In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in

polytheistic Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one Deity, god. According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese folk religions, is really so, ...

religions of a

sky god The sky often has important religious significance. Many polytheism, polytheistic religions have deity, deities associated with the sky. The daytime sky deities are typically distinct from the nighttime ones. Stith Thompson's ''Motif-Index o ...

who is addressed as a "father", often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of "sky father" may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an " earth mother". "Sky Father" is a direct translation of the Vedic '' Dyaus Pita'', etymologically descended from the same

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

deity name as the Greek '' Zeûs Pater'' and Roman ''

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

'', all of which are reflexes of the same

deity's name, '' *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr''.''dyaus'' in Vedic still retained the meaning "sky", while the Greek Zeus had become a proper name exclusively. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of

Indo-European mythology Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Ind ...

, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).

In historical religion

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sky Father

Father A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. A biological fat ...

Comparative mythology Mythological archetypes Fatherhood

In historical religion

See also

References