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Dumézil and Indian Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Alf Hiltebeitel
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Extract

Georges Dumézil's research on the myths, legends, rites, and social structures—in short, what he calls the “ideology”—of the Indo-Europeans has had, for the most part, considerable impact upon recent scholarly interpretation of the various Indo-European traditions. This holds not only for articles and monographs on specific matters. Better measure might be taken by noting the favorable discussion of his views and results in works whose intent is introductory or popular: Proinsias Mac Cana's Celtic Mythology (London, 1970), E. O. G. Turville-Petre's Myth and Religion of the North (New York, 1964), H. R. Ellis Davidson's Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Penguin Books, 1964) and Scandinavian Mythology (London, 1969)—of whom none of the above are to be associated with Dumézil's “school”— and in responses pro and con by Iranicists. What one misses is a similar impact upon studies in two areas: Rome and India. And this is a remarkable and ironic fact, for it is Dumézil's work on these two pillars that, if one may say so, has fashioned the entrance to his edifice. It is not my intent to talk about Rome, but it is my impression that the situation is comparable to what one finds in the recent introductory and panoramic works on Hinduism: either no recognition of Dumézil's contribution at all (Thomas J. Hopkins, The Hindu Religious Tradition [Encino, Cal., 1971], Veronica Ions, Indian Mythology [London, 1967]), or facile dismissals (Robert C. Zaehner, Hinduism [London, 1966]).

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , November 1974 , pp. 129 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1974

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References

1 For good bibliographical discussion of Duméziliana, see Littleton, C. Scott, The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966),Google Scholar revised 1973, with the bibliography in it and in Puhvel, Jaan, ed., Myth and Law among the Indo-Europeans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970).Google Scholar

2 Sec discussion and references in Littleton, New Comparative Mythology, pp. 164–68.Google Scholar

3 But see, on Rome, the total silence of such manuals as Perowne, Stewart, Roman Mythology (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1968)Google Scholar and Robert M., Ogilvie, The Romans and their Gods in the Age of Augustus (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1969).Google Scholar

4 I use these terms for lack of more precise ones; much of Dumézil's work suggests that early arya India knew para-Vedic traditions; as to the terms of “Vedic” and “epic,” it is in the sathhitas and the Brahmanas (as well as other ritual texts), and in certain facets of the Mahābhārata that the most archaic traditions have been found.

5 See Dumézil's discussion in his Archaic Roman Religion, Philip Krapp, trans., 2 Vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), Vol. I, pp. 18–30: “‘Numen’ or ‘Deus.’”Google Scholar

6 See Zaehner, Robert C., Hinduism (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), pp. 19–20,Google Scholar speaking of the “undeniable” or “indisputable” “naturalistic basis” of Agni, Indra, and Soma; see also Hopkins, Thomas J., The Hindu Religious Tradition (Encino, Cal.: Dickenson, 1971), p.Google Scholar 11, and Ions, Veronica, Hindu Mythology (London: Ham-lyn, 1967), p. 14 (here with less emphasis).Google Scholar

7 See especially Thicme, Paul, Mitra and Ar-yaman. Transactions of the Connecticut Academy oi Arts and Sciences, Vol. XLl (New Haven, 1957).Google Scholar

8 For Dumézil's own assessment of this early work, sec his Mythe et épopée, I: l'idéologte des trots fonctions dans les épopées des peuples indo-curopéens [henceforth ME, I, etc. (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1968), p. 12.Google Scholar

9 Dumézil, “La prchistoire indo-iranienne des castes,” Journal Asiattqtie CCXVI (1930), 109–30, and more recently “La Rigspula et la structure so-ciale indo-européenne,” Revue de l'Histoire des Religions CLIV (1958), 1–19,Google Scholar now translated in Dumézil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, Haugcn, Einar, ed. and trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 118–25; and sec ME, I, P. 13.Google Scholar

10 Most notably in Mitra-Varuna: essat stir deux représentations indo-européennes de la souveraineté (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1940),Google Scholarrevised 1948, with many follow-up studies, especially Naissance d'archanges: essai stir la formation de la théologie zoroastrienne (Paris: Gallimard, 1945).Google Scholar

11 Initially, following Stig Wikander's path-breaking article “Pandavasagan och Mahābhāratas mytiska forutsattningar,” Religion och Bibel VI (1947), 27–39,Google Scholar in Dumézil, Jupiter Mars Quirinus, IV: Explication de texts indiens et latins (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948), and culminating in ME, I, Part 1, pp. 31–257Google Scholar (“La Terre soulagée”), and in an important chapter of Gods of the Ancient Northmen, pp. 49–66Google Scholar (“The Drama of the World: Balder: Hoder, Loki”), originally published in 1959. Sec also Mythe et épopée. III: Histoires romaines (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), pp. 263–91 (“La geste de Publicola“).Google Scholar

12 See Mythe et épopée, II: Types epiques irido-européens: tin heros, tin sorcicr, an roi (Paris: Gallimard, 1971).Google Scholar

13 Archaic Roman Religion, Vol. I, p. xvi, also quoted, with the same implications for Germanic studies, by Strutynski, Udo, “Introduction, Part II,” Gods of the Ancient Northmen, p. xliii.Google Scholar

14 ME, I, pp. 18–19; sec also Archaic Roman Religion, p. xix.Google Scholar

15 See Gods of the Ancient Northmen, pp. xxiv and xxxiv, and ME, II, p. n; and cf. ME, III, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

16 See Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchies. The Caste System and Its Implications, Mark Sainsbury, trans. (London: Weidcnfcld and Nicholson, 1970), pp. 67–68, and in agreement Madeleine Biardeau, “Études de mythologie hindoue: Cosmogonies purāniques,” Part 2, with “Appendice: Contribution à l'étude du mythe-cadrc du Mahābhārata” [henceforth EMH, 2] Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême Orient LV (1969). 98.Google Scholar

17 See, e.g., ME, I, p. 221, ME, II, pp. 107–108.

18 See Littleton, New Comparative Mythology, especially p. 39: “It is upon these two fundamental assumptions—that divine beings arc necessarily 'collective representations' of important cultural and social realities, and that such representations necessarily give rise to categories of understanding—that Dumezil's conception of the nature of Indo-European mythology is founded.”

19 See Zaehncr, Hinduism, pp. 17–18: Dumezil's approach as the “ethnological school”; F. B. J. Kuiper, “Some Observations on Dumézil's Theory (with reference to Professor Frye's articles),” Nu-men VIII (1961), 36: “sociology prevails over mythology.”

20 ME, I, pp. 15–16.

21 Littleton, “Introduction, Part I,” Gods of the Ancient Northmen, p. x and n. 3.Google ScholarPubMed

22 One thinks of “initial” gods like Heimdall, Janus, Dyaus, or of the reconstructed “solar mythology” concerning Usas and Mater Matuta; sec, in English, Gods of the Ancient Northmen, pp. 126–40 andGoogle Scholar Archaic Roman Religion, pp. 47–59.Google Scholar

23 One will best be able to evaluate these remarks by reading ME, II and ME, III; the third part of the former appears as The Destiny of a King, Alf Hiltebcitel, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973).Google Scholar

24 Dumézil, The Destiny of the Warrior, Alf Hiltebeitel, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 73.Google Scholar

25 ME, I, p. 12.

26 Ibid., p. 13.

27 Dumézil, La Religion romaine archaīque (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), p. 8.Google Scholar

28 Littleton, “Some Possible Indo-European Themes in the Iliad,” Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans, p. 238.Google Scholar

29 The refinements are supported by his treatment of the Ṛiśupāla legend of the second book of the Mahābh–rata; see ME, II, Part I, reviewing the earlier study (Destiny of the Warrior, pp. 65–107 —first formulated 1956) in which the Indian material was provided by Indra myths.Google Scholar

30 For example, Littleton remarks that, in an articles on the Mahābhārata, Dumézil “concerns himself with relatively minor figures such as KKṛṣṇaa, Arjuna's faithful friend and charioteer, whom he identifies with ViKṣṇau” (New Comparative Mythology, P. I28); as if Kṛṣṇa is minor because Dumézil doesn't fit him into the three functions!

31 Sec Littleton, New Comparative Mythology, p. 139, n. 18.Google Scholar

32 This is the main thrust of Jan Gonda's “Some Observations on Dumezil's Views of Indo-European Mythology,” Mnemosyne IV, 13 (1960).

33 Brough, John, “The tripartite ideology of the Indo-Europcans: an experiment in method,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies XXII (1959), 68–86; for Dumezil's most recent response, see ME, 111, pp. 338–61.Google Scholar

34 See Thicme, Mitra and Aryaman, and the good discussion in Littleton, New Comparative Mythology pp. 176–82.Google Scholar

35 Gonda, “Some Observations,” pp. 7–8.

36 See Gonda, Some Observations on the Relations Between “Gods” and “Powers” in the Veda a propos of the Phrase Suntth Sahasah (s's-Graven-hage: Mouton, 1957);Google Scholar idem. Ancient Indian ojas, Latin *augos and the Indo-European Nouns -es/-os (Utrecht: A. Oosthoek's Uuitgevers Mij., 1952);Google Scholar see also the unanswerable remark in Gonda, The Vedic God Mitra (Leiden; E. J. Brill, 1972), p. 18: “I deliberately refrain from entering into a discussion of the ideas of Varuna and Mitra voiced by Dumezil, which I in general concur with Thicme in rejecting.”Google Scholar

37 E.g., Held, Garrett Jan, The Mahābhārata: An Ethnological Study (London and Amsterdam, 1935).Google Scholar passim, and Bosch, F. D. K., The Golden Germ. An Introduction to Indian Symbolism ('s-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1960), esp. pp. 60–88.Google Scholar

38 Similar points are made by Biardeau, EMH, 2, pp. 103–4 and Stig Wikander, “Germanischc und Indo-Iranische Eschatologie,” Kairos II (1960), 87, and anticipated by Bosch, Golden Germ, pp. 86–88.

39 Biardeau, EMH, 2, p. 97.

40 ibid.

41 E.g., on Bhīma, Ibid., p. 101, and Biardcau, Compte-rendu of “Conferences,” Annuaire de l'Étcole Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences Religieuses, LXXVIII (1970-71), 157-58, and. the brief discussion in my “The Mahābhārata and Hindu Eschatology,” History of Religions Journal XII, 2 (1972), 105–6 and nn. 37 and 38.Google Scholar

42 See my “The Mahdbhdrata and Hindu Eschatology,” esp. pp. 105–22, and my forthcoming book, The Ritual of Battle: Kṛṣṇa and the Mahdbhdrata.Google Scholar

43 See, e.g., Biardeau, EMH, 2, pp. 99-100; Kuiper, “Some Observations,” p. 432, n. 1; Gonda, Mitra, pp. 118–19, n. 7. Some have also raised difficulties concerning Bhīma's seniority to Arjuna, and Arjuna's associations outside of this structure, especially through his relations with Kṛṣṇa; in our opinion, however, these matters arc resolvable. For some important notes on Bhīma, sec Dumézil, “Noms mythiques indo-iraniens dans le folklore des Osses,” 1, Osse uaejttg, uaejyg ‘géant,’” Journal Asiatique CCXLIV (1956), 349–52, linking uaejug with Vāyu, and thus with Bhīma.Google Scholar

44 Destiny of the Warrior, p. xiv.

45 Ibid., passim.

46 See ME, II, Part 3= (Destiny of a king).

47 See ME, I, pp. 208–37.

48 See ME, II, pp. 96–108. 122–24.