What do you think?
Rate this book
Les dieux souverains des Indo-Européens
«C'est en 1938 qu'a commencé la série d'études qui a reconstitué de grands fragments de l'idéologie, de la théologie et de la mythologie communes aux Indo-Européens avant leurs migrations. Les dix premières années ont été consacrées à l'exploration sommaire de deux ensembles : la conception des trois fonctions hiérarchisées de souveraineté sacrée, de force, de fécondité ; la conception des deux aspects complémentaires, magique et juridique, de la souveraineté. Divers travaux [...], livres épuisés aujourd'hui, ont mis en forme les premières observations. Mais les recherches ultérieures, fondées sur ces esquisses, ont permis par contrecoup de les préciser, de les corriger, de les compléter, de les coordonner.Il était donc nécessaire de reprendre ces principa theologica en tenant compte de près de trente ans de progrès et aussi de discussions à peu près ininterrompues qui les ont imposées à l'attention des "philologies séparées". L'exposé a été concentré sur les questions fondamentales et limité aux quatre principaux témoins qui ont servi, par comparaison, à atteindre une réalité préhistorique, indo-européenne, à savoir l'Inde védique, l'Iran, Rome, la Scandinavie : les prolongements qu'ont ensuite fournis les Grecs et les Celtes ont été laissés de côté. On s'est appliqué partout à faire saillir les ressorts, à dégager les moments des argumentations.» Georges Dumézil.
280 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 1977
About the author
Georges Dumézil
94 books94 followersGeorges Dumézil was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society. He is considered one of the major contributors to mythography, in particular for his formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis of social class in ancient societies.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 2, 2025
A late but frankly essential addition to the Dumézilian corpus, where we both synthesize and expand upon the "theology of sovereignty" of the various Indo-European peoples, above all the Indo-Iranians, the Romans and the Germanics, which is remarkably consistent across the board despite the multitude of various developments that each of these people went through as they progressed through their historical course: from the adoption of agriculture and urban sedentarism in Rome and the completely legalistic character of its religion, whose mythology becomes almost exclusively historical as a result, to the unique cynicism of Germanic religion which set its mythology apart from other Indo-European mythologies and religions, seeing the gods, as they did, as no different, more moral or perfect than men, which had widespread historical consequences; to the conservatism of Vedic Indic religion and the great reforms of Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism to the Indo-Iranian religion which, nonetheless, used the exact same theological structure.
This book is basically essential to understanding how Indo-Europeans understood sovereignty, and specially a much needed cure against the nonsense from the 19th century, somehow still current, that figures such as Baldr are "Sun Gods", that Hodr is "the god of Winter" as if there is any such thing, and so on - it shows them, clearly and undeniably, to be "minor sovereigns", which is to say, aides to the king of the gods which altogether form up a divine court, and more importantly, there is a mass of comparative data presented that shows that the duo Baldr-Hodr is entirely consistent with Aryaman-Bhaga in India, and Sraoṣ̌a-Aṣ̌i in Iran, while the Iuuentas-Terminus duo in Rome is similar if changed due to the legalistic character of Roman religion - I would say that this is where I disagree with Dumézil, and that this minor sovereign in IE religions, the "Protector of the National Community" as he's sometimes typologically categorized, is invariably a representative of Good Faith, of husbandly values, etc, which in Rome actually translates much better to Semo Sancus. Not just that, in the epic transpositions of Indo-European myth, by which, in many stylistic variations and literary forms, all these peoples "constructed" their prehistory by transposing their mythology onto the origin of the nations (see Dumézil's Mythe et Epopée), there is always a moment of transition characterized exactly by the death of the transposed (i.e. mortal, heroic, etc) version of exactly this protector, the equivalent of which, in mythology, seems almost solely represented by the famous Germanic myth of the Death of Baldr (though there may be others which have simply become more obscure in the overall place of the theology): very well, but the death of Iraj in the Iranian Shahnameh is identical, in every single way, while the same role is played by Ancus Marcius in Roman epic, a transposition of Semo Sancus then, which is curiously repeated by Egerius shortly after; while Aryaman is transposed into the Mahabharata as Vidura; the fact that it is said he is actually the avatar of Yama is perfectly consistent with this, for Yama, like Baldr, was the "introduction of death into the world" and it is he who waits underground to hospitably receive those who follow the "ways of the Fathers", while Aryaman is given the similar role of psychopomp through exactly this "way", while Óengus/Mac Óc in Ireland plays much of the same role, as does his Welsh linguistic cognate Mabon ap Modron, locked in an underground prison only reachable by the oldest and wisest (synonymous, of course) way (that of the Salmon) by water, just like Baldr's abode in Hel.
But all these conclusions, where I start to disagree somewhat with Dumézil, as well as further ones which he simply does not develop, namely that these minor sovereigns correspond themselves to a trifunctionality within each function, which is to say, that the main sovereign gods represent bipartite sovereignty and these "minor sovereigns" the more minor second and third functions within the first function itself (namely, the virile youthful germ that assures the continuity of society into the next generation and protection of the community for the second function; the (hopefully, but not commonly) fair redistribution of wealth for the third), were only ever possible to reach due to this work and those that preceded it and followed it - it remains essential reading.
This book is basically essential to understanding how Indo-Europeans understood sovereignty, and specially a much needed cure against the nonsense from the 19th century, somehow still current, that figures such as Baldr are "Sun Gods", that Hodr is "the god of Winter" as if there is any such thing, and so on - it shows them, clearly and undeniably, to be "minor sovereigns", which is to say, aides to the king of the gods which altogether form up a divine court, and more importantly, there is a mass of comparative data presented that shows that the duo Baldr-Hodr is entirely consistent with Aryaman-Bhaga in India, and Sraoṣ̌a-Aṣ̌i in Iran, while the Iuuentas-Terminus duo in Rome is similar if changed due to the legalistic character of Roman religion - I would say that this is where I disagree with Dumézil, and that this minor sovereign in IE religions, the "Protector of the National Community" as he's sometimes typologically categorized, is invariably a representative of Good Faith, of husbandly values, etc, which in Rome actually translates much better to Semo Sancus. Not just that, in the epic transpositions of Indo-European myth, by which, in many stylistic variations and literary forms, all these peoples "constructed" their prehistory by transposing their mythology onto the origin of the nations (see Dumézil's Mythe et Epopée), there is always a moment of transition characterized exactly by the death of the transposed (i.e. mortal, heroic, etc) version of exactly this protector, the equivalent of which, in mythology, seems almost solely represented by the famous Germanic myth of the Death of Baldr (though there may be others which have simply become more obscure in the overall place of the theology): very well, but the death of Iraj in the Iranian Shahnameh is identical, in every single way, while the same role is played by Ancus Marcius in Roman epic, a transposition of Semo Sancus then, which is curiously repeated by Egerius shortly after; while Aryaman is transposed into the Mahabharata as Vidura; the fact that it is said he is actually the avatar of Yama is perfectly consistent with this, for Yama, like Baldr, was the "introduction of death into the world" and it is he who waits underground to hospitably receive those who follow the "ways of the Fathers", while Aryaman is given the similar role of psychopomp through exactly this "way", while Óengus/Mac Óc in Ireland plays much of the same role, as does his Welsh linguistic cognate Mabon ap Modron, locked in an underground prison only reachable by the oldest and wisest (synonymous, of course) way (that of the Salmon) by water, just like Baldr's abode in Hel.
But all these conclusions, where I start to disagree somewhat with Dumézil, as well as further ones which he simply does not develop, namely that these minor sovereigns correspond themselves to a trifunctionality within each function, which is to say, that the main sovereign gods represent bipartite sovereignty and these "minor sovereigns" the more minor second and third functions within the first function itself (namely, the virile youthful germ that assures the continuity of society into the next generation and protection of the community for the second function; the (hopefully, but not commonly) fair redistribution of wealth for the third), were only ever possible to reach due to this work and those that preceded it and followed it - it remains essential reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review