A threefold cosmos 1930 was to prove something of a landmark year for mythologists and Indo-Europeanists. In the Journal Asiatique for that year, Georges Dum zil published an article on social structure in ancient Indian and Iranian cultures. He asserted that the early Indo-Iranians were formally divided into three social classes. To those of us raised in a notoriously class-conscious society, in which the Hindu caste system is also now a feature in some places, such a statement might seem fairly innocuous. But Dum zil s article was the beginning of a major reappraisal of Indo-European myth, legend and social tradition, and sparked a debate that continues to this day.
Every house is built on the earth.
Each house is under the sky. The traditional materials of construction are taken either from the earth or the plants growing on it. Further, in many traditional belief systems, the creation of the earth and the plants is closely linked to the ritual dismemberment of a primeaval human or giant. An Indian story relates how the gods created the world by performing a sacrifice with the body of Purusha, the first person. The sky rose from his head, the air from his navel, the earth from his feet, the moon from his mind, the sun from his eye, and the four quarters of space from his ear.