COSMOGONYThis idea of the stars being added to the firmament as decoration implies a
divine craftsman responsible for the creation of the cosmos in its present
form. In the two Avestan passages cited above, heaven and Mithra’s chariot,
besides being stəhrpae ̄sah-, are mainyu.tas ̆ta-, ‘fashioned by Spirit’, where tas ̆
is the root considered in Chapter 1 under the heading ‘poetry as carpentry’.
Zarathushtra had earlier used it of Ahura Mazda ̄’s creation of the cow and
other things (Y. 29. 1 f., 6 f., 44. 6 f., 47. 3, 51. 7). It appears also in those verses
of Critias where the star-decorated sky is called the work of Time, that expert
τκτων.
A more basic Indo-European verb for divine creation is *dheh 1 , which
means to set in place, lay down, or establish. We find it in Hittite of the
gods who ne ̄bis de ̄gan da ̄ir, ‘established heaven (and) earth’;^48 in the Ga ̄tha ̄s,
Y. 44. 3 kasna ̄ xvə ̄ n
̇
g strə ̄mca ̄ da ̄t
̃adva ̄nəm?‘Who made the path of the sun and
stars?’ 5 kə ̄ huva ̄på raocåsca ̄ da ̄t
̃
təmåsca ̄? | kə ̄ huva ̄på xvafnəmca ̄ da ̄t
̃zae ̄ma ̄ca ̄?
‘What skilful artificer made the regions of light and dark? What skilful artifi-
cer made sleep and waking?’ 7 vı ̄spana ̨m da ̄ta ̄rəm‘maker of all things’; and
similarly in the Old Persian inscriptions, of Ahuramazda hya ima ̄m bu ̄mim
ada ̄, hya avam asma ̄nam ada ̄, ‘who created this earth, who created that sky’
(DNa 1, DSe 1, etc.). The Vedic creator god Dha ̄tr
̇
has his name from the same
verb. In early Greek it appears as τθημι, for example in Hes. Op. 173d Ζε7
δ, αoτ, E]λλο γνο θHκ[εν μερο ́ πων qνθρ.πων, ‘and Zeus created another race
of men’; Alcman PMGF 20 vρα δ, #θηκε τρε4, ‘(Zeus?) made three seasons’.
In Alcman’s idiosyncratic cosmogony (PMGF 5 fr. 2 ii–iii) Thetis, whose
name can be analysed as *dheh 1 - with an agent suffix but who is otherwise a
sea-nymph, appears to have played a demiurgic role, as if a female counter-
part of Dha ̄tr
̇
.
The idea of a created world is untypical of early Greek thinking. Hesiod
and other theogonists spoke rather of the world coming into being through a
series of ‘births’ of cosmic deities.
First Chaos was born (γνετο), and then broad-breasted Earth...
From Chaos Erebos and dark Night were born,
and from Night in turn Aither and Day were born,
whom she bore in union of love with Erebos. (Hes. Th. 116–25).Such genetic language is common in the Rigveda, for example at 6. 48. 22
sakr ́
̇
d dha dyaúr aja ̄yata, sakr ́
̇d bhu ̄ ́mir aja ̄yata, ‘just once was the sky born,(^48) See J. Catsanicos, BSL 81 (1986), 134–7.
354 9. Cosmos and Canon