ZBORNIK - Matica srpska

The Gift of Vitality
For mortals this vitality was not available in essence, but it
could be gained in its earthly form or manifestation as physical
prowess or, martial success. And that too could be obtained as a gift
in the form of a psychic intervention. To the Indo-European man
the world was inhabited by so many unseen but all the same subtly
present beings ranging from the supremely divine to the most inferior
tree spirits. These he frequently invoked to influence his daily
life. He preferred to live a life impelled by external agencies, the
externality of which in later religions became internalized in the
form of introspective meditation or conscientious prayer. This externality
of beings was not remote but always at hand and could be tuned
into anytime. When the communication did take place, the recipient
was said to have been filled with or impelled by the gift of
the power invoked. Thus the typical Vedic prayer to Savita is to impel
(dhiyo yo nah pracodayat) and so is the Homeric ate, a madness
that visits man. So is menos, a sudden upsurge that rejuvenates the
heroes in Iliad. Not only the influence of higher beings but that of
inferior beings also works the same way. The daimons possess humans
and so do their counterparts the gandharvas (gandharva-grahita
being the phrase for a possessed person). In the later stages of
religious thought power is visualised as taking birth from within, as
in the Yoga system of Patanjali, but the notion of invoking and inviting
divine grace was never totally repudiated. In the Greek culture
pattern introspective going within is very nearly absent but prayer
or sleep is sufficient to invite divine intervention.
“Another psychic intervention which is common in Homer is
menos, the communication of power from god to man. This menos is
not primarily physical strength; nor is it a permanent organ of mental
life, like thumos or noos, it is like ate a state of mind. When a man
feels menos in his chest, or thrusting up pungently into his nostrils, he
is conscious of mysterious excess of energy, the life in him is strong,
and he is filled with a new confidence and eagerness." 2
It is not only this gift of power to defend oneself or to do a
great task that is received from without, but so is a confusion or imbalance
in normal thinking said to be caused by external agency.
“There are a number of passages in Homer in which unwise and
unaccountable conduct is attributed to ate, or described by the cognate
verb aasasthai, without explicit reference to divine intervention. But
ate in Homer is not a personal agent; nor does the word ever, at any
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