Hammer and Vajra

Amazing how many rivers in Europe share the same exact name or are derived from the same name. In England we have the River Don, just like the Don river in Russia, both are derived from the Proto-Indo-European *dānu - the former comes via Brythonnic Dānā, from a root dān-, meaning "water" or "river", which is also the root of the name of the river Danube. Other European river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Donets, Dnieper, Dniestr, Dysna in the Baltic and Tana/Deatnu in Fennoscandia.

Hydronomy is not known for being an innovative practice! In the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers" yet the most famous river of the Rigveda is Saraswati, actually a goddess, but was associated with a physical river, in the oldest texts of the Rig Veda she is described as a "great and holy river in north-western India," but in the middle and late Rig Vedic books she is described as a small river ending in "a terminal lake (samudra)." Saraswati is Sanskrit from saras (सरस्) meaning "pooling water" and the name means "she who has ponds, lakes, and pooling water" It is also a Sanskrit composite word of surasa-vati (सरसु+अति) which means "one with plenty of water"

Indian nationalists who deny the Aryan theory will point to the Saraswati in these texts and say "how can the aryans have come from without if they knew this river so well?" - Of course the name Saraswati was not limited to one river any more than the name Danu or Don was! There is a Sarasvati Afghanistan now known as the Haraxvati river and there were no doubt many other rivers named after this goddess in the former territories of the Aryans before they invaded India.

The Kushan Empire was an empire formed by one of the five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people who migrated from northwestern China and settled in ancient Bactria, ruling over most of the northern Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and parts of Central Asia from the early 1st Century CE to the late 4th century CE.

The Kushans inherited the Greco-Buddhist traditions of the Indo-Greek Kingdoms they replaced, as well as the Indo-Parthian and Indo-Scythian influences in the area. This would create a unique religious landscape, with different traditions active in the empire. Buddhism would become the most prominent religion, with Hellenic and Iranian polytheism, Hinduism, and, to some extent, Zoroastrianism present, with syncretism between the different religions occurring in various degrees.

The Emperor Vima Kadphises would embrace Shaivism, his son, Kanishka the Great, the most renowned Kushan emperor, would become a Buddhist devotee, followed by his son, Huvishka, as well as several subsequent emperors. As a patron of Buddhism, Kanishka is chiefly noted for having convened the fourth great Buddhist council in Kashmir, which marked the beginnings of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Between the mid-1st century and the mid-3rd century, Buddhism, patronized by the Kushans, extended to China and other Central and East Asian countries through the Silk Road, making the Kushan Empire an instrumental part of the dissemination of Buddhism, and of the development of Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Gandhāra and Mathura schools of art. The Kushans became affluent through trade, particularly with the Roman Empire and the Chinese Dynasties, acting as a bridge between east and west.

After the rise of the Sāsānian dynasty in Iran and of local powers in northern India, Kushan rule declined. The Kushan Empire fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms in the 3rd century AD, which fell to the Sasanians invading from the west, establishing the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom in the areas of Sogdiana, Bactria, and Gandhara. In the 4th century, the Guptas, an Indian dynasty also pressed from the east. The last of the Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian kingdoms were eventually overwhelmed by invaders from the north, known as the Kidarites, and then the Hephthalites.

I hope you found this “rant” and the information I provided useful for further studies or your personal walk with God be it via Christianity, Germanic paganism, or another Indo-European form.
I’m sure some of those out there without a personal walk, or any form of spiritual satiation in their soul will be quick to say I’m “coping” or that I’m being too pro-Christian in my comparisons. However, I am about truth and understanding via wisdom, not artificial biases or hang-ups that keep us down.
Will of Gaut.
Written by Zachary Gill 15 June 2021
1. Tenney, Merrill C.; Barabas, Stevan; DeVisser, Peter, eds. (1963), The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, ISBN 978-0310235606
2. Stephen Herbert Langdon, Mythology of All Races - Semitic. Boston. Archaeological Institute of America. Marshall Jones Company (1931)
3. Scott, James M. (2015). Bacchius Iudaeus: A Denarius Commemorating Pompey's Victory over Judea. Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus. 104. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ISBN 978-3-525-54045-9.
4. The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation by James C. Russell ISBN: 978-0195104660
5. The Northern Dawn: A History of the Reawakening of the Germanic Spirit: From the Twilight of the Gods to the Sun at Midnight by Stephen Edred Flowers ISBN: 978-0972029285
6. The Saxon Savior: The Germanic Transformation of the Gospel in the Ninth-Century Heliand by G. Ronald Murphy S.J ISBN: 978-0195060423
7. Syncretic Indo-European Faith (Hammer & Vajra) by Zachary Gill ISBN: 978-1734766615

Before this, he wasn’t known to have enthroned imagery, and the Creator or Sky father understanding didn’t seem to be as prominent.
Yahweh was worshipped through Fire altars, sacrifice, and a pillar of fire. All of which is very similar to that of the Persian Supreme Sky father Ahura Mazda.
The Zeus influence came from the Greco-Roman cults to where Iao / Iuppiter / Sabaoth, Eloai were merged with the ideas of Dionysus or Zeus. Coins were minted stating BACCHIVS IVDAEVS where the Romans were equating Yahweh to Bacchus (Dionysus), though Zeus-Haddad (Haddad being Ba’al) or Sabazio (Zeus and Sabaoth / Yahweh) were understandings as well. (3)
1. With the Roman adoption of Christianity, they merged the understanding of Jupiter with that of Yahweh / El under the umbrella term of Deus. This is a return to the terminology of greater Indo-European connections of that of Dyḗus. Without mentioning the trinitarian and Indo-European connections (as with the Goths it was a mixture of acceptance and unacceptance with the Arian Christianity) the later converted Gothic people and other Germanics, who adopted Christianity as a court language/religion only at first, began to use their languages terms for the deity which is equivalent to God. While I will make a personal observation that Germanic understanding of God was heavily influenced by Scythian /Alan and Persian understanding by relation and by Tengriism via Hunnic influences resulting in animistic/tribal chieftain concept that had fire altar worship, sacrifice, and solar / sky aspects incorporated already.
1. As Christianity spread in the Germanic regions via the converted Goths, Franks (who worshiped Woden previously), later Anglo-Saxons, and lastly Scandinavian’s “God” and his son “Jesus” were more Germanized (and somewhat Celtic influenced) than Hebraic or Roman influenced. This can be seen in the poems like the Dream of the Rood where Jesus is made to be a Germanic warrior. In the various paintings and artwork depicting God or Jesus leading Celto-Germanic warriors. In artifacts like the Frank’s Casket which depicts Christian stories and motifs mixed with that of the Roman origin story of Romulus and Remus but also has Nordic depictions of Egil, Weyland, and possible allegations to Odin’s horse Sleipnir, or the Germanic divine horse twins as well as other depictions.
1. Odinic understanding of Jesus’s Sacrifice seems to be more prevalent within Germanic Christianity than others. Though Jesus is very similar in the Roman context to that of the sacrifices and symbolism of Dionysus and Heracles. The Odinic sacrifice of himself to himself is very much the interpretation that Northern Christianity, be it Roman or Protestant, has adopted theologically. The covering of the blood/sacrifice in general Christianity is by how one is saved. However, this sacrifice, in the same way, was how Wisdom was obtained and thereby how worshippers of Odin are given the Runes and divine understanding, which in some ways one could extrapolate as “Salvation”.
1. For further reading on this topic, one can look at the Gothic Bible and the word’s that were chosen to be translated via which Germanic or Runic roots, as well as the Saxon Heliand. Also, I have suggested a few books below for further study (4-7).
I by no means am against Hebraic people’s worshipping their understanding of the divine. The goal of my message is more regarding Christians and their recent (past hundred or so years) obsession with fully equating European and Germanic Christianity or understanding of God as that of Yahweh instead of realizing that God is just as much Odin or Zeus as Yahweh. While, if one wants to be a “universalist” they could see these as one and the same. However, this is just in motif. It is more than the Hebraic understanding of God was changed to become more Indo-European and less like the original Henotheistic worship that it came from.

The Germanic Sky Father / Supreme God.
The following is a bit of a personal rant with a mixture of academic study on Odinic understanding of God versus Yahweh.
The Germanic (Norse, Saxon, Frankish, Proto-Germanic, etc) King of Gods and supreme deity is Odin.
Be this as Wotan, Woden, Wōdanaz, Gaut (God / Gott), or the many different names that are found within the Scandinavian epithets.
While the representation of Odin has been influenced by other Indo-European and even Christian motifs of the Sky father. The God of the Germanic peoples isn’t and will never be “Yahweh / Jehovah”.
Yahweh (and even Allah) worship was absorbed into Indo-European faiths such as Greco-Roman concepts and Dacian / Thracian ones. He was given the veneer of Ahura Mazda from Persian interactions and that of Zeus from Greek ones. Rome absorbed his worship via the emerging Christian faith into Deus (the Sky father). But this does not mean the King sitting upon the throne in the heavens governing lesser deities and watching over mankind as well as the balance of Order and Chaos is Christian. In fact, the more I have gone to Temples, and Churches, and studied archeology, religious history, and the like throughout the world but particularly here in Europe, the more I see the depiction of Zeus / Jupiter within the Christian depiction of “God” and the more I understand the Germanic conversion to be more than accepting of a “warrior” style white Christ and his Father but an amalgamation of Baldr or Thor and the Father Odin.
Many Europeans throughout history spout “God sayeth this” or “God wills that” or have standards of understanding of morality, heroic deeds, honor, life, sacrifice, and warfare that don’t reflect the Abrahamic teachings at all. Most of their understanding of “God” is from that of Germanic melding the Zeus like Christian God with their own Gaut / Wotan.
People in comparative religious studies may make educated statements about Tyr being the true name of the Sky father or just another title of God. Or Odin being some King from Asia / Turkland making him just a “man” (both due to influences from Scythian faith and Tengriism and genetically / migration wise are accurate but not metaphysically / spiritually so). Or those of the Indo-European studies insisting that he is, in fact, Indra and therefore beneath the Godhead or Narayana / Krishna. All of these are either euhemerism, confusion from Hard Polytheists, or possibly agenda-driven conversion tactics.
In the end, the Germanic word for the Sky father is *ǥuđán / ǥuđánaz God / guð / Gott / Gaut and Wōdanaz. When Christians say “God”, they aren’t uttering the name, Yahweh. Regardless of accepting Christianity or continuing Paganism, the Germanic understanding of the Sky Father is God no the Henotheistic Yahweh. Just like the Greco-Roman understanding is that of Zeus / Dyḗus. Both are grounded in Indo-European understandings.
Comparative points in regards to Yahweh.
1. Yahweh is Henotheistic and was possibly the son of El (Canaanite / Phoenician region Sky father) who was comparative to Anu or Enki in the Sumerian context. His worship was only by a small tribe originally and never denied the existence of other gods. Had a rival relationship with the worship of Ba’al who was the “Lord” and main son of El. The Hebrews worshipped Yahweh but often borrowed a lot of concepts from that of their rival. Ba’al had a Bull / Ram as his symbol.
“At first the name Baal was used by the Jews for their God without discrimination, but as the struggle between the two religions developed, the name Baal was given up by the Israelites as a thing of shame, and even names like Jerubbaal were changed to Jerubbosheth: Hebrew bosheth means "shame" “ (1).
Yahweh had very little “imagery” about him. It seems he was given form after Persia freed the Hebrew people from the Babylonian rule and allowed coins to be minted depicting Yahweh on a wing wheeled sun-throne to which bird imagery was applied (2). Very similar to Ahura Mazda and other Supreme Gods of the time in Eurasia.