Chapter 4 is in part an examination of a Mycenaean divine Potnia, one affiliated with the “labyrinth,” the Potnia of the dabúrinthos (δαβύρινθος). The labyrinthine space with which she is associated is an Asian cult notion introduced from Anatolia to Balkan Hellas. This chapter also examines the Rājasūya, a Vedic rite of consecration by which a warrior is made a king and a likely cult counterpart to the Mycenaean initiation of the wanaks.

Chapter 2 examines the Vedic sacrificial post called the yūpa and its role in ritual performances. A Mycenaean Greek cognate term and comparable ritual implement lies behind the Linear B form spelled u-po – that is, hûpos (ὗπος). Among other topics treated in this chapter are the Mycenaean deity called the po-ti-ni-ja, a-si-wi-ja, the Asian Potnia, and the u-po-jo po-ti-ni-ja, the Potnia of the u-po (that is, húpoio Pótnia [ὕποιο Πότνια]), a term matched exactly by Sanskrit patnī-yūpá-.

Chapter 6 examines Iranian cult and myth as evidenced in the Nart sagas of Transcaucasia, but also among Scythians as well as in Zoroastrian tradition, including the psychotropic cult substances Haoma (Iranian) and Soma (Indic). The Greek polis of Dioscurias in the Caucasus is explored as a place where Hellenic and Indo-Iranian divine-twin myth and cult affiliation meet, as indeed they do in the Pontic polis of Sinope. Aeolian connections are conspicuous at both locales.

Chapter 7 examines the sheep’s fleece filter used in the preparation of Soma. A cult ideology in which such an implement played an important role was preserved for some time in Iranian tradition in the Caucuses, ultimately giving expression to Greek ideas about the presence of fleecy filters impinged with gold in the vicinity of Dioscurias – rationalizing accounts of the Golden Fleece of Aeolian Argonautic tradition. Particular elements of the Golden Fleece myth find parallels in Indic poetic accounts of the performance of Soma cult. The common Hellenic and Indic elements constitute a shared nexus of ideas that earliest took shape in Bronze-Age communities of admixed Mycenaean and Luvian populations into which Mitanni Soma ideas had spread via Kizzuwatna. The Golden Fleece mythic tradition, with its geographic localization in Transcaucasia, is a Mycenaean Asianism that took shape in Asia Minor under Indic and Iranian influences and that continued to evolve among the Iron-Age Asian Greeks.

Chapter 5 considers the Indic divine twins, the Aśvins (Aśvínā), or Nāsatyas (Nā́satyā), their association with the Indic Dawn goddess Uṣas, and their place in the Indic Soma cult. Discussion then shifts to the kingdom of Mitanni in Syro-Mesopotamia, a place into which Indic culture was introduced as Indo-Iranian peoples migrated southward through Asia, as also at Nuzi. There is good lexical evidence for the presence of a Soma cult in Mitanni, and Soma-cult ideas appear to have spread out of Mitanni, through Kizzuwatna, into the Luvian milieu of western Asia Minor, where such ideas would almost certainly have been encountered by resident Mycenaean Greeks, intermingled biologically, socially, culturally, and linguistically with Luvian populations. With that spread certain elements of Soma-cult ideology were mapped onto Anatolian cult structures.

Chapter 1 examines Pylos tablet Tn 316 in depth, giving particular attention to the Linear B forms spelled po-re-na, po-re-si, and po-re-no-, and related Sanskrit forms, and to the especial closeness of post-Mycenaean Aeolic to ancestral Helleno-Indo-Iranian in regard to this matter.

Chapter 3 examines the Mycenaean wanaks and lāwāgetās, figures responsible for leading Mycenaean society in specific ways and who correspond notionally to figures implicit in Indic and Iranian social structures – figures who descend from still more ancient Indo-European antecedents charged with the task of leading society through the spaces of the Eurasian Steppes and in migrations southward out of the Steppes.

This chapter focusses on sexuality in South Asia. The first section traces representations from the prehistoric to early historic as depicted in material remains, in Vedic Brahmanical thought systems, and in the Dharmasastras and the Epic-Pura?a traditions. These emphasize reproduction and heteronormative sex between married couples as a sacral, ritual act. They also reveal a preoccupation with the body and the need to control desires. Sexual abstinence was encouraged in ascetic and monastic sects in Brahmanical, Buddhist, Jain, and other sects. The second section focusses on the kama (sensual pleasure) tradition by exploring the texts outlining the rules for the erotic. Sensual love was also the primary aesthetic experience of Sanskrit literature, particularly kavyas, and was oriented towards masculinist desire in an urban landscape. Prakrit and Tamil love poetry, discussed here, vocalize feminine sensuality in a rural setting. The evolution of devotional spirituality (bhakti) transformed the erotic tradition. Tantric systems have been viewed as a parallel trend, concerned with materiality and giving center space to ritualized intercourse. Visual art continued to depict sexual themes derived from literature. The chapter ends with an overview of attitudes towards sexuality in the Mughal court and the colonial period.

The title of this chapter is an adaptation of the title of an important book about linguistic structures and processes of early Indo-European as they experienced transformed expression in the evolved, and evolving, linguistic structures of ancient Greek.1 Like that work, this study is concerned with the diachronic and synchronic intersection of structures. But while that work chiefly and expansively addresses morpho-phonological matters of dialect development, this one is a much more modest lexical study (a set of fairly fine-grained lexical analyses) of specific elements of Greek divination, one that finds particular inspiration in Benveniste’s (1969) Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes. What follows is a study of linguistic and cultural structures in which I hypothesize (1) that deliberate intellectual or cognitive engagement is the expected response to the production of Greek prophetic signs and (2) that this state of affairs continues, at least in part, idealized practices of ancestral Indo-European cult. Given that the idea that oracles are puzzles in search of a solution is fundamental to the ancient literary presentation of Greek divination, the first half of this hypothesis may appear trivial; however, what I hope to show is that intellectual engagement with an oracle is a cult act of a more “requisite” nature and attitude than perhaps typically imagined – it is the religiously right response – and that this is so (part two of the hypothesis) for reasons having to do with inherited religious structures (the appearance of the forest may not be substantially changed, but some new understanding of the trees may possibly present itself). I begin with Roman Jakobson, a master analyst of linguistic and cultural structures.

It is generally acknowledged that Hinduism, as the name of a distinct religion, did not exist before the nineteenth century. Before that, “Hindu” had simply meant “Indian” and encompassed a variety of beliefs and practices (diffuse spirituality). There were also indigenous “Thomas Christians” dating fromthe 1st century CE. When missionaries arrived, lower caste groups found Christianity attractive. A sea-change occurred around the nineteenth century when Westerners found “Hinduism” to be incurably superstitious. Indians responded by reforming their practices (towards concentrated spirituality). Christianity continued to appeal to marginalized groups such as women, untouchables, and aboriginal ethnic groups. Hindu nationalists continue to view Christianity with suspicion.