In Greek the old Indo-European words had both given way to alternative
vocables, but ‘gods and men’ (θεο τε κα? qνρε, etc.) is still a formulaic
pairing in Homer. And the traditional antithesis between heavenly gods and
terrestrial humans still appears, as when Odysseus says to Nausicaa,
ε! μν τι θεο ́ $σσι,το? ο1ραν:ν ε1ρ7ν #χουσιν...
ε! δ τ $σσι βροτ;ν,το? $π? χθον? ναιετα ́ ουσιν...‘If you are one of the gods who dwell in the broad heaven, I reckon you are most like
Artemis... but if you are of the mortals who live on earth, then thrice fortunate are
your parents and brothers’ (Od. 6. 150/3; cf. Hes. Th. 372 f.).
There are many references in the Rigveda to the ‘race’ or ‘breed’ of the
gods: 10. 57. 5 daíviyo jánah
̇
, cf. 1. 31. 17, 44. 6, 45. 9 f., etc.; 6. 22. 9 diviyó
jánah
̇
, cf. 9. 91. 2; 10. 63. 17 = 64. 17; 1. 71. 3 deva ̄ ́ñ jánma, cf. 6. 11. 3; 10. 64.
13 –– the only survival of an old genitive plural ending; 7. 42. 2 deva ̄ ́na ̄m
̇
jánimani, etc. We also hear of ‘the race of gods and mortals’ (1. 70. 6 deva ̄ ́na ̄m
jánma márta ̄m ̇
̇
s ́ ca), or ‘the earthly race and the heavenly’ (7. 46. 2, quoted
above). Sometimes the phrase ‘both races’ is used, meaning gods and men
(1. 31. 7; 2. 2. 4, 6. 7; 8. 52. 7). The words that I have rendered as ‘race’ are
jána-, jánas-, and ján(i)man-. The second of these corresponds exactly to
Greek γνο, and in Greek epic we find several times the expression θε;ν
(μακα ́ ρων,qθανα ́ των) or qνθρ.πων γνο, with the same meaning as in
the Veda.^21 Pindar famously declared (Nem. 6. 1):
tν qνδρ;ν,tν θε;ν γνο· $κ μια
δC πνομεν
ματρ: qμφο ́ τεροι.
The race of men is one, and of gods one; from one mother
we both draw breath.Here are the ‘both races’ of the Vedic poets.
The words γνο,jána-, etc. have Germanic cognates in Old High German
chunni, Norse kyn, Old English cyn(n) (modern ‘kin’) and gecynd(e), cynd
(‘kind’). Corresponding to γνο qνδρ;ν we have Old Saxon manno cunni,
Old English manna cyn(n) (Beowulf 701, 712, al.), Norse mannkind (Gylf. 9),
our ‘mankind’. The idiom was applicable to other orders of being too.
Hesiod’s Muses sang to Zeus of ‘the race of men and of the powerful Giants’
(Th. 50), and the poet of Beowulf speaks similarly of ‘the race of Giants’: 883
eotena cyn, 1690 gı ̄ganta cyn.
(^21) Hes. Th. 21, 33, 44, 50, etc.; fr. 204. 98; Hymn. Dem. 320; ‘Eumelus’ fr. 13. 1 West; Asius
fr. 8. 2 W.; cf. Il. 6. 180 u δ, Eρ, #ην θε4ον γνο, ο1δ, qνθρ.πων; 12. 23 ]μιθων γνο
qνδρ;ν.
126 3. Gods and Goddesses