DYĀUŠ PITĀ. - The idea of Heaven the father, D. P., which foreshadows that of the heavenly Father, goes back to Indo-European unity, as is demonstrated by the correspondence between the Sanskrit vocative dyāus pitar and the corresponding vocative forms in Greek (Zaō πέτερ) and Latin (Jāpiter).
The name dyāus derives from the root deio, to shine, the same from which come deus, god, and divus, divine; it denotes the bright, diurnal heaven, 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. Yet, although celebrated as divinities bestowing favors, Heaven and Earth never acquired a distinctly anthropomorphic form or importance in worship. The Rgveda devotes only one hymn to Earth, V, 84, and no particular hymn to D. P. Quite different importance was attributed to it in classical mythology. In the « Brāhmaṇa of the hundred paths », the good harmony between Heaven and Earth is desired as the cause of rain (I, 8, 3, 12), the food of Earth, which produces the substances serving 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 autumn, the gods assign one of their cakes jointly to « Heaven and Earth ».
END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME