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Georges Dumézil has suggested that Ulysses’final struggle with the suitors is the equivalent of the destruction of Troy or the battle of Kurukshetra (Mahabharata). One can readily understand that two opposing forces encounter each other, each organised according to the hierarchy of the three Indo-European functions : 1 Odysseus against Antinous / 2 Telemachus against Eurymachus / 3 Eumaeus and Philoitius against Ctessipus, Polybus and Agelaus. Seen from this point of view, I consider the different adventures of Odysseus as stages in his downfall, the last being his experience with Calypso whose name is the symbol of nothingness, before his recovery (symbolised by the gifts of the Phaeacians) which is essential in view of the catastrophic state of the kingdom of Ithaca, weakened by too great a number of suitors. Symbolically, the Telemachia corresponds to the search for and the gradual reappearance of the god Lleu in Wales, otherwise known as Lugh in Ireland. Structurally speaking, the different parts of Ithaca are the same as the Indo-European provinces of Celtic Ireland.

 

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En droit romain primitif, le débiteur était obligé à payer ses créances avant la fin de l’année en cours. La garantie de la dette se réalisait avec l’aide du serment aux dieux. Aux temps historiques, ces dieux étaient Jupiter et Saturne, apparentés aux dieux védiques Mitra et Varuṇa. En cas de non-paiement de la dette, le débiteur est considéré comme un violateur de serment, qui ne pouvait se trouver où se trouvait le dieu offensé par lui. Le débiteur devait quitter le territoire romain à la fin de l’année. S’il ne le faisait pas volontairement, il était vendu en Étrurie, où il perdait son statut civil et sa liberté. La procédure de condamnation des débiteurs insolvables de la loi des XII Tables montre que le chemin qui mène au Tibre était analogue au voyage qui mène vers l’autre monde, au règne de la mort.

 

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We will follow the Masters of paths. They are Pushan and Aryaman in India, Pan and Hermes in Ancient Greece; others are Scandinavian such as the god Ullr or Palnatoki, or anglo-saxon such as Robin Hood. Their tracks lead us from the rural or forest world to which they belong to the surroundings of the sovereign. They wander around him either to serve him and save his throne, or to betray him, replace him and even kill him. Sometimes, indo-european myth melts with History when for instance Antoine as Lupercal tries to crown Ceasar.

 

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This article does not at all deal with the controverted ideological theory of the ‘three functions’ such as used by Stig Wikander and Georges Dumézil in their interpretation of the Indian epics, but examines the basis of what could be called their ‘theological exegesis’ of the Mahābhārata: the fact that the main heroes of the story are symbolically presented as the ‘partial incarnations’ of the gods, born on earth with a ‘part’ of themselves. Avoiding the unsolvable problems of some (Indo-European, Indo-Iranian or even Vedic) reconstructions proposed by Dumézil, this essay underlines the importance of taking into account the aṃśāvataraṇa list at first as it is given in the text, itself enlightened by a significant passage from its ‘supplement’ (viz. the Harivaṃśa), since it provides us with a specific pantheon existing at the time of the elaboration of the epics. In that respect, the ‘theological exegesis’ of Dumézil will probably remain his most important contribution to the understanding of the religious meaning of the Sanskrit epics in its oldest state.