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
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 B ...
''*dyā́wš'', from the
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) daylight-sky god , and is
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
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 referred to under different theonyms: Dyavaprithvi, for example, is a
dvandva compound
A dvandva ('pair' in Sanskrit) is a linguistic compound in which multiple individual nouns are concatenated to form an agglomerated compound word in which the conjunction has been elided to form a new word with a distinct semantic field. For ins ...
combining 'heaven' and 'earth' as Dyauṣ and
Prithvi.
Dyauṣ's most defining trait is his paternal role.
His daughter,
Uṣas, personifies dawn. The gods, especially Sūrya, are stated to be the children of Dyauṣ and Prithvi.
Dyauṣ's other sons include Agni,
Parjanya, the
Ādityas, the
Maruts, and the Angirases.
The
Ashvins are called "''divó nápāt''", meaning offspring/progeny/grandsons of Dyauṣ.
Dyauṣ is often visualized as a roaring animal, often a bull, who fertilizes the earth.
Dyauṣ is also known for the rape of his own daughter, which is vaguely but vividly mentioned in the Ṛg·veda.
Dyauṣ is also stated to be like a black stallion studded with pearls in a simile with the night sky.
Indra's separation of Dyauṣ and Prithvi is celebrated in the Rigveda as an important creation myth.
See also
*
Dyēus
''*Dyḗus'' ( lit. "daylight-sky-god"), also ''*Dyḗus ph₂tḗr'' (lit. "father daylight-sky-god"), is the reconstructed name of the daylight-sky god in Proto-Indo-European mythology. ''*Dyēus'' was conceived as a divine personification of t ...
*
Rigvedic deities
*
Uranus (mythology)
References
*
{{Authority control
Rigvedic deities
Sky and weather gods
Indo-European deities