Dievs | Slavic Deity, Paganism, Baltic Pantheon | Britannica (original) (raw)

(Latvian), Lithuanian:

Dievas

Dievs, in Baltic religion, the sky god. Dievs and Laima, the goddess of human fate, determine human destiny and world order. Dievs is a wooer of Saule, the sun. As pictured by the pre-Christian Balts, he is an Iron Age Baltic king who lives on a farmstead in the sky. Wearing a silver gown, pendants, and a sword, he occasionally rides down to earth, on horseback or in a horse-drawn chariot, to watch over farmers and their crops.

Dievs has two sons (Dieva dēli in Latvian; Dievo sūneliai in Lithuanian), who are known as the Heavenly Twins and the morning and evening stars. Like their Greek (Dioscuri) and Vedic (Aśvins, or Nāsatyas) counterparts, Dieva dēli are skilled horsemen. They associate with Saules meita, the daughter of the sun, and when she is sinking into the sea with only her crown still visible, Dieva dēli come to her rescue.

In name, Dievs is cognate with the Vedic Dyaus-Pitṛ, the Latin Dies-piter (Jupiter), and the Greek Zeus, denoting originally the bright, daylight sky.

The word dievs was also used by the ancient Balts to denote god in general and in modern usage refers to the Christian God.