The Case for Týr = Mitra: Part 3 of 4
Dumezil shows the way in which Bhaga and Aryaman develop out of the orbit of Mitra-as-god-of-social-cohesion-well-being-and-justice. Bhaga appears as the god of Destiny considered as Apportionment (of boons in particular), while Aryaman appears as the god of the flourishing of the “Aryan” people specifically, of the tribe or noble in-group society. In this constellation of figures, Aryaman takes on the role of the cupbearer of Mitra. In the epic version of this grouping, found in the Mahabharata, we have King Dhritarashtra as (per Dumezil) the proposed incarnation of Bhaga, and his brother Vidura as the proposed incarnation of Aryaman, both of whom are uncles to and advisors of the incarnation of Mitra, Yudhishthira. We should make very clear at this point that this means that the versions of these attendant gods that we find in the Mahabharata are one generation back, uncles of the proposed Mitra figure rather than his brothers, as compared to what we find in the Norse version (Týr, Höðr and Baldr being a group of three brothers instead of a nephew and two uncles). Yet Dhritarashtra and Vidura remain the two divine incarnations surrounding the orbit of both the Mitraic and the Varunian heroes, Dhritarashtra blind and Vidura “the champion of peace,” as Dumezil puts it, just as the blind Höðr and beloved Baldr are the immediate family of Týr and Óðinn. Thought of from the Norse perspective, the three brothers, Týr, Höðr, and Baldr would then express a constellation of intimately interconnected gods, who are so closely tied as — almost — to be aspects of one “Mitraic” deity, which would be one explanation of why Snorri has here made them siblings.
In support of his identification of Bhaga-Dhritarashtra with Höðr, Dumezil connects their blindness, but goes further to show how, in the scene which incites the Great War in both cases – the death of Baldr in the Norse and the dice game of Yudhishthira in the Indian – both Höðr and Dhritarashtra are put in the position of being able to stop the “Demon” figure from accomplishing his nefarious purpose, of setting the war in motion, but fail to do so. Höðr and Dhritarashtra, per Dumezil, are akin to a dam which has a chance to hold back the demonic power from breaking forth, yet which gives way at last and becomes a “blind” instrument of that power. His “only weakness [his blindness] was the cause of all their misfortune,” as Dumezil says of Dhritarashtra, and it is easy to see how this applies to Höðr as well. He calls Dhritarashtra “an image of fate,” saying that “his hesitations, his capitulations, and his decisions laden with misfortune copy the behavior of fate.” Dhritarashtra, “for a brief moment...will have the choice in the gravest of circumstances of damming up evil or letting it loose,” and, “resists, hesitates for a long time between the wise advice and honest entreaties of Vidura and the violent entreaties of his son Duryodhana. Finally, he yields...” Dumezil points out as well that the words habitually used surrounding Dhritarasthra in the poem (daiva, kala, etc.), along with his actions, repeatedly connect him to Fate and Destiny.
Of Vidura, Dumezil points out that “although he is recognized as excellent, his advice is not followed,” just as Snorri says that while Baldr passes just judgments, none of them hold or come to fruition. Furthermore, Vidura and Dhritarashtra closely collaborate with Yudhishthira in his peaceful reign after the war, a clear symbol of their close metaphysical alliance, just as Höðr and Baldr return after Ragnarok to rule together, according to Voluspa (stanza 62). And even more remarkably, Vidura is said literally to transfuse himself into Yudhishthira upon death, throwing himself into the being of Dharma-Mitra, as other figures on their deaths in the same section of the Mahabharata are said to return to the deity from which they have incarnated. Dumezil points out that Mitra and Aryaman in the Vedic hymns are intimately tied, “sometimes to the point of identity.” The epic itself claims that Vidura is a partial incarnation of Mitra (in Mahabharata called by the name Dharma or Dharmaraj) just as Yudhishthira is. Vidura is said to die in the arms of Yudhishthira and to give his power to him, explaining that each of them are parts of Dharmaraj.
Indeed, this near identity of Vidura-Aryaman and Yudhisthira-Mitra is the central key to the whole question of the relationship of Týr and Baldr, from a Dumezilian perspective, as we will see. Speaking of Vidura, Dumezil says that Yudhishthira “is almost himself,” i.e., they are almost one being. This opens up the possibility of a continuity between Norse Baldr and Týr, perhaps brothers for this specific reason, who then are seen by Dumezil as almost aspects of one deity. This allows Dumezil then to point out that Baldr's son, Forseti, is explicitly said to own a hall in which “legal disputes go away reconciled; that is the best court known to gods and men,” and to use this fact as another point in favor of Týr’s connection to the judicial sphere. From this perspective, Týr, Baldr and Forseti are all theorized in some fashion to have a connection to the operation of justice, and are placed in a continuum which is reasonably argued and supported, this proposed continuum itself in the end supporting the concept of the judicial functioning of Týr, by indirect but close association with Baldr and Forseti. Dumezil sums up the parallel between the two pivotal scenes – the death of Baldr and the dice game of Yudhishthira – by arguing that in each case there is a game that Baldr or Yudhishthira under normal conditions should be able to win, but in which, in this case, the instrument of the game has been tampered with and the adversary uses supernatural subterfuge: the dice Duryodhana uses are enchanted, and the dart Hothr throws has not sworn the oath to do no harm to Baldr, leading to the great loss and helping to incite the Great War.
From our own comparative research we can add support to this portion of the theory. In the Greek (Iliadic), the Welsh, the Irish and the Indian (Mahabharatic) cases, there is repeated some permutation of the scene in which all is lost by the Mitraic Lawful Sovereign and/or he receives a near-mortal blow. As already mentioned, Yudhishthira loses his kingdom, his wife, all his family and possessions, and is finally forced into exile due to his series of dice game losses, and later in the war receives a near-fatal wounding from Karna, having to retire from battle for a time. But it is the Welsh version of this theme which actually accords in a more obvious and striking way with the Norse death of Baldr, and is one of the most enigmatic concordances in all of mythology, as it raises the question of why the seemingly central Welsh god Lleu undergoes a fate so similar to that of the Norse god Baldr, whose myths are comparably scant.
The Welsh version of this loss/mortal wounding scene appears as follows. Lleu is known to have a tynged, a kind of spoken fate, over him, which makes him invulnerable to all attacks, just as Baldr is said to be under the protection of an oath of (nearly) all things in the world, and thus rendered (nearly) invulnerable. However, Lleu's wife Blodeuwedd becomes the adulterous lover of the hunter Gronw Pebr, and the two conspire to find out how to kill Lleu. Blodeuwedd asks Lleu how this might be accomplished, under the guise that she wants to protect him from its occurrence, and he guilelessly tells her that he can be killed, but only by fulfilling the riddling conditions of striking him while he has one foot on a goat, one on the edge of a tub of water, while he is under an eave, with a spear forged for a year only on Sundays when others are at church. He agrees to demonstrate this to his wife a year later, and Gronw, on that day, prepared with such a spear, pierces Lleu's side. Thus the magical tynged is broken and Lleu's invulnerability is subverted by the malicious scheme of his adversaries. As a result, Lleu transforms into an eagle and flies to the top of a tall tree, which seems to be a representation of the World Tree. Many interpreters here have seen this as a symbolic death, Lleu temporarily disappearing to the otherworld. It is said that "putrid flesh and vermin" fall from Lleu as he rests on that tree, further signifying his deathlike state. Eventually, Gwydion tracks him down and coaxes him down from the top of the tree, transforms him with his magic, and brings him a physician who gradually heals his wounds. Once recovered, Lleu musters all of the forces of his kingdom and pursues Gronw and Blodeuwedd, and we have previously shown how this sequence of events conforms to the narrative of the Iliad to the point of possibly being a borrowing, down to the fact that Menelaus and Lleu are both away at their maternal grandfather's when their wives commit adultery with Paris and Gronw.
In the Greek case, when the events of the Trojan War resume on the battlefield of Troy, nine years have gone by; however, one of the first sequences we are then given is the duel between Menelaus and Paris. Menelaus throws his spear through Paris' shield, just as Lleu throws his spear through the stone slab behind which Gronw hides when Lleu catches up to him. Paris, however, is rescued by Aphrodite in this case. Nonetheless, due to this duel, a truce-oath is struck between the Trojans and the Achaeans. This truce-oath (much like the truce-oath which the things of the world had sworn regarding Baldr) is then broken by the Trojan archer Pandarus. Athena (taking the Lokian role, if only for a moment), desiring the war to go on, changes her shape to that of Pandarus' comrade, and tells him to shoot Menelaus and win glory, and win the approval of Prince Paris most of all. Beguiled by Athena thus, Pandarus shoots his arrow at Menelaus; however, Athena then intercepts the arrow and guides it away from Menelaus' vitals, and safely to the belt-region of his abdomen, where it strikes a serious but non-fatal blow, allowing Menelaus to recover and return later, like the other Mitraic figures. We find that not only was Menelaus protected by a supposed truce-oath in this scene, which was transgressed through subterfuge of a wily deity, but that he was also under a broader protection of Fate and the gods and had been prophesied to survive the war and to be brought up to Elysium after the completion of his life. Further, he is manifestly protected by Athena in this scene, so that the wound that he sustains does not end up being fatal. Instead, a physician is called in by Agamemnon, just as Gwydion had called a physician for Lleu, and after a time Menelaus is healed and returns to battle, to complete his revenge on Paris and Deiphobus, as Lleu completes his on Gronw, as Yudhishthira recovers and slays Shalya.
In the Irish version, things are much vaguer, and Lugh, after killing the lover of his adulterous wife, Cermait, is killed by Cermait's sons. His death also has a magical suggestiveness to it, as he is speared through the foot and then drowned in a lake, perhaps similar to how Lleu had been speared while on the edge of a tub of water next to a river. And in Lugh's case, there exists a sense in the myths and folklore that he would return from his grave beneath the waters one day. As the Youtuber Fortress of Lugh has put it, “the Irish sources are often loath to proclaim Lug's death." For instance, in “The Phantom's Frenzy," “Lug” comes to Con saying that, despite his death, he isn't a phantom or spectre, but has come to tell Con the length of his reign.
Indeed, while Baldr is the central survivor in the Norse myth, coming back from Hel to lead the new cycle, it is Yudhishthira who is the last Pandava standing in the Indian epic. After the war, it is Yudhishthira who rules for another 37 years, as Lugh rules for 40 in the Irish version. The five Pandava brothers then embark on a pilgrimage in the Himalayas. One by one they are said to die on the journey, each one due to a different sin characteristic to them. Only Yudhishthira survives the entire pilgrimage and reaches the top of the Holy Mountain, passes the final tests, and is admitted into Paradise.
To recap: both Yudhishthira and Menelaus are admitted to Paradise at the ends of their lives after winning peace in the war and ruling well after it; Lleu dies, goes to an otherworldly tree and revives, and leads his kingdom to peace via the enactment of justice; while Lugh dies and is rumored to return eventually to do similarly for his people; and Baldr dies, goes to the underworld and then returns to be the central survivor and leader in the next presumed golden age. All of these figures are in the Lawful Sovereign/Mitra archetype, with the notable exception of Baldr (if we maintain the premise that the Norse Mitraic god may be Týr). Readers will generally acknowledge that each of these figures, besides Baldr (though he does in fact become the leader and ruler when he returns at the end), are the kings and military leaders in their kingdoms. They are central heroes or central gods, while Baldr sometimes appears evanescent, pushed to the side, and is portrayed as perhaps even too perfect to be effective in this world. Thus, if we argued merely from the weight of comparative evidence, we would expect the Mitraic Lawful Sovereign of the Norse myth to be the one to die while under a magical fate or protective oath, go to the underworld, and return to rule their people in a golden age and/or achieve Paradise. However, it is Baldr who does so in the Norse version, and not Týr. In this interpretation then, the identification of Baldr and Týr as Aryaman and Mitra, and thus as two closely connected aspects of one deific complex, becomes even more paramount. This seeming contradiction between the Norse version and the other branches is resolved if we take Baldr to be almost like an aspect of Týr, or the two gods to be so intimately connected that they are nearly identified. If we accept this series of arguments, it becomes easy to imagine how certain myths could have shifted from one to the other between these overlapping deities, whether in one direction or the other, or how the other Indo-European branches could have consolidated these myths in only a slightly different manner.
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