Re: Swiftness of Indra

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick McCallister" <gabaroo6958@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Swiftness of Indra


>
> --- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:
> >
> > The only objections I would raise would be:
> >
> > 1) it is rather unusual to borrow a name for the
> > supreme god;
>
> Not true: See Jehovah, Yahweh, Allah et al. In
> Meso-America Nahuatl names were borrowed, calqued or
> subjected to popular etymology, etc. In West Africa,
> some names were shared: e.g. Legba was Ewe-Fon but
> passed into Yoruba and then into Santería as Eleguá.
> Some Buddhist deities, avatars and boddhisattvas had
> names that passed from Sanskrit to Chinese to
> Japanese.
> Religion and religious terminology seem very prone to
> borrowing

<snip>

***

True, Rick.

You must differentiate between borrowing a foreign name for an existing
native god, who keeps his native attributes,

and

adopting a foreign god with his original foreign attributes into the native
pantheon (like Isis in the classical world).

Continuing to worship Odin but calling him Yahweh? Pretty rare.


Patrick

***