Gods are givers. We saw at the beginning of the chapter that a word mean-
ing ‘dispenser’ became the common term for ‘god’ in Iran and the Slavonic
countries. In prayers the gods are constantly being asked to give things. As
Theodor Benfey first observed in 1872, a more specific predicate ‘giver(s)
of good things’ can be inferred (at least for Graeco-Aryan) from parallel
expressions in the Veda, Avesta, and Greek epic.^42 In Indo-Iranian they are
based on the roots da ̄‘give’ and vasu-‘good’. Indra is vasuda ̄ ́ (RV 8. 99. 4; so
of Earth, AV 12. 1. 44); da ̄ ́ta ̄ vásu‘giver (of ) good’ (2. 22. 3; 6. 23. 3; 7. 20. 2;
- 6); da ̄ta ̄ ́ vásu ̄naam‘giver of good things’ (8. 51. 5; so of Aryaman in TS
- 4); Agni is vasuda ̄ ́van- (2. 6. 4). Similarly in the Avesta Ahura Mazda ̄ is
vaŋhudå (Y. 38. 4) or da ̄ta vaŋhuua ̨m (Vd. 22. 1, 8, 14, cf. 19. 17), while the
Holy Immortals are vohuna ̨m da ̄ta ̄ro ̄, ‘givers of good things’ (Y. 65. 12, Visprat
- 4); Agni is vasuda ̄ ́van- (2. 6. 4). Similarly in the Avesta Ahura Mazda ̄ is
- 12). This corresponds quite closely to the Hesiodic and Homeric formula
which calls the gods δωτHρε $α ́ ων. The vocative singular δ;τορ $α ́ ων is
used in addressing Hermes in the Odyssey (8. 335) and twice in the Homeric
Hymns. It looks as if the Greek and Vedic phrases must go back to a common
prototype, though $α ́ ων–– evidently an archaic word –– is difficult to
analyse.^43 The ‘giving’ root reappears in the Old Russian Dazˇı ̆bogu ̆, Church
Slavonic Dazˇdı ̆bogu ̆ , ‘Giver of Wealth’, while a Lithuanian god written as
Datanus and glossed as donator bonorum seu largitor is attested in a sixteenth-
century source.^44
It is a common idea, not confined to Indo-European peoples, that gods
sometimes roam the earth disguised in human form.^45 ‘Of old, in the Aeon of
the Gods, O king, the blessed Lord A ̄ditya came down from heaven,
unwearied, in order to see the world of men’ (MBh. 2. 11. 1). The As ́vins ‘are
healers and servants, and, taking any form they please, they walk in the world
of the mortals’ (ibid. 3. 124. 12). ‘Even gods, taking the likeness of strangers
from elsewhere and assuming every kind of aspect, go from one community to
another, monitoring men’s unrighteous or orderly conduct’ (Od. 17. 485–7).
Several Greek and Roman myths tell how a god, or two or three gods together,
travelled about and received hospitality from someone who did not know
(^42) Durante (1962), 28 ~ (1976), 92; Schmitt (1967), 142–8; cf. Schlerath (1968), ii. 149.
(^43) Karl Hoffmann, Aufsätze zur Indoiranistik, ii (Wiesbaden 1976), 600–4, explains it as a
replacement for εfε- ́fων < ewéhwo ̄n < *h 1 wéswo ̄m.
(^44) R. Jakobson (1962–88), vii. 29 f.; Usener (1896), 89 ~ Mannhardt (1936), 356. The
Germanic and Celtic word for ‘give’ (in Celtic ‘take’) seems to have given names to the Gabiae
and Alagabiae, beneficent goddesses recorded from the northern provinces of the Roman
empire, and to some individuals such as Ollogabia, Garmangabi, Friagabi, and the later attested
Scandinavian Gefjon, Gefn: de Vries (1956), ii. 293, cf. 317, 319 f., 329; Olmsted (1994), 412–14.
There is no connection with the Lithuanian Gabia, Gabjauja, Matergabia, and Polengabia listed
by Usener (1896), 90, 95, 98; see Biezais–Balys (1973), 407.
(^45) For Sumerian and Old Testament evidence see West (1997), 123 f.
132 3. Gods and Goddesses