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L’exégèse théologique du Mahābhārata. Le système symbolique des amśāvatarana

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This article does not at all deal with the controverted ideological theory of the ‘three functions’ such as used by Stig Wikander and Georges Dumézil in their interpretation of the Indian epics, but examines the basis of what could be called their ‘theological exegesis’ of the Mahābhārata: the fact that the main heroes of the story are symbolically presented as the ‘partial incarnations’ of the gods, born on earth with a ‘part’ of themselves. Avoiding the unsolvable problems of some (Indo-European, Indo-Iranian or even Vedic) reconstructions proposed by Dumézil, this essay underlines the importance of taking into account the aṃśāvataraṇa list at first as it is given in the text, itself enlightened by a significant passage from its ‘supplement’ (viz. the Harivaṃśa), since it provides us with a specific pantheon existing at the time of the elaboration of the epics. In that respect, the ‘theological exegesis’ of Dumézil will probably remain his most important contribution to the understanding of the religious meaning of the Sanskrit epics in its oldest state.

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De l’influence des ‘Traités de vassalité’ hittites sur la composition du livre du deutéronome. Évaluation d’une théorie classique en exégèse biblique

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The hypothesis of an influence of the hittite vassal treaties on the biblical text has been proposed by Mendenhall in 1954, whoses studies dealt with the link between hittite texts and the Covenant narratives and laws in Ex 19-24, and later by Weinfeld who tried to demonstrate the influence of both akkadian legal texts and hittites treaties on the structure of the book of Deuteronomy. The recent research about the composition of Deuteronomy lead to the conclusion that the narrative and legal texts of this book belong to different stages of its composition, and so call in question Weinfeld’s hypothesis. Nevertheless, there could have been an indirect cultural influence of the hittite treaties on the biblical texts, and of the assyrian litterature as well, as the litterary analysis can find similarities in the concepts and in the vocabulary.

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Vision de l’autre à travers le voile du passé, vision de l’ailleurs ; entre oubli et mémoire éclatée, entre Histoire et mythologie : le cas hourro-hittite confronté aux légendes des Éthiopiens-kushites

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Few documents depict the various elements shaping the Hittite empire of the second millenium. The example of the Hurrians, who were the Hittites' foe at first before turning into their civilization masters, is relevant in this regard. Their symbiosis with the Hittites, which justifies the «Hurro-Hittites » designation, makes it difficult to uncover any alterity between them. This is all the more true from the perspective of the classical and biblical testimony. If the Hittite and Mitannian empires seem to have faded into oblivion, scholars of the modern era have raised some misquoted historical accounts. Thereby, it is arguable that other peoples from the Antiquity shared connections not yet identified, or not formally differentiated. In this respect, a large amount of evidence led my research towards Greek and Ethiopian texts, and the Kouchites of the bible, as anachronous as this may seem.

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Palaïte Ha-ap-na-aš (Hapnaš) : un vestige eurasiatique en anatolien ?

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Our approach starts from Palaite ḫaapnaš (=Hittite ḫapaš) “river” and is based on a linguistic Eurasiatic survey originating in J. Greenberg. He posits that *no (*nV) is a marker establishing the membership of the macrofamily and that ḫapaš stems from a term applying to water. To justify these developments, our study focuses on a pre-celtic term onno “river” analyzed as *(H)on-spring + *nV in order to try to show that a structure *dh-(h)on-, with the *dh- prefix, after a linguistic break, went into the making of an Indo-European root (“to flow”). The pair ḫaapnaš/ ḫapaš is then considered within the complex history of the Anatolian genitive, at this stage of our approach we resort to a former membership case reshaped in various ways into the nominative when some verb forms, coming after Eurasiatic verbo-nominals, appeared in Indo-European. The analysis of Eurasiatic and Indo-European is completed with a comparative discussion of Lithuanian upė “river”.

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La réforme de la langue hittite au XIIIe siècle av. J.C. : instrument au service de la construction de l’identité

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In 13th century BCE Hittite texts some words are marked with special signs called 'gloss-wedges'. It is generally assumed that they were used to mark words of foreign, mostly Luwian origin. However, a semantic analysis of the relevant vocabulary reveals that if the words had been marked because of their foreign origin, this would seem to have been a form of extreme linguistic purism serving nationalistic purposes. Because of the lack of evidence for nationalistic tendencies in Hittite texts and Hittite culture in general this seems highly implausible. On the other hand, a thorough investigation of contexts in which words with gloss-wedges appear gives reasons to assume that words were marked with gloss-wedges for ideological purposes, i.e. to shape moral identity and enforce a proper code of conduct in the last decades of the Hittite Empire

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Les termes interrogatifs en poésie didactique latine. Un trait de différenciation inter- ou intragénérique ?

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This paper will investigate on interrogative markers, especially those of cause and manner, in Latin didactic poetry, in order to see if their distribution is more or less the same in all the texts considered and thus distinguishes this genre of literature among other ones, or else if there are differences between the several poems reflecting various aims pursued by the authors If the latter were the case, this linguistic study might contribute to the typology of Latin didactic poetry afforded by other scholars from a literary point of view.Cicero did not write poetics but when explaining, in the De Oratore as in the Oraror, how ornatus is produced, he puts the emphasis on poetic language because poets are given more freedom in using and creating words and metaphors. Is that enough to characterise poetical procedures? Yes, as will be shown here, because such poetics focused on words as lumina allows a clear perspective on Cicero’s choices as a poet inasmuch as it echoes Lucretius’ programmatic stance.

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