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6/21/2025, 6:30:57 AM
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The Upanishads and Puranas only expand these aspects already present in the RigVeda, often with a critical or satirical intention, especially in contexts more influenced by Vaishnavism and Shaivism, where Indra already appears as a minor, arrogant, often ridiculed god.
The most obvious is the case of Dyauspitr, literally “Father Sky”, a direct equivalent of the Proto-Indo-European Dyēus ph2tḗr and parallel to Zeus, Jupiter and other supreme gods of the Indo-European traditions. However, in the Rigveda, he is the father of Indra (who has more to do with Perkʷūnos as his title Parjanya shows), being a minor god, irrelevant in cult, limited to fixed poetic expressions such as “Dyáuṣ and Pṛthivī” (Heaven and Earth), without his own hymns or an active role in the cult. This marginalization of the very ancestral “Father of the Gods” is enough to discredit any notion of Vedic religion being the purest continuity of PIE theology.
Other examples are Mitra and Varuna, who in the early Rigveda appear as a powerful sovereign duo, lords of Rta, the cosmic order, but who are gradually overshadowed: Mitra virtually disappears from the later corpus, while Varuna goes from being a cosmic god to a shadowy figure who punishes with disease and demands appeasement. The same occurs with the Ashvins, the divine twins, strongly connected to the Indo-European heritage as parallels to the Greek Dioscuri and the Germanic Alcis: although they receive hymns, they are treated with suspicion by orthodox Brahmins, because they are associated with popular and miraculous practices. Trita Aptya, a “third brother” hero who has clear parallels with figures such as *Trito in Proto-Indo-Euroepan Religion, also appears subordinate to Indra instead of the true Dyēus ph2tḗr (Dyauspitr).
The Upanishads and Puranas only expand these aspects already present in the RigVeda, often with a critical or satirical intention, especially in contexts more influenced by Vaishnavism and Shaivism, where Indra already appears as a minor, arrogant, often ridiculed god.
The most obvious is the case of Dyauspitr, literally “Father Sky”, a direct equivalent of the Proto-Indo-European Dyēus ph2tḗr and parallel to Zeus, Jupiter and other supreme gods of the Indo-European traditions. However, in the Rigveda, he is the father of Indra (who has more to do with Perkʷūnos as his title Parjanya shows), being a minor god, irrelevant in cult, limited to fixed poetic expressions such as “Dyáuṣ and Pṛthivī” (Heaven and Earth), without his own hymns or an active role in the cult. This marginalization of the very ancestral “Father of the Gods” is enough to discredit any notion of Vedic religion being the purest continuity of PIE theology.
Other examples are Mitra and Varuna, who in the early Rigveda appear as a powerful sovereign duo, lords of Rta, the cosmic order, but who are gradually overshadowed: Mitra virtually disappears from the later corpus, while Varuna goes from being a cosmic god to a shadowy figure who punishes with disease and demands appeasement. The same occurs with the Ashvins, the divine twins, strongly connected to the Indo-European heritage as parallels to the Greek Dioscuri and the Germanic Alcis: although they receive hymns, they are treated with suspicion by orthodox Brahmins, because they are associated with popular and miraculous practices. Trita Aptya, a “third brother” hero who has clear parallels with figures such as *Trito in Proto-Indo-Euroepan Religion, also appears subordinate to Indra instead of the true Dyēus ph2tḗr (Dyauspitr).
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