DYĀUṢ PITĀ. - The idea of Heaven as father, d. p., which anticipates that of the heavenly Father, goes back to Indo-European unity, as is shown by the correspondence between the Sanskrit vocative dyāus pitar and the corresponding vocative forms of Greek (Zaō πέτερ) and Latin (Jāpiter).
The name dyāus derives from the root deio, to shine, the same one from which come deus, god, and divus, divine; it designates the luminous, diurnal sky, father of Usas, the Dawn. Heaven the father and Earth the mother (prthivī mātar) are invoked together in two hymns of the Rgveda: I, 159; IV, 56. But even though they are celebrated as divinities bestowers of graces, Heaven and Earth never acquired a decisively anthropomorphic figure nor importance in the cult. The Rgveda dedicates to Earth a single hymn, V, 84, to d. no particular hymn. Quite another importance was attributed to it in classical mythology. In the "Brāhmaṇa of the hundred paths," the good harmony between Heaven and Earth is invoked as the cause of rain (I, 8, 3, 12), food of Earth, which produces the substances that serve as food for Heaven, that is, for the gods in sacrifice. From another passage we learn that on the occasion of the offering of first fruits to all the divinities, in spring and in autumn, the gods assign, to "Heaven and Earth" together, one of their cakes.
END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME