1 10 The Religion of the Veda

occupied by the IndouEumpeans prior to historic times.

All IndowEuropeans revered the shining sky of daytime as a mighty being. The Hindus, Greeks, and Romans call him respectively flyazrr/z fixer, Zens peter, and Dz‘awz'z‘rr or fzqoz'trr. The meaning of the name is quite transparent in the Veda, where (23mm is still both common and proper noun. It always means sky. T he Latin expression we farm frzfiz’dv, “ under a cold sky,” “ in a cold climate,” preserves the sense of the word as a fossil. The slender myth that is contained here is that of a marital relation between the visible two halves of the cosmos. The lady, or “correslnonclent “ in the affair was “Mother Earth” (Vedic fire/aim meter, “ terra mater“)!l This union was blessed with child- ren, known frequently in the Veda, and occasionally elsewhere, as the children of the Sky. In the Veda. Agni, “Fire,” ,Ushas, “Dawn,” and especially the dual“ Horsemen,” the Agvins, are so named. The “Horsemen,” as we shall see later, correspond to the Greek Dioscuri (Artieuoflpoz), “ Sons of Zeus. or Heaven," Castor and Pollux, and to the “ Sons of

God” in Lettish mythology. In this instance at

’ Herodotus iv. 59 testifies forthright that the Seythians. closely allied to the Persians, worshipped Earth as the wife of Zeus: dab: rs xatl‘r’fw, troy-{Cortes mix! [Viv r013 A165 sires: ymwhrrr.

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