The Dagda, The Irish Wind Harvester
There is a parable in the Briharayandaka Upanishad that tells of the special role of the god Vayu. Vayu and the other gods of the bodily functions made a test to decide the greatest among them. One by one the gods left the body of a man. The man could carry on, in better or worse shape, when each of the various other gods abandoned their posts. However, when it was Vayu's turn to leave the body, not only was it robbed of life, but each of the other gods was overpowered and pulled out along with Vayu. They quickly realized the supremacy of this wind god's power. If this wasn't enough to illustrate his importance to the Vedic people, the Chandogya Upanishad teaches that only by knowing Vayu in the form of the syllable "om" can the spiritual seeker know Brahman.
Dagda and Thor
On the surface, the Irish god the Dagda has no very clear parallel in Vedic myth, and in general has proven to be controversial and mysterious to interpreters who would seek to shoehorn him into a typical Indo-European mythological framework. Due to his blunt weapon and great appetite, along with his position as paragon of strength, one would be forgiven for thinking his most obvious match would be the Germanic god Thor, who was written and sung about in such a lively way in Iceland, Ireland's closely connected neighbor just to the north, along with the other parts of the Germanic and Scandinavian world.
The scholar John Shaw has written compellingly about this mythological connection, pointing to similarities, in stories such as the Dagda's retrieval of the magic harp, which connect the Dagda to Thor as well as to Zeus. Indeed, the Dagda is said in the Dindshencha of Mag Muirthemne to banish some sort of underwater octopus creature, just as Thor in a similar way was known to do battle with the aquatic Midgard Serpent. In fact, Shaw's essay “The Dagda, Thor and ATU 1148B: Analogues, Parallels, or Correspondences?” brings forward a host of evidence in support of this thesis and is almost entirely convincing in making the Dagda the Irish Thor. It is a valuable essay and the connections it highlights are important to know. However, scholars such as Matthias Egeler have cast these parallels into doubt, and as any such scholar will also be able to tell you, another mystery remains. Thor is linguistically cognate with the continental Celtic god Taranis, and with the Irish Tuireann – figures whose descriptively literal names earn them the title “Thunderers.” As such, these gods are usually seen as represented in the East by the powerful god of thunder and war, Indra. Thus in linguistic terms at least it would seem that the Dagda and Thor are simply a mismatch of archetypes, that an Irish “Thunderer” already exists who is clearly separate from the Dagda, and that the undeniable similarities in the Dagda and Thor mythos are perhaps later developments due to borrowing or incidental overlap. Yet, in spite of all this, there is a lens through which we can justify the core linkage between the Dagda and Thor while recognizing also that another archetype is more fully at play here. This involves understanding the Indo-European wind god – who Mircea Eliade more vividly calls the “hurricane god” – that deity known to the Vedics as Vayu.
Relation of Thunder and Wind Gods in the Warrior Function
While both Thor and Indra are, in shorthand, referred to as “the Thunderer,” due to their control of thunder and lightning, this does not actually indicate the whole character of the god we see in either the Germanic or Vedic myths. The mythologist Georges Dumezil outlines a crucial feature of the gods of the warrior or “second” function, and it is a key to understanding Indo-European myth as a whole that all would do well to learn. Just as the first and third functions have two representative deities who form a partnership or duad (Mitra-Varuna, for example), in a similar way the second function has for its exemplars the two contrasting warrior gods – in Vedic myth and hymn: Indra and Vayu. Dumezil describes their contrast as the same as that seen between Achilles and Hercules, calling the first “the chivalrous,” and the second “the brutal.” Arjuna, incarnation of Indra, and Achilles in similar fashion, are depicted as brooding figures, rather intellectually sensitive, hanging back from the events of battle for a time, and yet in the crucial moments leading the vanguard of military generals and victorious in key one-on-one battles that turn the tide of the war (i.e. Achilles over Hector, Arjuna over Bhishma and Karna). Bhima – incarnation of Vayu – like Hercules, is defined by his brute strength (which is paired with comically massive appetite), and he is in general a loyal and unfazed soldier, performing great military feats with steadfast effectiveness. Alongside the aristocratic Achilles we picture the superhuman strength and brutishness of the Bhima-like Ajax.
Now, those familiar with the relevant myths might object: “Thor and Indra both are famed for their strength, their appetites, and have enough comic brutishness between them to match Hercules, Ajax, or the Dagda!” Dumezil has an answer for this. By the time of the rise to supremacy of Indra to which the Rig Veda bears witness, Vayu had greatly receded in importance and had largely been neglected by the prominent rishis. There are fewer than ten full hymns to Vayu in the Rig Veda, leading many to write him off as an unimportant deity, despite the fact that he is incarnated in one of the five Pandavas in the Mahabharata who seem to have represented the archaic primary gods. As Dumezil puts it, “the role of Vayu within the warrior function...is very nearly effaced in the Veda” (Destiny of the Warrior, Dumezil, 73). But more than simply receding and vanishing, Vayu's mythos was rather absorbed by the inexorably expanding figure of Indra, so that the Indra of the Rig Veda could properly be called Vayu-Indra, with an emphasis of course on the traits of Indra. Dumezil points out that in Mahabharata the incarnations of these gods are distinct from one another and form a clear contrast, and that in the Iranic Avestan literature, the “Vayu” we find also attests to this distinct character. The presence of this clear Vayu/Indra contrast in both Vedic and Iranic branches attests to the archaic Indo-Iranic timeframe of the distinction (see Destiny of the Warrior for Dumezil's destailed argument). As he summarizes it, we have “the two types of warrior god – represented in the pre-Vedic period, presumably, by Vayu and Indra, combined in the Rig Veda under the name of Indra, but attested as distinct in their sons, the heroes Bhima and Arjuna, up to the time of the epic” (90, Destiny of the Warrior, Dumezil). Likewise of Thor, Dumezil says he should more accurately be seen as a mix of the wind god and the thunderer: similarly to Vayu-Indra we actually have in the Germanic myths Wind God-Thor, Wind-Thunder, however this time with a significant shift toward the outward character of the Wind God. In fact, Dumezil goes as far as to say “except for his role as the god of thunder and lightning, Thorr owes practically nothing to this aspect [the chivalrous-Indraic aspect], and, in contrast, develops the other [the brutal- Herculean/Vayu aspect]” (90, Destiny of the Warrior, Dumezil).
The “Splitting” of the Warrior Function
Thus our usual understanding of the “Thunderer” gods is an incomplete one. Among all of the paired duads of gods, and no less with the Wind/Thunder pair, there is an observable flow of characteristics from one to the other over time, often resulting in an amalgamation of the two, or at least in a wind or thunder god who has acquired parts of the mythos of the other while the other recedes more or less into the background. It is like the twin who absorbs his brother in the mother's womb. For the Vedics, Indra rises and absorbs certain “wind” traits, Vayu is reduced and pushed aside. For the Germanics, Thor rises and absorbs, combining elements found in both Indra and Vayu. In Ireland, however, Tuireann, the assumed Thunderer, is brought low and killed off, registering very little in extant Irish myth outside of the tale of he and his sons' deaths. Instead we have a prominent god, the Dagda, who has some mythic similarities to Thor, but who does not bear the typical thunderer's name (as Tuireann does) and who has other key differences with the thunder gods Thor and Indra. And we even have another god, Lugh, possibly taking on many of the “princely-chivalrous” roles that in India would have been expected of the Indra type. In fact this theorized splitting up of the “Indra” mythos would actually put Germanic and Irish myth in close alignment with one another on this point. While, as Dumezil argues, Óðinn takes on the princely and chivalrous traits and roles found in Indra, leaving the thunder and lightning to the more Vayu-like Thor, in a similar fashion Lugh perhaps takes over certain traits and roles of the Indra mythos, while the Dagda takes myths like the battle with the sea creature, control of weather, etc. Connections to the wind god have also been argued for Óðinn as well, which could suggest that the “first function” traits of both the Thunderer and Wind God were seen as part of Óðinn, while the “second function” traits were viewed as belonging to Thor. By understanding this event, the splitting of the “Indra” element between the god of the Wind and the Sovereign god archetypes, we can begin to understand a set of key theological shifts that seem to have happened in Northwest Europe. In this context, we should press forward our investigation of the various strikingly Vayu-esque traits possessed by the Dagda.
Wind Traits of Dagda
When trying to assess the “wind god” traits of the Dagda, perhaps the first clue is the fact that he is the god who explicitly uses the wind in the myths. When Amergin's ship is attempting to land on Ireland's coast, it is the Dagda, as the chief druid of the gods, who summons his druidic wind to repel it. His magical harp is likewise a possible connection - it possesses the power to induce sleep and has the name “the 4-angled music.” It has been said that this refers to the four seasons and his control of the weather and perhaps the cycles of time (he halts the Sun's movement in another myth). However, it can also be read as having the alternate meaning of the four cardinal directions for which the winds are named. And indeed the changing winds and the changing seasons are intimately intwined. Furthermore, it is a mystery why the seasons would be associated with the concept of angles. It is actually the cardinal directions and not the seasons that can be more accurately described by the word “angled.” Consistent with this famed harp of the Dagda, Vayu was also known as the king of the celestial musicians (Visnu Purana), wind being the originating force and essence of music. It has been suggested by commentators like Shaw that the Dagda's claim when speaking to the daughter of Indech that his footprint would be on every stone signifies his connection to lightning and storm. Yet how frequently does lightning hit a given stone? What is more likely to leave its mark on every stone, the sporadic and rare lightning, or the pervading and persistent erosion of the wind? Indeed, lightning hardly makes sense in this context on closer inspection. More than these points though, an analysis of his names appears very capable of supporting a wind interpretation.
Dagda's Names
In Isolde Carmody's translation of the names of Dagda, Dein translates as “swift” or “mighty.” Dictionary of the Irish Language (DIL) here gives “swiftness, speed, impetuosity, vehemence,” with the alternate meaning of “pure, clean, neat and powerful.” These hardly require argument, as the wind and the deity associated with it are universally known as swift and impetuous, as well as powerful. Later the Dagda is called “harsh and stern” as well as “hardy and resolute in moral quality,” the wind being famous for its harshness and the wind god for his exemplary resoluteness. Fer Benn Bruaich, which the Dagda calls his “lawful” name, Carmody translates as “man of the peaks and shores.” What do peaks and shores have in common besides the presence of wind? Bogail Broumide Carmody interprets as “large lapped farter,” which certainly could be a comic description of the wind, and what other god than the Wind god could be acceptably called flatulent? Cerbaid Ceic means “cutting mountains,” and one could picture a sharp wind cutting once again through the high peaks. But in fact, Vayu also has a prominent myth in which he literally cuts a mountain. In the Bhagavata Purana, at the request of the sage Narada, Vayu attacks the polar mountain, Meru, breaking off its summit with storm winds and throwing it into the sea. Hanuman, Vayu's son, also once tore up a mountain and took it with him in order to bring a healing herb to his dying ally Lakshman. “Great Lying Bag” (Rolaig Buile) I have a hard time seeing as other than the fabled bag of wind, like the one kept by the Greek wind god Aeolus, or even the common expression “windbag”; moreover, lies are often poetically compared to the wind, unstable and impossible to pin down or depend upon. Labair Cercce Di Brig, “Talkative Hen on the Hill,” continues the theme of noisiness on high locations. Oldathair Boith, “Great Father of Being,” and Athgen mBethai Brightere, Regeneration of the World of Dry Land, both fall in line with the Upanishadic notion of the Wind/Air as the master of life, and further than that we may picture the wind as the primary scatterer of seeds which bring new life to the world each year, fostering cyclical regeneration. In fact, Vayu in the Rig Veda is called “Germ of the world,” that which makes the world germinate, generate, and grow. Another name of the Dagda's is Rig Scotbe, which means “King of Speech,” and what is more vital to speech than the breath itself, the wind which we blow forth as spoken words?
As for the title Rofhessa – “Lord of Great Knowledge” – within the scope of our interpretation this may be explained in one of a couple possible ways. The title of “all-knowing” generally originated with the great Father Sky (Dyaus), whose position in the all-surrounding firmament, along with the sun and stars which were said to be his eyes and his spies, allowed him to bear witness to and know all things in the world. As we will discuss later on, it was very common for another god to inherit this title from the sky god when the sky god receded from prominence. Alternately, he could have simply gained the epithet throught the association of the wind with the breath, prana, om, and esoteric pursuit. Vayu too was associated with the soma sacrifice, which gives enlightenment and immortality, known as the first to reach it and taste its delights due to his unmatched speed. Perhaps connected with this, he was also sometimes said to keep his own store of the nectar of immortality, the amrita: “Thou art our Father, Vāta, yea, thou art a Brother and a friend,/So give us strength that we may live./The store of Amṛta laid away yonder, O Vāta, in thine home,—/Give us thereof that we may live” (RV, X.CLXXXVI.2-3). While Vayu has this store of the nectar, the Dagda is famous for his large, never-dry cauldron of plenty. We do not deny that Dagda also has many roles of Father Sky, and so the Wind and Sky motifs relating to knowledge may be overlapping.
Dagda's title Eochaidh, commonly translated as “horseman,” gives no trouble to our comparison with Vayu. There is ample evidence in the Rig Veda that Vayu was strongly linked to horses, often said to be carried by a fleet of a thousand of them, often drawn in a chariot:
“Come with thy team-drawn car, O Vāyu, to the gift, come to the sacrificer's gift” (RV, I.CXXXIV.1).
“Two red steeds Vāyu yokes, Vāyu two purple steeds, swift-footed, to the chariot, to the pole to draw, most able, at the pole, to draw” ((RV, I.CXXXIV.3).
“come Vāyu, to our feast, with team of thousands, come, Lord of the harnessed team, with hundreds,
Lord of harnessed steeds!” (RV, I.CXXXV.1).
“Drive thou thy horses, Vāyu, come to us with love, come well-inclined and loving us”(RV, I.CXXXV. 2).
“Come thou with hundreds, come with thousands in thy team to this our solemn rite, to taste the sacred food, Vāyu, to taste the offerings” (RV, I.CXXXV.3).
“Harness, O Vāyu, to thy car a hundred well-fed tawny steeds,
Yea, or a thousand steeds, and let thy chariot come to us with might” (RV, IV.XLVIII.5).
“To you pure juice, rich in meath, are offered by priest: through longing for the Pair of Heroes. Drive, Vāyu, bring thine harnessed horses hither: drink the pressed Soma till it make thee joyful. Whoso to thee, the Mighty, brings oblation, pure Soma unto thee, pure- drinking Vāyu, That man thou makest famous among mortals: to him strong sons are born in quick succession” (RV, VII.XC.1-2).
“O VĀYU, drinker of the pure, be near us: a thousand teams are thine, Allbounteous Giver.
To thee the rapture-bringing juice is offered, whose first draught, God, thou takest as thy portion” (RV, VII.XCII.1).
“Borne on his car with these for his attendants, the God speeds forth, the universe's Monarch. Travelling on the paths of air's mid-region, no single day doth he take rest or slumber. Holy and earliest-born, Friend of the waters, where did he spring and from what region came he? Germ of the world, the Deities’ vital spirit, this God moves ever as his will inclines him” (RV, X.CLXVIII.2-4).
The wind is here associated with horses due to its great speed and strength, the team of horses being the natural symbol of this combination. Besides this though, Eochaidh or Eochu are fairly common titles among the Irish gods and legendary figures, and could be interpreted as meaning something similar to chevalier or denoting a powerful king (a lord of horses).
Dagda and Bhima
This is all very suggestive, but so far perhaps not conclusive. Mythical associations are commonly stretched and twisted by each new interpreter to fit their desired pattern. Some things that could be interpreted as descriptive of wind could also be interpreted a descriptive of thunder, lightning, rain, or sky. However, looking at Bhima, the wind god Vayu's incarnation in the Mahabharata, while clarifying Dumezil's meaning regarding the contrast between Vayu and Indra, will reveal several similarities between him and the Dagda which become increasingly difficult to put aside. The Pandavas, sons of the primary gods and so their mortal stand-ins in the Mahabharata (as Dumezil and Stig Wikander before him have pointed out), preserve much of the archaic mythos of their respective god-fathers, provably dating from before the Indo-Iranic split due to shared elements found in Iranic myth and the myths of the european branches (this fact forms a foundational element of Dumezil's analysis of Germanic myth in Gods of the Ancient Northmen). So it is the case with the Pandava warrior Bhima, the second born of the Pandavas, born as spiritual son of Vayu when Kunti prayed to him for a son.
Bhima is known as the strongest of all the Pandavas. He is said to have the strength of ten thousand elephants and to singlehandedly defeat all one hundred of the Kauravas in the Kurukshetra War, among other senior warriors, and on one day to slay one hundred thousand soldiers. He is a one-man wrecking crew who is unmatched in raw power on the battlefield. Indra himself is said to not be able to subdue him in battle. He is also described as a figure giant in stature, the largest of the Pandavas. His appetite matches – one epithet names him Vrikodara, “wolf-bellied.” Half of the food allotted to him, his brothers and their mother was eaten by him alone, the other half split between the remaining five family members. In one tale Bhima is sent into the forest with a great cart of food intended to lure in a menacing monster. The monster approaches and is distraught to see Bhima calmly eating the food. When he has finished his feast, Bhima makes short work of the monster. In the end of the Mahabharata, one of the reasons Bhima is said to fall dead before reaching paradise is his excessive appetite.
Likewise, the Dagda is described as a giant with unmatched strength, and his incredible appetite is illustrated in an episode just before the Second Battle of Moytura. The Dagda goes as an envoy to the Fomorians to ask for a truce, in order buy time for his allies and to spy on the opposing army. (Vayu too was known to take the role of messenger or envoy of the gods due to his unrivaled speed, and his son Hanuman was the one chosen to retrieve the healing herb from the Himalayas for Lakshman because no one else was as fast as him.) The Fomorians pour a mass of food into a pit in the ground – “four score gallons of new milk and the same quantity of meal and fat[...]goats and sheep and swine[...]porridge” (Gods and Fighting Men, Lady Augusta Gregory) -- and tell the Dagda he must eat all of it or be killed, which he promptly does with his massive ladle, enjoying well the feast intended to mock him. Afterward he falls asleep. In a tale somewhat reminiscent of this, Bhima's rival and future war enemy Duryodhana poisons his food as revenge for his own failure to defeat Bhima in wrestling. The poison isn't able to kill Bhima but knocks him unconscious. Just as the Dagda eats the dirt and gravel with the food served him in the pit, Bhima is said to have “digested the poison with the food,” and just like the Dagda this results in him falling asleep or unconscious. After which, Bhima is thrown into the ocean. In one version he has the good luck to sink down to the kingdom of the Nagas, whose king revives him and bestows on him his famed strength. In another, he is said to be bitten by snakes under water but to resurface unscathed: “The wicked son of Dhritarashtra gave poison to Bhima, but Bhima of the stomach of the wolf digested the poison with the food. Then the wretch again tied the sleeping Bhima on the margin of the Ganges and, casting him into the water, went away. But when Bhimasena of strong arms, the son of Kunti woke, he tore the strings with which he had been tied and came up, his pains all gone. And while asleep and in the water black snakes of virulent poison bit him in every part of his body. But that slayer of foes did not still perish” (Mahabharata). Like Bhima, the Dagda is known for his incredible strength and is a kind of one-man army in battle. Just as Bhima surpasses his brothers with the greatest raw battle prowess, when the various warriors of the Tuatha de Danaan announce one by one what means of war they will use, the Dagda in his turn announces that he will use all of the various powers of war mentioned. One description of Bhima describes him similarly as a warrior who weilds all weapons and powers of war – sword, bow, dart, steed, elephants, chariot, mace, and strength of arm: “The mighty-armed Bhima of immeasurable energy hath already turned back for the fight. The son of Kunti will certainly slay many of our foremost car-warriors. With sword and bow and dart, with steeds and elephants and men and cars, with his mace made of iron, he will slay crowds of our soldiers” (Mahabharata, Drona Parva section 22).
***
Comments
Post a Comment