MitraVaruna An Essay on Two IndoEuropean Representations of Sovereignty

A classic text that develops one prong of Dumézil’s tripartite hypothesis of Indo-European tribes: the sacred sovereign.

Georges Dumézil’s fascination with the myths and histories of India, Rome, Scandinavia, and the Celts yielded an idea that became his most influential scholarly legacy: the tripartite hypothesis, which divides Indo-European societal functions into three classes: the sacred sovereign, the warrior, and the producer. Mitra-Varuna, originally published in 1940, concentrates on the first function, that of sovereignty. Dumézil identifies two types of rulers, the first judicial and worldly, the second divine and supernatural. These figures, both priestly, are oppositional but complementary. The title nods to these roles, referring to the gods Mitra, a rational mediator, and Varuna, an awesome religious figure.

Stuart Elden’s critical edition, based on the 1988 English translation by Derek Coltman, identifies variations between the first and second French editions and completes—and in places corrects—Dumézil’s references. The editor’s detailed introduction situates Mitra-Varuna within Dumézil’s career, outlines how his treatment of its themes developed over time, and relates the book to the political controversy around his ideas. Two new appendices contain passages that did not appear in the second French edition.

Georges Dumézil (1898–1986) was a philologist, linguist, and religious studies scholar best known for his work in comparative mythology. A member of the Académie Française, he taught at Istanbul University, the École Pratique des Hautes Études, and the Collège de France. 

Stuart Elden (PhD, University of London, 1999) is professor of political theory and geography at the University of Warwick. He is the author of The Birth of Territory, which we published in 2013, and Shakespearean Territories, which we published in 2018, along with numerous other works including Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty (Minnesota, 2009), and a four-volume intellectual history of Michel Foucault’s career.

Derek Coltman’s translations from French include novels by Violette Leduc, Robert Merle and Ismail Kadare, nonfiction by Mircea Eliade, Jean Piaget, and Alain Touraine, and Dumézil’s From Myth to Fiction: The Saga of Hadingus (University of Chicago Press).

Veena Das is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University.