Proto-Indo-European religion
The existence of similarities among the deities and religious practices of the Indo-European peoples allows glimpses of a common Proto-Indo-European religion and mythology. This hypothetical religion would have been the ancestor of the majority of the religions of pre-Christian Europe, of the Dharma Faiths in India, and of Zoroastrianism in Iran.
Indications of the existence of this ancestral religion can be detected in commonalities between languages and religious customs of Indo-European peoples to presuppose this ancestral religion did exist, though any details must remain conjectural. While similar religious customs among Indo-European peoples can provide evidence for a shared religious heritage, a shared custom does not necessarily indicate a common source for such a custom; some of these practices may well have evolved in a process of parallel evolution. Archaeological evidence, where any can be found, is difficult to match to a specific culture. The best evidence is therefore the existence of cognate words and names in the Indo-European languages.
Priests
The main functionaries of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European religion would have been maintained by a class of priests or shamans. There is evidence for sacral kingship, suggesting the tribal king at the same time assumed the role of high priest. This function would have survived as late as 11th century Scandinavia, when kings could still be dethroned for refusing to serve as priests (see Germanic king). Many Indo-European societies know a threefold division of a clerical class, a warrior class and a class of peasants or husbandmen. Such a division was suggested for the Proto-Indo-European society by Georges Dumézil.
Examples of the descendents of this class in historical Indo-European societies would be the Celtic Druids and the Indian Brahmins and Persian Magi.
The Germanic tribes may have been an exception in allowing women to become priests: the Völvas (see also witches).
Divination was performed by priests, e.g. from parts of slaughtered animals, see (cf. animal sacrifice, haruspex). Birds also played a role in divination, see augur, language of the birds.
Pantheon
Philological reconstructions of some PIE theonyms:
*Dyēus Ph2ter is believed to have been the original name of god of the daylit sky and the chief god of the Indo-European pantheon. He survives in Greek Zeus (also Dias), Latin Jupiter (Deus Pater), Sanskrit Dyaus Pita, Baltic Dievas, Slavic Div, Germanic Tyr (also Tiwaz), and Armenian Astwatz, (c.f. also deus pater in the Vulgate, e. g. Jude 1:1, and the Gaulish Dis Pater)
*Plth2vih2 Mh2ter (Dg'hōm) is believed to have been the name of (Mother) Earth,
A thunder god, possibly associated with the oak, and in some traditions syncretized with Dyeus. A root *per-kw- or *per-g- is suggested by Balto-Slavic *Perkúnos, Norse Fjörgyn and Vedic Parjanya. An onomatopoeic root *tar is continued in Gaulish Taranis and Hittite Tarhunt. A word for "thunder" itself was *(s)tene-, continued in Germanic *Þunraz (thunder personified).
Additional gods may include:
*H2ausos is believed to have been the goddess of dawn, continued in Greek mythology as Eos, in Rome as Aurora, in Vedic as Ushas, in Lithuanian mythology as Aušra or Auštaras, in Armenian as Astghik and possibly also in Germanic mythology as Eostre, .
Greek Poseidon was originally an Earth-god, or a god of the underworld, from poti daon "lord of Da", cf. Demeter from Da mater "Mother Da".
*Velnos, maybe a god of the night sky, or of the underworld, continued in Sanskrit Varuna, Greek Uranos (which is also a word for sky), Slavic Veles, and Armenian Aray.
There may have been a sea-god, in Persian and Vedic known as Apam Napat, in Celtic as Nechtan, in Etruscan as Nethuns, in Germanic as Njord and in Latin as Neptune, possibly called *Néptonos. [1] This god may be related to the Germanic water spirit, the Nix.
They may have distinguished between different races of gods, like the Jotuns, Aesir, and Vanir of Norse Mythology. Possibly these were the *Deiw-o- (Deva, Daimon, ablaut variant *Dyēus) and the *Ansu- (Aesir, Asura, Ahura).
According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov, there are only five main archetypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies[2], and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are:
God of the Sky
God of Thunder
God of the Earth/Underworld
Cultural Hero
Great Goddess
The Sky and Thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged into a single supreme god. On the other hand, the Earth god and the Cultural Hero were earthly gods, tied to nature, agriculture and crafts, and in subsequent cultures they were often split into more deities as societies grew more complex. And while it seems there existed some enmity between the Thunderer and the God of the Earth (which may be echoed in myths about battle of various thunder gods and a serpentine enemy, see below), the Cultural Hero seems to be a sort of demigod son of either the Sky God or the Thunder God, and was considered to be the ancestor of the human race, and the psychopomp. Together with the character of Great Goddess, who was a wife of the ruling Sky God, the Cultural Hero thus balanced between the heavenly God of the Sky/Thunder and the more chthonic God of the Earth/Underworld.
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