Trifunctional hypothesis

The trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology ("idéologie tripartite") reflected in the existence of three classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners (farmers or tradesmen)—corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively. The trifunctional thesis is primarily associated with the French mythographer Georges Dumézil,^[1] who proposed it in 1929 in the book Flamen-Brahman,^[2] and later in Mitra-Varuna.^[3]

This part of the 12th-century Swedish Skog tapestry has, possibly erroneously, been interpreted to show, from left to right, the one-eyed Odin, the hammer-wielding Thor and Freyr holding up wheat. Terje Leiren believes this grouping corresponds closely to the trifunctional division.

Three-way division

According to Georges Dumézil (1898–1986), Proto-Indo-European society had three main groups, corresponding to three distinct functions:^[2][3]

• Sovereignty, which fell into two distinct and complementary sub-parts:
  • one formal, juridical and priestly but worldly;
  • the other powerful, unpredictable and priestly but rooted in the supernatural world.
• Military, connected with force, the military and war.
• Productivity, herding, farming and crafts; ruled by the other two.

In the Proto-Indo-European mythology, each social group had its own god or family of gods to represent it and the function of the god or gods matched the function of the group. Many such divisions occur in the history of Indo-European societies:

• Southern Russia: Bernard Sergent associates the Indo-European language family with certain archaeological cultures in Southern Russia and reconstructs an Indo-European religion based upon the tripartite functions.^[4]
• Early Baltic society: Norbertas Vėlius, in his book Senovės baltų pasaulėžiūra (The Ancient Baltic Worldview), identified three regions with three classes. The priestly class was centered in Prussia, the warrior class was prominent in the outer highlands, and the farming class predominanted in the intermediate flatlands.
• Early Germanic society: the supposed division between the king, nobility and regular freemen in early Germanic society.^[5]
• Norse mythology: Odin (sovereignty), Týr (law and justice), the Vanir (fertility).^{[6][7][note 1]} Odin has been interpreted as a death-god^[9] and connected to cremations,^[10] and has also been associated with ecstatic practices.^[11][10]
• Classical Greece: the three divisions of the ideal society as described by Socrates in Plato's The Republic. Bernard Sergent examined the trifunctional hypothesis in Greek epic, lyric and dramatic poetry.^[12]
• India: the three Hindu castes, the Brahmins or priests; the Kshatriya, the warriors and military; and the Vaishya, the agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders. The Shudra, a fourth Indian caste, is a peasant or serf. Researchers believe that Indo-European-speakers entered India in the Late Bronze Age, mixed with local Indus Valley civilisation populations and may have established a caste system, with themselves primarily in higher castes.^[13][14]

Reception

Supporters of the hypothesis include scholars such as Émile Benveniste, Bernard Sergent and Iaroslav Lebedynsky, the last of whom concludes that "the basic idea seems proven in a convincing way".^[15]

The hypothesis was embraced outside the field of Indo-European studies by some mythographers, anthropologists and historians such as Mircea Eliade, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marshall Sahlins, Rodney Needham, Jean-Pierre Vernant and Georges Duby.^[16]

On the other hand, Nicholas Allen concludes that the tripartite division may be an artefact and a selection effect, rather than an organising principle that was used in the societies themselves.^[17] Benjamin W. Fortson reports a sense that Dumézil blurred the lines between the three functions and the examples that he gave often had contradictory characteristics,^[18] which had caused his detractors to reject his categories as nonexistent.^[19] John Brough surmises that societal divisions are common outside Indo-European societies as well and so the hypothesis has only limited utility in illuminating prehistoric Indo-European society.^[20] Cristiano Grottanelli states that while Dumézilian trifunctionalism may be seen in modern and medieval contexts, its projection onto earlier cultures is mistaken.^[21] Belier is strongly critical.^[22]

The hypothesis has been criticised by the historians Carlo Ginzburg, Arnaldo Momigliano^[23] and Bruce Lincoln^[24] as being based on Dumézil's sympathies with the political right. Guy Stroumsa sees those criticisms as unfounded.^[25]

See also

• Arthashastra
• Caste
• Comparative mythology
• Estates of the realm
• Mythography
• Proto-Indo-European religion
• Proto-Indo-European society
• Social class
• Trinity
• Triple deity

Notes

1. Terje Leiren discerns another grouping of three Norse gods that may correspond to the trifunctional division: Odin as the patron of priests and magicians, Thor of warriors, and Freyr of fertility and farming.^[8]

References

1. According to Jean Boissel, the first description of Indo-European trifunctionalism was by Gobineau, not by Dumézil. (Lincoln, 1999, p. 268, cited below).
2. Dumézil, G. (1929). Flamen-Brahman. There has been scholarship in applying Dumézilian trifunctionalism to Pre-Columbian Yucatán Mayan societies in: Lincoln, Charles E., (1990) Ethnicity and Social Organization at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico. (PhD. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University) Advisors Mathews, Peter, and Gordon R. Willey; Lincoln, Charles E. (1986.) "The Chronology of Chichen Itza: A Review of the Literature." Pages 141–156 in Late Lowland Maya Civilization: Classic to Postclassic, edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff and E. Wyllys Andrews V. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
3. Dumézil, G. (1940). Mitra-Varuna, Presses universitaires de France.
4. Bernard Sergent, Les Indo-Européens. Histoire, langues, mythes. Payot, Paris 1995. ISBN 2-228-88956-3.
5. Dumézil, Georges (1958). "The Rígsþula and Indo-European Social Structure." In: Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Ed. Einar Haugen, trans. John Lindow. University of California Press, Berkeley 1973. ISBN 0-520-03507-0.
6. Turville-Petre 1964, p. 103.
7. Polomé 1970, p. 58—59.
8. Leiren, Terje I. (1999), From Pagan to Christian: The Story in the 12th-Century Tapestry of the Skog Church
9. de Vries 1970, p. 93.
10. Davidson 1990, p. 147.
11. de Vries 1970, pp. 94–97.
12. In the monograph Les trois fonctions indo-européennes en Grèce ancienne. Vol. 1: De Mycènes aux Tragiques. Économica, Paris 1998. ISBN 2-7178-3587-3.
13. Narasimhan VM, Anthony D, Mallory J, Reich D (September 6, 2019). "The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia". Science. 365 (6457). bioRxiv 10.1101/292581. doi:10.1126/science.aat7487. hdl:21.11116/0000-0001-E7B3-0. S2CID 89658279.
14. Narasimhan, Vagheesh M.; et al. (6 September 2019). "The formation of human populations in South and Central Asia". Science. 365 (6457). doi:10.1126/science.aat7487. PMC 6822619. PMID 31488661.
15. Lebedynsky, I. (2006). Les Indo-Européens, éditions Errance, Paris
16. Lincoln, B. (1999). Theorizing myth: Narrative, ideology, and scholarship, p. 260 n. 17. University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-48202-6.
17. Allen, N. J. Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2007.10.53
18. Benjamin W. Fortson. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction p. 32
19. Gonda, J. (1974). Dumezil's Tripartite Ideology: Some Critical Observations. The Journal of Asian Studies, 34 (1), 139–149, (Nov 1974).
20. Lindow, J. (2002). Norse mythology: a guide to the Gods, heroes, rituals, and beliefs, p. 32. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-515382-8.
21. Grottanelli, Cristiano. Dumézil and the Third Function. In Myth and Method.
22. Belier, W. W. (1991). Decayed Gods: Origin and Development of Georges Dumézil's Idéologie Tripartite, Leiden.
23. Wolin, Richard. The seduction of unreason: the intellectual romance with fascism, p. 344
24. Arvidsson, Stefan. Aryan idols: Indo-European mythology as ideology and science, p. 3
25. Stroumsa, Guy G. (1998). "Georges Dumézil, Ancient German Myths, and Modern Demons" (PDF). Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft (Journal of Religious Studies). 6: 125–136. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-10. Retrieved 2009-11-03.

Sources

• Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1990), Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-013627-4
• de Vries, Jan (1970), Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, volume 2. 2nd ed. repr. as 3rd ed (in German), Walter de Gruyter, OCLC 466619179
• Polomé, Edgar Charles (1970), "The Indo-European Component in Germanic Religion", in Puhvel, Jaan (ed.), Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans: Studies in Indo-European Comparative Mythology, University of California, ISBN 9780520015876
• Turville-Petre, Gabriel (1964), Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, OCLC 645398380