Dyeus

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Proto-Indo-European *dyḗws. Doublet of Jove and Zeus.

Proper noun

Dyeus

1. The daylight-sky god in Proto-Indo-European mythology.
   • 1926, V. Gordon Childe, The Aryans: A Study of Indo-European Origins, page 81:

     Varuna may be related to Οὐρανός, and the inversion of the rôles of this deity and Dyeus as between India and Greece may indicate an ancient rival of the Sky-Father.

   • 1933, Panjabrao Deshmukh, The Origin and Development of Religion in Vedic Literature, Oxford University Press, pages 93, 126:

     But these myths are on the whole of purely Greek origin, where the original Dyeus was associated with the Sun- and the Moon-myths. […] Thus among the I.E.s we first have Dyeus, the god of the sky, who was the god of the sum total of the phenomena observed in the sky, the original conception, however powerful, being as yet too confused to have any definiteness about it.

   • 1985, Roger Pearson, Anthropological Glossary, →ISBN, page 16:

     ARYAN RELIGION, the religion of the Aryans who settled India and Iran in pre-Zoroastrian times evolved around a supreme sky god known as Dyeus, who was the Allfather of both gods and men and the consort of the Mother Earth.

   • 1990, Sophy Burnham, A Book of Angels: Reflections on Angels Past and Present, and True Stories of How They Touch Our Lives, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 119:

     Four or five thousand years ago (around 2500 b.c.) the Aryans, or Indo-Europeans, settled in Iran and India. Their supreme god was Dyeus (thence Zeus, deus, deity, and other words). Dyeus was the shining God of Sky, the giver of rain, the vanquisher of enemies with thunderbolts.

   • 2003, Constance Victoria Briggs, The Encyclopedia of God: An A-Z Guide to Thoughts, Ideas, and Beliefs about God, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, →ISBN, pages 23, 68:

     “God” to the Aryans was male and took on many forms. Their major gods were connected to the sun, the most important were Agni, Indra, and Varunai. Their main god was Dyeus (Sky God). […] Dyeus / The God of the Aryans.

   • 2018, Michael Mayerfeld Bell, “Chapter 2: Nature Before Nature”, in City of the Good: Nature, Religion, and the Ancient Search for What Is Right, Princeton University Press, published 2020, →ISBN, page 19:

     The PIE peoples had called their chief god by almost the same name: Dyeus. Like Zeus, Dyeus was a male god of sky and thunder. The Romans picked up on Dyeus too. The name “Jupiter” came from dyeu-pater, PIE for god-father. Later on, the Romans equated Jupiter with Zeus, a kind of double derivation from Dyeus.

Related terms

• Dyaus Pita
• Jupiter
• Zeus

Further reading

• Dyeus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Duesy, Dueys