Proto-Indo-European Religion - Ritual

Ritual

Émile Benveniste states that "there is no common term to designate religion itself, or cult, or the priest, not even one of the personal gods". There are, however, terms denoting ritual practice reconstructed in Indo-Iranian religion which have root cognates in other branches, hinting at common PIE concepts. Thus, the stem *hrta-, usually translated as "(cosmic) order" (Vedic ŗta and Iranian arta). Benveniste states, "We have here one of the cardinal notions of the legal world of the Indo-Europeans to say nothing of their religious and moral ideas" (pp. 379–381). He also adds that an abstract suffix -tu formed the Vedic stem ŗtu-, Avestan ratu- which designated order, particularly in the seasons and periods of time and which appears in Latin ritus "rite" and Sanskrit ritu.

The following list of reconstructed PIE religious terms is based on EIEC and Lyle Campbell

  • *isH1ro ‘holy’
  • *sakro- ‘sacred’ (derived from *sak- ‘to sanctify’)
  • *kywen(to)- ‘holy’
  • *noibho- ‘holy’
  • *preky- ‘pray’
  • *meldh- ‘pray’
  • *gwhedh- ‘pray’
  • *H1wegwh- ‘speak solemnly’;
  • *ĝheuHx- ‘call, invoke’ (perhaps English god < *ĝhu-to- from ‘that which is invoked’, but derivation from *ĝhu-to- ‘libated’ from *ĝheu- ‘libate, pour’ is also possible).
  • *kowHxei- ‘priest, seer/poet’
  • *Hxiaĝ- ‘worship’
  • *weik- ‘consecrate’ (earlier meaning perhaps ‘to separate’), ]
  • *sep- ‘handle reverently’
  • *spend- ‘libate’
  • *ĝheu- ‘libate’ and *ĝheu-mņ ‘libation’
  • *dapnom ‘sacrificial meal’ from *dap-,
  • *tolko/eH2- ‘meal’ (at least late PIE)
  • *nemos ‘sacred grove’ (used in west and centre of the IE world)
  • *werbh- ‘sacred enclosure’

Read more about this topic:  Proto-Indo-European Religion

Famous quotes containing the word ritual:

    “Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straightshooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct.”
    —Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    “The greatest honor that can be paid to the work of art, on its pedestal of ritual display, is to describe it with sensory completeness. We need a science of description.... Criticism is ceremonial revivification.”
    —Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    “Romance reading and writing might be seen ... as a collectively elaborated female ritual through which women explore the consequences of their common social condition as the appendages of men and attempt to imagine a more perfect state where all the needs they so intensely feel and accept as given would be adequately addressed.”
    —Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)