Trifunctional hypothesis
The trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology reflected in the existence of three social classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners —corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively. The trifunctional thesis is primarily associated with the French mythographer Georges Dumézil, who proposed it in 1929 in the book Flamen-Brahman, and later in Mitra-Varuna.
Three-way division
According to Georges Dumézil, Proto-Indo-European society had three main groups, corresponding to three distinct functions:- Sovereignty, which fell into two distinct and complementary sub-parts:
- * one formal, juridical and priestly but worldly;
- * the other powerful, unpredictable and priestly but rooted in the supernatural world.
- Military, connected with force, the military and war.
- Productivity, herding, farming and crafts; ruled by the other two.
- Southern Russia: Bernard Sergent associates the Indo-European language family with certain archaeological cultures in Southern Russia and reconstructs an Indo-European religion based upon the tripartite functions.
- Early Baltic society: Norbertas Vėlius, in his book Senovės baltų pasaulėžiūra, identified three regions with three classes. The priestly class was centered in Prussia, the warrior class was prominent in the outer highlands, and the farming class predominanted in the intermediate flatlands.
- Early Germanic society: Dumézil identified a division between the king, warrior aristocracy and regular freemen.
- Norse mythology: Odin, Týr, the Vanir. Odin has been interpreted as a death-god and connected to cremations, and has also been associated with ecstatic practices.
- Classical Greece: the three divisions of the ideal society as described by Socrates in Plato's The Republic. Bernard Sergent examined the trifunctional hypothesis in Greek epic, lyric and dramatic poetry.
- India: the three Hindu castes, the Brahmins or priests; the Kshatriya, the warriors and military; and the Vaishya, the agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders. The Shudra, a fourth Indian caste, is a peasant or serf.
Reception
The hypothesis was embraced outside the field of Indo-European studies by some mythographers, anthropologists and historians such as Mircea Eliade, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marshall Sahlins, Rodney Needham, Jean-Pierre Vernant and Georges Duby.
On the other hand, Nicholas Allen concludes that the tripartite division may be an artefact and a selection effect, rather than an organising principle that was used in the societies themselves. Benjamin W. Fortson reports a sense that Dumézil blurred the lines between the three functions and the examples that he gave often had contradictory characteristics, which had caused his detractors to reject his categories as nonexistent. John Brough surmises that societal divisions are common outside Indo-European societies as well and so the hypothesis has only limited utility in illuminating prehistoric Indo-European society. Cristiano Grottanelli states that while Dumézilian trifunctionalism may be seen in modern and medieval contexts, its projection onto earlier cultures is mistaken. Belier is strongly critical.
The hypothesis has been criticised by the historians Carlo Ginzburg, Arnaldo Momigliano and Bruce Lincoln as being based on Dumézil's sympathies with the political right. Guy Stroumsa sees those criticisms as unfounded.