*Dyēus

*Dyḗus (which means 'daylight') is the old name for the daylight-sky god from Proto-Indo-European mythology. He was seen as the bright blue sky during the day and the place where the gods lived, called the *deywṓs. People thought *Dyēus was connected to the sky and the rain that helped plants grow. He was often linked with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth Mother, showing the balance between the sky and the earth.

Even though we do not have direct proof of *Dyēus from old writings, scholars think he might be the most important god in the old Indo-European religion. This is because similar ideas and words about him appear in many later Indo-European languages and stories from groups like the Vedic Indo-Aryans, Latins, Greeks, Phrygians, Messapians, Thracians, Illyrians, Albanians, and Hittites.

Name

Etymology

The name Dyēus means "bright sky" or "daylight". It is connected to words in many languages about the day, the sky, and gods. For example, in Sanskrit, a word for "heavenly" or "shining" comes from the same root.

Epithets

People often called Dyēus "Father". The idea of a father god appears in many ancient cultures. For example, in Vedic traditions, Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ means "Sky Father", and in Greek, Zeus Patēr means "Father Zeus". Similar ideas are found in other ancient languages and traditions.

Role

*Dyēus was seen as the bright sky and the home of the gods, often called the "Heaven." He was thought to be the father of important figures like the Divine Twins and the goddess of the Dawn. Though important, he was not the ruler of the gods like Zeus or Jupiter.

*Dyēus was linked to the wide, bright sky and to rain that helps plants grow. Some versions of him, like Zeus and Jupiter, are storm gods, but this idea probably came later from mixing with other cultures. In stories, *Dyēus was described as "all-seeing" with "wide vision." People thought of the sun as the "lamp of Dyēus" or the "eye of Dyēus."

*Dyēus is often paired with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth goddess. Together, they were seen as helping life on Earth grow — the rain from the sky makes the earth fertile. The Earth was also seen as a place where people live, below the bright home of the gods. Some stories suggest that *Dyēus might have had a wife, but this is not certain.

Evidence

Words that come from the root *dyeu- meaning "daylight" or "bright sky" are found in many Indo-European languages. These words include ideas about the sky, gods, and heaven.

Descendants

• PIE: *d(e)i-, meaning 'to shine, be bright',
  • PIE: *dyēus, the daylight-sky god,
    • Indo-Iranian: *dyauš,
      • Sanskrit: Dyáuṣ, the god of Heaven, and dyú, the common word for "heaven",
      • Old Avestan: dyaoš, "heaven", mentioned in a single verse of the Avesta; Young Avestan: diaoš, "hell", as a result of the Zoroastrian religious reformation,
    • Mycenaean Greek: di-we, dative case of an otherwise scarcely attested name,
      • Cypriot Syllabary: ti-wo, interpreted as pertaining to Zeus, and the possible genitive Diwoi,
        • Greek: Zeus, the god of the Sky; also Boeotian Lac., Corinth., Rhod. dialects: Deús,
    • Italic: *d(i)jous,
      • Old Latin: Dioue (or loue), Dijovis (diovis),
        • Latin: Jove, the god of the Sky;
        • Latin: Diūs, the god of oaths

Ritual and formulaic expressions from the form *Dyēus Ph₂ter ("Father Dyēus") were inherited in liturgic and poetic traditions:

• PIE: *dyēus ph₂tḗr, 'Father Sky' (voc. *dyeu ph₂ter, "O Father Sky"),
  • Greek: Zeus Patēr,
  • Indo-Iranian: *Dyauš-pHtar,
    • Vedic: Dyáuṣ-pitā́ (voc. Dyáuṣ-pitṛ́),
  • Italic: *Djous-patēr > *Dijēs-patēr (voc. *Djow-patēr),
    • Old Latin: Dies Pater,
      • Latin: Diespiter; Iūpiter (from *Djow-patēr), archaic Iovispater, later Iuppiter,
    • Oscan: Dípatír, Umbrian: Iupater (dat. Iuve patre), South Picene: dipater (gen. dipoteres),
  • Illyrian: Deipaturos, recorded by Hesychius as Δειπάτυροϛ (Deipáturos), a god worshiped in Tymphaea.

Other reflexes are variants that have retained both linguistic descendants of the stem *dyeu- ("sky") alongside the original structure "Father God".

Other variants are less secured:

• Hittite: attas Isanus, "Father Sun-god"; the name of the sky-god was replaced with a Hattic sun-god loan, but the original structure of the formula left intact,
• Latvian: Debess tēvs, "Father of Heaven",
• Old Norse: Óðinn Alföðr, "Odin, All-Father" or "Odin Father of All",
• Russian: Stribogŭ, "Father God",
• Albanian: Zot, "lord" or "God", epithet of Zojz, the sky-father,
• Tokharian B: kauṃ-ñäkte, 'sun, sun-god'.

"Celestial" derivations

Words that come from *deiwós, a form of *dyēus (the sky-god), are found in the following traditions:

• PIE: *deiwós (lit. skyling, pl. *deywṓs), meaning "celestial, heavenly one", hence a "god",
  • Indo-Iranian: *daivá (daiua), a "god",
    • Sanskrit: devá, meaning "heavenly, divine, anything of excellence", and devi, female title meaning "goddess";
    • Avestan: daēva, a term for "demons" in Zoroastrianism, as a result of a religious reformation that degraded the status of prior deities,
      • Old Persian: daiva meaning "false deities, demons",
  • Balto-Slavic: *deiwas,
    • Baltic: *deivas,
      • Old Lithuanian: Deivas,
        • Lithuanian: Diēvas, supreme god of the sky,
      • Old Prussian: Dìews (or Deywis), Latvian: Dievs, and the Baltic Dievaitis ("Little God" or "Prince"), a name used to refer to the Thunder God Perkūnas, or to the Moon God Mėnuo.
  • Germanic: *tīwaz (pl. *tīwōz), a word for "god" that probably also served as a title (*Tīwaz, "God") that came to be associated with a specific deity whose original name is now lost, - Old Norse: Týr, associated with justice; - Old English: Tīw (or Tīg), Old High German: Zio (or *Ziu), a god, - Gothic: *Teiws, a deity reconstructed from the associated rune ᛏ (Tyz),
  • Italic: *deiwos, a "god, a deity",
    • Old Latin: deivos (deiuos), the "gods",
      • Latin: deus, common name for a "god, a deity"; and Dea ("goddess"), a title assigned to various Roman goddesses like Dea Tacita, Bona Dea or Dea Dia ("Goddess of the Daylight" or "Bright Goddess").
        • Vulgar Latin: Deus, the god of Christianity in the Vetus Latina and the Vulgate,
    • Oscan: deivas, Venetic: deivos, "gods",
    • Volscian: deue Decluna, attested in an inscription from Velitrae, possibly from the 3rd century BC.
  • Celtic: *dēwos, a "god, a deity", and *dago-dēwos, the "good god", old name of the Dagda,
    • Celtiberian: teiuo, a "god",
    • Gaulish: dēuos, a "god",
      • Gaulish: Devona (/deuona/) or Divona, a deity of sacred waters, springs, and rivers whose name means "Divine",
    • Old Welsh: Dubr Duiu ("Water of the Divinity"), evolving into Mod. Welsh Dyfrdwy (River Dee, Wales).
    • Old Irish: día, a "god", and An Dag-da, the druid-god of wisdom,
      • Irish: Dhe ("god"), attested in the modern Sùil Dhé mhóir prayer ("The eye of the great God", in reference to the Sun), featured in Carmina Gadelica.
  • Messapic: deiva, dīva, "goddess",
  • Phrygian: devos.

Other cognates are less secured:

• Slavic: *diva (> *dîvo), perhaps a word for a "good deity" which progressively took the meaning of "miracle", hence "evil being",
  • Old Church Slavonic: divo, Old Polish: dziwo, Russian: dívo, Serbo-Croatian: dîvo, "miracle(s)",
  • OCS: divŭ, "demon", South Slavic: div, "giant, demonic being", although the Proto-Slavic root *divŭ(jĭ) ("wild") has also been proposed,
  • Polish: Dziewanna, Sorbian: Dživica, Slavic equivalent of Diana, however, other etymologies have been proposed.
• Lusitanian: Reo, an unknown deity.
  • Lusitanian: Deiba and Deibo, attested in votive inscriptions of altars; taken to mean the "local" or "indigenous" pronunciations of Deae and Deo.

"Divine" derivations

Other words that come from the adjective *diwyós (*dyeu "sky" + yós, a thematic suffix) are found in the following traditions:

• PIE: *diwyós, meaning "divine, heavenly, godlike",
  • Mycenaean Greek: di-wi-jo (/diwjos/), di-wi-ja (/diwja/),
    • Greek: dîos (δῖος), "belonging to heaven, godlike", also "belonging to Zeus" in tragedies; feminine Día (Δῖα dīvus_ via the intermediate form *dīw-(o)t- or *dīw-(e)t- ("who is like the gods, protected by the gods"), with contraction *īwi_- > î_. According to de Vaan, "the occurrence of the deity Dīs together with pater may be due to association with Di(e)spiter."
    • Latin: dīus, dīā, another adjective with the same meaning, probably based on *dīwī > dī_ (dat.abl.pl. dīs),
      • Latin: Diāna (from an older Dīāna), goddess of the moon and the countryside.

Other cognates are less secured:

• Paleo-Balkan:
  • Albanian: zana "nymph, goddess".
  • Romanian: zână "fairy, goddess".

Legacy

As the stories and beliefs from Proto-Indo-European religion grew, ideas about Dyēus changed and were shared with other gods. In Greek and Roman stories, Dyēus was seen as the main god. In Vedic mythology, the idea of Dyēus became more abstract, and he was no longer as important as other gods.

In Albanian tradition

When the ancestors of the Albanians learned about Christianity, the word they used for Sky-Father – Zot – came to mean God, the Father, and the Son (Christ). In Albanian folk beliefs, the top of the highest mountains, like Tomorr in central Albania, was linked to the sky-god Zojz. The mountain is still considered sacred, and people visit it each year.

In Slavic tradition

At one time, early Slavs, like some Iranian peoples, began to see the Slavic version of Dyēus in a less kind way. They stopped using the word for "heaven" and replaced many old god names with new Slavic or Iranian names. Because of this, Dyēus came to be linked with strange or unusual ideas.

Some researchers think that some of Dyēus's qualities might have passed to Svarog. Helmold wrote that the Slavs believed in a god in heaven who only dealt with heavenly matters and guided the other gods.

In non-Indo-European traditions

Some words from an ancient language related to the sky are used in languages that are not from the same family. For example, the word for "sky" in Estonian, taevas, and in Finnish, taivas, came from an older language called Proto-Indo-Iranian. These languages belong to a different group called Uralic languages.