Joao:
>Alain Danielou's book, Shiva et Dionysos mentions this relation >between
>Dionysos and Shiva plus Skanda. He relates a "First, Older >Dionysos" with
>Shiva, and a "Second, Younger Dionysos" with Skanda.
>But we had a problem: Dionysos HAS NEVER BEEN a warrior god.
Not within historical times at least. Judging by even the most prominent
deities of Greek, Roman, Norse and Indic religion, it would appear that
deities merge and split all the time. In the case of Dionysos, I wonder if
there isn't an underlying warrior element in him. I have to read some more.
>Akhiles is Pyrisoos "Fire-saved" and Asklepios
>can be a similar epithetus, although I can't remember.
Aha! Now Akhiles is a warrior, isn't he? Of course he is, although blended a
bit with both *Manus' _and_ *Yemos' qualities. As for Asklepios, well, I
dunno. He's a healer, not much of a warrior, the son of Apollo and Koronis.
Koronis takes another lover while pregnant and so Apollo, like any jealous
lover would, roasts her on an open pyre. The child however is rescued from
the baby BBQ - henceforth his epithet.
One interesting site mentions something interesting about Fire which
probably has relevance to IE myth
(
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/BA/AGEDE/Fire.html). I quote in the summary
paragraph: "We have seen that Fire is the primary agent of transformation,
[...]". In other words, "fire" has no form and prone to shape-shifting
transformations as we see with *XegWnis (Lugh, Lleu, Loki, Agni).
The site also mentions the "purification" by fire which is also relevant.
When we take a look at the story of Asklepios, the role of fire in this case
is for purification purposes. Who else is better to heal the sick but
someone who purified? So, I don't think Asklepios might be connected to the
war god.
>The tale of a Earth-Goddess struck by the Lightning of a Sky or >Storm-god
>is a very plausible concept.
Earth-Goddess? As far as I'm concerned, there is only an IE Earth _God_,
*Yemos, the slain brother. This myth about a killed entity who is wept for
and reborn is attested in many IE and surrounding non-IE myths. Check out
Norse Ymir. Check out Celtic Cernunnos, the god of fertility and the
underworld, while you're at it. Even Egyptian mythology has the earth formed
from Geb, a _god_. I doubt you can provide the same substantiation for a
goddess which in all likelihood is in some way or another a lingering of
pre-IE Goddess mythos in Europe.
- gLeN
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