From: Francesco Brighenti
Message: 58184
Date: 2008-04-29
> Francesco has written a very good post in IER on Mitannis onFor the record, I never wrote on the IER List that the Indo-Aryan
> Varuna getting transformed into Hittites' Aruna. I did say this
> earlier, but without much conviction nor with the scholarly
> reasoning given by Fr. The point I am trying to make here is you
> all can help me present things more in a scholarly way and
> acceptable to the mainstream social scientists.
> Some scholars in the past have tried to connect the theonymRegards,
> [A-RU-NA-A$-$I-IL] attested in the Mittani treaties with the
> Hittite theonym Arunas, attributed to a sea-god who reflected a
> Hurrian rather than a purely Hittite cultic tradition. In Hittite,
> aruna- (nom. sg. arunas) means `sea'. The hypothesized link (via
> Mittanian influence) between the Hittite Arunas and the Vedic
> Varun.a would have been reflected in latter's role as a sea-god
> -- which, however, only becomes prominent in the post-Vedic
> period, many centuries after the Hittites had disappeared
> from the scene or the Mittani treaties had been written down. In
> this connection, Jaan Puhvel (_Hittite Etymological Dictionary_,
> Vol. 1/2, p. 180) states: "Speculations about a contact-based
> tie-in [of the Hittite god Arunas] with the Mitannian (Indo-Aryan)
> Uruwana, (V)aruna were abortive." For instance, the theory
> advanced by Paul Kretschmer, according to whom the name and
> concept of the Indo-Aryan Varun.a would come from the Hittite
> sea-god Arunas, who would be in turn identical with Mittanian
> aruna- of the treaties, has been rejected. For the original
> enunciation of this theory see P. Kretschmer, "Varuna und die
> Urgeschichte der Inder," _Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des
> Morgenlandes_ 33 (1926), pp. 1-22.