From Daēnā to Dîn

Religion, Kultur und Sprache

in der iranischen Welt
Festschrift für Philip Kreyenbroek
zum 60. Geburtstag

Herausgegeben von Christine Allison,

Anke Joisten-Pruschke und Antje Wendtland

2009
Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag
Milking the udder of heaven: A note on Mesopotamian and
Indo-Iranian religious imagery
Gordon Whittaker1

Southern Mesopotamia has been a crossroads of civilization for more than five
turbulent millennia. Over this vast span of time many and sundry linguistic
communities have come and gone, no few leaving an indelible mark on the cultural
landscape of the region. The earliest society of which there is abundant and
unequivocal evidence, that of the Sumerians, can be traced back at least to the
beginning of the 3rd millennium B.C. An Assyriological controversy has raged on
and off for decades around the question as to whether the preceding centuries,
known as the Late Uruk period, were characterized by a monolingual society of
Sumerian speech, or by an incipiently bilingual population in which a Semitic
language was beginning to be spoken alongside Sumerian, or even by a multilingual
society (as in all later periods) in which a further language community may have
participated in the development of the classic features of Mesopotamian civilization,
most notably in the invention of writing (Whittaker 2001, 2005).
Evidence for the third option comes, among other things, from:
– morphologically opaque (and often phonotactically unusual)
a) polysyllabic technical terms in Sumerian and Akkadian,
b) place names, and
c) names of deities;
as well as from:
– unmotivated values in the cuneiform writing system.
Many of the words and names previously suspected by Assyriologists of being
‘foreign,’ that is, of non-Sumerian and non-Semitic origin, have been identified as
hailing from an early Indo-European language (WHITTAKER 1998, 2004, 2004/2005)
spoken by a pre-equestrian society of pastoral agriculturalists that settled in the
region. This language has been named Euphratic and its speakers Euphrateans.2

1 I would like to dedicate this provocative little contribution to Philip Kreyenbroek, a scholar’s
scholar and a treasured colleague. “Nam-ti-la-ni-iš!” (roughly, ‘To his health!’), as the
Sumerians would say, and “Ubur an-na-ke4 jal2 hu-mu-na-ab-da13-da13!” (‘May the udders
of heaven open for him!’).
2 This is similar to the labels ‘Proto-Euphratic’ (LANDSBERGER 1944) and ‘Euphrates Valley
civilization’ (OPPENHEIM 1964) proposed in the past for the suspected language community.
However, Landsberger (in a brief essay) and OPPENHEIM (in short comments) each use their
terms quite differently, and neither developed a carefully enunciated theory to defend their
proposals. Despite this, and despite being repeatedly reminded of this distinction, RUBIO (1999,
2005; cf. WHITTAKER 2004/2005, pp. 119 n. 1, 132 n. 3; 2005) persists in confusing the various
standpoints.
128 Gordon Whittaker

The words and names in question are frequently segmentable in Indo-European

and preserve for the most part not only their derivational suffixation but also in some
cases the inflection with which they were borrowed (as a rule, nominative or
accusative sg.). A three-gender system is attested in nouns and, in particular, ad-
jectives ending in Sum. -ud/r, -id/r (from IE *-o-s, *-u-s, *-i-s), -um/b ~ -am/b (from
*-o-m) and -ah (from -ah2). In the Akkadian-based syllabary used for Sumerian, there
is no unambiguous way of representing o (thus, lu-uh and la-ah for /loh/ ‘wash,
cleanse’) and ø (thus, u2-ru and i-ri for /ørø/ ‘city, town’; sa/sa5 ~ si-i ~ su4/su-u for
/sø/ ‘red, brown’), both of which have been suspected as Sum. phonemes (the latter
as ü, phonemically equivalent to my ø) by Assyriologists, although there is no
consensus yet on this matter. Vowel harmony is a general tendency acting on word
bases, perhaps involving assimilation of an unstressed vowel to a stressed vowel
(thus, ta-bi-ra ~ dab5-ra /tabøro/ ‘joiner, artisan (WAETZOLDT 1997)’ > ti-bi-ra ~ te-
bi-ru /tøbøro/). Finally, preconsonantal nasals, both syllabic and non-syllabic, have
always been inadequately (and inconsistently) represented in the cuneiform script,
sometimes because of the constraints of the system itself with regard to complex
clusters (thus, za-an-da-ra ~ za-ad-ru ‘half-tile, one of two pipe-tile halves’ (also
written with the logogram for HALF): cf. IE *sM-tero- ‘one of two’; furthermore,
aktum ‘garment’: cf. IE *h2Nt-ko-m (acc.) ‘garment, cloak,’ Skt. átka-, Av. atka-).
Although we are dealing with a loanword relationship rather than a genetic bond,
there is a general regularity of correspondences between Sumerian and the donor
language. Examples of the degree of correspondence in one adjectival category are:

Sumerian
sukud ‘tall, high; exalted, proud’
lugud2 ~ gud8 ‘short; poor, destitute’
dugud ~ tukur ‘heavy, dense; important’
gu-ru12-ud ‘heavy, thick; poor, destitute’
dugu ~ ku-gu2 ~ ku7-ku7-d ‘sweet; good’
gig ‘bitter’
Indo-European
: *sunk-ú-s ‘heavy; sluggish’3
: *h1lNgWh-ú-s ‘light; slight; nimble’
: *tNgh-ú-s ‘heavy’
: *gWRh2-ú-s ‘heavy’
: *dLk-ú-s (or *dluk-ú-s) ‘sweet’
: *gif-ú-s ‘bitter; rancid, sour’

A surprising number of terms suspected as loans only have cognates in what

ultimately became the western or northwestern languages of the Indo-European
family, implying that the dialectal ancestor of the language in question was
originally situated on or near the western flank of the Proto-Indo-European
continuum.4 Nevertheless, several terms, particularly in the area of religion, and

3 *sunk-ú-s and *gif-ú-s are attested as such only in Baltic. The Sumerian dimensional adjectives
for ‘tall’ and ‘short’ have shifted to the dimension of height from the IE one of weight (with its
concomitant effect on speed). The term ‘big’ in English provides an example of how a
dimensional adjective can bridge both dimensions.
4 It is interesting to note that two of the three leading theories on the location of the Indo-
European ‘homeland’ prior to the dispersals that took place in the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C.
place the continuum on or near the fringe of the Ancient Near East, i.e. in Anatolia (RENFREW
 Milking the udder of heaven 129

especially those relating to cosmology and worldview, have interesting links to

terminology and names attested only, or also, in Indo-Iranian. If the parallels are not
coincidental, they may reflect more the conservative nature of early Indo-Iranian, or,
better, early Indic, religion rather than a special areal connection. Several of these
parallels involve, on the one hand, the vibrant and fiery energy perceived as flashing
from bodies of fresh water and, on the other hand, a series of bovine associations
with sky and storm.
The deities of 4th- and 3rd-millennium Mesopotamia were, as JACOBSEN (1976)
has cogently demonstrated, for the most part only lightly anthropomorphized
personifications of the forces of nature. BAUER (1998, pp. 436, 502) identifies
several of these as non-Sumerian in origin, among them Gatumdug, the mother
goddess of the city-state of Lagash; Iškur, the storm god par excellence; and the
mysterious and elusive Asariluhi. EDZARD (2003, p. 4) concurs with BAUER on the
mother goddess. The latter’s name, written ĞJa2-tum3-dug3(u), is, indeed, an opaque
theonym in Sumerian, although the final section would appear to contain the term
h h
dugu ~ dug3 ‘sweet, good.’ If Indo-European in origin, *f d öm dLk-ú(-s) ‘the
5
sweet/good earth’ suggests itself. Similarly, the name of the storm god, Iškur,
resembles (western) IE *scuh1-ro-s ‘thunderstorm, shower’ (for which cf. WATKINS
2000, p. 41 at *kēw-(e)ro-; DE VAAN 2008, p. 100). One could add the snake deity
Nerah, attested already in Old Sumerian, who bears by contrast a transparent name,
nerah ~ nirah ‘snake, adder’ (the initial in related Emesal šerah derives from
palatalized n; for this Sumerian dialect see WHITTAKER 2002), parallel in form and
meaning to (western) IE *neh1-tr-ah2 ‘snake, adder.’ Bauer includes in his list the god
Saman, who personifies the saman3, the ‘nose-rope (for oxen),’ a pre-form of which
(before the effect of vowel harmony on the initial syllable) was borrowed into
Akkadian as þumma(n)nu; compare IE *s(J)uh-mN ‘strap (and the like).’
This leaves Asariluhi, also known simply as Asari, to contend with. In Sumerian
religious texts this is a god of healing (HOROWITZ 1998, p. 34), of magical
knowledge, and a personification of the river of ordeal (BLACK and GREEN 1992, p.
36). He is the son of the god of subterranean waters, Enki, and is described not only
as the ‘great ruler of the abzu (the subterranean waters)’ (ePSD 2.8.3.2 line 31) but
also as the ‘princely bison’ and, in Akkadian, as the ‘light of the gods’ (SJÖBERG and
BERGMANN 1969, p. 80). SJÖBERG and BERGMANN state that the meanings of both
parts of his divine name are unknown. With regard to the first part, a religious term
in Akkadian may provide a clue. LIEBERMAN (1977, p. 16 n. 38) describes a word
for ‘bison’ used only in a mythological context, kusarakku ~ kusarikku ~ husarikku ~

1987) or in the zone stretching in an arc along the northern flank of Mesopotamia from Anatolia
to Transcaucasia (GAMKRELIDZE and IVANOV 1985). Even the so-called Kurgan Theory
situates Proto-Indo-European speakers just to the north of the Caucasus and thus within easy
reach of Mesopotamia.
5 The nasalization of the initial consonant (influenced by the final nasal labial) is an assimilatory
tendency seen elsewhere in Sumerian (see, for example, W HITTAKER 2001, p. 34).
130 Gordon Whittaker

kuþarihhu, as one of several terms that “simply do not look like native Akkadian.”
The fluctuation in the shape of the initial and final velars of the word base suggests
an attempt to represent a voiceless phone that was perceived as lying between
Akkadian k and h. Similarly, the fluctuation in the sibilants suggests that the relevant
consonant in the donor language was not identical to an Akkadian phoneme but was
perceived as having more in common with s than þ.
The shape of this apparently foreign term comes close in the first variant to
*h2us-r-ah2,6 the putative pre-form of Vedic usrä ‘(dawn-red) cow,’ whereas the
remaining variants would correspond better to a form *h2us-r-ih2, an alternative
feminine formation (but without Indic descendants) to *h2us-r-i-s, which underlies
Vedic usriÅ ‘morning light, brightness.’ Indeed, it has been generally assumed that
the Vedic term for ‘cow’ and its masculine counterpart, usraÅ,7 are specifically Indic
developments from an adjective ‘dawn-red,’ inspired by the ruddy appearance of
bovines. The latter noun occurs in the Ṛgveda with the meanings ‘ray of light; ox,
bull’ and it is these which best match the above-named epithets of Asariluhi in
Sumerian texts, suggesting that a compound of *h2us-r-i- with *luk-i- ‘light,
splendour’ (as in Vedic ruciÅ) with the rough meaning ‘bright light of dawn’ may
have entered Sumerian first as /*husøriluki/ before taking on its attested shape, asari-
lu2-hi (for /øsøriluhi/?) ~ asari-lu-uh (SJÖBERG and BERGMANN 1969, p. 80), after
loss of initial h and the action of vowel harmony upon the first syllable. While loss
of a phoneme represented by h, or at least fluctuation in its representation, is well-
documented in Sumerian (cf., for example, Old Sum. hu-ri2-in > Neo-Sumerian
u2/u5-ri-in ‘eagle’; AHw 1430), it is puzzling as to why the velar stop in the final
syllable of the theonym should have become a fricative, if the name in question
indeed hails from an Indo-European source. This may reflect a reanalysis of the
name within Sumerian; one Assyriologist translates the attested form accordingly as
‘the man-drenching Asari’ (JACOBSEN 1987, p. 428 n. 11), although this leaves
unexplained why the alleged verb hi is reduced to a single consonant in the variant
asari-lu-uh, a development that would be unparalleled in Sumerian.
A number of the epithets and descriptive labels applied to Asariluhi match
closely those employed for his father, Enki, and in several respects it is clear that he
is following in the latter’s footsteps. Both deities are rulers of the fresh-water
subterranean ocean (Sum. abzu ~ apsu, Akk. apsû) that rises to the surface of the
earth in springs and marshes, ultimately flowing as rivers into, and mixing with, the
salt-water sea (a-ab(a), a(b)-ba, a-ab-ba, ab-ba-a ‘sea; lake, body of water’; PSD
1/II 133; cf. IE *h2ap- ‘water’; WATKINS 2000, p. 4). The former is the lugal abzu
‘king (or master) of the abzu’ (PSD 1/II 188–189), while both Enki and the latter are

6 Note the Sum. hapax kusah ‘bison’ in the recently published Diri lexical list (MSL 15 188),
which, if related, has dissimilated the velar fricatives and reduced the medial cluster.
7 The variant syllabic spelling a-sa-ru (SJÖBERG and BERGMANN 1969, p. 80) for the god’s
name might well reflect vowel-harmonized /øsøro/ from the same IE *h2us-ro- underlying the
Vedic noun.
 Milking the udder of heaven 131

called ensi2 gal abzu ‘great governor (or ruler) of the abzu’ (PSD 1/II 189). Quite
unlike the old and ancestral chthonic deity Enki (lit. ‘Lord Earth’), the aquatic Enki
(often written with genitive suffix -k: ‘Lord of the Earth’) “personifies the numinous
powers in the sweet waters and marshes or rain” (JACOBSEN 1976, p. 130) and,
beyond irrigating the earth, has no ties to terra firma.
The close similarity of the two divine names, contrasted with the wide disparity
in their associations, has understandably caused Assyriologists some puzzlement.
The aquatic Enki bears a morphologically aberrant alternate name, Nudimmud,
variously written (preceded by the divine classifier):

Nu-te-mud (Old Sum., Fara)

Nu-te-me-mud (Old Sum., Fara)
Nu-da-mud (Neo-Sum., Ur III)
Nu-dim2-mud (most common spelling in Sum. literature)
Na-dim2-mud (artificially differentiated god in the deity list An = Anu ša amēli)

This name is generally held to be the result of reanalysis and folk etymology (see,
for example, the judgement of CAVIGNEAUX and KREBERNIK in RlA 9 607), among
other things because of the inadmissible combination of nominal prefix nu- with a
verb (mud ‘create, bring forth’; indeed, even more bizarrely, with an additional verb
dim2 ‘construct, fabricate’ in the most common spelling). If Nudimmud’s unusual
form has an Indo-European antecedent, its final should go back to an IE *-s. Taking
the above variation in the representation of the name into account, correspondence
for this water deity should have a basic structure NVTV(N)N-u-s ~ -o-s, with N
standing for a nasal, T for a dental consonant, V for an indeterminate vowel.
Comparative mythology may in fact supply an Indo-European candidate. This is
the deity at the centre of the so-called ‘fire in water’ complex (see, for example,
EIEC 203–204; MALLORY and ADAMS 2006, pp. 409–410, 438), a seemingly para-
dox association unlikely to arise coincidentally in unrelated cultures. Iranian and
Indic are in concord with regard to an apparently inherited numinous force or deity
by the name of Apām Napāt (Avestan Apąm Napāt, Old Indic Apām Napāt), usually
rendered the ‘child (or offspring) of the waters.’ The second part of the name is a
kinship term deriving from IE *(h2)nep-öt-, *(h2)nep-t-8 ‘male descendant (beyond the
son); grandson; nephew’, as reflected, for example, in Latin nepōs ‘grandchild;
descendant,’ Old Lithuanian nepuotis ‘grandson; nephew,’ Old English nefa ‘grand-
son; nephew,’ Albanian nip ‘grandson; nephew,’ and Greek anepsiós ‘cousin,
sister’s son’; in Avestan we have napāt- ‘grandson,’ in Old Indic nápāt ‘descendant;
grandson’ (DE VAAN 2008, pp. 405–406; LUBOTSKY n.d. at nápāt-), but in the

8 There may or may not be an initial laryngeal in this word. The initial vowel of Greek anepsiós
is ambiguous in this regard. It might derive from a laryngeal (h2), as DE VAAN and LUBOTSKY
suggest, or from a prefixed sM-, as IEW and EIEC would have it. There is no further evidence
which might decide the issue.
132 Gordon Whittaker

mythological context of Apām Napāt the basic sense is ‘sprung from; child of’
(BOYCE 1989, p. 41 n. 128).
In some Indo-European societies similar deities to Apām Napāt with an aqueous
association have names that have been taken to be related to this term, phonetically
if not morphologically: Latin Neptūnus, the god of the sea, Old Irish Nechtan (if
from *Neptonos or the like), a god of wells, and even Old Norse sævar niðr ‘son (or
kinsman) of the sea,’ a kenning for ‘fire’ (BADER 1986; EIEC 203–204). If these
names are not in fact related, their resemblance to each other in form and association
nevertheless suggests descent from a common Indo-European ancestor with
subsequent reanalysis. The Sumerian god of the waters known as Nudimmud may
also belong here if a pre-form *Ne(t)tunud has also been reshaped, on the analogy of
nouns in nu-, to the attested Old Sumerian Nute(m)mud.
If this is in fact the case, and the inexactness of the correspondence demands
caution here, then we would be dealing with very early cultural contact of an
intellectual, and specifically religious, nature, at a time no later than the Fara period
(Early Dynastic IIIa, ca. 2600–2500 B.C.), only a few centuries after the generally
accepted period of Indo-European unity. Moreover, given the problems regarding
this deity’s primary name, Enki, it cannot be ruled out that the latter represents a
similar attempt at reanalysis of a non-Sumerian theonym. We will come back to this
in a moment.
Let us first examine briefly the central concept with which the Indo-European
deities are connected. What exactly is meant by ‘fire in water’? In the words of
POLOMÉ and MALLORY (EIEC 204): “The structure of the reconstructed myth […]
points to a fiery deity resident in water whose powers must be ritually controlled or
gained by a figure qualified to approach it.” In Indo-Iranian studies there has been a
general tendency to see in this concept a close connection with lightning, perceived
as born in the rain-filled clouds and in bodies of water (see FINDLY 1979; BOYCE
1989, pp. 40–48 for a convenient overview of the literature).
The Indo-Iranian expression ‘child of the waters’ is paralleled by the Sumerian
expression dumu abzu ‘child of the (subterranean or fresh) waters.’ This epithet is
applied to several deities associated with water: Enki’s son, variously named Asar(i),
Asariluhi or Asaralimnuna, the ‘princely bison’ (alim nun-na), known as the ‘light
of the gods’; PSD 1/II, p. 189); Dumuzid (dumu zi(d) ‘the true child,’ Tammuz), the
young shepherd deity in conflict with Enkimdu, Enki’s agriculturalist son charged
with the management of dikes and irrigation canals (BLACK and GREEN 1992, pp.
72, 76); Dumuzidabzu (dumu zi(d) abzu ‘the true child of the waters’), an aspect of
the goddess Nanše, “the power to new life in the watery deep” (JACOBSEN 1976, p.
25); and finally Gibil (gibil ‘fire’), described as having ‘grown up in the house Abzu
kug’ (‘pure/holy/shining waters’; PSD 1/II, p. 190).
In a bilingual incantation Gibil is called a ‘wise’ and ‘valiant hero,’ a dumu
abzu ‘child of the waters,’ paralleled in Akkadian by the gender-specific mar apsî
‘son of the waters’ (REINER 1958, p. 53 ll. 8–9). He is the one ‘who brings the great
torch forth from the waters’ (YOS 11 53, p. 7 in PSD 1/II, p. 198). Furthermore, in a
 Milking the udder of heaven 133

hymn to the goddess Kusu the fire god is addressed, ‘Oh torch! Oh great bull of
Enki, standing aggressively, coming forth from the waters, the pure place (abzu ki
sikil-ta e3-a)! Oh Gibil …’ (ETCSL 4.33.2, ll. 1–4), underlining his close
association with, but distinction from, the water god. A few lines on, the text
continues, ‘Gibil, the foremost, the right arm, lifting his head to heaven receives
water from the holy teats of heaven (ubur kug an-na-ta). This water consecrates the
heavens, it purifies the earth’ (ll. 31–34). Like Gibil, Enki too is described as
‘coming forth from the waters’ (YOS 11 53:3 in PSD 1/II, p. 185). Thus, in
Sumerian religious thought, just as in Indo-Iranian mythology and ritual, fire and
water are interconnected.
A further parallel between the ‘fire in water’ concepts in Mesopotamia and the
Indo-Iranian area is the association of water, both in its atmospheric and its surface
form, with a ‘child of the waters’ deity, who in turn is associated with a god whose
name in both regions is phonetically similar: Enki in Sumer, Agni in India. The
name Agni is related to Latin ignis, both with the meaning ‘fire,’ and derives
accordingly from IE *h1NgW-ni- ‘fire’ (DE VAAN 2008, p. 297). If Enki(k), too, derives
ultimately from the same term and was reshaped on the analogy of the old chthonic
deity, Enki ‘Lord Earth,’ this would account for the oddity of two deities with
almost identical names but widely differing functions and spheres of influence.9
There are, of course, also striking differences between the Sumerian and Indo-
Iranian supernaturals: Enki is a water god, whose ‘right arm’ is the fire god, whereas
Agni is the fire god himself, but with aquatic associations. He is sometimes equated
with, and addressed as, Apām Napāt, although it is clear that the latter is a deity in
his own right (see, for example, DONIGER 1981, pp. 104–107; OBERLIES 1998, pp.
176–177). If Enki’s name derives from the Indo-European term for ‘fire,’ which lies
in the realm of possibility but is by no means certain, then this all-powerful deity has
long since delegated his one-time primary area of responsibility to a subordinate
god, Gibil, preferring to focus instead on water and the heavens.
The existence of several deities bearing the epithet dumu abzu recalls the Indic
tradition of three brothers of the waters, two of whom, Dvita and Trita, are already
attested in the Ṛgveda. Together with their brother Ekata, known from the
Brahmanas, their names can be easily derived from Indo-European, but not standard
Old Indic, ordinals for ‘First,’ ‘Second’ and ‘Third.’ Little is known about these
aquatic brothers, but their family ties are recorded (MACDONELL 1897, pp. 68–69).
The first two are described as sons of Agni born from the waters. Dvita and Trita,
the latter often with the epithet Āptya ‘of the waters,’ are named together in a hymn
to the solar Ādityas (RV 8.47.16),10 while Dvita is likened to Agni in Ṛgveda 5.18.2.

9 While Latin ignis underwent dissimilation, dropping the preconsonantal nasal, Sumerian would
appear to have dropped the postconsonantal one. It should be noted, however, that cuneiform
cannot represent a triconsonantal cluster, and that such have never been proposed for Sumerian.
10 Unless stated otherwise, all references to the Ṛgveda come from the online edition found at
<www.sanskritweb.net>, prepared by Ulrich STIEHL and Thomas BARTH in 2006.
134 Gordon Whittaker

The Vedic expression apsu-jā ‘born in the waters’ (e.g. RV 8.43.28 in reference
to Agni) is exactly matched by the Sumerian phrase u3-tu abzu-ta ‘born (u3-tu)
from/in the waters (abzu-ta)’ referring to Asariluhi, the son of Enki (PSD 1/II, p.
190). Note that the parallelism does not merely stop on the phrasal level, but
descends to the lexical one as well. Thus, apsu (loc. pl.) ‘in the waters’ (from IE
*h2ap-su) is surprisingly similar in form to the Sumerian term abzu ~ apsu (written
ZU.AB ~ SU.AB) itself, which, however, simply names the waters and requires
suffixation to create a locative phrase. The postposition -ta is usually rendered
‘from, out of’ but is also employed in a locative sense ‘in, on’ (THOMSEN 1984, p.
107). In the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature the common expression
abzu-ta is frequently rendered ‘in the Abzu’ (see, e.g., ETCSL 1.1.3 ‘Enki and the
World Order,’ l. 10).
A further phrase of interest is a title accorded to Enki, lugal abzu-ke4 ‘king of
the waters’ (ETCSL 1.1.3, l. 87) ~ lugal abzu-a ‘king in the waters’ (ETCSL
2.6.9.2, l. 57), paralleling the phrase apsu rājā ‘king in the waters’ (RV 10.45.5)
borne by his Vedic counterpart, Agni. A related title, ensi2 gal abzu(-ke4) ‘great
governor of the waters,’ conferred only on Enki (ETCSL 1.1.3, l. 169) and his son
Asari (ETCSL 2.8.3.2, l. 31), recalls the title gṛhapati- ‘lord of the household’
carried by Agni alone among the Vedic deities (e.g. in RV 7.16.5: Agne gṛhapatis;
MACDONELL 1897, p. 95). The term ensi2 is written PA.TE.SI, in Old Sumerian
also GAR(A).PA.TE.SI, possibly in origin a rough phonetic rendition of the Indo-
European term underlying Vedic gṛhapati- – *fhRdho-pot-i-s ‘lord of the settlement’
(see WHITTAKER 2001, p. 34).
Before we leave Enki, it is perhaps worth mentioning that both he and his Celtic
counterpart have a similarly named parent. Nechtan is the son of Namat (OLMSTED
1994, p. 187), while Enki Nudimmud is the son of Namma ~ Nammu. On this
goddess BLACK and GREEN (1992, p. 134) write, “it is probable that she was
originally a personification of the subterranean ocean.” Agni’s mother is variously
Pṛthivī, the earth goddess (RV 3.3.11), or the Āpaḥ, the waters (RV 10.2.7, 10.46.9).
Enki’s father, on the other hand, is the sky god An, just as Agni is the son of the sky
god Dyaus in one tradition recorded in the Ṛgveda (10.45.8). According to one
Sumerian tradition (CT XV pl. 15.3/6 in JACOBSEN 1976, p. 135 and n. 225), Enki is
also the twin brother of Iškur (cf. IE *scuh1-ro-s ‘thunderstorm, shower’), the storm
god, just as Agni is the twin brother of Indra, the Vedic storm god (RV 6.59.2).
The spouse of Enki, Damgalnuna (‘the great and noble spouse (dam)’, known in
Akkadian as Damkina), is the only deity in the Sumerian corpus with dam in her
name. She is praised as the ‘great’ and ‘vigorous wild cow’ (ETCSL 4.03.1, A l. 3,
B l. 2), the ‘faithful cow’ (ETCSL 2.2.6, B l. 7), not all that unusual given the fact
that the entire extended family of the sky god is likened to, and frequently equated
with, bovines. Nevertheless, it is curious that a Gallic goddess of healing springs,
equivalent to the Irish spring goddess Boand (from Old Irish bó ‘cow’), the spouse
of Nechtan, is known by the name Damona. OLMSTED (1994, pp. 185–186, 356)
proposes a meaning ‘Cow,’ suggesting a derivation via *domh2- from IE *demh2-
 Milking the udder of heaven 135

‘tame.’ The image of the fleeing Damgalnuna, clawing at her breast and eyes in
despair over the destruction of Eridug (for Eri-dug3(u) ‘good/sweet city’ cf. IE *wr-
i¿-ah2 ‘city,’ dLk-ú-s ‘sweet’), the city at the centre of the abzu (ETCSL 2.2.6, B ll. 7–
9), is distantly reminiscent of ‘gentle’ Boand’s injuries to a thigh, hand and eye
before fleeing the overflowing waters from Nechtan’s well (OLMSTED 1994, pp.
186–188; EIEC 1997, p. 204).
Beyond kinship and aqueous relationships, there are a series of additional traits
shared by Enki and Agni that bear mentioning, such as their association with wis-
dom, plenty, growth, and so forth. For reasons of space and time, however, this will
have to be left to another paper.
One final point remains. It will be recalled that Gibil, the Sumerian fire god, lifts
his head to heaven to receive water ‘from the holy teats of heaven’ (ubur kug an-
na-ta). The distinctive expression ‘udder(s or teats) of heaven’ (ubur an-na-ke4)
occurs both in Sumerian and Vedic texts. Gudea, the ruler of Lagash in the late 22nd
century B.C., in a text celebrating the building of a temple to the god Ningirsu, uses
the expression ‘They sheared the black ewes and milked the udder of the cow of
heaven’ (u8 gig2-ge umbin mi-ni-ib2-kij2 ‘they sheared the black ewes’; im-ma-al
an-na-ke4 ‘of the cow of heaven’ ubur si ba-ni-ib-sa2 ‘they milked the udder’;
ETCSL 2.1.7, ll. 892–894). This powerful reference to causing dark clouds to
release the rains is found also in a hymn to the Vedic storm gods, the Maruts, where
it is said that ‘the shakers milk the heavenly udder’ (duhanty ūdhar divyāni dhūtayo;
RV 1.64.5). Of interest here is the term used in each case for ‘udder’ – ubur in
Sumerian, ūdhar in Old Indic. The latter derives from the same source as Latin ūber
‘breast, udder,’ namely IE *h1(o)uhdh-R (DE VAAN 2008, p. 636). Could it be that the
Sumerian term, too, is of Indo-European origin?
In this brief note I have attempted to suggest some avenues of investigation and
to present materials that might shed a little light on the murky waters of comparative
mythology, to the extent that they concern aqueous themes in Indo-European and
Near Eastern studies. I am well aware, however, that this is a slippery path trodden
at one’s peril! Caveat lector.

Abbreviations
AHw: SODEN, Wolfram von, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1965–
1981.
EIEC: MALLORY, James P. and ADAMS, Douglas Q. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Indo-European
Culture, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, London 1997.
ePSD: Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, at
<http://psd.museum.upenn.edu/epsd/>
ETCSL: Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, at http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/
IEW: POKORNY, Julius, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch. Bd. 1, Francke
Verlag Bern 1959.
MSL 15: CIVIL, Miguel et al. (eds.), Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon XV: The Series DIRI
= (w)atru. Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, Rome 2004.
136 Gordon Whittaker

PSD: SJÖBERG, Åke W. (ed.), The Sumerian Dictionary of the University Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania, The Babylonian Section of the University Museum,
Philadelphia 1984–.
RlA 9: EDZARD, Dietz O. (ed.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie. 9. Band. Nab – Nuzi, Walter de
Gruyter, Berlin 1998–2001.
RV: Rigveda in Sanskrit und Deutsch, at <www.sanskritweb.net/rigveda/>

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