Dionysus in India

Abstract

In this paper, I propose that finding Dionysus’ counterpart in India is a futile task unless the relation focuses on Dionysus as a divine force of nature variously manifest following the meaning of the Rig Veda verse mentioned above. As Nietzsche saw the Dionysian as a force of nature inherent in the human, it becomes a much more plausible thesis to ascertain a relation of Dionysus to India through Indo-European comparative mythology and philology. This is so because many scholars have given objective status to assertions about Dionysus’ relation to India that can at best be only subjectively attested. The fields of Indo-European comparative mythology and philology, because of their very nature of dealing with a body of literature that is yet unattested, provide space for an objectively plausible, though still subjectively arguable, thesis for a relation of Dionysus to India. All this will become evident as we travel from Germany in the early twentieth century to the culture of the Indo-Europeans through Rome, Greece, Persia, Iran, and India.