IE Dumezilian Triad: a Pentad, according Nicholas J. Allen.

From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 64736
Date: 2009-08-13

I extracted this text from Nicholas J. Allen, who sugested a Pentadic System substituting Triadic Dumezilian System of social-mythic functions. I'd like to see your comments. The extra functions are: F4+ (the Good King) and F4- (the Outsider)

JS Lopes

from Śiva and Indo-European Ideology: One Line of Thought, Journal International Journal of Hindu Studies


"(...) My approach departs from Dumézil’s in three main ways. First, Dumézil envisaged
the Mahåbhårata as being composed in India by the transposition into epic
form of bits and pieces of Vedic or para-Vedic mythology. I agree with several
others, such as Christophe Vielle (1996), in thinking that, as a more or less unified
epic cycle, the Mahåbhårata had a long prehistory outside the subcontinent before it
was brought there by Indo-Åryan speakers. Second, where Dumézil rather seldom
drew on comparisons between the Mahåbhårata and Greek epic, I have emphasized
them (though for reasons of space I do not do so here). Third, to put it crudely and
simplistically, where Dumézil envisages the Indo-European ideology as triadic, I
envisage it as pentadic. More precisely, although Dumézil only talks of three
domains or “functions,” he often bisects his first function into Varu~a and Mitra
aspects, so that in effect he operates with a fourfold schema. Conversely, although I
talk of a pentadic ideology, I prefer to avoid proposing five functions and instead
envisage a fourth function bisected into positive and negative aspects or “halffunctions.”
2 So the triadic and pentadic schemata contrast less sharply than may
appear at first sight. (...)"



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