struck as ‘(sacred to) Zeus Keraunos’ (IG v(2). 288): this looks like a case
where, as often happened, an old deity’s name survived locally as a surname
of the national god who replaced him or her.^21
κεραυνο ́ is conventionally explained as a formation from the same root
as κερα(f)ζω ‘devastate, slaughter, plunder’. But there have long been
suspicions that it was somehow related to Perun and Perkunas. There is a
Latvian variant form pe ̄rkauns‘thunderbolt’, and Perunu ̆ may go back to
Peraunos. It has been proposed that for taboo reasons Peraunos was
replaced by the rhyming Keraunos, or that Perkaunos suffered first metathesis
to Kerpaunos and then deletion of the initial consonant of the second
syllable, on the same principle as suggested for Perunu ̆.^22 Another hypothesis
is that the anomalously formed Homeric epithet of Zeus τερπικραυνο,
traditionally understood as ‘delighting in the thunderbolt’, is derived by
metathesis from perkwi-peraunos, ‘having a smiting bolt’; the simple
κεραυνο ́ was then abstracted from the compound.^23 I cannot solve these
conundrums, but the structural similarity of Keraunos to Per(k)aunos–– i f
that is a correct reconstruction –– looks too great to be coincidental.
Parjanya, IndraThe major Vedic storm-god is Indra, though he also has other functions,
especially as the giver of victory in battle. There are other deities whose
energies are more closely focused on thunder, lightning, and rain: the Maruts,
who very often appear in association with Indra, and Parjanya.
Parjanya^24 is called a son of Dyaus (RV 7. 102. 1), which expresses his
natural relationship with the sky. Sometimes he takes the place of Dyaus as
the consort of Earth who fertilizes her with his seed and so fathers living
creatures (5. 83. 4; 7. 101. 3; AV 12. 1. 12, 42). He is especially associated
with the rains, and parjánya- as a common noun means ‘rain-cloud’. He is
(^21) Seleucus I established a cult of Keraunos at Seleucia Pieria (App. Syr. 58). Cf. also Inscrip-
tions grecques et latines de la Syrie, v. 2220 (Emesa); H. Usener, Rh. Mus. 60 (1905), 1–30=Kleine
Schriften, iv (Leipzig–Berlin 1913), 471–97; Prehn, RE xi. 270.
(^22) Grimm (1883–8), 171 n. 3, ‘might perun be connected with κεραυνο ́ =περαυνο ́ ?’; H.
Güntert, Reimwortbildungen im Arischen und Altgriechischen (Heidelberg 1914), 215 f., 221;
Jacobson (1962–88), ii. 636; vii. 6, 20; C. Watkins in Cardona et al. (1970), 350); id. in Mayrhofer
et al. (1974), 107; id. (1995), 343 n. 1.
(^23) Nagy (1974), 126–8≈ (1990), 194 f.; Puhvel (1987), 235. But ‘having a smiting bolt’ would
be as tautologous as ‘having thunder that thunders’. G. Meyer, Curtius’ Studien 7 (1875), 180 f.,
connected the τερπι- with Latin torqueo, as in Virg. Aen. 4. 208 cum fulmina torques, etc.
(^24) On him cf. Macdonell (1898), 83–5; von Schroeder (1914–16), i. 413–23; Oberlies (1998),
200 f.
244 6. Storm and Stream