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The ancient Indo-Aryans were the founders of Persia and of India n Vedic culture. They believed in one God with many names: Rig Veda,1:164:46 Truth is One, but sages call it by many names It is believed that before they divided into European, Persian and Vedic groups they shared a common Indo-Iranian ( Aryan ) mythology. The details of this are not known, but the names of some Aryan gods are found in texts surviving from the lost Hittite and Mitanni kingdoms. The main sources of information are the early Iranian Avesta and Indo-Aryan Rigveda . The existence of similarities among the Deities and Religious Practices of the speakers of Indo-European Languages allows glimpses of a common Proto-Indo-European Religion and mythology. This hypothetical religion would have been the ancestor of the majority of the religions of pre-Christian Europe , of the Dharma Faiths in India , and of Zoroastrianism in Iran . Indications of the existence of this ancestral religion can be detected in commonalities between languages and religious customs of Indo-European peoples to presuppose this ancestral religion did exist, though any details must remain conjectural. While similar religious customs among Indo-European peoples can provide evidence for a shared religious heritage, a shared custom does not necessarily indicate a common source for such a custom; some of these practices may well have evolved in a process of Parallel Evolution . Archaeological evidence, where any can be found, is difficult to match to a specific culture. The best evidence is therefore the existence of cognate words and names in the Indo-European Languages . God names that can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-Iranian religion include Soma , Dyaus (Indo-European Dyeus ), Mitra and Varuna , Agni , and Tvastar . It is assumed that these names developed in different ways as cultures separated and evolved. Thus, a name of God such as the Vedic Mitra appears in Persian form as Mithra and then later develops into the Roman Mithras . Because Aryan texts are the oldest surviving evidence of early Indo-European speaking peoples it was assumed during the nineteenth century that they preserved aspects of Proto-Indo-European culture, before the dispersal of the Indo-European peoples across Europe and Asia. It was thus thought that Aryan God names are linked to Celtic , Norse , Greek and Roman mythology. Many Ethnologists hoped to unify all the Pagan European mythologies into a Proto-Indo-European Belief System . Many such thinkers, following Max Müller , believed that all the Aryan mythical systems began as forms of Sun Worship . Such ideas influenced the emergence of New Age thinking about myth, and theories such as Jung 's notion of a Collective Unconscious . PRIESTS The main functionaries of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European religion would have been maintained by a Class of Priest s or Shaman s. There is evidence for sacral kingship, suggesting the tribal king at the same time assumed the role of high priest. This function would have survived as late as 11th Century Scandinavia, when kings could still be dethroned for refusing to serve as priests (see Germanic King ). Many Indo-European societies know a threefold division of a Clerical class, a Warrior class and a class of peasants or husbandmen. Such a division was suggested for the Proto-Indo-European society by Georges Dumézil . Examples of the descendants of this class in historical Indo-European societies would be the Celtic Druid s and the Indian Brahmin s and Persian Magi . The s (see also Witches ). Divination was performed by priests, e.g. from parts of slaughtered animals, see (cf. Animal Sacrifice , Haruspex ). Bird s also played a role in divination, see Augur , Language Of The Birds . PANTHEON Philological reconstructions of some PIE theonyms:
Additional gods may include:
According to Russian painter and scholar Alex Fantalov , there are only five main archetypes for all gods and goddesses of all Indo-European mythologies, and quite possibly, these five archetypes were the original deities of ancient PIE pantheon. These, according to Fantalov, are: #God of the Sky #God of Thunder #God of the Earth/Underworld #Cultural Hero #Great Goddess The Sky and Thunder gods were heavenly deities, representing the ruling class of society, and in subsequent cultures they were often merged into a single supreme god. On the other hand, the Earth god and the Cultural Hero were earthly gods, tied to nature, agriculture and crafts, and in subsequent cultures they were often split into more deities as societies grew more complex. And while it seems there existed some enmity between the Thunderer and the God of the Earth (which may be echoed in myths about battle of various thunder gods and a serpentine enemy, see below), the Cultural Hero seems to be a sort of demigod son of either the Sky God or the Thunder God, and was considered to be the ancestor of the human race, and the Psychopomp . Together with the character of Great Goddess, who was a wife of the ruling Sky God, the Cultural Hero thus balanced between the heavenly God of the Sky/Thunder and the more chthonic God of the Earth/Underworld. See also Semitic Pantheon . MYTHOLOGY (Kernosovka stela), possibly depicting a late Proto-Indo-European god, most likely Dyeus , the thunderer.]] There seems to have been a belief in a World Tree , which in Germanic Mythology was an Ash Tree (Norse Yggdrasil ; Irminsul ), in Hinduism a Banyan tree, in Lithuanian Mythology Jievaras and an Oak Tree in Slavic Mythology . Although this concept is absent from Greek Mythology , there is also a later folk tradition about the World Tree, which is being sawed by the Kallikantzaroi (Greek goblins), perhaps a reborrowing from other peoples. One common myth which can be found among almost all Indo-European mythologies is a battle ending with the slaying of a serpent, usually a dragon of some sort: examples include , Oceanos , Triton , Typhon (who carries many cthonic attributes while not specifically linked with the sea), Ophion, and also the Slavic Veles. There may have been a sort of nature spirit or god akin to the Greek god Pan and the Satyr s, the Roman god Faunus and the Faun s, the Celtic god Cernunnos and the Dusii, Vedic Pashupati , Prajapati and Pushan , the Slavic Leszi , the Germanic Woodwose , and the English Herne The Hunter ; There may also have been a female cognate akin to the Greco-Roman nymphs, Slavic Vila s, the Huldra of Germanic Folklore , the Hindu Apsara , the Persia n Peri . A possibly similar type of spirit may be found in Jewish mythology, Azazel and the Se'irim , as well as in Arabic Mythology , the Jinn . There may also have been a savage dog or wolf guarding the underworld, such as Greek Kerberos and Norse Garm . It is also likely that they had three fate goddesses, see the Norns in Norse Mythology , Moirae in Greek Mythology , Sudjenice of Slavic Folklore and Deivės Valdytojos in Lithuanian Mythology . The Sun was represented as riding in a Chariot , see Sun Chariot . DEVELOPMENT The various Indo-European daughter cultures continued elements of hypothesized PIE religion, syncretizing it with innovations and foreign elements, notably Ancient Near East ern elements, the reforms of Zoroaster and Buddha , and the spread of Christianity and Islam .
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