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In his work the late Georges Dumézil, arguably the most important modern mythologist, demonstrated that every Indo-European religious and social system was structured according to three primary functions: sovereignty, war, and fertility. Mitra-Varuna, a penetrating inquiry into the first of these functions - religious and political sovereignty - is among the first of his texts to implement this revolutionary theory.Dumézil shows how, from Vedic India to Ireland from Caucasia to Rome, and from Iran to Old Germany, the sovereign gods and heroes always appear in couples: the creative but violent legislator and his counterpart, the conservative guarantor of world order. In effect, Mitra-Varuna presents an archaeology of representations of religious and political power.Georges Dumézil a member of the Académie Française, was Professor of Indo-European Civilization in the College de France. He is the author of numerous books including Camillus, The Gods of the Ancient Northmen, and The Stakes of the Warrior.Derek Coltman lives in England and is the translator of Dumézil's From Myth to Fiction.
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M i t r a -Va r u n a Translated by Derek Coltman Mitra-Varuna An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty Georges Dumezil ZONE BOOKS · 1988 NEW YORK BLtS60 D813 1988 © I988 Urzone, Inc. ZONE BOOKS 6n Broadway Suite 838 New York, NY lOOI2 All rights reserved 268993 No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy ing, microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except for that copying permitted by Sections lO7 and lO8 of the U.S . Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the Publisher Originally published in France as Mitra- Varuna © I948 by E ditions Gallimard. Printed in the United States of America Distributed by The M IT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dumezil, Georges, I898-I986 [Mitra-Varuna. English] Mitra-Varuna: an essay on two Indo-European representations / Georges Dumezil; translated by Derek Coltman p. cm. Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-942299-I2-4. ISBN 0-942299-I3-2 I. (pblc) Mythology, Indo-European. 2. Gods-Comparative studies. I. Title. BL660.D8I3 I988 29I.I' 3-dcI9 BL6 To my teachers Marcel Ma uss and Marcel Granet Contents Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition Luperci and Fiamines II Romulus and Numa IV Jupiter and Fides V VI VII VI I I IX X 65 83 Nexum and Mutuum W6dhanaz and 33 47 Ahura and Mithra �:� 17 21 Celeritas and Gravitas III 9 95 �:� Tiwaz 1 13 "Communiter" and "Discreta Cuique" 125 The One-Eyed God and the One-Handed God Savitr and Bha8a Conclusion Notes 183 17 5 161 139 Pr efa c e t o t h e S e c o n d Edition The first edition of this work, which was published in May 1940, formed Volume LVI of the Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Section des Religieuses. The printing was a very small one, and soon exhausted. In my mind, however, Mitra- Varu.Qa was to be merely the first in a series of studies devoted to a comparative exploration of the religions of Indo-European peoples, to the ideas those peoples had formed of human and divine society, and to a social and cosmic hierarchy in which Mitra and VarUJ)a occupy only the uppermost level. Despite historical circumstances, thi