The Mitanni Evidence

From Paul Thieme, 'The "Aryan" Gods of the Mitanni Treaties', JAOS,
Vol. 80, 1960, pp. 301-317.

"...Kikkuli's treatise in Hittite on horse training (numerals:
aika-one, tera -three,panza -- five, satta -- seven, na(ua) -- nine;
appellatives: uartana -- circuitm course (in which horses move when
being trained), as'ua-- horse, and, finally, a series of names of
Aryan divinities on a Mitanni-Hatti and a Hatti-Mitanni treaty (14th
century BC)... a key question is whether these data should be
interpreted as traces of specifically Indo-Aryan speech and religion,
or whether they should rather be identified as Proto-Aryan... an
answer to it would have considerable historical implications. The
historian will devise a theory to explain how 'Indians', or
'Proto-Indians', or 'Para-Indians', or 'Proto-Aryans' could come into
Western Asia and exercise influence inferable from these linguistic
traces. The linguist is entitled to be more modest. At the first step,
he will not attempt to offer an explication in terms of a hypothesis,
but to reach a factual decision on the linguistic character of the
terms that confront him... It is easy to see that in each case where
there exists a clearly recognizable difference between Indo-Aryan and
Iranian, the terms and names of the Akkadian and Hittite documentation
(as far as they are safely identifiable) side with Indo-Aryan-- s in
intervocalic or prevocalic initial positions, which in Iranian appears
as h, is preserve: nas'aattiia- (Mitanni treaty); Sanskrit Na_satya,
but Iranian *Na_ha0ya (Av. Na_nhai0ya); satta- (Kikkuli): Sanskrit
sapta, but Iranian hafta, hapta; the numeral 'one' is aika- (Kikkuli):
Sanskrit eka, but Iranian aiva. However, it is not possible to deny
that the forms Na_satya, sapta and a numeral aika might be
Proto-Aryan. As far as s is concerned, Indo-Aryan preserves the old
situation while Iranian has innovated; as to aika, the possibility
must be admitted that both *aika and *aiva were Proto-Aryan and that
the exclusive adoption of *aika in Indo-Aryan and of aiva in Iranian
is the result of a later development. The fact that Proto-Aryan *ai
and *au are replaced in Indo-Aryan by e and o, while in old Iranian
they are preserved as ai and au and that ai and au regularly appear on
the Anatolian documents (e.g., Kikkuli's aika), is unfortunately
inconclusive... In his essay, 'The Aryan Gods of the Mitani People
(Kristinania Etnografiske Museums Skrifter Bind 3 Hefte 1; Kristiania,
1921), Sten Konow vigorously maintained that a clear-cut difference
between Proto-Aryan and Indo-Aryan divine nomenclature necessarily has
to be asumed, and that by taking into account this difference it
becomes possible to settle the Indo-Aryan (Vedic) nature of the gods
named as witnesses on the treaties. Sten Konow's arguments have been
unduly neglected by several contemporary scholars. It is, for
instance, hard to accept T. Burrow's statement (Sanskrit Language, p.
30): "It is only the antiquity and conservativism of the Indian
tradition, as opposed to the Iranian, that has led scholars to regard
these Aryas (in the Mitanni realm) as specifically Indo-Aryan." One of
Konow's chief points was that the Vedic Indra must be distinguished
from a presumable Proto-Aryan *Indra and that the particular role he
plays in the RV alone can be held responsible for his appearing in the
Mitanni treaty in the company of Mitra and Varun.a. Nor do I find it
possible to concur with Mayrhofer's charecterization of the relation
of Vedic and Iranian to Proto-Aryan religion (Die Sprache, Vol. V, p.
90: "Bei den Gutternamen (war)... was uns nur im Veda in voller Blute
erscheint, doch mit Sicherbeit (sic!) bereits im Gemeinarischen, aber
ebenso wohl im vorzarathustrischen Iranischen vorhanden..."), whiich
while being in full harmony with views held and expressed by H.
Oldenbern in his time (cf., e.g., JRAS 1909, pp. 1096-1098), cannot be
derived wth any cogency from our actual data, and rather rests on
highly questionable simplifications....To be correct, Burrow's verdict
might well have to be inverted: It is only the unquestioning
acceptance of the conservativism of the Indian tradition, as opposed
to the Iranian, that has led some scholars to regard the Aryan gods of
the Mitanni treaty to be Proto-Aryan....

"The lists of the Aryan gods on the Hatti-Mitanni (KBo I 1 and
duplicates) and the Mitanni-Hatti (KBo I 3) treaties read:...

mi-it-ra-as'-si-il...
in-dar
na-s'a-a (t-ti-ia-a)n-na...
mi-it-ra-as'-s'i-il
a-ru-na-as'-s'i-il
in-da-ra
na-s'a-at-ti-ia-an-na

It cannot be doubted, and indeed never was, that the onomastic
elements of these texts, which are given in italics in my
transcription, have exact equivalents in Vedic religious poetry. Here
the stem forms of the names quoted would read: Mitra-, Varun.a-,
Indra-, Na_satya-... If further asked to name a Rigvedic verse in
which these names appear side by side and in this orde,r he would have
to quote RV 10.125.1bc:

                 aham mitra_-varun.a_ ubha_ bibharmi
                  aham indra_gni_ aham as'vina_ ubha_

"I (Speech) carry (support, nourish, or bear-- in my womb) both Mitra
and Varun.a, I (carry) Indra- Agni, I (carry) both the two
As'vins"...It is the merit of G. Dumezil (Les dieux des
Indo-Europeens, Paris 1952, p. 9ff.) to have pointed out the analogy
of the Mitanni series and that of RV 10.125.1bc...There is no
justification for obliterating this potential clue by choosing to
quote the gods of the Mitanni treaties in an arbitrarily changed order
(Burrow, opcit, p. 28)... The name Varun.a is spelt in two different
ways... u-ru-ua-na; a-ru-na... it represents an actual variant of the
name, introduced by a Hittite who connected with Hittite aruna- 'sea'.
Varun.a is, in fact, closely associated with the waters, especially
the 'sea' (samudra), in the RV... the compound mitra_varun.a_ was
divided incorrectly, not into the two duals mitra_ and varun.a_, but
into the duals *mitra_u and *arun.a_...

"...the obvious presumption is that the Aryan gods in the list are
gods of the royal family-- and perhaps of part of the nobility-- while
the Mitanni gods are those of the 'Hurri people

"...Do Mitra, Varun.a, Indra and the two Na_satyas protect treaties in
the RV? and: Is it likely or provable that they did so in Proto-Aryan
times? To the first question a strictly factual answer can be given:
all the named gods indeed are said to protect treaties in the RV, even
the two Na_satyas, though these only ocasionally. The second one
cannot be answered with the same confidence, since we have no primary
sources of Proto-Aryan religion and must rely upon the resources of
techniques of reconstruction... A reconstruction (of Proto-Aryan
religion) can be attempted only by a careful confrontation of Vedic
and Avestan terminology. Such confrontation yields the result that but
one name in the Mitanni list can be postulated safely as that of a
Proto-Aryan god whose function it was to protect treaties-- *Mitra m.
'Contract, Treaty'. All the other items of the list are doubtful with
respect either to the form of the name or to the functions of the god
in Proto-Aryan times."

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