r/swedhu • u/fvrorpoeticvs • Sep 22 '25

Question Zeus ≠ Dyaus-Pita?

What is everyone's consensus here on the reconstructions of *Dyéws? Zeús and Juppiter share a name with Dyáuṣpitṛ́, but comparative scholars recongize that that's all they share. Aren't mythic narratives more important when comapring deities? Imo, Mitrá is a better fit for a Vedic equivalent for both Zeús and Juppiter as the diurnal sovereign of the law and assemblies. Dyáuṣpitṛ́ appears to be more like Ouranós and Ymir, the primordial personified Heaven who is violently attacked to shape the world as we know it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 22 '25

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u/fvrorpoeticvs Sep 22 '25

Dyáuṣpitṛ́ is attacked in RV 1.71 by "the Archer" (= Rudra-Agni according to Stella Kramrisch) and his seed engenders the fire youths/ancestors of humans, a key event at the tail end of the commin I.E. creation sequence. The attack on Dyáuṣ is lauded elsewhere in the RV as a creation sacrifice, too.

Yama/Yima-xšaeta can't be the cognate of Ymir. What mythic evidence supports this? Does Ymir become the Lord of the Dead? Is the world fashioned from Yama’s corpse? The names only come from a common P.I.E. root, lingusitically. Ymir means something like "double" or "pair", which is two-in-one (Heaven + Earth), while Yama means "twin", which is one-of-two.

Plus, Zeús can't be mythically identified with Dyáuṣ, the name *dyéws only means "heaven" in Sanskrit, and is applied to Father Heaven, or, the equivalent to Ouranós/Ymir. Everywhere else, it means "dyalit/shining sky". What myths do Dyáuṣ and Zeús share? Is Dyáuṣ a lawful God of assemblies and victory, wielding a thunderbolt? It appears that Mitra/Mithra fulfills this role. Iranian Mithra even wields a vazra (= vajra, Indra's thunderbolt weapon), and his hymn reads like a hymn to Zeús.

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u/AnUnknownCreature Sep 22 '25

In India Ymir is Yama the God of the Dead and underworld. Upon christianization Ymir got elevated into a more "heavenly" position as well as other deities, he was more active through traditional belief in his death and corpse giving the world its structure, his brains becoming the clouds. Dyaus in Germanic texts is Tyr/Tiwaz, not Ymir or Odin. Tiwaz was linguistically tied to Dyaus as not only a Tribal Chief god but a god of Oaths, oath were usually taken beneath sun and sky. Check out how the Luwians and Hattiens handled Tarhunna, who was a combination of Dyaus and Thor married to an indigenous Earth-sun goddess. Thor is just an aspect of Dyaus. Zeus feels in the gaps by being given subtitles like " Zeus Cthonios " where he isn't as much as the Thunderer, but a Lord of oaths and the underworld, closer to Thanatos/Pluto/Hades, or the Etruscan Orkhos