The Indo-Europeans sought "insight" into the history of the world, we can even trace a particular word for "insight" or "knowledge" from one culture to another all over the Indo-European world. In Sanskrit it is vidya. The word is identical to the Greek word idéa, which was so important to Plato's philosophy. From Latin, we have the word video, but on Roman ground the word simly means "to see". For us "I see" can mean "I understand" and in cartoons, a light bulb can flash above Woody Woodpecker's head when he gets a bright idea. (Not until our own day did 'seeing' become synonymous with staring at the TV screen). In English we know the words 'wise' and 'wisdom' - in German 'wissen' (to know'. Norwegian has the word 'viten', which has the same root as the Indian word vidya, the Greek idéa and the Latin video.
All in all we can establish that sight was the most important of the senses for Indo-Europeans. The literature of Indians, Greeks, Persians and Teutons alike was charachterised by great cosmic visions (there is that word again: "vision" comes from the Latin word video). It was also characteristic for Indo-European culture to make pictures and sculptures of the gods and mythical events.
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, page 127
