once was the earth born’; 2. 19. 3 ájanayat su ̄ ́riyam, ‘he [Indra] brought the
sun to birth’; 2. 20. 7; 3. 31. 15; 10. 90. 9 f., 13, 129. 3, 6, 190. 1 f., etc.
However, this was apparently felt to be compatible with craftsmanship: 4.
- 3 sá ít suápa ̄ bhúvanes
̇
u a ̄sa, | yá imé dya ̄ ́va ̄pr
̇thivı ̄ ́ jaja ̄ ́na, ‘he was a skilful
artificer among beings, who generated this heaven and earth’, where suápas-
corresponds to Zarathushtra’shuva ̄på (above; the second element of the
compound is the same as Latin opus). And while the Iranian prophet uses da ̄
(*dheh 1 ) in the passages quoted, there are other places where he uses genea-
logical language, as in Y. 44. 3 kasna ̄ za ̨θa ̄ pta ̄ asˇ
̇
ahya ̄ paourvye ̄?‘Who was the
father-begetter of Truth in the beginning?’ (cf. 45. 4, 47. 3). There is a similar
alternation between the ideas of generating and making in some of the Greek
cosmogonies. Alcman’s Thetis seems to have been a creator, but she was one
of a series of deities who were born. Pherecydes’ Chronos (Time) ‘made’fire,
wind, and water, but he made them out of his seed (DK 7 A 8 = F 60 Schibli).
The oldest Orphic theogony had a genealogical framework, but within this it
had Zeus operating as a designer and craftsman; it used the verb μ σατο,
‘contrived’, suggesting deliberate intelligence.^49
Before heaven and earthEchoes of an Indo-European cosmogonic narrative have been found in RV 10.
- 1 f.,
Neither non-being was nor being was at that time;
there was not the air, nor the heaven beyond it...
Neither death was nor the immortal then,
nor was there the mark of night and day,in comparison with two Germanic texts, the Wessobrunn Prayer,
This I have learned among men, the greatest of wonders,
that earth was not, nor heaven above,
nor tree < > nor mountain there was,
not a single <star>, nor the sun shone,
nor the moon gave light, nor the bright sea,and the verses in the Vo ̨luspá (3) about the beginning of the world:
(^49) Orph. fr. 16. 1 f., 155. 1 Bernabé. Cf. Parmenides DK 28 B 13 μητσατο; Y. 54. 1 ‘I pray for
Truth’s reward, the desirable one that Mazda ̄ conceived (masata ̄)’. The notion of creation is
sometimes expressed by other verbs, some of them going in the direction of particular crafts. So
in Hittite, Song of Ullikummi III A iii 40 nebisanmukan kuabi daganzipanna se ̄r weder‘when they
built heaven and earth above me’,wede- being the usual verb for building an edifice, erecting a
stele, etc. Snorri writes that the All-father (Odin) smiðaði himin ok io ̨rð ok loptin, ‘fashioned
heaven and earth and the air’ (Gylf. 3, cf. 8, 13).
- Cosmos and Canon 355