dumézil, lincoln, and the genetic model

David H. Sick

Dumzil, Lincoln, and the Genetic Model

Abstract

The genetic model, where one posits a derivation from a common ancestor in order to interpret developments in the languages, religions, or other aspects of cultures of related peoples, has been used in Indo-European studies since the inception of the field. The application of this model is evident in both the work of Georges Dumzil and his critic Bruce Lincoln. The difference in their respective methods of application of the model begins to explain a basic element of their disagreement. By tempering the methods of application employed by Lincoln and Dumzil a resolution of the disagreement is possible. An example of this tempered method of application is provided: myths concerning the movements of the soul to a particu-lar cosmologicaI structure described in Plato 's Phaedrus are compared with those recounted about a similar structure in Vedic hymns.

T h e identifying of similarities in myths from several Indo-European (IE) cultures in order to suggest a common heritage from one proto-myth is a fairly standard method in the comparative study of IE myth. In other words, the investigator indi-cates that two, three, four, or any other number of myths are similar and thereafter uses the similarities to establish the outline of an older myth from which the exam-ined myths are assumed to have descended. The myth is termed >proto-< because it is hypothetical; a perfect manifestation will never be found, since the era in which it was to have originated is presumed to have been pre-literate, and, moreover, it may never have existed as a distinct reality since the proto-myth may represent a point in a fluid continuum of mythic discourse. Thus, when reference is made to a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) myth we mean a myth whose content and even exis-tence has been deduced by comparing myths from several IE cultures.

For the most part, this method for the study of IE mythology developed along-side the study of IE languages; the discovery of the relation of the IE languages spurred the study of IE myths. Linguists of the nineteenth century and earlier no-ticed similar lexical items in languages as diverse as Sanskrit and Greek, Persian and Gaelic. These similarities were explained by the proposition that the languages involved were related, specifically that they all descended from the same parent language.1 To take an oft-cited example, Sanskrit Vbhar-, Greek *-, Latin */er-,

1 The use of familial terms to describe the relations of IE languages goes back to the origins of the field itself. In 1786 Sir William Jones gave a series of lectures describing the purposes of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In his discussion of the languages of Asia Jones commented

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180 David H. Sick

and Old English *ber- all come from PIE *bher- >bear, carry genetic model.2

The merit of the application of the genetic model in the study of IE language precipitated a vigorous effort in its application to the study of IE myth;3 yet the early work in IE studies was subsequently rejected in the late nineteenth century because of its close association with nature mythology.4 Moreover, the whole field

upon the nature and origin of Sanskrit and first employed the now common familial termi-nology: ...no philologer could examine them all three (Sanskrit, Latin, Greek) without be-lieving them to have sprung from one common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists; there is similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with Sanscrit, and the old Persian might be added to the same family. The Works of Sir William Jones, London 1807, 111.24. At several other points in his writings Jones refers to Sanskrit as the sister of Greek and Latin. See G. Cannon (ed.), The Letters of Sir William Jones, Oxford 1970, 711, 727, 747, 780. There were, however, a few philologists who noted similarities in the languages of the IE family before Jones; for their contributions, see B. Sergent, Les Indo-Europens, Paris 1995, 20-25; J. P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans, New York 1989, 273, n. 1. For an introduction to the history of the field of IE linguistics, see Sergent, R. S. P. Beekes, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, Philadelphia 1995; Th. V. Gamkrelidze; V. V. Ivanov, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, translated by Johanna Nichols, New York, 1995; W. P. Lehmann, Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics, New York 1993; O. Szemernyi, Einfhrung in die vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Darmstadt 1990.

2 For an investigation of how of this essentially linguistic model is applied to other aspects of cultures, see C. S. Littleton, Georges Dumzil and the Rebirth of the Genetic Model: an Anthropological Appreciation, in: Myth in Indo-European Antiquity, Berkeley 1974, 169-70: ... one of the most significant and far-reaching implications of Dumzil's work for my field [is] the extent to which the genetic model can fruitfully be applied beyond the narrow confines of historical linguistics. 173: The genetic model is by no means new [...] it has been the fundamental model for the historical relationships among languages since the incep-tion of historical linguistics at the beginning of the nineteenth century [...]. Now, thanks primarily to the efforts of Professor Dumzil, this long-neglected model - neglected, that is, by anthropological folklorists and mythologists - has received new luster.

3 Particularly among the German romanticists; see B. Feldman; R. D. Richardson, The Rise of Modern Mythology, Bloomington, IN 1972, 349-364. Even in the studies of Jones himself IE languages and myths were intricately intertwined; see his On the Gods of Greece, Italy and India, in: The Works of..., with an excerpt in Feldman and Richardson, 270-275, and the in-troduction to his translation of the laws of Manu, where he posits a common origin for Manu and Minos, the Cretan king, lawgiver, and judge of the dead: Institutes of Hindu Law, Lon-don, 1796, viii-xi. The application of the genetic model in the study of myth predates the discovery of the IE family of languages because of scholarly attempts to prove the derivation of humanity through the single human of Genesis, Adam, or the single family of Noah after the flood. See Feldman and Richardson, 71-78; L. Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, translated by Edmund Howard, New York 1974; M. lender, The Languages of Paradise, translated byA. Goldhammer, Cambridge, MA 1992.

4 F. M. Mller used his knowledge of Sanskrit to make comparisons with the classical lan-guages thereby formulating a comparative philological argument for his theory of a solar



Dumzil, Lincoln, and the Genetic Model 181

of IE studies fell into disrepute because of its close association with the attempt to prove the cultural and racial superiority of the Aryan peoples by the National Socialists, their predecessors, and their allies.5

IE studies in general and the genetic model in particular were then revived in this century by the work of the French linguist, philosopher, and social scientist Georges Dumzil. Dumzil recognized a threefold division of human social groups in many of the myths from IE societies; IE cultural items tend to organize humans into three categories with distinct characteristics: the first is concerned with sover-eignty, be it juridical or religious; the second with force, particularly that of the warrior, and the third with production, be it natural or mechanistic. This division extended into the representation of deities as well. Dumzil believed that the myths which demonstrated this tripartite structure were validating a set of ideological principles or fonctions, to use Dumzil's term, by which IE speaking peoples have tended to organize their societies theoretically. Although Dumzil's proposal of les trois fonctions indo-europennes is far from universally accepted, the genetic model which he reintroduced to the study of IE mythology continues to be used.6

mythology. For the relationship of IE linguistics to nineteenth century naturalistic theories of myth, see C. S. Littleton, The New Comparative Mythology, Berkeley 1982, 32-42; R. M. Dorson, The Eclipse of Solar Mythology, in: American Folklore 68, 1955, 393-416, re-printed in: Th. A. Sebeok (ed.), Myth: a Symposium, Bloomington, IN 1974, 25-63; J. de Vries Theories Concerning Nature Myths, in: The Study of Religion, translated by Kees W. Bolle, New York, 1967, reprinted in: A. Dundes (ed.), Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, Berkeley 1984, 30-40.

5 A basic error of thinking committed by some early Indo-Europeanists that allowed for the perversion of the field was to consider language, culture, and ethnicity as coequivalent in human groups, that is that those who share a common linguistic heritage also share a social and biological heritage. Such an assumption of course allowed for the division of modern peoples along spurious lines and in ultimately destructive ways. Mller reacted against this fallacy late in his career; see, for example, F. M. Mller, Thought Thicker than Blood, in: Three Lectures in the Science of Language, Chicago 1899, 43: As a negro may learn Eng-lish and become, as has been the case, an English bishop, it would seem as if language by it-self could hardly be said to prove relationship. That being so, I have always, beginning with my very first contribution to the Science of Language [...], warned against mixing up these two relationships - the relationship of language and the relationship of blood. On IE studies and fascism, see most recently B. Lincoln, Rewriting the German War God, in: HoR 37, 1998, 187-208. Also Sergent, Les Indo-Europens..., 37-41, L. Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, and M. lender, The Languages of Paradise...

6 Dumzil's inaugural lecture upon his appointment to the chair of IE Civilizations at the Collge de France neatly sets out his methods for an audience of educated non-specialists and argues why a shared heritage is the best explanation for the common features found in the myths of the IE-speaking peoples: Notons aussi que cette explication des concordances par une parent gntique, ainsi prcise en explication par un >hritage commun< se trouve, d'avance, permise, mme recommande, par le fait que les socits dont les civilisations seront compares parlent des langues issues d'une mme langue mre... G. Dumzil, Leon inaugurale, Paris 1950, 12-13. Dumzil was a prolific writer, and it is thus probably best to start with his introductory work, L'idologie tripartie des indo-europens, Brussells, 1958; a comprehensive review of his work done by C. S. Littleton, New Comparative..., although written by a non-lingist, is a useful overview and contains complete bibliography up to its point of publication. A number of collections of essays have appeared in the last twenty years to honor/review Prof. Dumzil's work toward the end of his long career; most contain introductions. See G. J. Lar-son, Introduction: the Study of Mythology and Comparative Mythology, in: Myth in Indo-



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There are two potential problems in the use of the genetic model to which I would draw the reader's attention. Just as linguists posit a proto-language which is essen-tially separated from time and space because of its theoretical nature, so also is the proto-myth devoid of the context of a particular societal setting. Although we can deduce certain characteristics of PIE society through the determination of its lexi-con and give it a very rough date by estimating the time needed for the distinction of the separate IE languages and by comparing the technologies present in the lexi-con with the concrete remains of cultures, since we deduce the very existence of PIE society through the comparative genetic method, we will never find the evi-dence which allows us to determine unquestionably what people(s) spoke the PIE language or what people(s) told the stories contained in PIE myths.7 This is a much greater problem for myth than for language; although particular words can be

European Antiquity, Berkeley 1974, 1-16, and Edgar Polom's introduction to Homage to Georges Dumzil, Washington 1982, 5-15. Also, Symposium: the Achievement of Georges Dumzil, in: Journal of Asian Studies 34, 1974, 127-167; J.-C. Rivire (ed.), Georges Dumzil la dcouverte des Indo-Europens, Paris 1979; J. Bonnet (ed.), Georges Dumzil, Paris 1981; Aspetti dell'opera di Georges Dumzil, in: Opus 2, 1983, 329-421; Histoire des religions et comparatisme: la question indo-europenne, in: Rhr 208, 1991, 115-228.

Dumzil has been criticized for his connections to political organizations of the far right throughout his life; it has been alleged that Dumzil's politics have at times effected his scholarship. See B. Lincoln, Rewriting the German War God..., for complete bibliography in all these matters.

7 Without taking up the entire question of the search for the PIE homeland, we should try to support the claim that the PIE homeland and the society associated with that homeland will never be found. A fairly simple argument can be made: the existence of a PIE society has been hypothesized through linguistic comparison. Connecting the linguistic data to a specific set of archaeological remains to the exclusion of any other set of archaeological remains from the same time period is almost impossible. Scholars in looking at the linguistic evi-dence have proposed places as diverse as the North Pole and South Africa as possible home-lands. Even when we discern a PIE word, attaching that word to a real item in a specific geographic environment is still difficult. Take for instance PIE *bhgo- >beechIndo-Eu-ropen


affected by societal norms and constraints, they are never affected as greatly as myths are, since myths by most definitions are stories meant to validate societal structures or to explain phenomena from the perspective of a society. By positing a proto-myth for a proto-society which we can know very little about, we are, in effect, removing means vital to the interpretation of the myth.

Secondly, the genetic model can lead to extreme conclusions if it is applied incorrectly. Specifically, it should not be used to move beyond the determination of a PIE myth to answer questions about the function of the reflexes of the myth in descendent IE societies. An explanation of this warning is in order. The conclusion may be reached that myths from several IE cultures are similar because they descended from the same proto-myth. One might then secondarily deduce that cer-tain elements are present in a certain story because they are derived from the proto-story. On one level this secondary conclusion can be true: the posited PIE myth can provide a cause for the presence of the elements, where cause is a matter of result, but if the same method is used to find a function or purpose, a fallacy enters the argument through multiple definitions of cause, one pertaining to result and one pertaining to purpose.

A n example might be helpful. One might ask the question, Why are cattle and the sun present in the proem to Homer's Odyssey? This question can be answered with two different understandings of >whywhat function do they serve, < the answer might be, because they represent examples of human folly and absolve Odysseus of guilt; yet, where why = >as a result of whatthe poet< put them there in order to achieve purpose x. Or if we wish to remove the problem of personal agency from the discussion, we could rephrase the answer as, because they serve function in the text. On the other hand, a result cannot provide a purpose or function; an obviously incorrect formulation would thus be: For what purpose are cattle and the sun present in the proem to the Odyssey? Because cattle and the sun represent important elements in some other IE dis-course which is no longer extant. It is thus perhaps best to maintain distinctions of result and function/purpose when researching the causes for phenomena in ancient texts.8

Given this distinction between purpose and result, one might think that the work being done by those comparativists using the genetic method could comple-

8 The problem is perhaps put more succinctly by C. S. Littleton in George Dumzil and the Rebirth..., 170: It should be pointed out that the several models discussed in this paper, including the genetic model, do not in themselves provide causal explanations - in the Aris-totelian sense - of the features whose similarity has been noted. Rather, their application to a given body of cross-cultural data is a necessary first step toward such an explanation. They form, as it were, the analytic frameworks within which these data may be ordered so as to understand the character of their temporal and/or spatial relationships to one another.



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ment the work of those searching for specific purposes or functions to textual or cultural characteristics. This sadly is not the case. Part of the problem lies with Dumzil's own tendency to assign a greater importance to the PIE ideological structures than to formulations which specialists or other researchers might provide to explain certain elements in IE discourses. Dumzil, in referring to the three PIE functions, wrote in Les dieux des Indo-Europens:

... l'esprit humain est essentiellement organisateur, systmatique, il vit de multiple simultan, en sorte que, toute poque, en dehors des complexes secondaires qui s'expliquent par des apports successifs de l'histoire, il existe complexes primaires, qui sont peut-tre plus fondamentaux dans civilisations, et plus vivaces.9

The three functions are examples of complexes primaires which recur in IE soci-eties. An example of a complexe secondaire would be the specific cultural setting in which the three functions are embedded. Yet, even taking into account these comments, there would still seem to be room for cooperation between comparativists and specialists. Comparativists might concern themselves with the complexes primaires and specialists with the complexes secondaires and the apports successifs, although the specialists and other non-structuralists are left with material which is less fundamental and less enduring in Dumzil's own estimation.10 It is this sort of almost qualitative statement about these complexes which is problematic, especially since it is from the secondary complexes and the successive historical contributions from which purposes must be sought.

By assigning this sort of eternal nature to the ideological structures of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, Dumzil seems at times to have overvalued these structures and undervalued the explanations for cultural phenomena to be discerned in the specific societal settings of the secondary complexes. For example, Dumzil finds an occurrence of the PIE tripartite structure in three colors used to organize the teams and spectators in Roman chariot racing. He does provide significant evi-dence for his argument: he cites examples of social classes organized by color from India, Iran, and Anatolia, and in the Anatolian example the classes are even repre-sented by horses dressed in certain colors. He furthermore uses a Byzantine source which specifically states that the Roman colors were taken from colors used to rep-

9 G. Dumzil, Les dieux des Indo-Europens, Paris 1952, 80. 10 According to Daniel Dubuisson, Dumzil, with the publication of Les dieux des Indo-Eu-

ropens in 1952, more often began to attribute the presence of the three functions in IE cul-tures to an autonomous mode of thinking in IE speakers; see D. Dubuisson, Contribution une pistmologie Dumzilienne: l'idologie, in: Rhr 208, 1991, 123-140. Yet, Dumzil is perhaps not a structuralist in the most specialized sense of the term. He did not prescribe to the Lvi-Straussian idea of a fundamental quality of the human spirit which tends to organize cultural phenomena in certain ways. According to Dumzil, the three ideological functions are the result of historical processes of a certain historical group - the Indo-Europeans. See C. S. Littleton, >Je ne suis pas ... structuralistes Some Fundamental Differences between Dumzil and Lvi-Strauss, in: Journal of Asian Studies 34, 1974, 151-158.




resent the Roman tribes.11 It is not my intent here however to evaluate the accuracy of this formulation; I am more concerned with the value of it.

B y citing the colors of the Roman chariot-racing teams as a manifestation of a PIE ideological structure and by saying that these PIE structures are plus fondamen-taux and plus vivaces, Dumzil leaves his readers with the impression that this Roman cultural phenomenon occurred because a PIE one did earlier. Now the use of colors to represent PIE social groups may in fact be true, but the importance and continual existence of chariot racing at Rome has almost nothing to do with a PIE ideology. Again it is a matter of purposes/functions and results. The functions of chariot racing in Roman society were so much more important to its existence than any prototype from a very distant PIE social structure could have been. There are many social phenomena worthy of consideration in the spectacle of Roman chariot racing: the propaganda mechanisms of the emperors and empire, the distaste of the senatorial class for the races, the constant threat of rioting by the lower classes, the possibility for slave-charioteers to earn income and freedom, etc. The designation of three groups of racers and their fanatic supporters as an example of the PIE tri-partite structure, when there were for the greater part of Roman history four such groups, contributes little if anything to our understanding of the phenomenon. In some small way the Roman cultural phenomenon may result from the PIE one, but without examining all the functions of chariot-racing in the society, we are left with a very skewed understanding of it.12 Moreover, since PIE society is by defini-tion hypothetical, if we use the Roman material to interpret the proto-society, we are again in effect interpreting a non-entity. On the whole, the designation, whether true or false, is theoretical only.13

11 An abbreviated version of the argument occurs in L'idologie tripartie..., 26-27, 53-54, but the argument is given in full at Albati, Russati, Virides, in: Rituels Indo-Europens Rome, Paris 1954, 45-62.

12 I am not saying, as some have, that Dumzil's work is of no value to the study of ancient Roman or other Indo-European cultures. One must consider the PIE precedents in conjunc-tion with the specific societal setting in order to avoid a skewed perception, and, of course, at times, particularly with the oldest extant cultural items, a comparative IE context is the most significant context which can be applied to an item. For this criticism see A. Momi-gliano, An Interim Report on the Origins of Rome, in: Journal of Roman Studies 53, 1963, 113-114; Premesse per una discussione su Georges Dumzil, in: Opus 2, 1983, 329-341, and Dumzil's response in L'oubli de l'homme et l'honneur des dieux, Paris 1985, 312-313.

13 This tendency to overemphasize the complexes primaires led Dumzil and his followers, I am convinced, to find tripartite structures in places very far removed from the ancient Indo-Europeans. C. S. Littleton, New Comparative..., 232, suggests that the three branches of the United States government may be attributable to the three functions of the Indo-Europeans. A. Yoshida, La mythologie japonaise. Essai d'interprtation structurale, in: Rhr 160, 1961, 47-66; 161, 1962, 25-44; 162, 1963, 225-40, believed that the tripartition of the Japanese pantheon was due to contact between Japan and nomadic Scytho-Samartian tribes. I suggest that these observations tell us very little about the societies of Japan or the United States and can easily lead to misinterpretations of those institutions in their respective cultural settings. Dumzil himself wrote: ce n'est sans doute pas un hasard si quelques-unes des grandes russites ou des grands efforts de puissance, jusque dans la plus moderne histoire [my ital-ics] de notre Europe, reposent sur des reviviscences claires et simples du vieil archtype (l'idologie tripartite). The examples given come from pre-Revolutionary France, the So-viet Union, and Nazi Germany. The quotation appeared first in L'hritage indo-europen



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Dumzil's overemphasis of the complexes primaires may have contributed to a misuse of the genetic model, but an overemphasis of the complexes secondaires can also lead to problems. One scholar who has chosen to concentrate on the com-plexes secondaires is the historian of religions and cultures, Bruce Lincoln, whose early work was concerned with IE myth.14 At a later point Lincoln questioned the value of this work and made the following comments about the study of myth in The Two Paths, an essay that described a turning point in his intellectual devel-opment:

Studies of myth, I am convinced, ought to be attentive to the multiple com-peting voices that find expression in the differing variants, and to the struggles they wage in and through mythic discourse, a position that de-rives more from Gramsci than from Lvi-Strauss. Beyond this, I believe one must relate any discourse to the tensions characteristic of that society in which it circulates. 15

It is from the Dumzilian secondary complexes that one can relate any discourse to the tensions characteristic of (a) society, and it is, of course, very difficult to relate the myths of the Proto-Indo-Europeans to their society. Lincoln followed the methodology of Dumzil in the early part of his academic career, noting similar patterns in texts from various IE cultures and then determining prototypes.16 He abandoned this method in the late eighties, explaining that the search for PIE prototypes may actually obscure much of what is most fascinating and important in myth17 and went on to take the anti-Dumzilian position given above.

In The Two Paths, Lincoln describes how the unsatisfactory resolution of an investigation of a particular theme in various IE discourses led to his abandonment

Rome, Paris 1949, 241, and then was repeated in L'oubli de l'homme..., 323. Dumzil gave further examples of remnants of the three functions in modern society in Entretiens avec Didier Eribon, Paris 1987, 186-189. See also Charles Malmoud's discussion in volume 208 of Rhr devoted to Dumzil 1991, 118-121. These sort of statements about archetypes cer-tainly make Dumzil appear to be a structuralist, despite his own declarations to the con-trary. (See note 10 above.)

14 A large number of the IE myths concerning cattle were collected and analyzed by B. Lincoln in his work Priests, Warriors, and Cattle, Berkeley, 1981. Portions of this book appeared with revisions and expansions in History of Religions: The Indo-European Cattle-Raiding Myth, in: HoR 16, 1976, 42-56 and The Indo-European Creation Myth, in: HoR 15, 1975, 121-157. Other early works of Lincoln concerned with IE studies include Myth, Cosmos, and Society, Cambridge, MA 1986, and Death, War, and Sacrifice, Chicago 1991.

15 B. Lincoln, The Two Paths, in: Death, War, and Sacrifice..., 124. 16 See B. Lincoln, The Two Paths..., 120: Normally [...] one looks for shared traits in the

various sources - >correspondences< - on the strength of which a prototype may be posited. The prototype is then taken to be both logically and historically anterior to the attested data, among which some exemplars or >reflexes< are seen to derive more faithfully and others with ever greater transformations of the prototypical pattern. More specifically with regard to his work on cattle, see B. Lincoln, Priests, Warriors, and Cattle..., 11: Thus, the demonstration that a given feature exists in both India and Iran will be taken to prove that it was present in the Proto-Indo-Iranian period unless there is strong reason to suspect that it was transmitted directly from one group to the other at a later date. Demonstration that the feature exists in other IE groups will indicate that it was present even earlier, dating back to the PIE period.

17 B. Lincoln, The Two Paths..., 123.




of the genetic method. In this investigation he noted that the image of separate paths for the dead-one for the good and one for the evil-was a central feature in the descriptions of the afterlife in many IE texts. Lincoln was not however able to determine a uniform set of criteria for the discrimination of the good and evil.

For as consistent as the sources are in their description of these two paths, they are equally inconsistent in their description of the principles that determine which of the dead come to travel the preferable path and enjoy the preferable post-mortem fate, while others are consigned to an alternate route and destination,18

Our earlier distinction between result and purpose may be useful in accounting for this difficulty and thereby may allow students of comparative myth to use Lin-coln's early work with greater confidence. Lincoln, I believe, was essentially searching for purposes in the comparative material and was thus destined to frus-tration. We would not expect the PIE selection criteria for the afterlife to be re-trievable from those IE discourses where descriptions of the afterlife are found. The selection criteria are more likely to be explained by the functions of the dis-course which contain the images of the afterlife.

A n example will help to prove my point. Lincoln cites a number of passages from Plato as evidence of the PIE two path theme.19 Whatever the PIE selection crite-ria for the afterlife were, one would not expect Plato to have subscribed to them unless they conformed to his own agenda. In Plato's view, the rewards of a blissful afterlife would certainly go to those who heed the Platonic and/or Socratic exhor-tations for the pursuit of knowledge and truth; any PIE selection criteria would not have concerned him. Let us ask the same sort of questions about the Platonic texts that we asked about the proem to the Odyssey: As a result of what is the theme of two paths for the dead present in certain Platonic texts? Because the two paths theme was an important element in early IE descriptions of the afterlife. For what purpose is the two path theme present in certain Platonic texts? In order that Plato might provide additional incentive to those who complied with his exhortations about the proper conduct of life. Again here the answer to the ques-tion of purpose could be used to answer the question of result but not vice versa. If indeed Plato was using an old IE theme as means of incentive for his fellow phi-losophers, for the incentive to be effective, the philosophers must be given the reward, not the chariot-driving, semi-nomadic tribes of the hypothetical Proto-Indo-Europeans. We could, of course, transfer our analysis of the Platonic example to the examples cited by Lincoln from other IE cultures. Lincoln's search thus provides example of an incorrect application of the genetic model; he did not find similar principles by which the dead were discriminated because the agents of each discourse would have brought their own principles and purposes to the theme. It is

18 B. Lincoln, The Two Paths..., 1*20. 19 Gorgias 523A-524A, Phaedo 107E-108A, and Republic 614B-C.



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by the principles and purposes of the agents or functions of the text that the dis-crimination of the dead would have been organized.

Should then the inability of the genetic model to answer questions of function or purpose necessitate a rejection of the model itself? If the genetic model were to have no other useful application, the answer to this question might be, Yes, but, as we have already indicated, the genetic model when correctly applied can dem-onstrate how certain literary or even cultural phenomena result from other earlier phenomena. Just as the genetic model works for the study of language by tracing the development of lexical items and syntactical structures with one resulting from the next, it can work for the study of other aspects of cultures. It cannot tell us to what purpose words are changed, if indeed there is a purpose, but it can describe the changes; likewise it can tell us which cultural phenomena result from which other cultural phenomena, but it cannot tell us to what purpose or to serve what function, if any, these changes take place.

It is because of this ability to outline the progression of cultural phenomena that I believe Lincoln sells the genetic model and his own application of it short. If you will recall, Lincoln claimed that the genetic model may actually obscure much of what is most fascinating and important in myth, but if we look at his own work, we will not find this to be the case, and in fact the opposite may be true. In The Two Paths, he was able to discern the functions or purposes present in the texts of Plato, Snorri Sturluson, Zarathustra, and the poets of the Vedas. It seems to me he was able to do so by using a modified version of the genetic model. By jux-taposing similar themes and structures in texts from various IE cultures, Lincoln was able to note the differences more easily. The proto-theme or proto-structure becomes a pattern by which to describe the differences, and thus when Lincoln looked at the texts which contained the two path theme, the discrepancies with the prototype were easily noted. Plato's moral philosophy, the influence of Christianity on Snorri Sturluson, the form of gnosticism particular to Zarathustra, and the priestly prescriptions of the Vedas, jump out at the researcher because of the effect each has upon the two path theme, and, as it turns out, these purposes and agendas are most obvious in the selection criteria for the afterlife. Therefore, this sort of genetic approach, instead of obscuring what Lincoln considers to be fascinating and important in myth, may actually elucidate it. It allowed Lincoln himself to note important features in mythic discourses from particular authors or social groups and the struggles they were waging in modifying an inherited theme to fit their own agenda. In this example it was the differences in the selection criteria which were seen to be significant, but one could focus on the similarities also and attrib-ute significance to them.

I t should be noted that the method outlined in the previous paragraph is indeed a modified version of the genetic model, where the emphasis is not so much on the PIE prototype but on the comparison of similar themes in IE cultures, with the thought that by making comparisons one can provide insights to particular cultural phenomena in particular cultural settings. Thus, in this modified genetic model, one can adhere to Lincoln's admonition to relate any discourse to the tensions characteristic of that society in which it circulates. In this admonition I agree with




Lincoln. It gains us very little to reconstruct proto-myths to study a proto-society which by its very nature we will never know very much about.

At this point I would like to provide a specific example of the use of a modified version of the genetic model and describe how in the application of this modified model specific societal concerns become evident. I will point out a number of similarities in a myth about the movements of the soul after death which occurs in Plato's Phaedrus at 246A and certain Vedic ideas about the movements of the soul found in the Rg and Atharva Vedas. The similarities are striking in and of them-selves; in fact, both the Platonic and the Vedic descriptions of the movements of the soul center on a comparable heavenly structure with a semantically identical name, that is, >the back of heaventhe back of heavenback< and div- as >heaven< or >skyvaultback of the div-< or >back of the naka-back of heaven

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use of the back of heaven as a base for the invisible universe, since this function will recur in Plato:

The ones having ascended into the sky, shining, have found a world on the back of the nka-.22

Now that we have an idea of the basic formal structure of the back of heaven in the Vedas, we need to look at a number of capacities which it serves. First, it acts as a residence for beneficent humans, usually after death. More specifically, those humans who provide the proper sacrifices during their lifetime will attain a place with the gods on the back of heaven after death. Such a situation is described at RV 1.125.5 where the sacrificer, here referred to as the contributor, goes to the back of nka-. Here the poet seems to understand going to the back of the nka- to be equivalent to going to the gods:

having been fixed upon the back of the nka-, he remains there; he who contributes goes among the gods.23

Although this verse does not make it absolutely clear that the beneficent humans are dead when they enter upon the back of heaven, AV 18.4.14 does so:

he who has sacrificed has now ascended to the piled fire soon to fly up from the back of the nka- to heaven.24

Here we find a more specific reference to the sacrificer (jn- < lyaj- >to sacri-ficepiled fire< allows us to be certain that we are dealing with a metaphysical ex-perience.

We can use these same verses to point out another trait of the back of heaven to which we have already made allusion. The back of heaven serves not only as a residence for humans who have conducted the proper sacrifices but also as a resi-dence for the gods, and we can begin to understand the interconnection between the gods, sacrificers, and the back of heaven by looking at one more verse. AV 4.14.2 describes a very similar situation to RV 1.125.5 (above), but here the sacri-fice itself is positioned on the divs prsth

22 AV 18.2.47: t dym udtyavidanta lokm nkasya prsth dhi ddyanah//, reading ddyanah along with H. Lders, Varuna..., 1.75. See also AV 7.85. and KV 1.25.5.'

23 nakasya prsth dhi tisthati srit yh prnati s ha devsu gacchati/; see also RV 8.103.2; AV 7.85.1.

24 ijans citm aruksad agnm nkasya prsthd dvam utpatisyan/ see also RV 1.125.5; AV 7.85.1; 9.5.10; 18.4.4; 18.2.47. This verse somewhat contradicts our earlier statements about the place of the back of heaven in the Vdic cosmos, since the dead man flies from the back of the naka- to heaven and does not end his flight upon the back of the nka- itself but somehow goes on into the div-. If, however, we remember that the world of light is located above the back of heaven, we can view the dead man as flying up into this world of light from the back of the naka-, with div- representing here the world of light.




Bearing burnt offerings in your hands, stride with Agni to the naka-/ when you have gone to the back of the dv-, to the light of the sun, sit together with the gods.25

It is unclear whether the sacrificer or the sacrificed is addressed in this line; in either case the reference to burnt offerings (khya-) proves that the sacrificial vic-tim, not just the sacrificer goes to the back of heaven.

We can now see the central place of sacrifice in this cycle of Vedic hymns. The sacrifice itself is transferred to the gods on the back of heaven where it is con-sumed by the gods; moreover, those who properly perform these sacrifices during their lifetime can take their place with the gods on the back of heaven after death. Finally, the sacrificers themselves must undergo a form of sacrifice before their transference to the back of heaven, in that the their bodies must be burned on the funeral pyre.

W h e n we turn to the Greek material, we find that the back of heaven, called ; 26 in Plato, in addition to having the same formal structure, serves the same functions with regard to the gods, good humans, and sacrifice, although we must remember that Plato will have his own goals in using this mythic raw material, and we should expect changes in emphasis. In the Phaedrus, when Plato through Socrates tells several myths about the immortal nature of the soul, he explains how the souls of those trained in philosophy can escape the trials of the corporeal world by floating up into the heavens; there they may pass into the world of the pure virtues.

... but those () which are called immortal, whenever they are able to reach the top, they travel outside and stand upon the back of heaven; the rotation (of the heavens) drives them around, and they see the things out-side of heaven.21

The first thing to notice beyond the use of the phrase >back of heaven< is Plato's reference to the >things outside of heaven< ; ; such an expres-sion can only make sense in the context of a layered universe where refers not to the entirety of the cosmos but only a part. Thus, in the Phaedrus as in the Vedas, the back of heaven serves to separate regions of the cosmos, and moreover it specifically separates the invisible heavens from the visible. Here too in Plato the

25 krmadhvam agnina nkam khyan hstesu bbhratah/ divs prsthm svr gatva misr devbhir ddhvam//

26 A similar phrase does occur in a few other Greek sources. See, for example, Euripides, Fragment 114, at Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 1065: ' ' '. blessed night, how you hurry your great chariot, driving upon the starry back of the blessed aether through majestic Olympus. We must depend on the scholiast's comment here to identify the line as taken from Euripides.

27 247C: ' , , .



192 David H. Sick

region above the back of heaven cannot be seen with human eyes, as Socrates directly tells us at 247C2-3:

None of the poets here has ever sung worthily about the region above the , nor will they ever [...] for a colorless, formless, and intangible essence holds this region [...] visible to the mind alone.2S

Thus we see a very similar formal structure for the back of heaven in the Greek and the Indian texts, and, of course, the presence of the soul after death is an obvious link. In looking still further into the myth told by Socrates, we find the same asso-ciations with the gods and sacrifice. The Greek gods, like their Vedic counterparts, spend a great deal of time on back of heaven; a few lines before the reference to the flight of the soul, Plato divulges that the gods themselves travel to this same structure for banqueting and feasting:

Yet whenever they (the gods) go for a banquet and for a feasty they travel upwards to the top, to the rim which sits upon the ...29

From this point in the myth the philosopher goes on to explain that only the gods and those souls toughened by the training of philosophy can move beyond this >rim upon the < to >the region above the heavens< (247C2) - the term which Plato uses to describe the region above the back of heaven.30 So, although he uses here a different phrase to desig-nate the barrier between the two regions of the universe, he still seems to be using the same system of organization for the cosmos, with back of heaven or rim of heaven, as the case may be, acting as dividing wall for the visible and invisible regions of the universe. In any event, the gods go to this barrier whenever they wish to banquet or feast.

Plato does not return to the allusion to banqueting and feasting, however, and it is left for the reader to interpret. Why is it when the gods wish to have a banquet that they travel to this region? The Vedic evidence combined with a knowledge of Greek culture allows us to answer this question, or, to apply the methodological terminology: by noting the complexe primaire in its specific cultural setting, we will reveal its function in tha't setting. In Greek society, a banquet or feast could only properly take place after a sacrifice. Every animal had to be sacrificed if it

28 247B: ' .,. xal .,. ...

29 247: . , , , The text here is in state of disorder. I am following the reading of D. H. Sick, Cattle, Sacrifice, and the Sun..., 171-172.

30 Plato's discussion here is somewhat difficult to follow since he moves back and forth be-tween comments about the gods and the soul without distinction. The other question is the exact meaning of . is often translated here as >vault


was to be butchered and distributed in a communal celebration.31 In fact the term which Plato uses here, , might be translated as >sacrificial feastback of heaven< in the sacred cosmologies of Plato and the Vedic hymns. We moreover noted the change in the function of sacrifice in the myth found in Plato, a change which was more easily recognizable since we knew the mythic antecedents Plato was drawing upon and since we did not expect the philosopher to use these myths to the same purposes as his ancestors. We have not, however, proven con-clusively that these similarities stem from a PIE antecedent. In fact at times other conclusions have been reached.

It is tempting here to take up old questions of Plato and the East, reviewing the numerous anecdotes about Plato's travels to Egypt and Phoenicia and searching for the origins of Pythagoreanism or Orphism. We could then go on to claim that Plato was exposed to various ideas from Iranian or Indian religion by a figure such as

31 See M. Detienne, Culinary Practices and the Spirit of Sacrifice, in: The Cuisine of Sacri-fice Among the Greeks. translated by Paula Wissing, Chicago 1989, 1-20. Detienne writes: In sacrifices directed toward commensality, the mageiros is usually slaughterer as well as cook; and the congruence of these two roles indicates to what extent the offering of the sac-rificial victim is regarded and enacted as a way of eating together. The authority of this sys-tem can be seen in the fact the butcher's actions must conform to those of a sacrificial kill-ing. In other words, all comestible meat must result from a sacrificial killing (11).

32 See, for example, Iliad 24.68-69, where Zeus explains his fondness for Hector: ', for my altar was never lacking in an equally-apportioned feast or in libations or sweet odors.

33 As further support of our claims about banqueting and the back of heaven, it should be noted that the Vedic gods also hold celebrations there. See AV 7.80.1, where the sacrificer joins the gods on the nkasya prsth- for a bit of celebrating: May we delight in drink (sam is mdema). At AV 6.122.4, the soul of the sacrificer departs to the third naka- for drinking and feasting: May we, O Agni, invited, beyond old age, take delight in the convivial feast on the third nka- (pa hth agne jarsah parstat trtye nke sadha mdam mdema//).

34 Socratic/Platonic ideas about the gods and sacrifice are outlined at Euthyphro 14B and fol-lowing.



194 David H. Sick

Eudoxus of Cnidus.35 The link between India and the Phaedrus is made even more obvious because of the presence of the analogy of the chariot and the soul which recurs in a very similar version at Katha Upanishad 1.3.3-9.36 It is thus possible that the genetic relationship between the mythic texts in the Vedas and Plato is not that of siblings but of parent to child. Although it has been argued elsewhere for a PIE origin of these themes,37 the ultimate origins of the precedent do not matter for this application, since we are concerned not with the proto-society but with the application in context. It is also possible that two texts might be similar for reasons other than a common origin, but the remnants in Plato, the use of the term and the unexplained presence of the gods on the back of heaven, argue that the phi-losopher is making modifications to a pre-existing paradigm, and these enigmas were solved by first noting the more striking similarities.

As far as Lincoln, Dumzil, and the genetic model are concerned, the relation-ship seems most recently to have inverted back upon itself. In Lincoln's article concerned with Dumzil's reconstruction of a German war god, Rewriting the German War God, one will find a chart which provides the common elements of a proto-Germanic myth thought to validate the PIE ideological structure posited by Dumzil;38 this chart recalls the methodology which Lincoln adopted at an earlier stage of his career, a methodology consistent with that of Dumzil before him. Now, however, the focus is no longer on the complexe primaire; in fact the com-plexe primaire is of interest to Lincoln only as a means to reconstruct the apport successif\ which in this instance is the work of Dumzil itself. Lincoln has recon-structed the proto-myth in order to note an idiosyncratic interpretation of the

35 For the ancient accounts of Plato's own journeys to the East, see Plutarch, Life of Solon 2.8 and Diogenes Laertius 3.6. He is also reputed to have had contact with a certain Chaldean who appears on the list of students at the Academy as well as Eudoxus of Cnidus who trav-eled to Egypt and had some knowledge of the ideas of Zoroaster (Pliny, NH 30.3). The bibli-ography on Plato and Eastern thought is quite large. Among those who believe Plato bor-rowed his ideas from the East are J. Bidez, Eos, ou Platon et l'Orient, Brussels 1945; E. R. Dodds, Plato and the Irrational, in: Journal of Hellenic Studies 65, 1947, 16-25; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, The Western Response to Zoroaster, Oxford 1958; M. L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford 1971. Arguing for the independent devel-opment of Plato's thought are A. B. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Upanishads (Harvard Oriental Series 32) Cambridge, MA 1925, 11.601-613; W. J. W. Kster, Le mythe de Platon, de Zarathoustra, et des Chaldeens, Leiden 1951; J. Kerschen-steiner, Platon und der Orient, Stuttgart 1945. For Plato and Indian thought in particular, see West as well as E. J. Urwick, The Message of Plato, London, 1920, and A. S. Chousalkar, Social and Political Implications of Concepts of Justice and Dharma, Dehli 1986.

36 Some of the earlier scholars who noticed the parallel include F. M. Mller, The Upanishads (Sacred Books of the East 15) Oxford 1884, 11.12. A. B. Keith, Religion and Philosophy..., 11.555, 613. Later L. Rocher, De Katha-Upanishad II, in: Dialoog 2, 1961, 106. The anal-ogy itself starts at verse three: Know the soul as riding in a chariot and the body to be the chariot; know the intellect to be the charioteer and the mind to be the reins. (tmnam rathinam viddhi sariram ratham eva tu / buddhim tu srathim viddhi manah pragraham eva ca //) The analogy continues in a manner similar to that of the one in the Phaedrus, equating good and bad horses with controlled and uncontrolled senses. See also AV 4.34.4 where the one who correctly performs the oblations becomes a charioteer and flies beyond the div-.

37 See D. H. Sick, Cattle, Sacrifice, and the Sun..., 121-169. 38 See B. Lincoln, Rewriting the German War God..., 201. Lincoln's deconstruction of

Dumzil started earlier with the publication of Death, War, and Sacrifice.




Germanie god Tyr used by Dumzil. Lincoln's reconstruction of the proto-Ger-manic myth allows him to elucidate the political objectives, conscious or uncon-scious, of Dumzil which led to the erroneous interpretation of Tyr. According to Lincoln, Dumzil failed to fit Tyr into the secondary function of his own recon-struction, because the patriotic Frenchman wished to separate German militarism from his conception of PIE ideology, in effect, decrying the saber-rattling of the Nazis against his own country, France. In essence, Lincoln has used a method which he inherited from IE studies, a discipline which he himself set aside, to con-struct a proto-myth in order to show that the construction of a similar proto-myth by the great Indo-Europeanist Dumzil was influenced by his own specific societal setting.



dumézil, lincoln, and the genetic model

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