allen, n. j. dyaus and bhima, zeus and sarpedon

8/13/2019 Allen, N. J. Dyaus and Bhima, Zeus and Sarpedon

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Nick J. Allen

Dyaus and Bhma, Zeus and SarpedonIn: Gaia : revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grce Archaque. Numro 8, 2004. pp. 29-36.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

Allen Nick J. Dyaus and Bhma, Zeus and Sarpedon. In: Gaia : revue interdisciplinaire sur la Grce Archaque. Numro 8, 2004.

pp. 29-36.

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/gaia_1287-3349_2004_num_8_1_1460
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_gaia_20http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/gaia_1287-3349_2004_num_8_1_1460http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/gaia_1287-3349_2004_num_8_1_1460http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_gaia_20


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Dyaus and Bhsma Zeus and SarpedonTowards a history of the Indo-european sky god

NickJ. AllenUniversity of Oxford

In the days of Max Miiller the polytheism of the pre-Christian Indo-European speakers was a central topic in human studies and attractedmuch attention. However, the results proved disappointing, and in thefirst half of the last century Indo-European comparativism contractedwhen not being misused by Nazi racists, it was mainly pursued by comparative philologists, whose centre of gravity was purely linguistic. In thelast half century the field has been revived by Georges Dumzil, and mypresent paper, like my other ones in this area, is broadly speakingDumzilian.DumziPs central concern was how far the linguists' model can betransferred to extra-linguistic culture : if I-E languages can be analysedin terms of divergent historical descent from a proto-language, how farcan I-E cultures, especially early ones, be understood in terms of divergent descent from an original protoculture? Dumzil's famous threefunctions are just one among the many proposals that arose from askingthe central question, and will be mentioned today only in passing. Thecentral question itself is a perfectly sensible one, which can of course beasked of any language family. However, for various reasons, Dumzil'swork is still regarded as controversial. Among the good reasons areweaknesses internal to his arguments (weaknesses which necessitate, Ithink, a shift of focus from triads to pentads). Some of the reasons arebad ones, e.g. blindness to structure, or misrepresentations ultimatelymotivated by the desire of narrower specialists to defend the borders oftheir own fields. Some are just matters of fact, e.g. the relative paucity ofthose who are, or think they are, equipped to handle Latin, Greek andSanskrit materials on the same footing, and the difficulty of coming toterms with an uvre on the scale of Dumzil's. But, as I hope to showhere, not only is the central question reasonable, but the field is an exciting ne. It may be too philological for most anthropologists, too culturalGaiaS, 2004 p. 29-36. 29


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GAIA 8for most linguists, too comparative for the narrower philologists, but itoffers scope for unexpected findings.Linguists long ago established that Latin Jupiter, Greek Zeus andSanskrit Dyaus (or Dyu) are cognate : these three theonyms (and thereare others) must descend from a common origin, which can be reconstructed as PI- *Dyeus. *Dyeus must have been a father, must havemeant sky, and was surely an important god, perhaps even asovereign, as are Zeus and Jupiter; but it was difficult to go further(Dunkel 1988-1990). The myths do not help. The major Roman godshave little surviving indigenous mythology, and although many Vedicdeities are well supplied with it, Dyaus is not. Zeus of course has mythsin plenty, but one cannot reconstruct using a single source.

Dumzil, prompted by Stig Wikander, showed the way ahead.Although he has some divine relatives Dyaus practically never appearsin Vedic narrative, but a millennium later, in classical Sanskrit, Dyausdoes appear in one story in the Mahbhrata. Together with his sevenbrothers he is cursed to be born on earth, and his human form or incarnation is the hero Bhsma. Bhs.ma is a major figure right from his birthin Book 1 up to his death in Book 1 3 (90 % of the way through the epic),and as Dumzil showed, in certain respects Bhs.ma resembles the Scandinavian god Heimdall. The resemblance is close enough to point to acommon origin for the narrative features in question, and Dumzil concludes (1968 : 190) that they were originally part of the mythology of*Dyeus; they then descended to Dyaus and his human form.

In his mature work Dumzil usually avoided comparisons involvingGreece1, but his discovery is suggestive. If we can learn about themythology of *Dyeus by comparing Dyaus' incarnation Bhs.ma with aNorse god, can we learn more by comparing him with Greek gods ? I haveattempted this elsewhere (Allen in press). It turns out that Bhs.ma can becompared not only with Dyaus's etymological cognate Zeus, but alsowith his semantic cognate Ouranos (which, like Dyaus, means Sky).These rapprochements, like the Norse one, link a Sanskrit hero withnon-Sanskrit gods. But does Bhs.ma resemble any Greek heroes} Thisquestion brings us to Sarpedon.

Bhsma and SarpedonGreek gods sometimes take human form for short periods, but they donot incarnate for a whole life-span, as Indian gods often do. So we can-

1 Except when discussing Plato and Herakles.30


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Dyaus and Bhlsma, Zeus and Sarpedonnot expect an incarnation of Zeus parallel to the Indian incarnation ofDyaus. But the conceptual gap between being a god's incarnation andbeing a god's son cannot be great, if only because the Pndavas, the Winners in the Mahbhrata, are presented in both ways2. Now Zeus,though he lacks incarnations, has numerous human sons, born of mortalwomen (unlike Ouranos, who has none, and need not concern us further .A salient fact about Bhma is that he is a major leader on the losingside in the great war that dominates the Sanskrit epic. The great war thatdominates Greek epic is at Troy, the Losers are the Trojans, and one ofthe major Trojan leaders is Sarpedon, son of Zeus. So let us explore aBhsma-Sarpedon rapprochement.Winners and LosersThe two sides in the Sanskrit are the Pndavas and Kauravas. ThePn4avas are the Winners they represent the gods as opposed to thedemons, and are the side with which the audience fundamentally identifies.n Homer too, the Winners, the Greeks, are the side with which theGreek audience should ultimately identify. It is therefore striking thatthe human form of the old I-E sky god fights for the opposition, for theLosers - one is tempted to say the Baddies3. One might of course wonderwhether in other respects Pndavas correspond to Greeks, Kauravasto Trojans. The question is complicated, for comparison can also bemade with the other Sanskrit epic, the Rmyan, where Rma represents Winners/Goodies and Rvana Losers/Baddies. But the complicatonoes not invalidate a Bhs.ma-Sarpedon comparison.Important Loser LeaderBhs.ma is not just a major Kaurava warrior. He is the first in a set of fivesuccessive Kaurava marshals (one of the pentads I mentioned in passing).On day 10 he is shot down and disabled he lives on for two months, butis succeeded by three other marshals in turn, each of whom dies on thebattlefield. Since the whole war only lasts eighteen days, Bhsma holdsoffice for longer than all his successors put together.

2. Sons most fully in 1. 114-5; partial incarnations in 1. 61.84-5 e.g.King Yudhis.thira was a portion of [the god] Dharma ).3. As regards Dyaus and Bhs.ma, Dumzil recognizes the puzzle 1968: 254), but hasonly the most tentative answer to it. My own answer needs a wider comparative framework than would be appropriate here.31


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GAIA 8Similarly, Sarpedon is not just a major Trojan warrior. In 12.101 heleads all the epikouroi, the allies who have come from outside Troy andits immediate environs. No Homeric heroes live on immobilised likeBhs.ma, and Sarpedon is straightforwardly killed (by Patroklos).

Forms Pair with Loser SupremoSupreme authority among the Kaurava warriors lies not with the marshal (senapati) but with the crown prince, Duryodhana, who appoints themarshals and is himself a great warrior. Thus, during his ten days asmarshal, Bhsma is effectively paired with his supremo they are the twoleaders par excellence. Duryodhana's father, King Dhrtarstra - blindand indecisive - is a non-combatant, and stays in the royal city.Among the Trojans the warrior supremo is of course Hektor, until heis killed by Achilles. Hektor is the eldest son of the aged non-combatantking Priam, who stays in Troy and can be compared with Dhrtarstraand in several ways Hektor and Sarpedon form a pair. Consider the twopassages that enumerate the Trojan forces. In 2.876, the list of seventeencontingents starts with the Trojans themselves led by Hektor, and endswith the Lycians led by Sarpedon and Glaukos. Similarly, in 12.88, thelist of five companies starts with the biggest and best, led by Hektorand Polydamas, and ends with the allies, led by Sarpedon; so in bothcases these two names come effectively first and last. Or take the factthat only this pair inflict damage on the Greek defences Sarpedon pullsdown some battlements, then Hektor shatters a gate (12.398, 461). Afourth argument builds on the generally recognised pairing of Patroklosand Achilles - paired for instance because of their long and close association, because Patroklos in Achilles' armour leads Achilles' troops, andbecause they alone when they die are honoured by funeral games. Butthe most important enemies of this pair - Patroklos and Achilles - arerespectively Sarpedon and Hektor.Thus in both epics the human form of Dyaus/Zeus not only fights forthe Losers but does so as a leader subordinate only to his side's supremo.Critical ofLoser SupremoAlthough Bhs.ma renounced marriage and had no children, he isregarded and referred to as the grandfather both of Duryodhana and ofhis opposite numbers, the five Pndava brothers. He often criticisesDuryodhana's immoral behaviour (e.g. 1.195), but his wise advice isignored, whereas towards the Pndavas he shows genuine affection andrespect, which is reciprocated.

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Dyaus and Bhsma, Zeus and SarpedonAthis first appearance in the narrative (as distinct from the Catalogue)we find Sarpedon strongly criticising Hektor for lack of dynamism(5.493). Hektor is energised, but a little later he pointedly ignores a pitiful plea from Sarpedon, who has just been badly wounded by Tlepole-mos (5.689).Sarpedon's uneasy relation with Hektor is clear enough, thoughunlike Bhs.ma, he does not show any particular affection for the Winners. On the other hand, he has a sort of doublet in his Lycian compatriotnd first cousin, Glaukos for instance, after Sarpedon's death, it isGlaukos who criticises Hektor for lack of valour and lack of gratitude(17.140). So it may be significant that Glaukos provides the only clearinstance of friendship between warriors on opposite sides. Duringiomedes' aristeia it transpires that he and Glaukos are ritual friends(6.224), and their intended duel turns into an amicable exchange of gifts.Active over Three GenerationsBh$ma's warrior prowess, already apparent in his fight with Parasuvamaat the time of his brother's wedding (5.180.19 ff.), is undiminished whenas the grandfather he becomes marshal two generations later.Homer's Sarpedon is not presented as aged, but Apollodorus (3.1.2) tellsus that this hero received from Zeus the privilege of living for three generations. The statement is often understood as a secondary rationalisat onf the fact that Sarpedon is the name of another son of Zeus (thebrother of Minos and Rhadamanthus) born two generations earlier. Butin view of the other Sarpedon-Bhicma similarities, it is more likely thathere (as quite often) Apollodorus preserves an ancient tradition - i.e., ofvigour persisting over three generations.Bloody RainWhen Bhma is appointed as marshal, a bloody dirty rain appears in aclear sky4, accompanied by other fearsome portents. When Zeus is persuaded by Hera that Sarpedon must die, just before the fatal fight withPatroklos, he honours his son by pouring down bloody raindrops{haimatoessas psiadas, 16.459). Since in both traditions bloody rain occursin a few other contexts as well the comparison is not biunique ; nevertheless it is worth noting.

4. Anabhre varsam rudbirakardamam 5 153.28).33


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GAIA 8Even if the last two headings are omitted, the similarities betweenBhs.ma and Sarpedon are too solid to be dismissed as coincidence, andthere must once have existed a protonarrative concerning the humanform of *Dyeus - let us provisionally call him the protofigure . Naturally, divergence has been considerable, and one could assemble a systematic list of differences by working through the dossiers of Bhsma andSarpedon. But an obvious one is simply the relative size of the twodossiers. Bhma is far more important in the Sanskrit epic than Sarpedon s in the Greek, and we need to consider two possibilities. If theGreek is the more conservative, a Sarpedon-like protofigure hasexpanded to produce Bhs.ma, perhaps simply by invention of new narrative ut perhaps - more interestingly - by absorbing other figures. If theSanskrit is the more conservative, a Bhis.ma-like protofigure has contracted to produce Sarpedon, either simply by the elimination of certainfeatures or episodes or - more interestingly - by losing them to otherfigures. Intuitively, the son of an important sky god ought to have alarger role rather than a smaller one, and for many reasons I prefer thehypothesis of Sanskrit traditionalism. I have already mentioned theargument that Bhs.ma, the incarnated god, corresponds in some featuresto the Greek gods Zeus and Ouranos. Expressed in diachronic terms,this could mean that the proto-figure lost parts of his dossier to the twogods, but whether or not this is the case, we cannot assume that all thesurviving dossier that was attached to mortals was attached to Sarpedon.We need to ask whether Bhs.ma resembles any other warrior.

A rapprochement was briefly made above between the two losersupremos, Duryodhana and Hektor, eldest sons of the non-combatantking, but here too we cannot assume that the comparativist's task is s mple. It will be recalled that Hektor and Sarpedon are closely linked (asHomerists recognise)5, and in at least two respects Bhs.ma parallelsHektor, not Sarpedon.

Bhsma and HektorA Sequence ofFour Battlefield LeadersBhs.ma, as we know, is the first of the five Kaurava marshals, but thefifth, Asvatthman, is heterogeneous, e.g. in fighting by night and in an

5. Zeus is very fond of both. Sarpedon is described by Zeus as the dearest of men,philtatos andrn 16.433), while Hektor is also described by Zeus as a dear man, philonandra 22.168) and the dearest omen, philtatos andrn 24.67) - dearest of the Trojansto the gods in general.34


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Dyaus and Bhsma, Zeus and Sarpedonenclosure, not on the battlefield. There are only four battlefield marshals . But extra-Homeric sources tell us that after Hektor is killed byAchilles, the Trojans are led successively by Penthesilea, Memnon andEurypylos; so the Trojans too have four battlefield leaders (Allen 2002).The three leaders just mentioned all come from areas at some distancefrom Troy, and I suppose that at earlier (unattested) stages ofGreek tradition the sequence began with Sarpedon the Lycian (or an earlier formof that figure), who then lost to Hektor the position of first overall battlefield leader. It is as if Bhma lost to Duryodhana the position ofsenpati, while remaining the second most important leader among theLosers.We can perhaps see a hint of the shift in Homer. In book 12 Hektoris the first to leap into the Greek camp (entering through the gate hebroke, 12.462, 466), but after he kills Sarpedon, Patroklos says that hisvictim was the first to do so (16.558).Killed by Winners' Champion with Female HelpBhma is shot down by two warriors acting together Arjuna, supremechampion of the Pndavas, and Sikhandin, who is only involved becausehe was born a woman (Bhma has vowed not to fight anyone who countsas female). This is the only death in the great war that crucially involvesa female or quasi-female .

Hektor too is killed by two figures acting together. Achilles is thesupreme Greek champion, but he is helped greatly, even unfairly, byAthena.This feature too, I suppose, originally belonged to the death ofSarpedon (or the like), but was transferred to Hektor alongside the battlefield supremacy. If the protonarrative here resembled the Sanskritthe loser supremo survived until after the death of the fourth loser battlefield leader.

Concluding remarksThe body of the paper has presented a rapprochement between Bhs,maand Sarpedon the two heroes are to be seen as divergent reflexes of aprotofigure, the son of the proto-I-E god *Dyeus. Towards the end Ibriefly suggested that the Sanskrit was the more conservative traditionand that, as the Greek tradition diverged, a more or less Bhma-likeprotofigure lost parts of his persona to at least one other hero. In thiscase, Hektor, the recipient of the lost parts, no doubt derives his corefrom a different protonarrative human, but such a process cannot betaken for granted: rather than being transferred, fragments of a

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GAIA 8protofigure could, as it were, simply become free-standing. A number oflogical possibilities can be envisaged for the process of divergence, whichmay well have been very complex. To factor in the other traditions, forinstance the Norse, will multiply the complexities.Nevertheless, something has been achieved. In particular we nowknow as we did not previously, that *Dyeus had a human form (whetherson or incarnation), who participated with the Losers in a more or lessepic protonarrative. Of course *Dyeus provides exceptionally favourableopportunities for the comparativist since the etymological picture is soclear. But serious comparisons can be undertaken even between deitieswhose names lack a common origin. Examples might include DumziPsDyaus-Heimdall comparison, or my own (Allen 2001) between Durgaand Athena. In spite of the complications, the h istory of the IE pantheonis less unknowable than has usually been thought6.

ReferencesAllen NJ. 2001, Athena and Durga: warrior goddesses in Greek andSanskrit epic. Pp. 367-382 in S. Deacy and A. Villing (eds) Athena nthe Classical World. Leiden : Brill 2002, Mahabharata and Iliad a common origin ? Annals of the Bhan-darkar Oriental Institute 83 : 165-177 with many misprints ); in press, Bhs.ma and Hesiod's Succession Myth. To appear in International Journal of Hindu Studies 1Dumzil G. 1968, Mythe et pope, I. Paris: Gallimard.Dunkel George E., 1988-1990. Vater Himmels Gattin. Die Sprache 34:1-26.

6. Revised form of paper given to the conference of the British Association for theStudy of Religions, Chester, September 2003.36

allen, n. j. dyaus and bhima, zeus and sarpedon

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