Bhima, a wolf-man?

Dear List,

I am making a research on the Mahâbhârata hero Bhîma's aspect as
a `mad warrior'. My inquisitiveness arises from a paper written by
an Italian Indologist suggesting that the figure of Bhîma may be
partly reminiscent of the IE proto-berserkr's aspect as a
lycanthropist or wolf-man.

Apart from the descriptions of Bhîma's cruel and frenzied way of
fighting found in the MBh (f.e., he often ends up fighting with his
bare hands, he drinks the blood of his worst enemy, DuHzâsana, and
makes a meat ball of Kîcaka etc.), I take the cue from the possible
cultural and mythological implications of epithet vRkodara (`wolf-
bellied') attributed to the PANDava hero in the epic. VRkodara as an
epithet of Bhîma is traditionally taken to denote his slimness of
waist and insatiable hunger, or else, Bhîma is known after this name
because of his enormous appetite and of the fact that his belly
would always remain flat irrespective of the quantity of food he
ate. Yet, couldn't this epithet have been at one time referred to
Bhîma because of an unattested association of this hero with the
hypothesized cultic and initiatory `wolf-complex' of IE `mad
warriors'?

The following are the titles of two works, relevant to this issue, I
read of recent:

Speidel, Michael. Berserks: A History of Indo-European 'Mad
Warriors'. Journal of World History, Vol. 13, No. 2, Fall 2002, pp.
253-290. Univerity of Hawai'i Press.

Kershaw, Kris. The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic
Männerbünde. Wahshington, D.C.: Institute for the Study of Man, 2000
[Journal of the Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 36].

This line of research on IE Männerbünde intrigues me a lot. I am
aware of the highly speculative nature of such studies, which are
mainly based on linguistic and philological arguments, but I also
feel something important is to be found in them as regards the
reconstruction of a putative PIE cultural heritage. I also read of
Wikander and Dumézil's theory about the paired Bhîma-Arjuna
representing the split, in an Indic socio-cultural environment, of
the IE warrior function in two complementary halves, which are
described in Indic texts as the vîrya (`chivalrous') and bala
(`brutish') aspects of that function, and which would correspond to
the pairing off of Rgvedic war gods as Indra (Arjuna's father) and
Vâyu (Bhîma's father). Some functional equivalences have been
further proposed between Vâyu and Wotan (also etymological: PIE *wê-
`to blow' > IA Vâyu seems connected with *wet- `to blow, inspire,
spiritually arose' > OHG Woutan), keeping in mind that Wotan was
the `shamanic god' of the Scandinavian `mad warriors' (berserkrs,
ulfedhnars).

On the other hands, the Maruts -- who in the epic alternate with
Vâyu as the other father(s) of Bhîma -- were also, according to the
study by K. Kershaw cited above, a divine symbol of the IE
Männerbünde. The latter institution, according to the same author,
would have been exemplified in Vedic India by the Rudra-worshipping
Vrâtya brotherhoods -- in this case, do we have the `wild' Rudra as
a different cultic projection of the `shaman god' of IE brotherhoods
formed by consecrated young warriors?

Please help me somebody!

Thanks.

Francesco Brighenti
VAIS -- Venetian Academy of Indian Studies
Venice, Italy