The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.14

c8.14

All Indo-Europeans revered the shining sky of daytime as a mighty being. The Hindus, Greeks, and Romans call him respectively *Dyaush pitar*, *Zeus pater*, and *Diespiter* or *Jupiter*. The meaning of the name is quite transparent in the Veda, where *dyaus* is still both common and proper noun. It always means sky. The Latin expression *sub Jove frigido*, "under a cold sky," "in a cold climate," preserves the sense of the word as a fossil. The slender myth that is contained here is that of a marital relation between the visible two halves of the cosmos. The lady, or "correspondent" in the affair was "Mother Earth" (Vedic *pṛithivī mātar*, "terra mater").¹ This union was blessed with children, known frequently in the Veda, and occasionally elsewhere, as the children of the Sky. In the Veda Agni, "Fire," Ushas, "Dawn," and especially the dual "Horsemen," the Açvins, are so named. The "Horsemen," as we shall see later, correspond to the Greek Dioscuri (Διόσκοῦροι), "Sons of Zeus, or Heaven," Castor and Pollux, and to the "Sons of God" in Lettish mythology. In this instance at least the concept "children of Father Sky" is prehistoric, and genuinely mythic.