Indo-European Heaven - The Ancient Meaning of Sky

[Music] [Music] what do we mean when we speak of heaven heaven where the ancestors dwell the light of heaven the stars flickered in the distant heavens such words are almost like meaningless phrases to the ears at least in the modern world where they have become detached from the real yet this was not always so through an examination of ancient indo-european words we can glimpse how the ancestors of english italian german gaelic russian persian and hindi languages viewed the world and something about their beliefs some of the most significant religious concepts focus around ideas of heaven and gaining a deeper understanding of what these words mean will help us greater understand our past and give us a renewed appreciation of them in the present [Music] hi friends i'm kevin maclean don't forget to like subscribe and consider supporting me through patreon or paypal your support is greatly appreciated and i give great thanks to all of my supporters heaven the word is so associated with christian religion today that some perhaps think it was adopted from it yet it has truly ancient roots extending back into the mists of prehistory before the iron age before even the age of bronze in the proto-west germanic language that preceded the development of english heaven would have been heblan but this word or its descendants are not found in all germanic languages in some regional dialects of old and middle german it was used but today english and scots are the only germanic languages to preserve it but the other germanic languages use a closely related form himmel for example norwegian himal dutch hemel and german himal all mean sky but what did it mean before that what is heaven both hebon and himel are thought to derive from a proto-germanic word himanas during the proto-germanic period this word certainly meant sky but if we trace this back further to the time before the coming of the indo-europeans to the lands of western europe a very odd picture emerges the only real candidate for the origin of the word himanas is hecmo meaning stone we see this word used in the english root for hammer in all germanic languages hammer meant originally stone for the stone was the hammer for thousands upon thousands of years stone in lithuanian is akmul in russian it's kamen in sanskrit asmara in ancient greek akmon referred to an anvil for those were likewise stone in origin however in ancient greek it also referred to a meteorite people in the ancient world knew that sometimes stones fell from the sky that awareness may extend back far longer than we sometimes imagine for in the persian language we find the word asaman constructed out of the same indo-european root for stone and just like in english it refers to the sky in the ancient greek poetry of homer is preserved an idea about the shape and nature of the cosmos the earth exists like a yoke within an egg with the vault of the heavens encircling it in homer's day or perhaps in the bronze age which his poetry echoed that vault was believed to be made of bronze and before the indo-european people knew of the working of bronze as evidenced by words like heaven and assaman they must have believed it was fashioned of stone stone periodically fell from the sky and these stones were linked to gods of the sky in greece the umbilical cord of zeus the omphalos was a stone when zeus's mother tricks kronos and hide zeus away under the earth in a cave she gives to chronos in his place a stone why would the ruler of the sky be so closely linked to stone in a more archaic time from whence the concepts of the gods came the sky or the roof of the sky was thought of as stone from the persian religion came the roman cult of mithras some argue how greatly influenced or based on the persian religion the cult was but there are undoubtedly features that do come from some tradition in the cult mithras is worshipped in a cave or in a mithraeum as it was called which symbolically recreates a cave-like atmosphere iconography shows mithras bursting from a stone brandishing fire many believe that the depictions found in the mithraeums show the birth of mithras and the creation of the cosmos which is represented by the cave itself imagine you are residing within a cave many tens of thousands of years ago you light a fire maybe a torch the light flickers off the nearby stone illuminating your surroundings yet the larger the space the more limited the light with it dimly flickering off a high cavern ceiling that fire or torch is the sun and that distant cavern ceiling the dome of the sky yet what about the stars perhaps there is a realm beyond that cavern just as there is a realm outside the cave and perhaps outside the cave is a bright realm and its light comes through small points in the stone indeed even roman period iconography sometimes shows jupiter seated on a throne resting his feet upon the dome of the heavens showing that he was thought of as outside of them in that other heavenly realm above sky sun and stars in ancient greek terms perhaps the high point of this lighted realm is aether or olympus but the lower realm its opposite was tartarus tartarus is not in the earth which is the domain of hades but it is beneath the earth just as olympus is above it this is why zeus banishes the titans there for they are the ones who strain to uphold the heaven and earth at the base in a very similar fashion to the dwarves of germanic myth it is probable that to our ancestors the cosmos was viewed as a type of cave from which we can perhaps interpret plato's metaphor in an even deeper way sky is a synonym of heaven though in origin their meaning may have been slightly different sky comes from proto-germanic skewa which primarily meant a cloudy sky for its derived from proto-germanic skewel meaning cloud from proto-germanic skill to hide conceal perhaps in origin heaven referred to the bright clear sky where the firmament can be seen as opposed to sky which conceals the heaven with cloud it is cognate with gaelic kill meaning mist fog or haze consistent with the idea of obscuring sometimes the word paradise is used in english to mean heaven this word was introduced into english from french which obtained it from ancient greek the greeks obtained paradisos from the proto-iranian word paridaya the name for a circular enclosure or garden and when the bible was written in greek it was the word paradisos identified with the grand gardens of the lords of persia which was given to the garden that the first man and woman resided in and which is also used sometimes as a synonym for heaven however before paradise entered the english language another word was used for the same thing that word was noah appearing only in old english but used by christians to translate the word paradise this must be because the word was used in pre-christian beliefs and had a comparable meaning the wong in the name is from proto-germanic wangas identifying the location as a meadow or field the first portion has been suggested to mean russia's which may have a connection to the dead it may have been comparable to the greek elysian fields [Music] in gaelic a common word used from the old gaelic period to the present is nave it goes back to proto-celtic nemos which also gives us welsh nave it is from proto-indo-european nebus meaning cloud or mist cognate with latin nebula thus sharing a common meaning although not an etymological origin with english sky it is cognate however with slavic nebu meaning sky used by russian and numerous other slavic languages many other words were used in old gaelic to poetically refer to the sky one such word is cletha which generally refers to a roof tree or ridge pool a support beam for the roof of the house yet this word would also be used to refer to the sky imagining it like a beam that supported the word is likewise used to describe the tops of trees and it very likely connects to the idea of the world tree as the prop which supports that trees were seen as props or pillars of the sky seems rooted in a mythology of people who long dwelt beneath their boughs and deep forests peering up through the leaves at the sky above the treetops this idea is not isolated to gaelic but is found also in a common word of latin origin coming from firmamentum which refers not only to the sky but to a prop or support from firmo to strengthen to firm up when referring to the sky furmemento means that which supports or props up which again emphasizes a belief that there is something there which must be held otherwise it might fall in latin it is kylum which most generally means heaven or sky though its origins are different it is derived from proto-indo-european calem meaning whole it is cognate with such english words as whole and holy and russian tele meaning whole this is a view of the sky as the sacred hole or perfection this is in contrast to the word templum meaning temple which means a part of the whole most of the other words that latin uses are derived from greek and so it is to the language of the early philosophers that we must now turn by far the most common word for heaven or sky in greek is uranus uranus in english personified in greek mythological narrative as the father of the titans and many others he was created in the beginning along with earth and tartarus beneath the under sky or the counterbalance of uranus within this sphere of the cosmos yet it continued to be used in christianity as well alongside paradisos to mean heaven uranus may be derived from proto-indo-european juarez to rain but in turn it may be connected to the idea of wideness or vastness proto-indo-european huer broad which may in turn also be related to rain the vedic god varuna for instance is thought to be derived from this meaning broad but he is also connected with reigns and later the sea to reign in ancient greek is ural with in ancient greek is euros so uranos means either or both rainy one or broad one and like vedic varuna was associated with waters in the sky he was separated from the earth by kronos the cutter and the other titans who held him at the corners of the earth akin to the dwarves east south north and west in norse myth sometimes he's differentiated from the realm above the dome and sometimes he is thought to be the dome but in my view as the father of the titans as well as the storming cyclopes with their lightnings he is an origin thought to be the sky itself as the opposite of tartarus he is also the dwelling place of the gods in the sky whereas tartarus becomes the dwelling place of the titans at other times however the heavenly abode is called instead aethir it originates from indo-european heid meaning fire or to ignite cognate with old gaelic aid or modern meaning fire latin i this meaning a temple doubtlessly originally so called for the flame that was present there aether is the pure upper air a fiery substance counterposed to erebos the foul heir of the underworld but it likewise has a connotation of light whereas erebos is etymologically connected to twilight or darkness and mist in this pure fire or light the gods were believed to dwell and this realm was above the dome of the sky and stars perhaps related to the idea of the light outside the cave another word used anciently to refer to the heavens though generally not in a christian sense is olympus it refers to the mountain known as olympus but generally does not seem to truly mean the mountain itself generally when used as the abode of the gods it's a synonym for sky or more specifically the highest realm where the gods live as discussed earlier the persian word for sky assamun is derived from the same root as english heaven hekmo meaning stone this is cognate with sanskrit asman meaning stone thunderbolt cloud or firmament there is another persian word seper which comes from proto-indo-european cuetos meaning bright shine there might then be a conception of a bright sky and a stony sky which are thought to be two separate things in origin in hindi a prominent word for heaven is svarg from sanskrit svarga in the vedic tradition it is the abode of indra king of the gods and its meaning is comprised of two indo-european words soul meaning sun and gim meaning to step suggesting perhaps the pathway of the sun and thus connected also with illumination and probably the totality of the sky in polish rai means heaven it comes from proto-slavic and is cognate with lithuanian royals of the same meaning this word actually comes into slavic through proto-iranian and then ultimately from proto-indo-european reyes meaning wealth or goods it can be found in many slavic and baltic languages meaning paradise or heaven though it doesn't originate from a name for the sky lithuanian also uses dangos to mean heaven and this comes from dengti meaning covering so we see that most typically words relating to the dwelling of the gods or the christian god refer most often to the sky the sky was conceived of as a type of covering and at least sometimes it was believed that the gods dwelt in a bright abode beyond this covering or other times they were within the sky with the sun and clouds more closely linked to the nature and abode of the gods the ancient conception of the cosmos had the earth in the very center with all else revolving around as it appears typically to our common sense observations the earliest conception of the cosmos likely reflected a cave one of the earliest dwellings of men those who lived beneath trees or in homes using large timbers began to imagine the cosmos as a tree or being supported by a tree or post just as the roof of a house as they lived within caves or beneath the boughs of trees so they imagined the entire world as a cave or a place beneath a tree or house post with the sky as the roof above their heads the abode of the most honored ancestors and the gods i hope you liked this video and if you did don't forget to like subscribe and consider supporting me through patreon or paypal thank you all for listening and as always stand tall [Music]

Channel: Fortress of Lugh

Views: 22,957

Keywords: Mythology, etymology, ancient language, Greek myth, Roman myth, Celtic myth, Indo-European, Proto-Indo-European, PIE, Proto-Indo-European Mythology, European mythology, Gods, God

Id: n7MTkHQt9Lg

Length: 20min 47sec (1247 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022