proto-Indo-European pantheon. He was however likely not their ruler or the holder of the supreme power like Zeus and Jupiter.'
Dyēus was associated with the bright and vast sky, but also to the cloudy weather in the Vedic and Greek formulas *Dyēus' rain. Although several reflexes of Dyēus are storm deities, such as Zeus and Jupiter, this is thought to be a late development exclusive to Mediterranean traditions, probably derived from syncretism with Canaanite deities and the Proto-Indo-European god Perkwunos.
Due to his celestial nature, Dyēus is often described as "all-seeing" or "with wide vision" in Indo-European myths. It is unlikely however that he was in charge of the supervision of justice and righteousness, as it was the case for the Zeus or the Indo-Iranian Mithra–Varuna duo; but he was suited to serve at least as a witness to oaths and treaties. Proto-Indo-Europeans also visualized the sun as the "lamp of Dyēus" or the "eye of Dyēus", as seen in various reflexes: "the god’s lamp" in Euripides' Medes, "heaven’s candle" in Beowulf, "the land of Hatti’s torch" in a Hittite prayer, Helios as the eye of Zeus, Hvare-khshaeta as the eye of Ahura Mazda, and the sun as "God's eye" in Romanian folklore.

Consort

Dyēus is often paired with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth goddess, and described as uniting with her to ensure the growth and sustenance of terrestrial life; the earth becomes pregnant as the rain falls from the sky. The relationship between Father Sky and Mother Earth is also of contrast: the latter is portrayed as the vast and dark dwelling of mortals, located below the bright seat of the gods. According to Jackson however, as the thunder-god is frequently associated with the fructifying rains, she may be a more fitting partner of Perkwunos than of Dyēus.
While Hausos and the Divine Twins are generally considered the offsprings of Dyēus alone, some scholars have proposed a spouse-goddess reconstructed as *Diwōnā or *Diuōneh₂, with a possible descendant in Zeus's consort Dione. A thematic echo occurs in the Vedic tradition as Indra's wife Indrānī displays a similar jealous and quarrelsome disposition under provocation. A second descendant may be found in Dia, a mortal said to unite with Zeus in a Greek myth. The story leads ultimately to the birth of the Centaurs after the mating of Dia's husband Ixion with the phantom of Hera, the spouse of Zeus. Another female name derived from *Dyeus may be found in the Mycenaean Greek Diwia, attested in the second part of the 3rd millennium BC and which may have survived in the Pamphylian dialect of Asia Minor. The reconstruction is however only based upon the Greek–and to a lesser extent the Vedic–tradition, and it remains therefore not secured.
If the female goddesses Hera, Juno, Frigg and Shakti share a common association with marriage and fertility, Mallory and Adams note however that "these functions are much too generic to support the supposition of a distinct PIE 'consort goddess' and many of the 'consorts' probably represent assimilations of earlier goddesses who may have had nothing to do with marriage."

Evidence

Cognates stemming either from the root *dyeu, the epithet *Dyēus Ph₂ter, the vṛddhi-derivative *deiwós, the derivative *diwyós, or the back-formation *deynos are among the most widely attested in Indo-European languages.'
Ritual and formulaic expressions stemming from the vocable *Dyēus Ph₂ter were inherited in the following liturgic and poetic traditions:
Other reflexes are variants that have retained both descendants of the root *dyeu- and the original structure "Father God". Some traditions have replaced the epithet *ph₂ter with the nursery word papa :
Other variants are less secured:
Cognates stemming from *deywós, a vṛddhi-derivation of *dyēus are attested in the following traditions:
Other cognates are less secured:
Other cognates deriving from the word *diwyós are attested in the following traditions:
As the pantheons of the individual mythologies related to Proto-Indo-European religion evolved, attributes of Dyēus seem to have been redistributed to other deities. In Greek and Roman mythology, Dyēus was the chief god, while the etymological continuant of Dyēus became a very abstract god in Vedic mythology, and his original prominence over other gods largely diluted.

In non-Indo-European traditions

Various loanwords of *deiwós were introduced in non-Indo-European languages, such as Estonian taevas or Finnish taivas, borrowed from Proto-Indo-Iranian. In Turkic mythology, Tengri is portrayed as the Heavenly-Father, and Mircea Eliade notes that "morphologically and in its general outlines, the Indo-European religion resembles that of the Turko-Tatars—supremacy of the celestial God, absence or minor importance of goddesses, cult of fire, and so on."