Aśvins
The Ashvins ( sa, अश्विन्, Aśvin, horse possessors), also known as Ashwini Kumara and Asvinau,, §1.42. are Hindu twin gods associated with medicine, health, dawn and sciences. In the ''Rigveda'', they are described as youthful divine twin horsemen, travelling in a chariot drawn by horses that are never weary, and portrayed as guardian deities that safeguard and rescue people by aiding them in various situations. There are varying accounts, but Ashvins are generally mentioned as the sons of the sun god Surya and his wife Sanjna. In the epic ''Mahabharata,'' the Pandava twins Nakula and Sahadeva were the children of the Ashvins. Etymology and epithets The Sanskrit name ' (अश्विन्) derives from the Indo-Iranian stem ''*Haćwa-'' (cf. Avestan ''aspā''), itself from the Indo-European word for the horse, ''*H1éḱwos'', from which also descends the Lithuanian name ''Ašvieniai''. Lubotsky, Alexander. "Indo-Aryan Inherited Lexicon". ''Indo-European ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum. The ''Rigveda'' is the oldest known Vedic Sanskrit text. Its early layers are among the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. The sounds and texts of the ''Rigveda'' have been orally transmitted since the 2nd millennium BCE. Philological and linguistic evidence indicates that the bulk of the ''Rigveda'' Samhita was composed in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent (see) Rigvedic rivers), most likely between 1500 and 1000 BCE, although a wider approximation of 19001200 BCE has also been given. The text is layered, consisting of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Castor And Pollux
Castor; grc, Κάστωρ, Kástōr, beaver. and Pollux. (or Polydeukes). are twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.; grc, Διόσκουροι, Dióskouroi, sons of Zeus, links=no, from ''Dîos'' ('Zeus') and '' koûroi'' ('boys'). Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who raped Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini (literally "twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids.. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the constellation Gemini. The pair were regarded ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first element of his ancient Roman religion, Roman interpretatio graeca, equivalent Jupiter (mythology), Jupiter.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perkūnas, Perun, Indra, Dyaus, and Zojz (deity), Zojz. Entry: "Dyaus" Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea (mythology), Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dievas
Lithuanian Dievas, Latvian Dievs, Latgalian Dīvs, Old Prussian Dìews, Yotvingian Deivas was the primordial supreme god in the Baltic mythology and one of the most important deities together with Perkūnas and he was brother of Potrimpo. He was the god of sky, prosperity, wealth, ruler of gods, and creator of universe. Dievas is a direct successor of the Proto-Indo-European supreme sky father god *Dyēus of the root ''*deiwo-''. Its Proto-Baltic form was *''Deivas''. Dievas had two sons Dievo sūneliai (Lithuanian) or Dieva dēli (Latvian) known as the Heavenly Twins. In recent Lithuanian and Latvian, this word may refer to the deity of any kind (Pagan, Christian, fictional and the like). In English, Dievas may be used as a word to describe the God (or, the supreme god) in the pre-Christian religion of Balts, where Dievas was understood to be the supreme being of the world. In Lithuanian and Latvian, it is also used to describe God as it is understood by major world re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dyaus
Dyaus ( ), or Dyauspitar (Devanagari द्यौष्पितृ, ), is the Ṛigvedic sky deity. His consort is Prithvi, the earth goddess, and together they are the archetypal parents in the Rigveda. Nomenclature stems from Proto-Indo-Iranian ''*dyā́wš'', from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) daylight-sky god , and is cognate with the Greek ''Zeus Patēr'', Illyrian '' Dei-pátrous'', or Latin ''Jupiter'' (from an earlier *''Djous patēr''), stemming from the PIE ''Dyḗus ph₂tḗr'' ("Daylight-sky Father").' The noun (when used without the 'father') refers to the daylight sky, and occurs frequently in the Rigveda, as an entity. The sky in Vedic writing was described as rising in three tiers, , , and or . Literature Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ appears in hymns with Prithvi Mata 'Mother Earth' in the ancient Vedic scriptures of Hinduism. In the Ṛg·veda, ''Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́'' appears in verses 1.89.4, 1.90.7, 1.164.33, 1.191.6, 4.1.10. and 4.17.4 He is also referr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange, as a reward to the city of Leiden for its Siege of Leiden, defence against Spanish attacks during the Eighty Years' War. As the oldest institution of higher education in the Netherlands, it enjoys a reputation across Europe and the world. Known for its historic foundations and emphasis on the social sciences, the university came into particular prominence during the Dutch Golden Age, when scholars from around Europe were attracted to the Dutch Republic due to its climate of intellectual tolerance and Leiden's international reputation. During this time, Leiden became the home to individuals such as René Descartes, Rembrandt, Christiaan Huygens, Hugo Grotius, Baruch Spinoza and Baron d'Holbach. The university has seven academic f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alexander Lubotsky
Alexander "Sasha" Lubotsky (russian: Александр Маркович Лубоцкий; born 16 April 1956) is a Russian linguist and Indologist who specializes in the study of Indo-Iranian languages. He is the editor-in-chief of the Leiden ''Indo-European Etymological Dictionary'' project. In 2011, he published ''The Indo-Aryan Inherited Lexicon'', a list of inherited Old Indo-Aryan words along with their Proto-Indo-Iranian ancestor forms. Biography Alexander Lubotsky was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR. His father was the violinist Mark Lubotsky. He studied linguistics at Lomonosov University (now Moscow State University) between 1973 and 1976, then Indo-Iranian languages at Leiden University from 1976 to 1980. He earned a BA in Indo-Iranian in 1978, a MA in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics in 1980, then in PhD in Linguistics from Leiden in 1987, following a thesis on the "Nominal accentuation in Sanskrit and Indo-European" under the supervision of Robert S. P. Beekes. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proto-Indo-European Language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during the 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE or its daughter languages, and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from 4500 BC to 2500 BC during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age, though estimates vary by more than a thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis, the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Avestan
Avestan (), or historically Zend, is an umbrella term for two Old Iranian languages: Old Avestan (spoken in the 2nd millennium BCE) and Younger Avestan (spoken in the 1st millennium BCE). They are known only from their conjoined use as the scriptural language of Zoroastrianism, and the Avesta likewise serves as their namesake. Both are early Eastern Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian language branch of the Indo-European language family. Its immediate ancestor was the Proto-Iranian language, a sister language to the Proto-Indo-Aryan language, with both having developed from the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian language; as such, Old Avestan is quite close in both grammar and lexicon to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language. The Avestan text corpus was composed in the ancient Iranian satrapies of Arachosia, Aria, Bactria, and Margiana, corresponding to the entirety of present-day Afghanistan as well as parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proto-Indo-Iranian Language
Proto-Indo-Iranian, also Proto-Indo-Iranic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Iranian/Indo-Iranic branch of Indo-European. Its speakers, the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Iranians, are assumed to have lived in the late 3rd millennium BC, and are often connected with the Sintashta culture of the Eurasian Steppe and the early Andronovo archaeological horizon. Proto-Indo-Iranian was a satem language, likely removed less than a millennium from its ancestor, the late Proto-Indo-European language, and in turn removed less than a millennium from the Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, its descendants. Proto-Indo-Iranian has been considered to form a subgroup along with Greek, Armenian and Phrygian on the basis of many striking similarities in the morphological structure. However, this issue remains unsettled.Fortson, p. 203 It is the ancestor of the Indo-Aryan languages, the Iranian languages, and the Nuristani languages. Descriptive phonology In addition t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age. Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism, the language of classical Hindu philosophy, and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism. It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture, and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in the Rig Veda, a colle ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |