Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty - Softcover

Dumezil, Georges

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0942299132 ISBN 13: 9780942299137

Publisher: Zone Books, 1990

Synopsis

Georges Dumézil, founder of the new comparative mythology, discovered that all Indo-European religions are articulated according to three hierarchical functions: sacred sovereignty, force, and fecundity. In Mitra-Varuna he develops this general theory but concentrates on the most important of these functions: sovereignty. In particular, Dumézil shows that religious and/or political sovereignty - from India to Rome, from Iran to Scandinavia - is conceived as a dual category: on the one hand the magician-king (raj, rex), on the other the jurist-priest (brahman, flamen). Mitra-Varuna, combines extraordinarv scholarship and theoretical discovery with the pleasures of storytelling. A founding work of comparative, mythology, it is today a seminal essay in the archaeology of power.Distributed for Zone Books.

About this title

About the Author:

Georges Dumézil a member of the Academic Française, was Professor of Indo-European Civilization in the College de France. He is the author of numerous books including Camillus, The Gods of the Ancient Northmen, and The Stakes of the Warrior.

Language Notes:

Text: English, French (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: Zone Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0942299132
• ISBN 13: 9780942299137
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192