Dyaus, like deva, shining, comes from the root div or dyu, but this root bifurcates at once. In the Rig-Veda forms derived from the base div are masculine or feminine as the case may be, whilst those which are derived from dyu are always masculine; thus dyaus from div, is the firmament, the expanse above our heads, and is the later feminine form; whereas dyaus from dyu, is the sky considered as a power, an active force, and is masculine, and consequently is the earlier conception. These two words, dyaus, nominative singular, and its base, dyu, being almost synonymous may be used indifferently.
All vegetable cells are destined to become plants, though sometimes different plants, this, observation of nature teaches us. All verbal cells are destined to become words, though differing, that is, with different meanings; the small amount of philological study to which we have already devoted ourselves in these pages shows us this. All cells, whatever their nature, possess a transitive movement; the French word éclater has the meaning of to disperse in brilliancy; if we imagine scintillations of light escaping from a central luminary we obtain the idea of a transitive luminous movement. Whilst a cell preserves its primary condition it is not possible to predict its future; no human intelligence could have foretold that the root div and dyu would produce the Sanscrit word deva, which means to shine, and deva would in time develop into deus, which now no longer means to shine, but God. It is a curious characteristic of Vedic Sanscrit that this uncertainty of meaning of such words as deva, which expresses equally the half physical and half spiritual intention, is an evidence of its rays having proceeded from the same source of light and heat.
Human reason, in finding its way amongst crooked paths, often wanders; the representations it makes of things are coloured by rays projected by mythological or dogmatic mirages. We may recognise in the manner in which our ancestors have viewed the supernatural powers the prototype of our own errors of judgment. From the time that Dyaus became the warming, life-giving sky and thus active, the rishis were authorised to call him pitar, father, and to place by his side Prithvi, the earth, who is the mother, and they then spoke of Dyaus as the father of the dawn, and of day and night. These were thus considered as the first attributes of the sky in Aryan mythology.
We are inclined to ascribe these excursions of thought to the flights of poetic fancy, but they are rather the results of the poverty of language, which make it impossible not only to express abstract ideas, but even to describe accurately the phenomena of the physical world. Religion and language in those days were so closely allied that it is possible to say of a religious idea in its infancy that it was a fragment of ancient language; for in order to describe his impressions the Aryan depended entirely on the words with which it furnished him. For this reason many of the hymns, incoherent though they may appear, are of inestimable value. Every one of their words weighs and tells, but for the translator who endeavours to present the Vedic thought in modern idioms, the results are so discouraging that he is tempted to give up in despair.
When at a later date the name of Dyaus became the centre of fabulous tales, it still remained in the Sanscrit language of that time one of the many traditional and unmeaning words for sky; but we must understand clearly that in the most ancient hymns of the Rig-Veda this name is the incarnation of the Power which is beyond and above conception, whose existence had been obscurely indicated from the beginning, and who remained unnamed long after the beasts of the forests and the birds of the air had received their appellations.
From the time of their exodus the Aryan family, going in different directions, were naturally divided into branches; vast distances separated them, and they forgot that the same cradle, the same hearth, had sheltered them at birth. But the ties which connected them originally were not snapped at all points, since they brought away with them words belonging to their mother-tongue, and certain intuitions were the common property of all. Before the Greek, Latin, Sanscrit, and German languages became separated, the name of a sovereign Power was implied in those of the divinity which at a much later time occupied so large a space in the history of Greece, Rome, India, and of Germany.
Coupled with the word pitar the name Dyaus appears in the most ancient Aryan prayers as Dyaush-pitar, Zeus-pater, and Ju-piter. These composite names are no invention of the poets; they are the results of certain laws of language to which our minds—if they would not turn from the right path—must submit. The initial dy in Dyaus is represented in Latin by j; Ju in Jupiter corresponds exactly with Dyaus. The name of the Teutonic god Tyr, genitive Tys, also corresponds, and as exactly, with Dyaus; in Gothic it would be Tius, and in Anglo-Saxon Tiw, preserved in Tiwsdæg, the day of the god Tyr, and Zio in Old High-German, where we find Ziestac for the modern Dienstag, the day of the god Mars. Tius, Tiw, Tyr, and Zio are forms that exist side by side, all of which of course proceed from that wonderful root div, and represent the bright sky, day, and god. No etymological interpretation would be satisfying which did not embrace all these forms, since they are all dialectic variations of Dyaus, the same name in different languages. All names truly related have but one root, in the same way as living beings who are brothers have but one mother.
If another proof were needed of the uninterrupted continuity of speech and thought amongst the chief of the Aryan people, the following fact will afford it:—
At the time when the schools flourished in Athens, and when the Greeks were hardly conscious of the existence of India, it would have been possible, I suppose, to see young pupils seated before tables on which the master had written the declensions which composed the task for the day. There might be read:—
Nom. Zeús
Gen. Dios
Dat. Dii
Acc. Dia
Voc. Zeû