Dyáus Pitā́ is the Vedic Sky Father of the Indo-Aryans, a direct linguistic reflex of the Proto-Indo-Iranian *Dyāus‑pitṛ́ and the PIE *Dyēus ph₂tḗr. The name has the literal meaning of Sky Father or Daylight- Sky Father. He forms a divine couple with Dyāva‑Pr̥thivī, the Earth Mother. He is the sky itself and He is envisioned as a great bull, whose rain fertilises the earth. He is the father of Ushas, the dawn, Surya, Agni and the Ashvins. Although he appears frequently in the Rig Veda, He is rarely invoked alone, but usually in tandem with Dyāva‑Pr̥thivī. Through the passing of time He recedes into the background and gives way to the more active gods, Indra, Agni, Varuna and Soma. In the Germanic mythology we see a similar process with *Tiwaz giving way to Thor and Odin. He is thus part of the very earliest layer of Vedic cosmology before the gods became anthropomorphised. Like *Tiwaz, He was remembered as a distant father, rather than an actively worshipped god. One difference between the Germanic and the Vedic mythologies is that *Tiwaz became anthropomorphised as Tyr in the Eddas, surviving as a minor deity.
In the mythologies of the various Indo-European cultural groups we see a shift away from the primaeval Sky Father to the dominance of the storm gods, such as Perkūnas, Zeus, Thor and Indra, and the gods of sovereignty: Varuna and Odin. While the storm and sovereignty gods took over the functions of the Sky Father, the sky itself became more abstract, shifting from being a personified father to a cosmic space. The original Sky Father in these mythologies became either ritualised as Dyaus or anthropomorphised and minor like Tyr. This shift happened as Indo-European societies evolved into heroic, warrior-based social structures and they needed deities who were less passive and more active. The new social structure of Indo-European society required gods who could act as their protectors in battle, who could both reward and punish, and legitimise the emerging warrior aristocracies and kingship. They also needed gods who could ensure a moral-based cosmic order, such as Mitra and Varuna, gods who governed truth, oaths, law and morality. Gods now had to have personalities and stories (myths) to enable their worshippers to relate to them: they had to be anthropomorphic like their worshippers, but stronger, wiser and more beautiful.
Early PIE religion was far more naturalistic and elemental, with fire, sky, earth, water, the sun, the moon and the dawn worshipped as deities. One sees a reflection of this in Caesar's De Bello Gallico:
' They count as gods only those things they can see and whose power they feel: the Sun, Fire, and the Moon.' (Book VI). He adds this line after mentioning that the Germans worshipped Mercury (Wodan), Mars (Tiwaz) and Hercules (Thunar). At first sight this would seem to be a contradiction as the named gods are anthropomorphic in nature, but I believe that this information preserved a more ancient layer of German religion. The worship of the sun, fire and moon reflects and mirrors the earliest layer of PIE religion:
. Dyēus > sky
. H₂éusōs > dawn
. Agni > fire
. Sól/Sunna > sun
. Mēh₁not > moon
All of the abovementioned are natural phenomena first and gods second. There was no narrative mythology attached to these elemental deities: that came much later. The whole subject of the anthropomorphising of the gods deserves an essay dedicated specifically to it, so I will say no more about this in the current post. The reason why I have discussed this issue is to explain why there are no myths attached to Dyáus Pitā́. All that we know of Him are the deities which he engendered and His pairing with Dyāva‑Pr̥thivī.
