external material one and a subtle internal one. According
to the Linga Purāna, I:75,19-22, ‘simple people worship the external Linga and carry out rites and sacrifices’ because
‘The purpose of the phallic image is to stir the faithful
to knowledge.’ However, ‘The subtle and eternal Linga is
only perceptible to those who have attained knowledge."552
The same Purāna states that Skanda is imbued with
secret knowledge: ‘Skanda knows the meaning hidden
in the teachings of the Vedas and other sacred texts. He
knows the meaning of all ritual acts.’ ( Linga Purāna, I:82, 92-95).553 In the MBh, Āranyakaparva (IX,45, 87ff.), the
title “Yogeshvara” (Lord of Yoga) is applied particularly
to Muruga/Skanda Thus, along with the continued
worship of Muruga in South India as a Dionysiac deity, his
importance in Indian philosophical history is mainly as a
disseminator of the philosophy associated with his father
Shiva, who is traditional y considered to be the original
Yogi.554
***
and theatrical art expounded in Bharata’s Nātya Shāstra (ca.6th c.
B.C.) was original y devised by Brahman (and edited by Bharata) as a ‘fifth Veda’ meant for the diversion and edification of those outside the high-born, or ‘twice-born’, castes (see Nātya Shāstra: A Treatise on Dramaturgy and Histrionics Attributed to Bharata, tr. Manmohan Ghosh, Ch.I, pp.7-12).
552 Cited in A. Daniélou, op.cit., p.58.
553 Ibid., p.97.
554 The Hathayoga Pradīpika, for instance mentions Shiva as the author of the various Yogic āsanas, or postures.
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It is difficult to determine the location in which the
Yogic insights into the cosmological myths that underlay
the early IE religions were first ful y enunciated – apart
from the general identification of Manu as a ‘King of
Drāvida’, or proto-Dravidian, that we have noted above. If
the Sāmkhya-Yoga system may be located in the Bactro-
Margiana Archaeological Complex—as the identification
of the founder of the Sāmkhya system, the sage Kapila,
with the Bactrian region suggests555—the earliest
Brāhmanical religion in India nevertheless seems to have
been more centred on fire- and soma-sacrifices than on
ascetic Yogic precepts. It is possible that Brāhmanism
may have received an orgiastic stimulus from West Asia,
as Megasthenes’ comments on the civilising force of
Dionysus among the ancient Indians indicate. And this
stimulus may have contributed to the rich development
of Yogic doctrines within the subcontinent itself not only
in the Sāmkhya-Yoga school of philosophy (beginning
around the 1st c. B.C.) but also, more significantly, in the
numerous Upanishadic and Tantric systems dating from
the last centuries B.C.
555 See Ch.III above.
247
VII. On the Germanic gods
Wotan and Thor
Apparently everyone had forgotten that Wotan is
a Germanic datum of first importance, the truest
expression and unsurpassed personification of a
fundamental quality that is particularly characteristic
of the Germans.
C.G. Jung, ‘Wotan’, 1936556
Many will be familiar with the citation above
from a perceptive article by Jung that attempted
to show that Nietzsche’s rhapsodic appeals to
Dionysus should real y have been addressed to the old
Germanic god, Wotan, and was indeed an unconscious
revival of an ancient Odinist religion among the Germans.
It is, however, doubtful that all Germans were, or are,
‘ergriffen’ (possessed) by Wotan, as Jung claimed, and it
might even be proven that Odinism was not real y native
to Germany but was, like Christianity after it, imported
into it from Asia Minor. Furthermore, Jung focuses on
only the stormy, orgiastic aspects of Odinic religion and
556 C.G. Jung, ‘Wotan’, Neue Schweizer Rundschau III (March, 1936), pp.657-69 (tr. Barbara Hannah in Essays on Contemporary Events, London, 1947, pp.1-16).
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does not attempt to understand the full significance of
the god Wotan within the original solar mythology of the
Indo-Europeans.
According to Snorri Sturluson,557 the author of
the thirteenth century Prose Edda, the Germans and
Scandinavians, in fact, derived their religion from
Anatolians who moved into Europe.558 The leader
of the Anatolians (the “Aesir”) was called Odin (the
Scandinavian form of the German ‘Wotan’), In the Prose
Edda, ‘Gylfaginning’, ch.6, the Primordial Man, equivalent of the Indic Purusha, is called Ymir and he has a son called
Búri whose grandsons were Odin, Vili, and Ve. Odin
original y lived with Ymir in the Elder Asgard.
The originators of the Odin/Wotan mythology
may have actual y been located first east of the Don,
as Sturluson’s narrative in the Heimskringla suggests.
According to the ‘Ynglingasaga’, ch.1, Odin’s original
homeland was east of the Don river, the river in Russia that
flows into the Sea of Azov, the north-eastern extension of
the Black Sea. The Don itself
was formerly called Tanakvísl (fork of the Don) or
Vanakvísl (fork of the Vanir). It reaches the sea in
Svartahaf.559
557 See The Prose Edda, Prologue, tr. A.G. Brodeur, London: OUP, 1916.
558 This is confirmed by the earliest archaeology of Europe, where the first formation of the earliest Germanic cultures is to be located in the south, in modern day Czechoslovakia, which it may have reached from
“the Mediterranean or Anatolia” (G. Childe, The Dawn of European Civilization, p.101). Geoffrey of Monmouth ( History of the Kings of Britain, Chs.3-16) points to the Trojan origin of even the earliest Britons, since Britain was, according to him, first settled by a great grandson of Aeneas called Brute.
559 Snorri Sturluson, Heimkringsla, Vol.I, tr. A. Finlay and A. Faulkes, London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 2011.
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The land around the Don delta was the land of the rivals
of the Aesir, the Vanir:
The land within Vanakvíslir (delta of the Don) was
then called Vanaland (Land of Vanir) or Vanaheimr
(World of Vanir). This river separates the thirds of the
world. The region to the east is called Asia, that to the
west, Europe.
East of Vanaland was Ásaland (Land of the Æsir)
or Ásaheimr (World of the Æsir). The capital city of
Asaheimr was called Ásgarðr (ch.2):
To the east of Tanakvísl in Asia it was called Ásaland
(Land of the Æsir) or Ásaheimr (World of the Æsir),
and the capital city that was in the land they called
Ásgarðr. And in that town was the ruler who was
called Óðinn. There was a great place of worship
there. It was the custom there that twelve temple
priests were of highest rank. They were in charge of
the worship and judgements among people. They are
known as díar or lords. They were to receive service
and veneration from all people.
&n
bsp; Now, the earliest cultures north of the Black Sea, those
of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, are the Sintashta (2100-
1800 B.C.) and the Andronovo (2000-900 B.C.), both
associated with the Indo-Iranian, or Āryan, culture. So we
may assume that both the Aesir and the Vanir belonged to
this predominant group. The battle between the Aesir and
the Vanir may reflect the beginning of the split between
the Indian and Iranian branches of the Āryan tribes since
the Iranians, especial y by the time of the Zoroastrian
reform, worshipped only the Asuras and considered the
Daevas as demons. However, the language spoken by the
Aesir and Vanir may have been the original Indo-Iranian
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indo-european mythology and religion
since even the Āryan Mitanni who appeared in south-
eastern Anatolia and northern Syria in the 16th century
B.C. exhibit elements of both branches of the Indo-Iranian
language.560
In the Prose Edda, ‘Gylfaginning’,9, Asgard is said to
have been constructed after the killing and dismembering
of Ymir. Odin and his brothers then fashion the human
race out of two trees, a male child called Ask and the other
a female called Embla. The gods and their semi-divine
human offspring then dwell in Asgard, which is located
south of the Black Sea, in Anatolia:
Next, they made for themselves in the middle of the
world a city which is called Ásgard; men call it Troy.
There dwelt the gods and their kindred;561
Asgard is firmly identified with Troy and glorified in its
opulence:
Near the earth’s centre was made that goodliest of
homes and haunts that ever have been, which is called
Troy, even that which we call Turkland. This abode
was much more gloriously made than others, and
fashioned with more skill of craftsmanship in manifold
wise, both in luxury and in the wealth which was there
in abundance. There were twelve kingdoms and one
High King, and many sovereignties belonged to each
kingdom; in the stronghold were twelve chieftains.
560 Several Median words are traceable in Old Persian (see P.O.
Skjaervo, in G.Erdosy, (ed.) The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p.159). That the term ‘Mede’ might be related to the term ‘Mitanni’ was suggested early by J. Charpentier,
“The Date of Zoroaster”, BSOS 3 (1923-25), 747-55, among others.
561 Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda, tr. A.G. Brodeur, London: OUP, 1916.
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***
The chief of the Aesir, Wotan, and his people eventual y
migrated to the German lands:
And wherever they went over the lands of the earth,
many glorious things were spoken of
them, so that they were held more like gods than men.
They made no end to their
journeying till they were come north into the land
that is now called Saxland; there Odin
tarried for a long space, and took the land into his
own hand, far and wide.
Odin’s three sons, Vegdeg, Beldeg (Baldur) and Sigi ruled
over East Germany, Westphalia, and France, respectively.
Further expeditions took Odin to Denmark, Sweden and
Norway, In the process of these migrations the Aesirs
mingled with the local peoples and thereby succeeded in
spreading the “language of Asia” all over Europe.
The Aesir took wives of the land for themselves, and
some also for their sons ; and these
kindreds became many in number, so that throughout
Saxland, and thence all over the
region of the north, they spread out until their tongue,
even the speech of the men of Asia, was the native
tongue over all these lands.
The date of the Odinic migration may have been around
that of the Trojan War (ca.12th century B.C.).
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indo-european mythology and religion
Odin is endowed with quasi-magical powers, as
Sturluson recounts in the ‘Ynglingasaga’, ch.6:
But there is this to be said about why he was so very
exalted – there were these reasons for it: he was so
fair and noble in countenance when he was sitting
among his friends that it rejoiced the hearts of al . But
when he went to battle he appeared ferocious to his
enemies. And the reason was that he had the faculty of
changing complexion and form in whatever manner
he chose. Another was that he spoke so eloquently
and smoothly that everyone who heard thought that
only what he said was true. Everything he said was
in rhyme, like the way what is now called poetry is
composed. He and his temple priests were called
craftsmen of poems, for that art originated with them
in the Northern lands.
Not only did he introduce the poetic art into the lands
that the Aesir settled but he also established the laws of
Anatolia in the north:
he chose for himself the site of a city which is now
called Sigtun. There he established chieftains in the
fashion which had prevailed in Troy; he set up also
twelve head-men to be doomsmen over the people
and to judge the laws of the land; and he ordained
also all laws as there had been before in Troy, and
according to the customs of the Turks.
Odin is said to have two ravens that
sit on his shoulders and say into his ear all the tidings
which they see or hear; they are called thus: Huginn
and Muninn. He sends them at day-break to fly about
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all the world, and they come back at undern-meal;
thus he is acquainted with many tidings. Therefore
men call him Raven-God. (‘Gylfaginning’, ch.38)
Huginn in Old Norse mean ‘thought’ and Muninn
‘memory’. The more accurate understanding of the latter
term is perhaps as the desire (‘munr’) which impels
thought.562 We shall encounter these assistants of Wotan
again when we consider the Indian Purānic evidence.
Odin’s fellow-Aesir include Baldr, (‘Gylfaginning’
ch.22), Tyr, Bragi, Heimdallr, Hodr, Vidarr and Loki
(chs.25ff.). Thor is another Aesir (ch.21) and he is
loosely identified with Hector, the Trojan prince just
as Loki is identified with Ulysses, the Greek (ch.54). In
the Prologue to the Prose Edda, “Tror”, or “Thor”, is the son of a Trojan king called Mennon or Munon who had
married a daughter of King Priam. He is said to have been
brought up in Thrace In the ‘Ynglingasaga’, ch.5, Thor is
represented as one of the Aesir appointed as priests in the
northern lands after their colonisation by Odin. It may be
noted that in the ‘Prologue’ to the Prose Edda— unlike in
‘Gylfaginning’—Voden (Wotan) or Odin is said to be a
distant descendant of Thor. But this may be explained by
the fact that, although the Wotan of Asgard appears in the
universal Tree of Life later than Thor whose battling of the
serpent precedes the full rise of the Tree, Wotan is already
a
major god in the Elder Asgard.
***
If we attempt to ascertain the linguistic affinities of the
culture imported into Europe by the Aesir of Anatolia,
we have to choose between the shatem Mitanni and the
562 This has been suggested online by the Norwegian novelist, Bjørn Andreas Bull-Hansen.
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indo-european mythology and religion
centum Hittite languages as the two likely ancestors of
the Germanic languages (which are centum languages).
While the Hittites were Indo-Europeans who ruled in
central Anatolia in the 17th century B.C., their religious
culture is heavily dependent on that of the earlier non-
Indo-European Hattic culture of Anatolia. The Mitanni
who ruled in eastern Anatolia and northern Syria in the
16th century B.C. exhibit a more Sanskritic culture since
the first coherent mention of Indic gods appears in the
treaty between the Mitanni-Hurrian king Šattiwaza and
the Hittite king Šuppililiumas I dating from the sixteenth
century B.C. and including the names Mitra-Varuna,
Indra, and Nāsatyas.563
The collective name ‘Edda’ for the sacred poems of
the Germanic peoples is clearly related to the Indo-Āryan
‘Veda’, as well as to the Zoroastrian Iranian ‘Avesta’. In the
Eddic poem ‘Rigsthula’, Edda is given as the name of the
ancestress of the human race who bears three children
Thral , Karl and Jarl, representing serfs, freemen engaged
in farming and crafts, and warrior nobles. The protagonist
of the poem himself is called Rig and identified with the
god Heimdal . The juxtaposition of Rig (a word signifying
radiation or glory) with Edda seems to point to Indic
origins, where Rig is the first of the Vedas. Further, in the
‘Purusha Sukta’ ( Rig Veda X,90,9ff), the Rig Veda, as well as the Sāma and Yajur Vedas, is said to have been formed
out of the cosmic sacrifice of the First Man, Purusha, who
contains within his personal form also the four castes of
men, his mouth representing the Brāhmanical caste, arms
the Kshatriya, thighs the Vaisya and feet the Shūdra. It
563 The text (CTH 51 and 52 (see D. Yoshida, Untersuchungen zu den Sonnengottheiten bei den Hethitern, Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1996, p.12) reads “Dingir MešMitraššiel, Dingir MešUruwanaššiel, Dindar, Dingir MešNašattiyana”, where the uncertain suffix “šiel” may be a dual or plural indicator since the Sumerian prefix ‘Meš’ along with
Indo-European Mythology and Religion Page 28
