Sky Father - History of The Concept

History of The Concept

In late nineteenth century opinions on comparative religion, in a line of thinking that begins with Friedrich Engels and J. J. Bachofen, and which received major literary promotion in The Golden Bough by Sir James G. Frazer, it was believed that worship of a sky father was characteristic of nomadic peoples, and that worship of an earth mother similarly characterised farming peoples. According to this body of doctrine, nomads militarily overran farming societies, and replaced goddesses with male gods. During the process, it was believed that the invaders devalued the status of women and replaced a matriarchy with a patriarchy. The religious changes were imagined to reflect this change in the status of the sexes. This belief system was linked to the discovery of the Indo-European languages, and it was fancied that the military conquest underlying this model spread those languages. The sky father was held to be an Indo-European cultural ideal. Aryan and Indo-European were synonymous during this period.

The sky father is frequently invoked in feminist spirituality, which has helped revive the concept even as the notion of earth mothers and sky fathers was rejected as oversimplified and implausible in the world of anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion.

The earliest reference to the concept of a Dyaus Pitr (Sky Father) or a conception of Mother Earth can be found in Rigveda, one of the Hindu sacred texts, recorded around 1700-1100 B.C.. It is one of the oldest compositions in any Indo-European language. Mantra 4, Sukta 89, Mandala 1 of Rigveda can be translated as thus:

Let us be exposed to the soothing effect of plant life by the wind, Mother Earth and Father Sky. Let the stone that grinds the herbs also do the same. O' Ashvins, accept our prayer for this.

The Ashvins are offspring of Surya and have been portrayed as charioteers, thus invoking and calling upon the Nature itself to nurture human beings.

The ancient God of the Turks, Tengri or Tangra, is usually referred to as the "kok Tanri" or sky god, therefore heavenly father.