*Péh₂usōn

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July 2026 Proto-Indo-European pastoral god Indo-European Hermes (most aspects), Pan (some aspects) Mercury (most aspects), Faunus (some aspects) Pushan *Péh₂usōn *Péh₂usōn ("Protector") is a proposed Proto-Indo-European pastoral god associated with the protection of roads and herds.Puhvel 1987 63Mallory Adams 2006 415West 2007 282 Reconstructed attributes include a bushy beard and keen sight.Jackson 2002 84West 2007 282 The deity is also linked to goats or bucks: the Greek god Pan possesses goat-like features, and goats are described as drawing the chariot of the Vedic god Pūshān, to whom the animal was occasionally offered in sacrifice.West 2007 282Jackson 2002 85 Name and etymology The Greek name Pan (Πάν) is often linked in scholarship with the Vedic theonym Pūṣan (पूषन्).Beekes 2009 1149West 2007 281–283Mallory Adams 2006 434 The comparison is based on an assumed Indo-European ablaut paradigm built on the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *peh₂- ('to protect'). On this analysis, Pán would reflect a Proto-Greek form *pauh-on-, itself from a PIE stem *peh₂us-, while the Vedic form Pū́ṣan- would continue the zero-grade formation *ph₂us-.Beekes 2009 1149 The Arcadian form Paoni (Πάονι) seems to have retained the -ao- vocalism expected from the Proto-Greek diphthong -au-, whereas the Attic–Ionic form Pán would reflect secondary contraction and phonological reduction.West 2007 281–283 Some scholars, however, including linguist Manfred Mayrhofer, have expressed doubts regarding this connection.Beekes 2009 1149 Reconstruction Graeco-Aryan comparison The deity was first proposed on the basis of similarities noted between the Greek god Pan and the Vedic god Pūṣan, an analogy identified in 1924 by German linguist Hermann Collitz.Collitz 1924 The proposed identification relies on shared features in their pastoral functions, their association with roads and byways, and their common affinity with goats.West 2007 281–283 Pūṣan's chariot is drawn by goats, and goats were sacrificed to him on occasion. Pan is described as having goat's legs. Both are also portrayed with bushy beards and keen sight. Pūṣan surveys all things, while Pan roams mountains and high places to view the flocks. Pūṣan protects cattle and is a guardian of roads who shields travellers from wolves and brigands. Pan likewise presides over "the rocky tracks", and in Hellenistic Egypt he was worshipped as εὔοδος ("of good journeying").West 2007 281–283 According to philologist Martin L. West, the reflex may be at least of Graeco-Aryan origin: "Pūshān and Pan agree well enough in name and nature—especially when Hermes is seen as a hypostasis of Pan—to make it a reasonable conclusion that they are parallel reflexes of a prototypical god of ways and byways, a guide on the journey, a protector of flocks, a watcher of who and what goes where, one who can scamper up any slope with the ease of a goat."West 2007 302–303 Relationship with Hermes Minor discrepancies between the two deities may be accounted for by the possibility that several of Pan's original attributes were transferred to Hermes.Mallory Adams 2006 411 and 434Jackson 2002 85 In some traditions Pan was regarded as Hermes' son, and it has been argued that the two were originally the same deity.Mallory Adams 2006 411,435West 2007 281–283 Pan is absent from Homeric and early Greek poetry and only becomes prominent in the 5th century BC, his worship previously seeming to have been limited to Arcadia. His Arcadian cult is often viewed as preserving archaic features of a pastoral mountain god. The Arcadian figure Paon appears to have preserved an older Graeco-Aryan name that elsewhere in Greece had been replaced, by the Mycenaean period, with the title herma-god (hermāhās, the earlier form of Hermēs, Ἑρμῆς). The term herma (ἕρμα) originally referred to an upright stone or cairn marking a path or boundary. Such markers were once associated with Pan, but over time he came to be remembered only as the herma-god (Hermes), and the pillar itself became identified with Hermes as the herm.West 2007 281–283 Hermes is portrayed as a good lookout, a god of roads, and a guardian of flocks and herds. His mastery of byways, his ability to find hidden objects, and his role as protector of travellers recall aspects of Pūṣan's role as patron of professional trackers who retrieve lost or stolen goods. Both gods are connected with gain, roads, and the safeguarding of property.West 2007 281–283 Other possible reflexes Medieval Lithuanian sources preserve comparable traditions. The 16th-century chronicler Matys Stryjkowski mentions Kielu Dziewos der Reisegott (i.e. Kelių dievas, 'god of roads'), to whom travellers sacrificed before a journey.West 2007 281–283 References Bibliography 2 https://books.google.com/books?id=lw7KxwEACAAJ Etymological Dictionary of Greek Beekes Robert S. P. 2009 Brill 978-90-04-32186-1 en Robert S. P. Beekes Collitz H. Wodan, Hermes und Pushan Festskrift tillägnad Hugo Pipping pȧ hans sextioȧrsdag den 5 November 1924 1924 574–587 Jackson Peter Light from Distant Asterisks. Towards a Description of the Indo-European Religious Heritage Numen 2002 49 1 61–102 10.1163/15685270252772777 3270472 Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC 1997 Mallory James P. London Routledge 978-1-884964-98-5 Adams Douglas Q. J. P. Mallory Douglas Q. Adams Mallory J. P. https://archive.org/details/oxfordintroducti00mall The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World Adams D.Q. 2006 Oxford University Press 978-0-19-929668-2 Oxford, England 411 and 434 limited Puhvel Jaan Jaan Puhvel Comparative Mythology 1987 Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore, Maryland 978-0-8018-3938-2 https://books.google.com/books?id=OMPagyYOe8gC West Martin Litchfield http://library.globalchalet.net/Authors/Poetry%20Books%20Collection/Indo-European%20Poetry%20and%20Myth.pdf Indo-European Poetry and Myth 2007 Oxford University Press 978-0-19-928075-9 Oxford, England 281–283 Martin Litchfield West 23 April 2017 https://web.archive.org/web/20180417103355/http://library.globalchalet.net/Authors/Poetry%20Books%20Collection/Indo-European%20Poetry%20and%20Myth.pdf 17 April 2018 dead Category:Reconstructed words Category:Proto-Indo-European mythology Category:Proto-Indo-European gods