The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Eighteen, the Hittite Earth Mother

 This essay will be the last in this particular series. For a background to Hittite religion it is important to read my previous essay, The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Seventeen, the Hittite Sky Father , where I discussed the alien accretions layered onto the original Hittite gods and the reasons for this. I do not intend to go over old ground in this post.

The Hittite Earth Mother is syncretic, layered and multi-cultural, consisting of the following elements:

. Hattian earth cults

.Hurrian cosmic mothers

. Indo-European fertility concepts.

There is not one single deity or theonym which embodies the functions of the Hittite Earth Mother, but for the purpose of this essay, I have identified and focused purely on the deities which can be viewed as Indo-European in nature and function, albeit not in name. The original Earth Mother and her functions may be identified through an analysis of the two goddesses:  Hannahanna and Wurunšemu; their names are Hattian but their functions are Indo-European.

Hannahanna

The meaning of Her name is 'Grandmother' and She represents the earliest maternal power as is evident in Her name. She is the Mother of the Gods and commands all divine beings, spirits and animals; her authority is unquestionable. She is the restorer of fertility. In her functional Indo-European analogue She mirrors Gaia, Prithvi, Zemyna and Mat Zemlya; She restores life and maintains cosmic balance, and is highly interventionist. Her profile is one of deep Indo-European maternal sovereignty and She aligns with:

. Vedic Aditi (mother of the gods and cosmic order)

. Greek Gaia (senior maternal authority)

. Baltic Laima (the goddess of fate, birth and fortune)

. Celtic Danu (ancestral mother of the gods) 

Of the aforementioned four deities, Laima would appear to be the 'odd one out'. She is not an Earth Mother like Gaia or the mother of the gods like Aditi, but She maintains moral and existential order.

Wurunšemu

The meaning of Her name is 'Earth' and She represents the chthonic, territorial and political dimension of the Earth Mother. She symbolises the embodiment of the Earth and for this reason Her name is invoked in boundary rituals, land grants, treaties and agricultural consecrations. She has queenly authority and is often paired with the Storm God, Tarḫunna/Tarḫunt/Tarḫunz/Tarḫunnaš. She is the witness of truth and the binding power of oaths sworn on the land.

Although She is an aspect of the Earth Mother, She is solar in nature but only in a moral sense; She is the illuminating truth rather than the physical sun. She shines upon right conduct. She is the source of royal legitimacy in two ways, both of which express Her dual nature:

. Her solarity expresses sovereign radiance.

. Her earth-nature expresses sovereign grounding.

Although Her earth-bound and solar natures may appear contradictory at first glance, they are in fact complementary aspects of Her essence.

Dual Nature of Indo-European Goddesses

The dual nature of the Earth Mother is not unique to the Hittites: other Indo-European cultures experienced the same thing.

Baltic Parallel

. Saulė - female sun and moral order.

. Zemyna-earth mother and fertility.

Wurunšemu combines both roles into one goddess.

Vedic Parallel

. Aditi- mother of the gods, associated with the infinite sky, the earth, law and cosmic order.

. Varuṇī / Sūryā (moral order/solar sovereignty)

Greek Parallel

. Gaia- earth.

. Themis- justice, order and oaths.

  Wurunšemu fuses the functions of these two goddesses.

In summary, Hannahanna and Wurunšemu form a two-tiered system of maternal power, the primordial-chthonic of the former and the solar-juridical of the latter. Wile the former repairs order, the latter maintains it.

The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Seventeen, the Hittite Sky Father

Unlike previous essays in this series, I only intend to explore the Hittite Sky Father in depth, not other related Indo-European Anatolian Sky Fathers for the simple reason of a paucity in evidence beyond the purely linguistic. I intend to do the same for the Anatolian Earth Mother essay which follows in the next and final post in this series. As a brief overview of the related Anatolian cultures, I will briefly mention the linguistic evidence:

The Palaic Tiyaz

Although not a Sky Father, the Palaic Tiyaz is a deity whose name means 'day' or 'sun'. The name is cognate with the Hittite šiu (day/sky) and the Luwian tiwad (sun/day). Although it is a reflex of the PIE *dei‑ / *dyeu‑ ('to shine, be bright'), it is not a reflex of the PIE Sky Father *Dyēus ph₂tḗr. Tiyaz cannot be considered to be a Sky Father in the Palaic tradition because His name is not a shared Sky Father theonym (divine name) among the Anatolian Indo-European related cultures, but a shared solar theonym. He is not a sky patriarch, but a god of the daylight/sun. 

Tiyaz looks remarkably similar to the Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz and there is a good reason for that. Both theonyms have a shared PIE root *dei‑ /*dyeu‑, which I have already said means 'to shine, be bright'. The Palaic is a divine lexical reflex indicative of a solar deity, whereas the Germanic *Tiwaz had the original meaning of 'god' from the PIE *deiwos ('celestial one'). This theonymic reflex is cognate with:

. Vedic Deva

. Latin Deus

. Greek Theos

. Baltic Dievas

The Luwian Tiwad

The Luwian Tiwad, like the Palaic Tiyaz is a solar deity, but not a Sky Father. The meaning of the term is 'sun, day, shining sky' and like the Palaic is derived from the PIE *dei‑ / *dyeu‑.

The Carian Tiβas/Tiwas/Tivas

These orthographic variants descend from the same root as the Palaic and Luwian reflexes: *dei‑ /*dyeu‑ and thus are Carian reflexes of a solar deity.

The Lycian Tiwaz/Tiwata/Tiwati

The Lycian orthographic variants descend from the same root as the Palaic, Luwian and Carian and thus have the same meaning.

The Hittite Sky Father

 The pantheon of the ancient Hittites was a complex one, because they absorbed, merged and layered deities from multiple cultures: Hattic, Hurrian, Mesopotamian, Syrian and Indo-European, forming a living archive of all the cultures which they interacted with. Consequently, there is not a single deity who one can point to and say, 'this is the Sky Father'. Anatolia, the homeland of the Hittites was a geographical crossroads which allowed the importation of cultural influences from Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Aegean and the Caucasus. The conquering by the Hittites of foreign peoples facilitated the importation of foreign gods, the continuance of regional cults and the adoption of parallel gods with similar functions. Thus new gods were added on top of their own existing gods. For this reason, the Hittites speak of 'the thousand gods of Hatti' in their texts. While they syncretised gods, they never fully fused them together. Different gods with similar functions were treated as being equivalent, but they remained with distinct cults and their own separate rituals. Thus, the same deity may have a different name depending on the context. When the Hittites agreed treaties with other peoples, the gods of both parties were invoked and this caused foreign gods to be added to the pantheon, and these deities had to be appeased to avoid divine wrath and be honoured in state rituals along with their own native gods.

The Hittites, although they were an Indo-European people, split off very early from the Proto-Indo-European stock, and their Indo-European pantheon became overwritten by the Hattic religion of pre-Indo-European Anatolia and the Hurrian religion. The Hattians were the original non-Indo-European population native to central Anatolia, whose language was a linguistic isolate, neither related to Indo-European nor Semitic. The Hurrians probably originated in the vicinity of the Caucasus, and spoke Hurrian, an extinct Hurro-Urartian language, not related to Indo-European or Semitic. These two peoples were of particular influence upon the Hittites.

In order to identify the original Indo-European pantheon of the Hittites we need to peel off all the later foreign accretions. The original Hittite pantheon was small, sky-focused and closely based upon the Proto-Indo-European one. It contained the following:

. a Sky Father-  nepišaš Ištanu  Partly Indo-European/partly Hattic name

. a Storm God- Tarḫunna / Tarhunt

. a Sun Deity- Indo-European name unknown

. a Dawn Goddess-Ḫilamma

. Divine Twins-Šiwattanna and Šiwaliya

. an Earth Mother-Daganzipa

. a Fire God-Ishara

. a River God-Maršantiya

. a Fate/Underworld Goddess-Gulš- / Gulšeš

The primary focus of this essay is of course, the Sky Father, so I am going to focus upon nepišaš Ištanu, meaning 'Sun-god of the Sky/Heaven'. The PIE root of His name is  nébʰos, meaning 'sky, cloud'. Ištanu, however is from the Hattic eštan, meaning 'sun'. Although the Hittites lost the Dyeus name, they retained the attributes of the Proto-Indo-European original. The Hittite Sky Father was a celestial overseer, protector of kings and a moral witness. No mythic narratives survive, because He was overshadowed by the Hurrian Storm God, Teshub and the Hattic Sun Goddess, Arinna.

Under the name of MEŠ ŠA DINGIR, the Hittite Sky Father was invoked in rituals concerning oath-taking, boundary agreements, royal succession and international diplomacy. An example of ritual formula: 'The Sun-god of Heaven, lord of the sky, shall witness.' It should be pointed out that the name MEŠ ŠA DINGIR was written entirely in Sumerograms, so the etymology is Sumerian, not Hittite. The meaning of the name may be broken down as follows: 

. MEŠ= 'many'

. ŠA= 'of'

. DINGIR= 'god'

Thus, 'the things of god' (divine ordinances, cosmic laws, sacred order). The Hittites inherited Sumerian writing, Akkadian scribal conventions and Mesopotamian legal terminology. Although they used Sumerograms, they applied them to their own religious concepts. The meaning of  MEŠ ŠA DINGIR aligns with the Indo-European cosmic order, which is found in other Indo-European cultures:

. Ṛta (Vedic)

. Díkē (Greek)

. Fides (Roman)

. Dieva's moral order (Baltic)

. Týr’s oath law (Germanic)

The Hittite Sky Father was regarded as the second most important deity after the Sun Goddess. From the reign of Tudhaliya III (c. 1380-c. 1350 BCE), He became the protector of the King and was represented on royal seals as a winged solar disc embracing the King. From the reign of Suppiluliuma I (c. 1350- c. 1322 BCE), He became the most important god to be invoked in interstate treaties. This was an ancient Indo-European function of the Sky Father and is also to be found in the Greek Zeus Horkios, the Italic Iupiter Dius Fidius, the Vedic Varuṇa and the Baltic Dievas. He embodies the daylight, the bright sky, cosmic order and heavenly oversight. As is the case in other Indo-European traditions (e.g. the Germanic, Vedic and Baltic) the Sky Father became ritually central but mythically quiet, with His role being overtaken by the Storm God. Ritually speaking, the Sky Father appears in royal prayers as the King's protector, treaty ceremonies as the primary oath witness, legal and purification ceremonies as the guarantor of truth, and in daily solar rites in which the King greets the sun.

When invoking the Sky Father as the Sun-god of Heaven, the King stood before the divine statues in the temple, burned incense, poured libations, raised his hands towards heaven and invoked the god first among the male celestial gods. The King would have begun with a declaration along the lines of: 'O Sun-god of Heaven, lord of the sky, father of the land, you who see all things.' The King would have referred to Him as 'My Sun', 'Lord of Heaven' and 'Father'. The following are typical ritual expressions used by the King:

Celestial overseer- 'You who see all things.'

Guardian of cosmic order- 'You, O Sun-god of Heaven, see and know the truth.'

Protector of kingship- 'Guard my throne.'

Oath witness-'The gods see; the gods know; the gods witness this oath.'

Purifier-'See it, O gods; cleanse it; restore the ordinances of the gods.'

The Hittite Sky Father formed a pair with the Earth Mother, Dagan-zipa. They were complementary cosmic principles, the heaven symbolising light, truth, order and witness, while the earth symbolised stability, fertility and nourishment. They were ritual partners and invoked together ('Heaven sees; Earth receives'). This is an expression of cosmic balance. They are the foundational cosmic parents and joint witnesses of oaths. I do not wish to go into any further detail about the Earth Mother or Her relationship with the Sky Father as I intend to cover this in my next post.

The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Sixteen, the Vedic Earth Mother

Pṛthivī Mātā is the Vedic Earth Mother, a descendant of the Indo-Iranian reflex, *Pr̥thwī, who also gave rise to the Iranian Zam, the PIE ancestor being *pl̥th₂wih₂. Pṛthivī Mātā personifies the earth in the Vedic and later Hindu traditions. She is paired with the Sky Father, Dyaus Pitar and is invoked as the stable, fertile and life-sustaining ground of existence. The etymology of Her name is 'Broad Earth, Mother'.

The Etymological Chain in Detail

. PIE *pl̥th₂wih₂    'Broad One'

. Proto-Indo-Iranian *pr̥thwí‑    'Broad One'

.Vedic Sanskrit Pṛthivī  'Broad Earth'

.Vedic formula Pṛthivī Mātā  'Broad Earth Mother'

The Vedic formula version of Her name is used repeatedly in the Rig Veda and the Atharvaveda for hymns, sacrifices and in cosmological passages, a fixed, traditional name used in ritual poetry, invocations and prayers for fertility, stability and protection. The formula preserves a prehistoric Indo-European pattern preserved in the following traditions:

. Greek Gaia 'Earth Mother'

. Norse Jörð 'Earth Mother'

. Baltic Žemė 'Earth'

. Slavic Mati Syra Zemlya 'Moist Mother Earth'

In the hymns of the Rig Veda the Earth is praised as the 'broad sustaining mother', along with the Sky Father. who are 'parents of the gods' ( Dyāvā‑Pṛthivī) and upholders of the law, the supporters of gods and man, invoked alongside the Maruts (sons of Rudra and companions of Indra), and the universal mother and the receiver of the dead (a function shared with other Indo-European Earth Mothers).

In rituals Pṛthivī Mātā functions as the ritual ground, the maternal protector of the sacrificer, the receiver of offerings and bodies, the stabilising deity, the witnesser of the rite, the supporter of the fire (Agni), and the cosmic foundation of order (ṛta).

She is invoked in fire rituals because the bricks of the altar rest on Her body, Agni is born on the Earth, the sacrificer stands upon Her, and She receives the clarified butter, which falls or spills upon Her. In atmospheric rites to Indra and the Maruts, because they are invoked upon the 'broad earth', She acts as a counter-balance to the storm gods, thus protecting the sacrificer. She is invoked to gently receive the dead, to provide a resting place for the ancestors and to be a protector of the dead. In fertility and prosperity rites She is invoked for rain, the fertility of the crops and cattle, the prosperity of the clan,seasonal renewal and the stability of the household. In these rites She is paired with Dyaus (the sky), Sūrya (the sun) and Āpas (the waters).

The following are prime epithets of the Earth Mother to be found in the Rig Veda:

. Pṛthivī Mātā    'Broad Earth, the Mother'

. Urvi   'Wide, spacious one'

. Mahī  'Great, vast one'

. Bhūmi  'Earth, ground, soil, the physical surface of the Earth'

. Medinī 'Fertile, rich Earth'

. Aṅganā 'Broad expanse'

. Sthirā 'Firm, stable Earth'

. Dhārayantī 'Earth, who supports all beings'

. Janitrī  'Mother, begetter'

. Dhārayitrī  'Supporter, bearer'

. R̥tāvṛdhā 'Strengthener of cosmic order (ṛta)'

. Sūnṛtā 'Kind, gracious, benevolent'

. Urvī Pṛthivī  'Wide and broad Earth'

. Śivā Pṛthivī 'Auspicious, kindly Earth'

. Śaṃsā Earth invoked for blessing

. Aṅgirasī Earth associated with the Angiras seers

. Vasu‑dā  'Earth who gives wealth'

. Kṣamā  'Patient, enduring Earth'

. Mṛdu‑Pṛthivī  'Gentle Earth'

. Laghvī  'Light upon the body'

. Vasu‑dā  'Earth who gives wealth'

The Earth Mother is frequently associated with animal symbols, such as the boar, serpent, cow and mare. She is also symbolised by stone, clay, mountains and valleys. In the Vedic period She had no anthropomorphic form; this only changed in the later Hindu period, where the goddess is depicted as a goddess seated on a lotus, a woman arising from the earth or as a queenly figure seated by Varāha, the boar incarnation of  Viṣṇu, who rescues the Earth from the cosmic waters. Vedic religion avoided the use of idols as early Indo-European religions did not view or depict the gods in anthropomorphic form, the gods being see as to vast to occupy human form. Instead they were invoked through ritual formulae, epithets and natural phenomena.

If we wish to understand the religion of the Indo-Aryans we must recognise that Hinduism is a corruption of their original Indo-European religion by non-Aryan peoples, whom they encountered and to some extent fused with. This helps to account for the many bizarre and racially and spiritually alien gods and religious practices. It is only in the Rig Veda that we can understand the genuine and true gods of the Indo-Aryans.

The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Fifteen, the Vedic Sky Father

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.