Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Amma (an African tribal deity) Dogon religion

Amma is an African tribal deity – the supreme creator god in the Dogon religion. The Dogon story of the creation of the world relates that the sky god Amma mated with the earth goddess, and because Amma was prevented from joining the goddess’s clitoris in the form of a giant termite mound, he produced only an imperfect offspring – a desert fox or jackal – and therefore eventually removed the termite mound. Leaving the earth, he instituted the religious ritual of female circumcision. After removing the termite mound, the god Amma with the earth goddess continued procreating and begat humans. Duality is central to Dogon religion, the heavenly forces also have a dual character: the supreme god Amma has androgynous characteristics. The birth of twins is celebrated among the Dogon with a special religious ritual, as twins refer to the original dual structure of creation and to the harmony between earthly and heavenly.” ref

Creation Myth of Twins

“Key figures in Dogon religion are the twins Nummo and Nommo, primal spirits of Dogon ancestors, sometimes seen as deities. These are hermaphroditic water creatures, seen similarly to water deities (to-vodun) in West African vodun; they can be depicted with a human body and a fish tail. Nommo is supposed to be the first living creature created by the supreme god Amma. Shortly after his creation, Nommo spawned into four pairs of twins, with one pair defying the order established by creator Amma. To restore order, the god Amma sacrificed another creature, whose body he cut up and scattered throughout creation. A shrine for the god Amma was to be built at each place where a fragment of the body landed.ref

“The cult of the god Amma – like the entire Dogon religion – is closely tied to the Bandiagara cliff where the Dogon live. The cult of the god Amma is geographically defined by this cliff, it is not practiced elsewhere. The Bandiagara cliff is a sandstone terrain fault approximately 150 km long, reaching a height of up to 500 m in some places. The Dogon inhabit mud villages built on the upper edge of the cliff, villages directly attached to the cliff at its lower edge, but also at various heights in the wall, also villages scattered under the cliff, and a labyrinth of caves right in the cliff. The architecture of the villages and the religiously motivated urban arrangement of mud houses centered on the hogon priestly building is unique in the context of the whole of Africa. The Dogon language forms an independent branch of the Niger-Congo language family and is not closely related to any other language.ref

“Legend says that a long time ago in China there were immortal twins, one who brought harmony and the other, union. So artists made figurines showing the twin brothers, called ”He-He. ” They often were pictured and given to brides, because it was thought they brought a happy marriage.” ref

He-He Er Xian, translated as the Immortals of Harmony and Union and as the Two gods of Harmony and Union, are two Taoist immortals. They are popularly associated with happy marriages. He and He are typically depicted as boys holding a lotus flower () and a box (). There are a number of legendary tales behind two celestial beings of He and Ho, among them there is one regarding the two monks living a secluded life in Tiantai Mountain in the Tang dynasty by the name of Hanshan and Shide and no one know about their subsequent whereabouts. The story is based on Poems of Hanshan and Shide composed by Lv Qiuyin. They were officially canonized as the God of Harmony and the God of Good Union in the first year of Yongzheng rule in the Qing dynasty. They are widely regarded as gods who bless love between husband and wife.” ref

“The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, who serve as rescuers and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like other Proto-Indo-European divinities, the Divine Twins are not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, but scholars of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies generally agree on the motifs they have reconstructed by way of the comparative method.” ref

Common traits

“Scholar Donald Ward proposed a set of common traits that pertain to divine twin pairs of Indo-European mythologies:

  • dual paternity;
  • mention of a female figure (their mother or their sister);
  • deities of fertility;
  • known by a single dual name or having rhymed/alliterative names;
  • associated with horses;
  • saviours at sea;
  • of astral nature;
  • protectors of oaths;
  • providers of divine aid in battle; and
  • magic healers.” ref

“Although the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) name of the Divine Twins cannot be reconstructed with certainty based on the available linguistic evidence, the most frequent epithets associated with the two brothers in liturgic and poetic traditions are the “Youthful” and the “Descendants” (sons or grandsons) of the Sky-God (Dyēus). Two well-accepted reflexes of the Divine Twins, the Vedic Aśvins and the Lithuanian Ašvieniai, are linguistic cognates ultimately deriving from the Proto-Indo-European word for the horse, *h1éḱwos. They are related to Sanskrit áśva and Avestan aspā (both from Indo-Iranian *Haćwa), and to Old Lithuanian ašva, which all share the meaning of “mare“. This may point to an original PIE divine name *h1éḱw-n-, although this form could also have emerged from later contacts between Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Balto-Slavic speakers, which are known to have occurred in prehistoric times.” ref

“Represented as young men rescuing mortals from peril in battle or at sea, the Divine Twins rode the steeds that pull the sun across the sky and were sometimes depicted as horses themselves. They shared a sister, the Dawn (*H2éwsōs), who is also portrayed as the daughter of the Sky-God (*Dyēus) in Indo-European myths. The two brothers are generally depicted as healers and helpers, travelling in miraculous vehicles to save shipwrecked mortals. They are often differentiated: one is represented as a physically strong and aggressive warrior, while the other is seen as a healer who rather gives attention to domestic duties, agrarian pursuits, or romantic adventures.” ref

“In the Vedic, Greek and Baltic traditions, the Divine Twins similarly appear as the personifications of the morning and evening star. They are depicted as the lovers or the companions of a solar female deity, preferably the Sun’s daughter but sometimes also the Dawn. In the majority of the stories where they appear, the Divine Twins rescue the Dawn from a watery peril, a theme that emerged from their role as the solar steeds. During the night, the Divine Twins were said to return to the east in a golden boat, where they traversed a sea to bring back the rising sun each morning. During the day, they crossed the nocturnal sky in pursuit of their consort, the morning star. In what seems to be a later addition confined to Europe, they were said to take a rest at the end of the day on the “Isles of the Blessed”, a land seating in the western sea which possessed magical apple orchards. By the Bronze Age, the Divine Twins were also represented as the coachmen of horse-driven solar chariots.” ref

“The Gaulish Divanno [de] and Dinomogetimarus are said to be protective deities and “the Gallic equivalents” of the Greek Dioskouroi. They seem to be represented in monuments and reliefs in France flanked by horses, which would make them comparable to Gaulish Martes and the Germanic Alcis. Scholars suggest that the numerous Gallo-Roman dedicatory epigraphs to Castor and Pollux, more than any other region of the Roman Empire, attest a cult of the Dioskoroi. Greek historian Timaeus mentions that Atlantic Celts venerated the “Dioskouroi” above all other gods and that they [Dioskouroi] had visited them from across the Ocean. Historian Diodorus Siculus, in the fourth book of Bibliotheca historica, writes that the Celts who dwelt along the ocean worshipped the Dioscuroi “more than the other gods”. The conjecture that it refers to the Gallic gods Divanno and Dinomogetimarus has no firm support.” ref

“In one of the Irish myths involving Macha (the Dindsenchas of Ard Macha), she is forced to race against the horses of King of Ulster while in late pregnancy. As a talented rider, she wins the race but starts giving birth to Fír and Fial immediately after crossing the finish line. The archetype is also partly matched by figures such as the Gallic sun god Belenus, whose epithet Atepomarus meant “having good horses”; Grannus, who is associated with the healing goddess Sirona (her name means “star”); Maponos (“Son of God”), considered in Irish mythology as the son of Dagda, associated with healing, The Welsh Brân and Manawydan may also be reflexes of the Divine Twins.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“The Polish deities Lel and Polel, first mentioned by Maciej Miechowita in 1519, are presented as the equivalents of Castor and Pollux, the sons of the goddess Łada (counterpart of the Greek Leda) and an unknown male god. An idol was found in 1969 on the Fischerinsel island, where the cult centres of the Slavic tribe of Veleti was located, depicting two male figures joined with their heads. Scholars believe it may represent Lel and Polel. Lelek means “strong youth” in Russian dialect. The brightest stars of the Gemini constellation, α Gem and β Gem, are thought to have been originally named Lele and Polele in Belarusian tradition, after the twin characters. According to Polish professor of medieval history, Jacek Banaszkiewicz, the two Polabian gods, Porevit and Porenut, manifest dioscuric characteristics. According to him, the first part of their names derives from a Proto-Slavic root -por meaning “strength,” with first being “Lord of strength” – the stronger one, and the other “Lord in need of support (strength)” – the weaker one. They both have five faces each and appear alongside Rugiaevit, the chief god.” ref

“During childbirth, the mother of the Polish hero twins Waligóra (“Mountain Beater”) and Wyrwidąb (“Oak Tearer”) died in the forest, where wild animals took care of them. Waligóra was raised of by a she-wolf and Wyrwidąb by a she-bear, who fed them with their own milk. Together, they defeated the dragon who tormented the kingdom, for which the grateful king gave each of them half of the kingdom and one of his two daughters as a wife. The sons of Krak: Krak II and Lech II also appear in Polish legends as the killers of the Wawel dragonAmphion and Zethus, another pair of twins fathered by Zeus and Antiope, are portrayed as the legendary founders of Thebes. They are called “Dioskouroi, riders of white horses” (λευκόπωλοι) by Euripides in his play The Phoenician Women (the same epithet is used in Heracles and in the lost play Antiope). In keeping with the theme of distinction between the twins, Amphion was said to be the more contemplative, sensitive one, whereas Zethus was more masculine and tied to physical pursuits, like hunting and cattle-breeding.” ref

“The mother of Romulus and Remus, Rhea Silvia, placed them in a basket before her death, which she put in the river to protect them from murder, before they were found by the she-wolf who raised them. The Palici, a pair of Sicilian twin deities fathered by Zeus in one account, may also be a reflex of the original mytheme. Greek rhetorician and grammar Athenaeus of Naucratis, in his work Deipnosophistae, Book II, cited that poet Ibycus, in his Melodies, described twins Eurytus and Cteatus as “λευκίππους κόρους” (“white-horsed youths”) and said they were born from a silver egg, a story that recalls the myth of Greek divine twins Castor and Pollux and their mother Leda. This pair of twins was said to have been fathered by sea god Poseidon and a human mother, Molione.” ref

Another possible reflex may be found in Nakula and Sahadeva. Mothered by Princess Madri, who summoned the Aśvins themselves in a prayer to beget her sons (thus them being called Ashvineya (आश्विनेय)), the twins are two of the five Pandava brothers, married to the same woman, Draupadi. In the Mahabharata epic, Nakula is described in terms of his exceptional beauty, warriorship and martial prowess, while Sahadeva is depicted as patient, wise, intelligent and a “learned man”. Nakula takes great interest in Virata’s horses, and his brother Sahadeva become Virata’s cowherd. Scholarship also points out that the Vedic Ashvins had an Avestic counterpart called Aspinas. The pair of heroic brothers and main characters of the Albanian legendary epic cycle Kângë Kreshnikësh – Muji and Halili – are considered to bear common traits of the Indo-European divine twins.” ref

“The Armenian heroes Sanasar and Baldasar appear as twins in the epic tradition, born of princess Tsovinar (as depicted in Daredevils of Sassoun); Sanasar finds a “fiery horse”, is more warlike than his brother, and becomes the progenitor of a dynasty of heroes. In an alternate account, their mother is named princess Saṙan, who drinks water from a horse’s footprint and gives birth to both heroes. Scholar Armen Petrosyan also sees possible reflexes of the divine twins in other pairs of heroic brothers in Armenian epic tradition, e.g., Ar(a)maneak and Ar(a)mayis; Eruand (Yervant) and Eruaz (Yervaz). In the same vein, Sargis Haroutyunian argues that the Armenian heroes, as well as twins Izzadin (or Izaddin) and Zyaddin (mentioned in the Kurdish Sharafnama), underlie the myth of divine twins: pairs of brother-founders of divine origin.” ref

“The mytheme of the Divine Twins was widely popular in the Indo-European traditions; evidence for their worship can be found from Scandinavia to the Near East as early as the Bronze Age. The motif was also adopted in non-Indo-European cultures, as attested by the Etruscan Tinas Clenar, the “sons of Jupiter”. There might also have been a worship of twin deities in Myceanean times, based on the presence of myths and stories about pairs of brothers or male twins in Attica and Boeotia. The most prevalent functions associated with the twins in later myths are magic healers and physicians, sailors and saviours at sea, warriors and providers of divine aid in battle, controllers of weather and keepers of the wind, assistants at birth with a connection to fertility, divinities of dance, protectors of the oath, and founders of cities, sometimes related to swans. Scholarship suggests that the mytheme of twins has echoes in the medieval legend of Amicus and Amelius. In Belarusian folklore, Saints George and Nicholas are paired up together, associated with horses, and have a dual nature as healers. The veneration of the Slavic saint brothers Boris and Gleb may also be related.” ref

Lugal-irra (𒀭𒈗𒄊𒊏) and Meslamta-ea (𒀭𒈩𒇴𒋫𒌓𒁺𒀀) were a pair of Mesopotamian gods who typically appear together in cuneiform texts and were described as the “divine twins” (Maštabba). There were regarded as warrior gods and as protectors of doors, possibly due to their role as the gatekeepers of the underworld. In Mesopotamian astronomy they came to be associated with a pair of stars known as the “Great Twins”, Alpha Geminorum and Beta Geminorum. They were both closely associated with Nergal, and could be either regarded as members of his court or equated with him. Their cult centers were Kisiga and Dūrum. While no major sanctuaries dedicated to them are attested elsewhere, they were nonetheless worshiped in multiple other cities. Lugal-irra’s name was most commonly written in cuneiform as dLugalGÌR-ra. It can be romanized as Lugalirra as well. It has Sumerian origin and can be translated as “the strong lord”. The variant Lugal-girra, dLugal-gír-ra, reflects a late reinterpretation of the name as “lord of the dagger” and is no longer considered an indication that dLugal-GÌR-ra was ever read as Lugal-girra. Despite the phonetic similarity, the second half of Lugal-irra’s name is most likely unrelated to the theonym Erra (variant: Irra), and its Akkadian translation was gašru according to lexical lists.” ref

Twin deities manifested integrating or opposite natural elements in ancient Egypt. Two identical falcons represented Horus and Seth. Isis and Nephtys were also a divine twin of the same gender. Shu and Tefnut were an example for unlike-sexed divine twins. The souls of Osiris and Re were the twin children of Horus. This research studies the Egyptian divine twins beside the Greek twin deities which appeared in Egypt on a limited scale. Some of them had an Egyptian origin such as; the sign of Gemini which was inspired from Shu and Tefnut. Apollo and Artemis were also venerated in Egypt.” ref

Twins in mythology are in many cultures around the world. In some cultures they are seen as ominous, and in others they are seen as auspicious. Twins in mythology are often cast as two halves of the same whole, sharing a bond deeper than that of ordinary siblings, or seen as fierce rivals. They can be seen as representations of a dualistic worldview. They can represent another aspect of the self, a doppelgänger, or a shadow.” ref

“Twins are often depicted with special powers. This applies to both mortal and immortal sets of twins, and often is related to power over the weather. Twins in mythology also often share deep bonds. In Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux share a bond so strong that when mortal Castor dies, Pollux gives up half of his immortality to be with his brother. Castor and Pollux are the Dioscuri twin brothers. Their mother is Leda, a being who was seduced by Zeus who had taken the form of a swan. Even though the brothers are twins, they have two different fathers. This phenomenon is a very common interpretation of twin births across different mythological cultures. Castor’s father is Tyndareus, the king of Sparta (hence the mortal form). Pollux is the son of Zeus (demigod).ref

“This brothers were said to be born from an egg along with either sister Helen and Clytemnestra. This etymologically explains why their constellation, the Dioskouroi or Gemini, is only seen during one half of the year, as the twins split their time between the underworld and Mount Olympus. In an aboriginal tale, the same constellation represents the twin lizards who created the plants and animals and saved women from evil spirits. Another example of this strong bond shared between twins is the Ibeji twins from African mythology. Ibeji twins are viewed as one soul shared between two bodies. If one of the twins dies, the parents then create a doll that portrays the body of the deceased child, so the soul of the deceased can remain intact for the living twin.ref

“Without the creation of the doll, the living twin is almost destined for death because it is believed to be missing half of its soul. Twins in mythology are often associated with healing. They are also often gifted with the ability of divination or insight into the future. Divine twins in twin mythology are identical to either one or both place of a god. The Feri gods are not separated entities but are unified into one center. These divine twins can function alone in one body, either functioning as a male or as male and female as they desire. Divine twins represent a polarity in the world. This polarity may be great or small and at times can be opposition. Twins are often seen to be rivals or adversaries.ref

Africa

Egyptian

  • Nut and Geb, Dualistic twins. God of Earth (Geb) and Goddess of the sky (Nut)
  • Osiris – Isis’ twin and husband. Lord of the underworld. First born of Geb and Nut. One of the most important gods of ancient Egypt.
  • Isis – Daughter of Geb and Nut; twin of Osiris.
  • Ausar – (also known by Macedonian Greeks as Osiris) twin of Set. Set tricked his brother at a banquet he organized so as to take his life.

West African

  • Mawu-Lisa – Twins representing moon and sun, respectively. Ewe-Fon culture.
  • Yemaja – Mother of all life on earth. Yoruba culture.
  • Aganju – Twin and husband of Yemaja
  • Ibeji – Twins of joy and happiness. Children of Shango and Oshun.

Ancient Mesopotamian religion

Greek and Roman mythology

Ancient Syria

  • Arsu and Azizos – Gods of the evening star and morning star.

Norse mythology

  • Freyr and Freyja – God and goddess, children of Njörðr
  • Baldr and Hodr – “The Shining One” and “The Blind God”, Children of Odin and Frigg
  • Móði and Magni – Courage/Bravery and Strength. Although not Twins in every Source, they often come in a pair. In some iterations, Twin sons of Thor and Sif.

Hinduism

Jewish

Christian

Thomas the apostle and his unnamed twin brother.

Zoroastrian

Ossetian mythology

Afro-Caribbean cosmologies

East Asian

Cain and Abel, the First Human Brothers in the Bible 

In the biblical Book of GenesisCain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Abel’s offering, but had no regardfor Cain’s. Cain killed Abel, and God cursed Cain, sentencing him to a life of transience. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod (נוֹד, ‘wandering’), where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.” ref

“The story of Cain‘s murder of Abel and its consequences is told in Genesis 4:1–18:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. The Lord said to Cain,

“Why are you angry,
and why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well,
will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well,
sin is lurking at the door;
its desire is for you,
but you must master it.”

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch.” — Book of Genesis, 4:1–18

“Since they cannot be linked together to a common linguistic origin, other reflexes found in the Indo-European myths are less secure, although their motifs can be compared to that of the Divine Twins. Three Indo-European traditions (Greek, Indic and Baltic) attest the mytheme of equestrian twins, all associated with the dawn or the sun’s daughter. Although their names do not form a complete group of cognates, they nonetheless share a similar epithet leading to a possible ancestral name or epithet: the ‘sons or descendants of Dyēus‘, the sky-god.” ref

  • (?) PIE: *diwós suHnū́ (‘sons of Dyēus’), or *diwós népoth1e (‘descendants of Dyēus’),
  • Vedic: the Divó nápātā (the Aśvins), the “sons of Dyaús“, the sky-god, always referred to in dual in the Rigveda, without individual names,
  • Lithuanian: the Dievo sūneliai (the Ašvieniai), the “sons of Dievas“, pulling the carriage of Saulė (the Sun) through the sky,
  • Latvian: the Dieva dēli, the “sons of Dievs”, the sky-god,
  • Greek: the Diós-kouroi (Castor and Pollux), the “boys of Zeus“, the sky-god.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_twins
  • Italic: both Paelignian Ioviois Pvclois and Marsian Ioveis Pvcles are interpreted as a calque of the Greek theonym Diós-kouroi.” ref

“Comparative mythologist Alexander Haggerty Krappe suggested that two heroes, Feradach and Foltlebar, brothers and sons of the king of Innia, are expressions of the mytheme. These heroes help the expedition of the Fianna into Tir fa Thuinn (a realm on the other side of the sea), in a Orphean mission to rescue some of their members, in the tale The pursuit of the Gilla Decair and his horse. Both are expert navigators: one can build a ship and the other can follow the wild birds. Other possible candidates are members of Lugh‘s retinue, Atepomarus and Momorus (fr). Atepomarus is presumed to mean “Great Horseman” or “having great horses”, based on the possible presence of Celtic stem -epo- ‘horse’ in his name. Both appear as a pair of Celtic kings and founders of Lugdunum. They escape from Sereroneus and arrive at a hill. Momorus, who had skills in augury, sees a murder of crows and names the hill Lougodunum, after the crows. This myth is reported in the works of Klitophon of Rhodes and in Pseudo-Plutarch‘s De fluviis.” ref

“There is possibility that Ūsiņš (alternately, Ūsinis), a Baltic god mentioned in the dainas, is a reflex of the mytheme in Latvian tradition. He is associated with horses, the light and sun, and possibly one of the sons of Dievs. Historical linguist Václav Blažek argues he is “a functional and etymological counterpart” of a minor Vedic character Auśijá- (a servant of the Vedic twins and related to bees) and the Aśvins themselves. Also, according to David Leeming, Usins appears as a charioteer, conducting a chariot pulled by two horses across the sky.” ref

“It has also been argued that Auseklis is the other reflex of the mytheme in Latvian. Auseklis is referred to as male in the context of the dainas (folksong), and is seen as the groom of Saules meita (“daughter of the sun”), who came all the way to Germany to court her. In addition, according to scholar Elza Kokare, Auseklis belongs to a group of heavenly deities that take part in a mythological drama about a “celestial wedding”. Auseklis is seen as a groom of Saules meita, a daughter of Saule, the female Baltic sun. Sometimes, he is deprived of his bride (Ausekļa līgaviņa and variations) because of Meness’s quarreling. In other accounts, he is a guest or member of the bridal cortege at the wedding of Saules meita with another character. He is also said to own a horse, bought by him or for him. According to Marija Gimbutas‘s analysis, Auseklis is a “dievaitis” (‘little god’) that appears with a horse the Sun gave him, and falls in love with the daughter of the (female) Sun (“Saules dukterims”).” ref

Dualism or dualistic cosmology is the moral or belief that two fundamental concepts exist, which often oppose each other. It is an umbrella term that covers a diversity of views from various religions, including both traditional religions and scriptural religions. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement of, or conflict between, the benevolent and the malevolent. It simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and independent of how these may be represented. Moral opposites might, for example, exist in a worldview that has one god, more than one god, or none. By contrast, duotheism, bitheism or ditheism implies (at least) two gods.” ref

“While bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, or light and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system could be one in which one god is a creator and the other a destroyer. In theology, dualism can also refer to the relationship between the deity and creation or the deity and the universe (see theistic dualism). That form of dualism is a belief shared in certain traditions of Christianity and Hinduism. Alternatively, in ontological dualism, the world is divided into two overarching categories. Within Chinese culture and philosophy the opposition and combination of the universe’s two basic principles are expressed as yin and yang and are traditionally foundational doctrine of Taoism, Confucianism and some Chinese Buddhist Schools.” ref

“Many myths and creation motifs with dualistic cosmologies have been described in ethnographic and anthropological literature. The motifs conceive the world as being created, organized, or influenced by two demiurges, culture heroes, or other mythological beings, who compete with each other or have a complementary function in creating, arranging or influencing the world. There is a huge diversity of such cosmologies. In some cases, such as among the Chukchi, the beings collaborate rather than compete, and they contribute to the creation in a coequal way. In many other instances the two beings are not of the same importance or power (sometimes, one of them is even characterized as gullible). Sometimes they can be contrasted as good versus evil.” ref 

“They may be often believed to be twins or at least brothers. Dualistic motifs in mythologies can be observed in all inhabited continents. Zolotarjov concludes that they cannot be explained by diffusion or borrowing but are rather of convergent origin. They are related to a dualistic organization of society (moieties); in some cultures, the social organization may have ceased to exist, but mythology preserves the memory in more and more disguised ways. Moral dualism is the belief of the great complement or conflict between the benevolent and the malevolent. Like ditheism/bitheism (see below), moral dualism does not imply the absence of monist or monotheistic principles. Moral dualism simply implies that there are two moral opposites at work, independent of any interpretation of what might be “moral” and—unlike ditheism/bitheism—independent of how these may be represented.” ref

“For example, Mazdaism (Mazdean Zoroastrianism) is both dualistic and monotheistic (but not monist by definition) since in that philosophy God—the Creator—is purely good, and the antithesis—which is also uncreated–is an absolute one. Mandaeism is monotheistic and Gnostic, and in its cosmology, the World of Light (alma d-nhūra) that is good, is contrasted with the World of Darkness or underworld (alma d-hšuka) that is evil. Zurvanism (Zurvanite Zoroastrianism) and Manichaeism are representative of dualistic and monist philosophies since each has a supreme and transcendental First Principle from which the two equal-but-opposite entities then emanate. This is also true for the suppressed Christian gnostic religions, such as Bogomils, Catharism, and so on. More complex forms of monist dualism also exist, for instance in Hermeticism, where Nous “thought”—that is described to have created man—brings forth both good and evil, dependent on interpretation, whether it receives prompting from the God or from the Demon. Duality with pluralism is considered a logical fallacy.” ref

“Moral dualism began as a theological belief. Dualism was first seen implicitly in Egyptian religious beliefs by the contrast of the gods Set (disorder, death) and Osiris (order, life). The first explicit conception of dualism came from the Ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism around the mid-fifth century BC. Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that believes that Ahura Mazda is the eternal creator of all good things. Any violations of Ahura Mazda’s order arise from druj, which is everything uncreated. From this comes a significant choice for humans to make. Either they fully participate in human life for Ahura Mazda or they do not and give druj power. Personal dualism is even more distinct in the beliefs of later religions. The religious dualism of Christianity between good and evil is not a perfect dualism as God (good) will inevitably destroy Satan (evil). Early Christian dualism is largely based on Platonic Dualism (See: Neoplatonism and Christianity). There is also a personal dualism in Christianity with a soul-body distinction based on the idea of an immaterial Christian soul.” ref

“When used with regards to multiple gods, dualism may refer to duotheism, bitheism, or ditheism. Although ditheism/bitheism imply moral dualism, they are not equivalent: ditheism/bitheism implies (at least) two gods, while moral dualism does not necessarily imply theism (theos = god) at all. Both bitheism and ditheism imply a belief in two equally powerful gods with complementary or antonymous properties; however, while bitheism implies harmony, ditheism implies rivalry and opposition, such as between good and evil, bright and dark, or summer and winter. For example, a ditheistic system would be one in which one god is creative, the other is destructive (cf. theodicy). In the original conception of Zoroastrianism, for example, Ahura Mazda was the spirit of ultimate good, while Ahriman (Angra Mainyu) was the spirit of ultimate evil.” ref

“In a bitheistic system, by contrast, where the two deities are not in conflict or opposition, one could be male and the other female (cf. duotheism[clarification needed]). One well-known example of a bitheistic or duotheistic theology based on gender polarity is found in the neopagan religion of Wicca. In Wicca, dualism is represented in the belief of a god and a goddess as a dual partnership in ruling the universe. This is centered on the worship of a divine couple, the Moon Goddess and the Horned God, who are regarded as lovers. However, there is also a ditheistic theme within traditional Wicca, as the Horned God has dual aspects of bright and dark – relating to day/night, summer/winter – expressed as the Oak King and the Holly King, who in Wiccan myth and ritual are said to engage in battle twice a year for the hand of the Goddess, resulting in the changing seasons. (Within Wicca, bright and dark do not correspond to notions of “good” and “evil” but are aspects of the natural world, much like yin and yang in Taoism.)” ref

Divine couples in religion

One of the most ancient concepts in religion is that of the divine couple. In Sumeria the divine couple appears as part of perhaps the earliest notion of Trinity. God the Father was symbolized as the Sun, his consort was symbolized alternately as either the Moon or the Earth, and the king was viewed as their offspring: the Son of the Sun; a living representative (or emanation) of God on Earth. In many traditions the gods and goddesses who comprise the divine couple are not seen as being separate or distinct entities, but rather as differing aspects of one another, or even emanations of one another. In this we see traces of an even more ancient tradition, God as the primordial androgyne. Such a notion has been part of many theologies, although the idea has largely been forgotten or (perhaps) ignored.” ref

Yin and yang

Yin and yang (English: /jɪn/, /jæŋ/), also yinyang or yin-yang, is a concept that originated in Chinese philosophy, describing an opposite but interconnected, self-perpetuating cycle. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary and at the same time opposing forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts and the parts are important for cohesion of the whole.ref

“In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang form and matter. ‘Yin’ is retractive, passive and contractive while ‘yang’ is repelling, active and expansive; in principle, this dichotomy in some form, is seen in all things in nature—patterns of change and difference, such as biological and seasonal cycles, evolution of the landscape over days, weeks, and eons (with the original meaning of the words being the north-facing shade and the south-facing brightness of a hill), gender (female and male), as well as the formation of the character of individuals and the grand arc of sociopolitical history in disorder and order.ref

Taiji is a Chinese cosmological term for the “Supreme Ultimate” state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be contrasted with the older wuji (無極; ‘without pole’). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy which this universe was created from is known as qi. It is believed that the organization of qi in this cosmology of yin and yang has formed many things. Included among these forms are humans. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang. This duality, as a unity of opposites, lies at the origins of many branches of classical Chinese science, technology and philosophy, as well as being a primary guideline of traditional Chinese medicine, and a central principle of different forms of Chinese martial arts and exercise, such as baguazhang, tai chi, daoyin and qigong, as well as appearing in the pages of the I Ching.ref

“The notion of duality can be found in many areas, such as Communities of Practice. The term “dualistic-monism” or dialectical monism has been coined in an attempt to express this fruitful paradox of simultaneous unity and duality. According to this philosophy, everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance, shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin and yang symbol (or taijitu) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.ref

“In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole. In the ethics of Confucianism on the other hand, most notably in the philosophy of Dong Zhongshu (c. 2nd century BC), a moral dimension is attached to the idea of yin and yang. The Ahom philosophy of duality of the individual self han and pu is quite similar to yin and yang of Taoism. The tradition was originated in Yunnan, China and followed by some Ahom, descendants of Dai ethnic Minority. The Chinese characters  and  are both considered to be phono-semantic compounds, with semantic component  ‘mound’, ‘hill’, a graphical variant of —with the phonetic components jīn (and the added semantic component yún; ‘cloud’) and yáng. In the latter, yáng; ‘bright’ features ; ‘the Sun’ +  + ; ‘sunbeam’.” ref

Dogon people

“The Dogon are an ethnic group indigenous to the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa, south of the Niger bend, near the city of Bandiagara, and in Burkina Faso. The population numbers between 400,000 and 800,000. They speak the Dogon languages, which are considered to constitute an independent branch of the Niger–Congo language family, meaning that they are not closely related to any other languages. The Dogon are best known for their religious traditions, their mask dances, wooden sculpture, and their architecture. Since the twentieth century, there have been significant changes in the social organisation, material culture and beliefs of the Dogon, in part because Dogon country is one of Mali’s major tourist attractions.” ref

“The blind Dogon elder Ogotemmeli taught the main symbols of the Dogon religion to French anthropologist Marcel Griaule in October 1946.Griaule had lived amongst the Dogon people for fifteen years before this meeting with Ogotemmeli took place. Ogotemmeli taught Griaule the religious stories in the same way that Ogotemmeli had learned them from his father and grandfather; oral instruction which he had learned over the course of more than twenty years. What makes the record so important from a historical perspective is that the Dogon people were still living in their oral culture at the time their religion was recorded. They were one of the last people in West Africa to lose their independence and come under French rule.” ref

“The Dogon people with whom French anthropologists Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen worked during the 1930s and 1940s had a system of signs which ran into the thousands, including “their own systems of astronomy and calendrical measurements, methods of calculation and extensive anatomical and physiological knowledge, as well as a systematic pharmacopoeia“. The religion embraced many aspects of nature which are found in other traditional African religions. The key spiritual figures in the religion were the Nummo/Nommo twins. According to Ogotemmêli’s description of them, the Nummo, whom he also referred to as “Water”, had green skin covered in green hair, and were formed like humans from the loins up, but serpent-like below. Their eyes were red, their tongues forked, and their arms flexible and unjointed.” ref

“Ogotemmêli classified the Nummo as hermaphrodites. Their images or figures appeared on the female side of the Dogon sanctuary. They were primarily symbolized by the Sun, which was a female symbol in the religion. In the Dogon language, the Sun’s name (nay) had the same root as “mother” (na) and “cow” (). They were symbolized by the colour red, a female symbol.” ref

“The problem of “twin births” versus “single births”, or androgyny versus single-sexed beings, was said to contribute to a disorder at the beginning of time. This theme was fundamental to the Dogon religion. “The jackal was alone from birth,” said Ogotemmêli, “and because of this he did more things than can be told.” Dogon males were primarily associated with the single-sexed male Jackal and the Sigui festival, which was associated with death on the Earth. It was held once every sixty years and allegedly celebrated the white dwarf star, Sirius B. There has been extensive speculation about the origin of such astronomical knowledge. The colour white was a symbol of males. The ritual language, “Sigi so” or “language of the Sigui”, which was taught to male dignitaries of the Society of the Masks (“awa”), was considered a poor language. It contained only about a quarter of the full vocabulary of “Dogo so”, the Dogon language. The “Sigi so” was used to tell the story of creation of the universe, of human life, and the advent of death on the Earth, during both funeral ceremonies and the rites of the “end of mourning” (“dama”).” ref

“Because of the birth of the single-sexed male Jackal, who was born without a soul, all humans eventually had to be turned into single-sexed beings. This was to prevent a being like the Jackal from ever being born on Earth again. “The Nummo foresaw that the original rule of twin births was bound to disappear, and that errors might result comparable to those of the jackal, whose birth was single. Because of his solitary state, the first son of God acted as he did.” The removal of the second sex and soul from humans is what the ritual of circumcision represents in the Dogon religion. “The dual soul is a danger; a man should be male, and a woman female. Circumcision and excision are once again the remedy.” ref

“The Dogon religion was centered on this loss of twinness or androgyny. Griaule describes it in this passage:

Most of the conversations with Ogotemmêli had indeed turned largely on twins and on the need for duality and the doubling of individual lives. The Eight original Ancestors were really eight pairs … But after this generation, human beings were usually born single. Dogon religion and Dogon philosophy both expressed a haunting sense of the original loss of twin-ness. The heavenly Powers themselves were dual, and in their Earthly manifestations they constantly intervened in pairs …” ref

“The birth of human twins was celebrated in the Dogon culture in Griaule’s day because it recalled the “fabulous past, when all beings came into existence in twos, symbols of the balance between humans and the divine”. According to Griaule, the celebration of twin-births was a cult that extended all over Africa. Today, a significant minority of the Dogon practice Islam. Another minority practices Christianity. Those who remain in their ethnic religion generally believe in the significance of the stars and the creator god, Amma, who created Earth and molded it into the shape of a woman, imbuing it with a divine feminine principle. Today, at least 35% of the Dogon practice Islam. Another 10% practices Christianity. Those who have accepted one of these two monotheistic religions have abandoned their worship of fetishes (idols) which had been prevalent amongst them. Dogon society is organized by a patrilineal kinship system. Each Dogon village, or enlarged family, is headed by one male elder. This chief head is the oldest living son of the ancestor of the local branch of the family.” ref

Each large district has a hogon, or spiritual leader, and there is a supreme hogon for the whole country. In his dress and behaviour the hogon symbolizes the Dogon myth of creation, to which the Dogon relate much of their social organization and culture. Their metaphysical system—which categorizes physical objects, personifies good and evil, and defines the spiritual principles of the Dogon personality—is more abstract than that of most other African peoples. Dogon religious life is heightened every 60 years by a ceremony called the sigui, which occurs when the star Sirius appears between two mountain peaks. Before the ceremony, young men go into seclusion for three months, during which they talk in a secret language. The general ceremony rests on the belief that some 3,000 years ago amphibious beings from Sirius visited the Dogon.” ref

Periyachi Amman (Amman meaning “mother”)

Periyachi (Tamil: பெரியாச்சி, IASTPeriyāchī) is a ferocious aspect of Parvati in Hinduism. She is also known as Periyachi Amman (Amman meaning “mother”) and sometimes called as Periyachi Kali Amman as she is associated with the goddess Kali. According to some accounts, the deity is a Guardian form of the Mother Goddess, who is prayed to in order to prevent misfortune during childbirth. Periyachi is said to be the protector of children, and is associated with childbirth and pregnancy, and is a deity revered in SingaporeThe CaribbeanMalaysia and Réunion Island.” ref

There was once a Pandya king named Vallalarajan Raja who evilly tormented his subjects. It was said that if his child touched the earth then this act would bring an end to the king. When the queen went into labour, the king could not find a mid-wife. He had to choose a woman named Periyachi. This stern woman successfully completed the delivery of the child and held it up so that it did not touch the earth. The king wanted to kill the newborn, in the intent to preserve his own life. The king did not know that Periyachi was the goddess Adi Parashakti, and so he was surprised when she took on her true form. Using her multiple arms, she trampled the king under her foot. Then, she killed the king using her weapons. At the same time, the queen also wanted to kill the baby, as she considered the child the death of her king, but Periyachi killed the queen, ripped out her stomach and ate her intestines, and saved the baby. Therefore, Periyachi was known as the protector of babies and expectant mothers. The baby is said to have grown up under Periyachi’s care and later became the Pandya king, He later built many temples and shrines for Periyachi Amman.” ref

Pangu

Pangu (Chinese盤古PAN-koo) is a primordial being and creation figure in Chinese mythology and Taoism. According to the legend, Pangu separated heaven and earth, and his body later became geographic features such as mountains and roaring water. The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was thought to be Xu Zheng during the Three Kingdoms period. However, his name was found in a tomb predating the Three Kingdoms period.” ref

“In the beginning, there was nothing and the universe was in a featureless, formless primordial state. This primordial state coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18,000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu emerged (or woke up) from the egg. Pangu inside the cosmic egg symbolizes Taiji. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant with horns on his head. Pangu began creating the world: he separated yin from yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the earth (murky yin) and the sky (clear yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the sky. With each day, the sky grew ten feet (3 meters) higher, the earth ten feet thicker, and Pangu ten feet taller. This task took yet another 18,000 years.” ref

“In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the Four Holy Beasts (四靈獸), the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon. In others, Pangu separated heaven and earth, which were already yin and yang, with his axe. After the 18,000 years had elapsed, Pangu died. His breath became the wind, mist and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the Sun; his right eye, the Moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, precious jewels; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals. n other versions of the story, his body turned into the mountains.” ref

“Three main elements describe the origin of the Pangu myth. The first is that the story is indigenous and was developed or transmitted through time to Xu Zheng. Senior Scholar Wei Juxian states that the Pangu story is derived from stories during the Western Zhou dynasty. He cites the story of Zhong () and Li () in the “Chuyu (楚語)” section of the ancient classics Guoyu. In it, King Zhao of Chu asked Guanshefu (觀射父) a question: “What did the ancient classic “Zhou Shu (周書)” mean by the sentence that Zhong and Li caused the heaven and earth to disconnect from each other?” The “Zhou Shu” sentence he refers to is about an earlier person, Luu Xing (呂刑), who converses with King Mu of Zhou. King Mu’s reign is much earlier and dates to about 1001 to 946 BC. In their conversation, they discuss a “disconnection” between heaven and earth.” ref

Derk Bodde linked the myth to the ancestral mythologies of the Miao people and Yao people in southern China. This is how Professor Qin Naichang (覃乃昌), head of the Guangxi Institute for Nationality Studies, reconstructs the true creation myth preceding the myth of Pangu. Note that it is not actually a creation myth:

A brother and his sister became the only survivors of the prehistoric Deluge by crouching in a gourd that floated on water. The two got married afterwards, and a mass of flesh in the shape of a whetstone was born. They chopped it and the pieces turned into large crowds of people, who began to reproduce again. The couple were named ‘Pan’ and ‘Gou’ in the Zhuang ethnic language, which stand for whetstone and gourd respectively.” ref

“19th-century comparative religion scholar Paul Carus writes:

P’an-Gu: The basic idea of the yih philosophy was so convincing that it almost obliterated the Taoist cosmology of P’an-Ku who is said to have chiseled the world out of the rocks of eternity. Though the legend is not held in high honor by the literati, it contains some features of interest which have not as yet been pointed out and deserve at least an incidental comment.

P’an-Gu is written in two ways: one means in literal translations, “basin ancient”, the other “basin solid”. Both are homophones, i.e., they are pronounced the same way; and the former may be preferred as the original and correct spelling. Obviously the name means “aboriginal abyss,” or in the terser German, Urgrund, and we have reason to believe it to be a translation of the Babylonian Tiamat, “the Deep.”

The Chinese legend tells us that P’an-Ku’s bones changed to rocks; his flesh to earth; his marrow, teeth and nails to metals; his hair to herbs and trees; his veins to rivers; his breath to wind; and his four limbs became pillars marking the four corners of the world, which is a Chinese version not only of the Norse myth of the Giant Ymir, but also of the Babylonian story of Tiamat.

Illustrations of P’an-Ku represent him in the company of supernatural animals that symbolize old age or immortality, viz., the tortoise and the crane; sometimes also the dragon, the emblem of power, and the phoenix, the emblem of bliss.

When the earth had thus been shaped from the body of P’an-Ku, we are told that three great rivers successively governed the world: first the celestial, then the terrestrial, and finally the human sovereign. They were followed by Yung-Ch’eng and Sui -Jen (i.e., fire-man) the later being the Chinese Prometheus, who brought the fire down from heaven and taught man its various uses.

The Prometheus myth is not indigenous to Greece, where it received the artistically classical form under which it is best known to us. The name, which by an ingenious afterthought is explained as “the fore thinker,” is originally the Sanskrit pramantha and means “twirler” or “fire-stick,” being the rod of hard wood which produced fire by rapid rotation in a piece of soft wood.

We cannot deny that the myth must have been known also in Mesopotamia, the main center of civilization between India and Greece, and it becomes probable that the figure Sui-Jen has been derived from the same prototype as the Greek Prometheus.” ref

“The missionary and translator James Legge discusses Pangu:

P’an-ku is spoken of by the common people as “the first man, who opened up heaven and earth.” It has been said to me in “pidgin” English that “he is all the same your Adam”; and in Taoist picture books I have seen him as a shaggy, dwarfish, Hercules, developing from a bear rather than an ape, and wielding an immense hammer and chisel with which he is breaking the chaotic rocks.” ref

 Chinese creation myth: The Pangu myth appears to have been preceded in ancient Chinese literature by the existence of Shangdi or Taiyi (of the Taiyi Shengshui). Other Chinese myths, such as those of Nüwa and the Jade Emperor, try to explain how people were created and do not necessarily explain the creation of the world. There are many variations of these myths. According to Bouyei mythology, after Pangu became an expert in rice farming after creating the world, he married the daughter of the Dragon King, and their union gave rise to the Buyei people. This is celebrated by the Bouyei people on June 6, as a holiday.” ref

“The daughter of the Dragon King and Pangu had a son named Xinheng (新横). When Xinheng disrespected his mother, she returned to heaven and never came down, despite the repeated pleas of her husband and son. Pangu was forced to remarry and eventually died on the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar. Xinheng’s stepmother treated him badly and almost killed him. When Xinheng threatened to destroy her rice harvest, she realized her mistake. She made peace with him and they went on to pay their respects to Pangu annually on the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar. This day became an important traditional Buyei holiday for ancestral worship. This legend of creation is one of the main characteristics that distinguishes the Buyei from the Zhuang.” ref

“Pangu is worshipped at a number of shrines in contemporary China, usually with Taoist symbols, such as the Bagua. The Pangu King Temple (盤古皇廟 or 盘古皇庙) built in 1809 is located in Guangdong Province, northwest Huadu District (west of G106 / north of S118), north of Shiling Town at the foot of the Pangu King Mountain. The Huadu District is located north of Guangzhou to the west of the Baiyun International Airport. The term for the primordial supercontinent pangea is translated as Pangu in Chinese, referring to the creation myth.” ref

Ogdoad Egyptian Deities

These were four frog gods and four snake goddesses of chaos. Together they represented balance in infinity. Their names were Nun and Naunet (water), Amun and Amaunet (invisibility), Heh and Hauhet (infinity) and Kek and Kauket (darkness). In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad are a group of eight deities (divine beings) worshipped in Hermopolis. The gods of the Ogdoad were mostly seen as humans with the heads of animals, or just depicted as snakes and frogs. They were arranged in four male-female pairs, with the males associated with frogs, and the females with snakes. Their story is part of the Egyptian creation myth.” ref

“The Egyptians believed that before the world was formed, there was a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos. In this chaos lived the Ogdoad of Khmunu (Hermopolis). These were four frog gods and four snake goddesses of chaos. Together they represented balance in infinity. Their names were Nun and Naunet (water), Amun and Amaunet (invisibility), Heh and Hauhet (infinity) and Kek and Kauket (darkness). The chaos existed without the light, and thus Kek and Kauket came to represent this darkness. They also symbolized obscurity, the kind of obscurity that went with darkness, and night. The Ogdoad were the original great gods of Iunu (On, Heliopolis) where they were thought to have helped with creation, then died and retired to the land of the dead where they continued to make the Nile River flow and the sun rise every day.” ref

Prajapati creator-god Brahma

Prajapati (Sanskrit: प्रजापति, lit.‘Lord of creation’, IAST: Prajāpati) is a Vedic deity of Hinduism. In later literature, Prajapati is identified with the creator-god Brahma, but the term also connotes many different gods depending on the Hindu scriptures, ranging from being the creator god Brahma to being the same as the following: Vishvakarma, Agni, Indra, Daksha, and many others, reflecting the diverse Hindu cosmology. In classical and medieval era literature, Prajapati is equated to the metaphysical concept called Brahman as Prajapati-Brahman (Svayambhu Brahman), or alternatively Brahman is described as one who existed before Prajapati.” ref

Prajapati (Sanskritप्रजापति) is a compound of “praja” (creation, procreative powers) and “pati” (lord, master). The term means “lord of creatures”, or “lord of all born beings”. In the later Vedic texts, Prajapati is a distinct Vedic deity, but whose significance diminishes. Later, the term is synonymous with other gods, particularly Brahma. Still later, the term evolves to mean any divine, semi-divine or human sages who create something new. Prajapati is described in many ways and inconsistently in Hindu texts, both in the Vedas and in the post-Vedic texts. These range from being the creator god Brahma to being same as one of the following: AgniIndraVishvakarmaDaksha and many others.” ref

“The origins of Prajapati are unclear. He appears late in the Vedic layer of texts, and the hymns that mention him provide different cosmological theories in different chapters. He is missing from the Samhita layer of Vedic literature, conceived in the Brahmana layer, states Jan Gonda. Prajapati is younger than Savitr, and the word was originally an epithet for the sun. His profile gradually rises in the Vedas, peaking within the Brahmanas. Scholars such as Renou, Keith and Bhattacharji posit Prajapati originated as an abstract or semi-abstract deity in the later Vedic milieu as speculations evolved from the archaic to more learned speculations.” ref

Similarity with other Indo-European deities

“A possible connection between Prajapati (and related figures in Hindu mythology) and Protogonos, (Ancient Greek: Πρωτογόνος, literally “first-born”) of the Greek Orphic tradition has been proposed:

Protogonos is the Orphic mythology equivalent of the Vedic Prajapati in several ways: he is the first god born from a cosmic egg, he is the creator of the universe, and in the figure of Dionysus—a direct descendant of Protogonos—worshippers participate in his death, and rebirth — Kate Alsobrook, The Beginning of Time: Vedic and Orphic Theogonies and Poetics” ref

“According to Robert Graves, the name of /PRA-JĀ[N]-pati/ (‘progeny-potentate’) is etymologically equivalent to that of the oracular god Phanes at Colophon (according to Makrobios), namely /prōtogonos/. The cosmic egg concept linked to Prajapati and Protogonos is common in many parts of the world, states David Leeming, which appears in later Orphic cult in Greece. His role varies within the Vedic texts such as being one who created heaven and earth, all of water and beings, the chief, the father of gods, the creator of devas and asuras the cosmic egg and the Purusha. His role peaked in the Brahmanas layer of Vedic texts, then declined to being a group of helpers in the creation process. In some Brahmana texts, his role remains ambiguous since he co-creates with the creator goddess Vāc.” ref

“In the Rigveda, Prajapati appears as an epithet for Savitr, Soma, Agni and Indra, who are all praised as equal, same and lord of creatures. Elsewhere, in hymn 10.121 of the Rigveda, is described Hiranyagarbha (golden embryo) that was born from the waters containing everything, which produced Prajapati. It then created manas (mind), kama (desire) and tapas (heat). However this Prajapati is a metaphor, one of many Hindu cosmology theories, and there is no supreme deity in the Rigveda. One of the striking features about the Hindu Prajapati myths, states Jan Gonda, is the idea that work of creation is a gradual process, completed in stages of trial and improvement.” ref

“In the Shatapatha Brahmana, embedded inside the Yajurveda, Prajapati emanated from Purusha (cosmic spirit) and Prajapati co-creates the world with Vāc It also includes the “golden cosmic egg” mythology, wherein Prajapati is stated to be born from a golden egg in primeval sea after the egg was incubated for a year. His sounds became the sky, the earth and the seasons. When he inhaled, he created the devas, fire, and light. When he exhaled, he created the asuras, and darkness. Then, together with Vāc , he created all beings and time. In Chapter 10 of the Shatapatha Brahmana, as well as chapter 13 of Pancavimsa Brahmana, is presented another myth wherein he, Prajapati is a mother, who becomes self-pregnant with all living creatures self-generated, then Mrtyu seizes these beings within his/her womb, but because these beings are part of the eternal Prajapati they desire to live long like him.” ref

“The Aitareya Brahmana offers a different myth, wherein Prajapati, having created the gods, turns into a stag and approaches his daughter Ushas who was in the form of a doe, to produce other earthly beings. The gods were horrified by the incest, and joined forces to produce the angry destructive Rudra to punish Prajapati for “doing what is not done”. Prajapati was killed by Rudra. The Kausitaki Brahmana tells another myth, wherein Prajapati created Agni, Surya, Chandra, Vayu, Ushas and all deities released their energies and created the universe.” ref

“In section 2.266 of Jaiminiya Brahmana, Prajapati is presented as a spiritual teacher. His student Varuna lives with him for 100 years, studying the art and duties of being the “father-like king of gods”. Their creative role varies. Pulaha, for example, is the Mānasaputra of Brahma and Sarasvati is a great rishi. As one of the Prajapatis, he creates animals and plants. Hindu temples in Bali Indonesia called Pura Prajapati, also called Pura Mrajapati, are common. They are most associated with funeral rituals and the Ngaben (cremation) ceremony for the dead.” ref

“Prajapati appears in early Upanishads, among the most influential texts in Hinduism. He is described in the Upanishads in diverse ways. For example, in different Upanishads, he is presented as the personification of creative power after Brahman, the same as the wandering eternal soul, as symbolism for unmanifest obscure first born, as manifest procreative sexual powers, the knower particularly of Atman (soul, self), and a spiritual teacher that is within each person.” ref 

“The Chandogya Upanishad, as an illustration, presents him as follows:

The self (atman) that is free from evils, free from old age and death, free from sorrow, free from hunger and thirst; the self whose desires and intentions are real – that is the self that you should try to discover, that is the self that you should seek to perceive. When someone discovers that self and perceives it, he obtains all the worlds, and all his desires are fulfilled, so said Prajapati. — Chandogya Upanishad 8.7.1, Translator: Patrick Olivelleref

“In Chandogya Upanishad 1.2.1, Prajapati appears as the creator of all devas and asuras. “The gods and goddesses and the demons are both children of Prajapati, yet they fought among themselves.” (Sanskrit: देवासुरा ह वै यत्र संयेतिरे उभये प्राजापत्यास्तद्ध, IAST: devāsurā ha vai yatra saṃyetire ubhaye prājāpatyāstaddha). In the Mahabharata, Brahma is declared to be a Prajapati who creates many males and females, and imbues them with desire and anger, the former to drive them into reproducing themselves and the latter to prevent them from being like gods. Other chapters of the epics and Puranas declare Vishnu or Shiva to be Prajapati.” ref

“The Bhagavad Gita uses the epithet Prajapati to describe Krishna, along with many other epithets. The Grhyasutras include Prajapati as among the deities invoked during wedding ceremonies and prayed to for blessings of prosperous progeny, and harmony between husband and wife. Prajapati is identified with the personifications of Time, Fire, the Sun, etc. He is also identified with various mythical progenitors, especially (Manusmriti 1.34) the ten lords created beings first created by Brahma: Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasishtha, Daksha, Bhrigu and Narada.” ref

“In the Puranas, there are groups of Prajapatis called Prajapatayah who were rishis (sages) from whom all of the world is created, followed by a Prajapatis list that widely varies in number and name between different texts. According to George Williams, the inconsistent, varying and evolving Prajapati concept in Hindu mythology reflects the diverse Hindu cosmology. The Mahabharata and the genre of Puranas call various gods and sages as Prajapati. Some illustrations, states Roshen Dalal, include Agni, Bharata, Shashabindu, Shukra, Havirdhaman, Indra, Kapila, Kshupa, Prithu, Chandra, Svishtakrita, Tvashtr, Vishvakarma and Virana. In the medieval era texts of Hinduism, Prajapati refers to legendary agents of creation, working as gods or sages, who appear in every cycle of creation-maintenance-destruction (manvantaras). Their numbers vary between seven, ten, sixteen or twenty-one.” ref 

Phanes

“In Orphic cosmogony Phanes /ˈfeɪˌniːz/ (Ancient Greek: Φάνης, romanizedPhánēs, genitive Φάνητος) or Protogonos /proʊˈtɒɡənəs/ (Ancient Greek: Πρωτογόνος, romanizedPrōtogónoslit. ’Firstborn’) is a primeval deity who was born from the cosmic egg at the beginning of creation. He is referred by various names, including Erikepaios “Power” /ˌɛrɪkəˈpiːəs/ (Ancient Greek: Ἠρικαπαῖος/Ἠρικεπαῖος, romanizedĒrikapaîos/Ērikepaîos) and Metis “Thought.” ref

“In Orphic cosmogony, Phanes is often equated with Eros or Mithras and has been depicted as a deity emerging from a cosmic egg entwined with a serpent: the Orphic egg. He had a helmet and had broad, golden wings. The Orphic cosmogony is quite unlike the creation sagas offered by Homer and Hesiod. Scholars have suggested that Orphism is “un-Greek”, even “Asiatic”, in conception because of its inherent dualism.” ref

“Chronos is said to have created the silver egg of the universe out of which burst the first-born deity Phanes, or Phanes-Dionysus. Phanes was a male god; in an original Orphic hymn he is named as “Lord Priapos“, although others consider him androgynous. Phanes was a deity of light and goodness, whose name meant “to bring light” or “to shine”; a first-born deity, he emerged from the abyss and gave birth to the universe. Nyx (Night) is variously said to be Phanes’ daughter or older wife; she is the counterpart of Phanes and is considered by Aristophanes the first deity. According to Aristophanes, in a play where Phanes is called “Eros”, Phanes was born from an egg created by Nyx and placed in the boundless lap of Erebus, after which he mates with Chaos and creates the flying creatures.” ref

“In Orphic literature, Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the world egg of Chronos and Ananke “Necessity, Fate” or Nyx in the form of a black bird and wind. His older wife Nyx called him Protogenos. As she created nighttime, Phanes created daytime and the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities. This new Orphic tradition states that Phanes passed the sceptre to Nyx; Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son OuranosCronus seized the sceptre from his father Ouranos; and finally, the sceptre held by Cronus was seized by Zeus, who holds it at present. Some Orphic myths suggest that Zeus intends to pass the sceptre to Dionysus.” ref

“According to the Athenian scholiast Damascius, Phanes was the first god “expressible and acceptable to human ears” (“πρώτης ητόν τι ἐχούσης καὶ σύμμετρον πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀκοάς”). Another Orphic hymn states:

You scattered the dark mist that lay before your eyes and, flapping your wings, you whirled about, and throughout this world you brought pure light. For this I call you Phanes, I call you Lord Priapos, I call you sparkling with bright eyes.” ref

“The Derveni papyrus refers to Phanes:

Of the First-born king, the reverend one; and upon him all the immortals grew, blessed gods and goddesses and rivers and lovely springs and everything else that had then been born; and he himself became the sole one. Protogonos is also romanized as Protogenus. In the Orphic Hymns, Phanes-Protogonus is identified with Dionysus, who is referred to under the names of Protogonus and Eubuleus several times in the collection.” ref

Hiranyagarbha

Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit: हिरण्यगर्भ, lit. ’golden womb’, IASTHirayagarbha, poetically translated as ‘universal womb’) is the source of the creation of the universe or the manifested cosmos in Vedic philosophy. It finds mention in one hymn of the Rigveda (RV 10.121), known as the Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta, suggesting a single creator deity (verse 8: yo deveṣv ādhi devā eka āsītGriffith: “He is the God of gods, and none beside him.”), identified in the hymn as Prajāpati. The concept of the “golden womb” is first mentioned in the Vishvakarma Sūkta (RV 10.82.5,6) which picturized the “primeval womb” as being rested set upon the navel of Vishvakarman. This imagery was later transferred to Vishnu and Surya.” ref

“The Upanishad calls it the Soul of the Universe or Brahman, and elaborates that Hiraṇyagarbha floated around in emptiness and the darkness of the non-existence for about a year, and then broke into two halves which formed the Svarga and the Pṛthvi. In classical Purāṇic Hinduism, Hiraṇyagarbha is the term used in the Vedanta for the “creator”. Hiraṇyagarbha is also Brahmā, so called because it is said he was born in a golden egg (Manu Smṛti 1.9), while the Mahābhārata calls it the Manifest. Some classical yoga traditions consider a person named Hiraṇyagarbha as the originator of yoga, though this may also be a name for Sage Kapila.” ref

“The Matsya Purāṇa (2.25–30) gives an account of initial creation. After Mahāprālaya, the great dissolution of the Universe, there was darkness everywhere. Everything was in a state of sleep. There was nothing, either moving or static. Then Svayambhu, self-manifested being arose, which is a form beyond senses. It created the primordial waters first and established the seed of creation into it. The seed turned into a golden womb, Hiraṇyagarbha. Then Svayambhu entered into that egg. The Nārāyaṇa Sūkta exclaims that everything that is, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by Nārāyaṇa within and without.” ref

“The Īśvara Upaniṣad says that the universe is pervaded by Īśvara (God), who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these. The Vedānta Sūtra further states that Brahman is That from Whom this Universe proceeds, in Whom it subsists, and to Whom, in the end, it returns. The Saṃkhya school holds that there are only two primary principles, Puruṣa and Prākṛti, and creation is only a manifestation or evolution of the constituents of Prākṛti due to the action of Puruṣa’s Consciousness.” ref

“The Bhagavata states that Nārāyaṇa alone was in the beginning, who was the pious of principles of creation, sustenance, and dissolution (also known as the Hindu Trinity of BrahmāViṣṇu and Shiva) – the Supreme Hari, multi-headed, multi-eyed, multi-footed, multi-armed, multi-limbed. This was the Supreme Seed of all creation, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest, larger than the largest, and more magnificent than even the best of all things, more powerful, than even the wind and all the gods, more resplendent than the Sun and the Moon, and more internal than even the mind and the intellect. He is the Creator, the Supreme. The term can also mean as He who, having become first the Creator, has come to be considered as the womb of all objects.” ref

“The Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta of the Rigveda declares that God manifested Himself in the beginning as the Creator of the Universe, encompassing all things, including everything within Himself, the collective totality, as it were, of the whole of creation, animating it as the Supreme Intelligence. In the Rigveda (RV 10.121) it is also mentioned that at the creation of the world the cosmic egg was separated in to two halves, one part became the sky and the other the sun.” ref

Alectryon (mythology)

Alectryon (from Ancient Greek: ἀλεκτρυών, Alektruṓn pronounced [alektryɔ̌ːn], literally meaning “rooster“) in Greek mythology, was a young soldier who was assigned by Ares, the god of war, to guard the outside of his bedroom door while the god took part in a love affair with the love goddess Aphrodite. Alectryon however failed at his job when he fell asleep, allowing Helios, the god of the Sun, to see the two lovers and alert Hephaestus, the husband of Aphrodite, who then caught the two lovers in the act. Enraged with Alectryon’s incompetence, Ares changed him into a rooster in anger. In his effort to reconcile, Alectryon never skipped on alarming people of Helios’s arrival thereafter.” ref

“The story is an aetiological myth that attempts to explain both the origin of the roosters and the reason why they crow each morning at dawn, warning of the Sun approaching. The myth is not mentioned by Homer, who first related the story of Ares and Aphrodite’s infidelity in his Odyssey, but rather it was interpolated later by various authors. According to Lucian, Alectryon was said to have been ‘an adolescent boy, beloved of Ares, who kept the god company at drinking parties, overindulged with him, and was his companion in lovemaking’. Ares, fearing that his affair with Aphrodite would be found out and then he would be told on by Helios, the sun god, especially because of his suspicions that he would tell Hephaestus, the god of forgery and the husband of Aphrodite, commanded Alectryon to stand outside his door and watch for Helios, the god of the sun who saw everything, or anyone else, to bear witness to his affair.” ref

“So Alectryon stood guard outside of his room as the two made love. But one day he fell asleep during watch duty and Helios discovered them the next morning. The sun-god then informed Hephaestus, to the choices of the two, who then created a net to ensnare and then shame them. Furious, Ares punished Alectryon by transforming him into a rooster which never forgets to announce the rising of the sun in the morning by its crowing, his own way of apologizing to Ares for falling asleep on the job, but this failed to make amends. According to Pausanias, the rooster is Helios’ sacred animal, always crowing when he is about to rise.” ref

“Both the words Alectryon and Halcyon might have been corrupted from Halaka, one of the old Persian appellations of the sun. In the ‘Vendidad‘ it is said that the sacred bird Parodars, called by men kahrkatak, raises its voice at the dawn; and in the Bundahishn, the sun is spoken of as Halaka, the cock, the enemy of darkness and evil, which flee before his crowing.” ref

First Egg?

“In the beginning, there was nothing, no earth, no matter, no wind, no life, no death, no time, not even void just The Word. But all of a sudden, from that nothing, came an egg, it is unknown whether it was an actual egg or just a metaphorical being called an egg, no one would be faulted for thinking that being or “egg” was the supreme being, even if only for that moment.” ref

“But eventually this egg hatched, and from that hatching came two of the most powerful beings within the multiverse; Ouroboros, the pre-existential embodiment of endlessness and infinity, and Vitriol, the pre-existential embodiment of hunger and oblivion. This made the once plane of non-existence into something, with God and other creator deities creating more and more until the universe as we know now exists.” ref

“Typically, the cosmic egg is described as a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by “hatching” from the egg, sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the world. The Cosmic Egg is a metaphor of potentiality. It is the pre-creation held within chaos, waiting to become the cosmos. This duality, then, sets up a conflict found throughout world mythology, the duality of chaos and order, good and evil, light and dark, love and hate.” ref

“Some depictions make it that cosmic egg is said to contain an unborn universe, which takes millions or billions of years to develop as a whole. The cosmic egg is made of up of the purest form of creation and life, enough to where it is believed to contain the essence of God. In fact, many have attempted to acquire the egg in order to attain omnipotent power. It is also shown that cosmic eggs divide from a branch universe, a branch of the Tree of Life which is its own coursing flow of time and space, undergoing a form of what is dubbed as “meiosis” where the yet-to-be-born universe develops much like how diploid cells undergo DNA replication.” ref

“This process is also applied to Primordial beings as it is believed that the egg contains an unborn Primordial being. This shows that the Primordials can simply procreate by acquiring the necessary equation of life in order to create a new Primordial. The egg can contain even more than one Primordial. Upon full development and maturity within the egg, the parent Primordial sends the egg off, where it will soon hatch and eventually allow the newly born Primordials to roam free and become aspects of that particular universe itself when they finish its design. Eggs symbolize the unification of two complementary principles (represented by the egg white and the yolk) from which life or existence, in its most fundamental philosophical sense, emerges.” ref

Bahuchara Mata (Hindi: बहुचरा माता, romanizedBahucharā MātāGujarati: બહુચર માતા, romanized: Bahuchara Mātā) is a Hindu goddess of chastity and fertility in her maiden aspect, of the incarnation of the Hinglaj. The goddess grants favours, especially to male children, and cures diseases. Like other divinities in Gujarat and Rajasthan, Bahuchara is of Charan an origin. She is also considered the patroness of the hijra community. Her primary temple is located in Becharaji town in Mehsana district of GujaratIndia.” ref

“Bahuchara was born in the Detha clan of Maru-Charanas in Ujala (Ujlan) village in present-day Jaisalmer district. Her father was Bapaldan Detha of Kharoda (Umerkot) while her mother Deval was from Ujlan. As per Gadhavi Samarthdan Mahiya, she lived around 1309 CE. Bahuchara was one of the eight sisters, thus named: Bahucarā, Būṭa, Balāla, Vīru, Hīru, Rāmeśvarī, Khetū, Pātū. Her mother Deval is herself considered a sagat and worshipped as a patron goddess by Detha Charanas and Sodha Rajputs.” ref

“Her father Bapaldan was a renowned poet who obtained a jagir in sasan in Saurashtra and founded Bapalka. After Deval’s passing in Kharoda, he sent his servants to bring Bahuchara, But, and Balal. While on the way, their caravan was attacked by Bapiya, a koli bandit, at Shankhalpur or Shakatpur in the Chunval region. Enraged at the attack, Bahuchara and her sisters proceeded to commit trāgā, a Chāraṇa practice of suicide by ritual mutilation, and thus cursing Bapiya to lose his manhood and become a eunuch. Bapiya begged to be forgiven, but the curse called through trāgā could not be recalled. He went down on his knees and said beseechingly, “It was not my fault. I lived out of robbery, but I never targeted Brahman and Chāraṇa. I unfortunately happened to target Chāraṇa’s carriage without knowing it.” ref

“Showing mercy, Bahuchara ordered him to build a shrine to her and worship her at the place, and proclaimed if a “naturally emasculated man” wearing women’s clothing worships her, then they would achieve her blessings and find a place in her abode after death. Bapiya built her shrine under a varakhada tree in Shankhalpur. Thus, Bahuchara came to be worshipped in the Chunwal town, now known as Becharaji; But Bhavani at Arnej, near Kot; and Balal Devi at Bakulkoo, near Sihor.” ref

“Bahuchara Mata is shown as a woman who carries a sword on her bottom left, a text of scriptures on her top left, the abhayamudra (“showering of blessings”) on her bottom right, and a trident on her top right. She is seated on a rooster, which symbolizes innocence. This iconography symbolizes a balance between violence (sword), creation trinities (trishul), knowledge (Shri scripture), and blessing (abhay hasta mudra) in Bahuchara Mata’s mythology. The sword signifies her self-sacrifice, the trishul represents the balance of creation principles, and the scripture reinforces her legitimacy in the Charana caste. Moreover, the pseudo-divine status of the Charana community meant that Bahuchara’s curse was legitimized by virtue of her being a Charani and not only, in fact, because she was a Goddess.” ref

Shinshi

Shinshi (神使, lit. ’spirit envoy’) are animals in Japanese mythology that are believed to be associated with a kami, a divine being. These animals are also known as kami no tsukai or tsukawashime. In ancient texts such as Kojiki and Nihongi, there are tales of special animals that acted on behalf of the kami to transmit the divine will or to bear oracles. Over time animals were connected to certain shrines. It became a custom to take care of these animals when they were found within the area of the shrine. Normally, each kami had only one animal familiar, but sometimes, there were some exceptions where a kami had more than one. Even some of the “Seven Lucky Gods” like Daikokuten (a mouse) and Benzaiten (a snake) had animal familiars.” ref

“Later the kami’s animal familiar became a common symbol of the kami itself. For example, the foxes at Inari shrines was worshipped as a manifestation of Inari Ōkami. These creatures were thought to be extraordinary spiritual beings, and this perception, combined with their relationship with the specific kami, likely gave rise to this phenomenon.” ref

“It probably originated in shamanic practices, where animals aided shamans in traveling to the spirit world. Different deities have different associated animals, such as foxes for Inari Okami and deer with Kasuga. Many tribal communities viewed their shaman’s familiar as an ancestor, and this may have influenced the connection between animals and spirits in Shinto. For example the Kamo clan believed that Yatagarasu was their ancestor Kamotaketsunumi no Mikoto.” ref

“At Ise Jingu, roosters roam around and are believed to be the assistants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. They wake her up every morning, according to folklore. Some experts believe that the rooster may be the bird depicted on the torii gate, a gate that marks the entrance to a shrine. They are believed to call up the dawn with their sounds. Inari Okami‘s fox messengers are considered to be her, although both Shinto and Buddhist priests discourage it. Rice food sake and other offerings are given to them for her.” ref

“World tree”, “Cosmic tree”, or “Eagle and Serpent Tree”

“The world tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European, Siberian, and Native American religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the terrestrial world, and, through its roots, the underworld. It may also be strongly connected to the motif of the tree of life, but it is the source of wisdom of the ages. Specific world trees include Égig érő fa in Hungarian mythologyAğaç Ana in Turkic mythologyKenac’ Car[1] in Armenian mythologyModun in Mongol mythologyYggdrasil in Norse mythologyIrminsul in Germanic mythology, the oak in SlavicFinnish and BalticJianmu (Chinese: 建木; pinyinjiànmù) in Chinese mythology, and in Hindu mythology the Ashvattha (a Ficus religiosa).” ref

“Scholarship states that many Eurasian mythologies share the motif of the “world tree”, “cosmic tree”, or “Eagle and Serpent Tree”. More specifically, it shows up in “Haitian, Finnish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Norse, Siberian and northern Asian Shamanic folklore.” The World Tree is often identified with the Tree of Life, and also fulfills the role of an axis mundi, that is, a centre or axis of the world. It is also located at the center of the world and represents order and harmony of the cosmos. According to Loreta Senkute, each part of the tree corresponds to one of the three spheres of the world (treetops – heavens; trunk – middle world or earth; roots – underworld) and is also associated with a classical element (top part – fire; middle part – earth, soil, ground; bottom part – water).” ref

“Its branches are said to reach the skies and its roots to connect the human or earthly world with an underworld or subterranean realm. Because of this, the tree was worshipped as a mediator between Heavens and Earth. On the treetops are located the luminaries (stars) and heavenly bodies, along with an eagle’s nest; several species of birds perch among its branches; humans and animals of every kind live under its branches, and near the root is the dwelling place of snakes and every sort of reptiles. ” ref

“A bird perches atop its foliage, “often …. a winged mythical creature” that represents a heavenly realm. The eagle seems to be the most frequent bird, fulfilling the role of a creator or weather deity. Its antipode is a snake or serpentine creature that crawls between the tree roots, being a “symbol of the underworld”. The imagery of the World Tree is sometimes associated with conferring immortality, either by a fruit that grows on it or by a springsource located nearby. As George Lechler also pointed out, in some descriptions this “water of life” may also flow from the roots of the tree. ” ref

“The World Tree has also been compared to a World Pillar that appears in other traditions and functions as separator between the earth and the skies, upholding the latter. Another representation akin to the World Tree is a separate World Mountain. However, in some stories, the world tree is located atop the world mountain, in a combination of both motifs. ” ref

“A conflict between a serpentine creature and a giant bird (an eagle) occurs in Eurasian mythologies: a hero kills the serpent that menaces a nest of little birds, and their mother repays the favor – a motif comparativist Julien d’Huy dates to the Paleolithic. A parallel story is attested in the traditions of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, where the thunderbird is slotted into the role of the giant bird whose nest is menaced by a “snake-like water monster. ” ref

“Romanian historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, in his monumental work Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, suggested that the world tree was an important element in shamanistic worldview. Also, according to him, “the giant bird … hatches shamans in the branches of the World Tree”. Likewise, Roald Knutsen indicates the presence of the motif in Altaic shamanism. Representations of the world tree are reported to be portrayed in drums used in Siberian shamanistic practices.” ref

“Some species of birds (eagleravencraneloon, and lark) are revered as mediators between worlds and also connected to the imagery of the world tree. Another line of scholarship points to a “recurring theme” of the owl as the mediator to the upper realm, and its counterpart, the snake, as the mediator to the lower regions of the cosmos. Researcher Kristen Pearson mentions Northern Eurasian and Central Asian traditions wherein the World Tree is also associated with the horse and with deer antlers (which might resemble tree branches). ” ref

“Mircea Eliade proposed that the typical imagery of the world tree (bird at the top, snake at the root) “is presumably of Oriental origin”. Likewise, Roald Knutsen indicates a possible origin of the motif in Central Asia and later diffusion into other regions and cultures.

  • Among Indigenous Mesoamerican cultures, the concept of “world trees” is a prevalent motif in Mesoamerican cosmologies and iconography. The Temple of the Cross Complex at Palenque contains one of the most studied examples of the world tree in architectural motifs of all Mayan ruins. World trees embodied the four cardinal directions, which represented also the fourfold nature of a central world tree, a symbolic axis mundi connecting the planes of the Underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial world.
  • Depictions of world trees, both in their directional and central aspects, are found in the art and traditions of cultures such as the MayaAztecIzapanMixtecOlmec, and others, dating to at least the Mid/Late Formative periods of Mesoamerican chronology. Among the Maya, the central world tree was conceived as, or represented by, a ceiba tree, called yax imix che (‘blue-green tree of abundance’) by the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel. The trunk of the tree could also be represented by an upright caiman, whose skin evokes the tree’s spiny trunk. These depictions could also show birds perched atop the trees.
  • A similarly named tree, yax cheel cab (‘first tree of the world’), was reported by 17th-century priest Andrés de Avendaño to have been worshipped by the Itzá Maya. However, scholarship suggests that this worship derives from some form of cultural interaction between “pre-Hispanic iconography and [millenary] practices” and European traditions brought by the Hispanic colonization.
  • Directional world trees are also associated with the four Yearbearers in Mesoamerican calendars, and the directional colors and deities. Mesoamerican codices which have this association outlined include the DresdenBorgia and Fejérváry-Mayer codices. It is supposed that Mesoamerican sites and ceremonial centers frequently had actual trees planted at each of the four cardinal directions, representing the quadripartite concept.
  • World trees are frequently depicted with birds in their branches, and their roots extending into earth or water (sometimes atop a “water-monster”, symbolic of the underworld).
  • The central world tree has also been interpreted as a representation of the band of the Milky Way.
  • Izapa Stela 5 contains a possible representation of a world tree.” ref

“A common theme in most indigenous cultures of the Americas is a concept of directionality (the horizontal and vertical planes), with the vertical dimension often being represented by a world tree. Some scholars have argued that the religious importance of the horizontal and vertical dimensions in many animist cultures may derive from the human body and the position it occupies in the world as it perceives the surrounding living world. Many Indigenous cultures of the Americas have similar cosmologies regarding the directionality and the world tree, however the type of tree representing the world tree depends on the surrounding environment. For many Indigenous American peoples located in more temperate regions for example, it is the spruce rather than the ceiba that is the world tree; however the idea of cosmic directions combined with a concept of a tree uniting the directional planes is similar. ” ref

“In 20th-century comparative mythology, the term axis mundi – also called the cosmic axisworld axisworld pillarcenter of the world, or world tree – has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing “the connection between Heaven and Earth” or the “higher and lower realms”. Mircea Eliade introduced the concept in the 1950s. Axis mundi closely relates to the mythological concept of the omphalos (navel) of the world or cosmos. Items adduced as examples of the axis mundi by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), a mountain, a column of smoke or fire, or a product of human manufacture (such as a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire).” ref

“Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagodatemple mountminaretchurch) or secular (obelisklighthouserocketskyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts. The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced “urban centers”. In Mircea Eliade‘s opinion: “Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a Centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.” ref

“Specific examples of cosmic mountains or centers include one from Egyptian texts described as providing support for the sky, Mount Mashu from the Epic of GilgameshAdam’s Peak which is a sacred mountain in Sri Lanka associated with Adam or Buddha in Islamic and Buddhist traditions respectively, Mount Qaf in other Islamic and Arabic cosmologies, the mountain Harā Bərəz in Zoroastrian cosmologyMount Meru in HinduJain, and Buddhist cosmologies, and Mecca as a cosmic center in Sufi cosmology (with minority traditions placing it as Medina or Jerusalem). ” ref

“Ancient symbols such as the axis mundi lie in a particular philosophical or metaphysical representation of a common and culturally shared philosophical concept, which is that of a natural reflection of the macrocosm (or existence at grand scale) in the microcosm (which consists of either an individual, community, or local environment that shares the same principles and structures as the macrocosm). In this metaphysical representation of the universe, mankind is placed into an existence that serves as a microcosm of the universe or the entire cosmic existence, and who – in order to achieve higher states of existence or liberation into the macrocosm – must gain necessary insights into universal principles that can be represented by his life or environment in the microcosm.” ref

“In many religious and philosophical traditions around the world, mankind is seen as a sort of bridge between either: two worlds, the earthly and the heavenly (as in Hindu, and Taoist philosophical and theological systems); or three worlds, namely the earthly, heavenly, and the “sub-earthly” or “infra-earthly” (e.g., the underworld, as in the Ancient Greek, Incan, Mayan, and Ancient Egyptian religious systems). Spanning these philosophical systems is the belief that man traverses a sort of axis, or path, which can lead from man’s current central position in the intermediate realms into heavenly or sub-earthly realms. Thus, in this view, symbolic representations of a vertical axis represent a path of “ascent” or “descent” into other spiritual or material realms, and often capture a philosophy that considers human life to be a quest in which one develops insights or perfections in order to move beyond this current microcosmic realm and to engage with the grand macrocosmic order.” ref

“In other interpretations, an axis mundi is more broadly defined as a place of connection between heavenly and the earthly realms – often a mountain or other elevated site. Tall mountains are often regarded as sacred and some have shrines erected at the summit or base. Mount Kunlun fills a similar role in China. Mount Kailash is holy to Hinduism and several religions in Tibet. The Pitjantjatjara people in central Australia consider Uluru to be central to both their world and culture. The Teide volcano was for the Canarian aborigines (Guanches) a kind of axis mundi. In ancient Mesopotamia, the cultures of ancient Sumer and Babylon built tall platforms, or ziggurats, to elevate temples on the flat river plain.” ref

“Hindu temples in India are often situated on high mountains – e.g., AmarnathTirupatiVaishno Devi, etc. The pre-Columbian residents of Teotihuacán in Mexico erected huge pyramids, featuring staircases leading to heaven. These Amerindian temples were often placed on top of caves or subterranean springs, which were thought to be openings to the underworld. Jacob’s Ladder is an axis mundi image, as is the Temple Mount. For Christians, the Cross on Mount Calvary expresses this symbol. The Middle Kingdom, China, had a central mountain, Kunlun, known in Taoist literature as “the mountain at the middle of the world”. To “go into the mountains” meant to dedicate oneself to a spiritual life.” ref

“As the abstract concept of axis mundi is present in many cultural traditions and religious beliefs, it can be thought to exist in any number of locales at once. Mount Hermon was regarded as the axis mundi in Canaanite tradition, from where the sons of God are introduced descending in 1 Enoch 6:6. The ancient Armenians had a number of holy sites, the most important of which was Mount Ararat, which was thought to be the home of the gods as well as the center of the universe. Likewise, the ancient Greeks regarded several sites as places of Earth’s omphalos (navel) stone, notably the oracle at Delphi, while still maintaining a belief in a cosmic world tree and in Mount Olympus as the abode of the gods.” ref

“Judaism has the Temple Mount; Christianity has the Mount of Olives and Calvary; and Islam has the Ka’aba (said to be the first building on Earth), as well as the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock). In HinduismMount Kailash is identified with the mythical Mount Meru and regarded as the home of Shiva; in Vajrayana Buddhism, Mount Kailash is recognized as the most sacred place where all the dragon currents converge and is regarded as the gateway to Shambhala. In Shinto, the Ise Shrine is the omphalos.” ref

“Plants often serve as images of the axis mundi. The image of the Cosmic Tree provides an axis symbol that unites three planes: sky (branches), earth (trunk), and underworld (roots). In some Pacific Island cultures, the banyan tree – of which the Bodhi tree is of the Sacred Fig variety – is the abode of ancestor spirits. In Hindu religion, the banyan tree is considered sacred and is called ashwath vriksha (“Of all trees I am the banyan tree” – Bhagavad Gita). It represents eternal life because of its seemingly ever-expanding branches. The Bodhi tree is also the name given to the tree under which Gautama Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, sat on the night he attained enlightenment. The Mesoamerican world tree connects the planes of the underworld and the sky with that of the terrestrial realm.” ref

“The Yggdrasil, or World Ash, functions in much the same way in Norse mythology; it is the site where Odin found enlightenment. Other examples include Jievaras in Lithuanian mythology and Thor’s Oak in the myths of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples. The Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis present two aspects of the same image. Each is said to stand at the center of the paradise garden from which four rivers flow to nourish the whole world. Each tree confers a boon. Bamboo, the plant from which Asian calligraphy pens are made, represents knowledge and is regularly found on Asian college campuses. The Christmas tree, which can be traced in its origins back to pre-Christian European beliefs, represents an axis mundi. In Yoruba religionoil palm is the axis mundi (though not necessarily a “world tree”) that Ọrunmila climbs to alternate between heaven and earth. ” ref

“Sacred places can constitute world centers (omphaloi), with an altar or place of prayer as the axis. Altars, incense sticks, candles, and torches form the axis by sending a column of smoke, and prayer, toward heaven. It has been suggested by Romanian religious historian Mircea Eliade that architecture of sacred places often reflects this role: “Every temple or palace – and by extension, every sacred city or royal residence – is a Sacred Mountain, thus becoming a Centre.” ref

Pagoda structures in Asian temples take the form of a stairway linking earth and heaven. A steeple in a church or a minaret in a mosque also serve as connections of earth and heaven. Structures such as the maypole, derived from the Saxons‘ Irminsul, and the totem pole among indigenous peoples of the Americas also represent world axes. The calumet, or sacred pipe, represents a column of smoke (the soul) rising from a world center. A mandala creates a world center within the boundaries of its two-dimensional space analogous to that created in three-dimensional space by a shrine. ” ref

Kagu-tsuchi

Kagutsuchi (カグツチ; Old JapaneseKagututi), also known as Hi-no-Kagutsuchi or Homusubi among other names, is the kami of fire in classical Japanese mythology. Kagutsuchi’s birth burned his mother Izanami, causing her death. His father Izanagi, in his grief, beheaded Kagutsuchi with his sword, Ame no Ohabari (天之尾羽張), and cut his body into eight pieces, which became eight volcanoes. Kagutsuchi’s corpse created numerous deities, which typically includes WatatsumiKuraokamiTakemikazuchiFutsunushiAmatsu-Mikaboshi, and Ōyamatsumi.” ref

Kagutsuchi’s birth, in Japanese mythology, comes at the end of the creation of the world and marks the beginning of death. In the Engishiki, a source which contains the myth, Izanami, in her death throes, bears the water goddess Mizuhanome, instructing her to pacify Kagu-tsuchi if he should become violent. This story also contains references to traditional fire-fighting tools: gourds for carrying water and wet clay and water reeds for smothering fires. The name Kagutsuchi was originally a compound phrase, consisting of kagu, an Old Japanese root verb meaning “to shine”; tsu, the Old Japanese possessive particle; and chi, an Old Japanese root meaning “force, power.” ref

 

Benzaiten

Goddess ofuujj5 all that flows: water, music, arts, love, wisdom, wealth, fortune
Member of the Seven Lucky Gods

Benzaiten (shinjitai: 弁才天 or 弁財天; kyūjitai: 辯才天, 辨才天, or 辨財天, lit. “goddess of eloquence”, Benten, Chinese: 辯才天, Biancaitian) is an East Asian Buddhist goddess (technically a Dharmapala, “Dharma protector”) who originated mainly from the Hindu Indian Saraswati, goddess of speech, the arts, and learning. Worship of Benzaiten arrived in Japan during the sixth through eighth centuries, mainly via Classical Chinese translations of the Golden Light Sutra (Sanskrit: Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra), which has a section devoted to her. Benzaiten was also adopted into Shinto religion, and there are several Shinto shrines dedicated to her.” ref

“While Benzaiten retains many of the Indic attributes of Saraswati (as patron of music, the arts, eloquence, knowledge), she also has many unique aspects, roles and functions which never applied to the Indian goddess. As such, Benzaiten is now also associated with dragons, snakes, local Japanese deities, wealth, fortune, protection from disease and danger, and the protection of the state.” ref

“Saraswati (Sanskrit: Sarasvatī; Pali: Sarassatī) was originally in the Rigveda a river goddess, the deification of the Sarasvati River. She was identified with Vach (Skt. Vāc), the Vedic goddess of speech, and from there became considered to be the patron of music and the arts, knowledge, and learning. In addition to their association with eloquence and speech, both Saraswati and Vach also show warrior traits: Saraswati for instance was called the “Vritra-slayer” (Vṛtraghnī) in the Rigveda (6.61.7) and was associated with the Maruts. She was also associated with the Ashvins, with whom she collaborates to bolster Indra‘s strength by telling him how to kill the asura Namuchi. In a hymn in Book 10 of the Rigveda (10.125.6), Vach declares: “I bend the bow for Rudra that his arrow may strike and slay the hater of devotion. I rouse and order battle for the people, and I have penetrated Earth and Heaven.” ref

“Saraswati, like many other Hindu deities, was eventually adopted into Buddhism, figuring mainly in Mahayana texts. In the 15th chapter of Yijing‘s translation of the Sutra of Golden Light (Suvarṇaprabhāsa Sūtra) into Classical Chinese (Taishō Tripitaka 885), Saraswati (大辯才天女, pinyin: Dàbiàncáitiānnǚ; Japanese: Daibenzaitennyo, lit. “great goddess of eloquence”) appears before the Buddha‘s assembly and vows to protect all those who put their faith in the sutra, recite it, or copy it. In addition, she promises to increase the intelligence of those who recite the sutra so that they will be able to understand and remember various dharanis.

She then teaches the assembly various mantras with which one can heal all illnesses and escape all manner of misfortune. One of the Buddha’s disciples, the brahmin Kaundinya, then praises Saraswati, comparing her to Vishnu’s consort Narayani (Lakshmi) and declaring that she can manifest herself not only as a benevolent deity, but also as Yami, the sister of Yama. He then describes her eight-armed form with all its attributes — bow, arrow, sword, spear, axe, vajra, iron wheel, and noose. The poem describes Saraswati as one who “has sovereignty in the world”, as one who is “good fortune, success, and peace of mind”. It also states that she fights in battlefields and is always victorious.” ref

“One key concern of the Golden Light Sutra is the protection of the state, and as such, Saraswati here also takes on some form of a warrior goddess, similar to Durga.[13] Bernard Faure also notes that the Vach already had martial attributes, which may have been retained in some form. Saraswati became the Chinese 辯才天 (Bencaitian) or “great eloquence deity” (大辯天). This became the Japanese 弁財天 (Benzaiten). In East Asian Buddhism, she is one of the Twenty-Four Protective Deities (Chinese: 二十四諸天; pinyin: Èrshísì Zhūtiān). She remained associated with wealth, music, and eloquence and also took on aspects of a fierce protector of the state (due to the influence of the Golden Light Sutra which promises to protect a country where the sutra is chanted).” ref

“During the medieval period onwards, Benzaiten came to be associated or even conflated with a number of Buddhist and local deities, including the goddess Kisshōten (the Buddhist version of the Hindu Lakshmi, whose role as goddess of fortune eventually became ascribed to Benzaiten in popular belief). As such, she was eventually also worshiped as a bestower of monetary fortune and became part of the set of popular deities known as the Seven Lucky Gods (shichifukujin).” ref

“Benzaiten is depicted a number of ways in Japanese art. She is often depicted holding a biwa (a traditional Japanese lute) similar to how Saraswati is depicted with a veena in Indian art, though she may also be portrayed wielding a sword and a wish-granting jewel (cintāmaṇi). An iconographic formula showing Benzaiten with eight arms holding a variety of weapons (based on the Golden Light Sutra) meanwhile is believed to derive from Durga’s iconography. As Uga Benzaiten, she may also be shown with Ugajin (a human-headed white snake) above her head. Lastly, she is also portrayed (albeit rarely) with the head of a snake or a dragon. It’s worth noting that Benzaiten’s worship also spread to Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, and she is still venerated in certain locations in Taiwan, such as the Xian Dong Yan temple in Keelung City.” ref

Syncretism with Shinto kami

“Due to her status as a water deity, Benzaiten was also linked with nāgas, dragons, and snakes. Over time, Benzaiten became identified with the Japanese snake kami Ugajin. She also became identified with the kami Ichikishima-hime. Benzaiten was also adopted as a female kami in Shinto, with the name Ichikishima-hime-no-mikoto (市杵島姫命). This kami is one of three kami believed to be daughters of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the ancestress of the imperial family. She is also believed by Tendai Buddhists to be the essence of the kami Ugajin, whose effigy she sometimes carries on her head together with a torii. As a consequence, she is sometimes also known as Uga (宇賀) Benzaiten or Uga Benten.” ref

“A torii (Japanese鳥居[to.ɾi.i]) is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred, and a spot where kami are welcomed and thought to travel through. The presence of a torii at the entrance is usually the simplest way to identify Shinto shrines, and a small torii icon represents them on Japanese road maps and on Google Maps.” ref

“The first appearance of torii gates in Japan can be reliably pinpointed to at least the mid-Heian period; they are mentioned in a text written in 922. The oldest existing stone torii was built in the 12th century and belongs to a Hachiman shrine in Yamagata Prefecture. The oldest existing wooden torii is a ryōbu torii (see description below) at Kubō Hachiman Shrine in Yamanashi Prefecture built in 1535.” ref

“Torii gates were traditionally made from wood or stone, but today they can be also made of reinforced concrete, stainless steel or other materials. They are usually either unpainted or painted vermilion with a black upper lintel. Shrines of Inari, the kami of fertility and industry, typically have many torii because those who have been successful in business often donate torii in gratitude. Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto has thousands of such torii, each bearing the donor’s name.” ref

“In the past torii must have been used also at the entrance of Buddhist temples. Even today, as prominent a temple as Osaka‘s Shitennō-ji, founded in 593 by Shōtoku Taishi and the oldest state-built Buddhist temple in the country (and world), has a torii straddling one of its entrances. (The original wooden torii burned in 1294 and was then replaced by one in stone.) Many Buddhist temples include one or more Shinto shrines dedicated to their tutelary kami (“Chinjusha“), and in that case a torii marks the shrine’s entrance. Benzaiten is a syncretic goddess derived from the Indian divinity Sarasvati, who unites elements of both Shinto and Buddhism.” ref

“For this reason halls dedicated to her can be found at both temples and shrines, and in either case in front of the hall stands a torii. The goddess herself is sometimes portrayed with a torii on her head. Finally, until the Meiji period (1868–1912) torii were routinely adorned with plaques carrying Buddhist sutras. Yamabushi, Japanese mountain ascetic hermits with a long tradition as mighty warriors endowed with supernatural powers, sometimes use as their symbol a torii. The torii is also sometimes used as a symbol of Japan in non-religious contexts. For example, it is the symbol of the Marine Corps Security Force Regiment and the 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division and of other US forces in Japan. It is also used as a fixture at the entrance of some Japantown communities, such as Liberdade in São Paulo.” ref

“The origins of the torii are unknown and there are several different theories on the subject, none of which has gained universal acceptance. Because the use of symbolic gates is widespread in Asia—such structures can be found for example in India, China, Thailand, Korea, and within Nicobarese and Shompen villages—many historians believe they may be an imported tradition. They may, for example, have originated in India from the torana gates in the monastery of Sanchi in central India. According to this theory, the torana was adopted by Shingon Buddhism founder Kūkai, who used it to demarcate the sacred space used for the homa ceremony. The hypothesis arose in the 19th and 20th centuries due to similarities in structure and name between the two gates. Linguistic and historical objections have now emerged, but no conclusion has yet been reached.” ref

“In Bangkok, Thailand, a Brahmin structure called Sao Ching Cha strongly resembles a torii. Functionally, however, it is very different as it is used as a swing. that was constructed in 1784 in front of the Devasathan shrine by King Rama I. During the reign of Rama II the swing ceremony was discontinued as the swing had become structurally damaged by lightning. Other theories claim torii may be related to the pailou of China. These structures however can assume a great variety of forms, only some of which actually somewhat resemble a torii. The same goes for Korea’s “hongsal-mun”. Unlike its Chinese counterpart, the hongsal-mun does not vary greatly in design and is always painted red, with “arrowsticks” located on the top of the structure (hence the name).” ref

“Various tentative etymologies of the word torii exist. According to one of them, the name derives from the term tōri-iru (通り入る, pass through and enter). Another hypothesis takes the name literally: the gate would originally have been some kind of bird perch. This is based on the religious use of bird perches in Asia, such as the Korean sotdae (솟대), which are poles with one or more wooden birds resting on their top. Commonly found in groups at the entrance of villages together with totem poles called jangseung, they are talismans which ward off evil spirits and bring the villagers good luck. “Bird perches” similar in form and function to the sotdae exist also in other shamanistic cultures in China, Mongolia and Siberia. Although they do not look like torii and serve a different function, these “bird perches” show how birds in several Asian cultures are believed to have magic or spiritual properties, and may therefore help explain the enigmatic literal meaning of the torii’s name (“bird perch”).” ref

“Poles believed to have supported wooden bird figures very similar to the sotdae have been found together with wooden birds, and are believed by some historians to have somehow evolved into today’s torii. Intriguingly, in both Korea and Japan single poles represent deities (kami in the case of Japan) and hashira (, pole) is the counter for kami. In Japan birds have also long had a connection with the dead, this may mean it was born in connection with some prehistorical funerary rite. Ancient Japanese texts like the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki for example mention how Yamato Takeru after his death became a white bird and in that form chose a place for his own burial.” ref 

“For this reason, his mausoleum was then called shiratori misasagi (白鳥陵, white bird grave). Many later texts also show some relationship between dead souls and white birds, a link common also in other cultures, shamanic like the Japanese. Bird motifs from the Yayoi and Kofun periods associating birds with the dead have also been found in several archeological sites. This relationship between birds and death would also explain why, in spite of their name, no visible trace of birds remains in today’s torii: birds were symbols of death, which in Shinto brings defilement (kegare).” ref

Finally, the possibility that torii are a Japanese invention cannot be discounted. The first torii could have evolved already with their present function through the following sequence of events:

  • Four posts were placed at the corners of a sacred area and connected with a rope, thus dividing sacred and mundane.
  • Two taller posts were then placed at the center of the most auspicious direction, to let the priest in.
  • A rope was tied from one post to the other to mark the border between the outside and the inside, the sacred and the mundane. This hypothetical stage corresponds to a type of torii in actual use, the so-called shime-torii (注連鳥居), an example of which can be seen in front of Ōmiwa Shrine‘s haiden in Nara (see also the photo in the gallery).
  • The rope was replaced by a lintel.
  • Because the gate was structurally weak, it was reinforced with a tie-beam, and what is today called shinmei torii (神明鳥居) or futabashira torii (二柱鳥居, two pillar torii) (see illustration at right) was born. This theory however does nothing to explain how the gates got their name.” ref

“The shinmei torii, whose structure agrees with the historians’ reconstruction, consists of just four unbarked and unpainted logs: two vertical pillars (hashira ()) topped by a horizontal lintel (kasagi (笠木)) and kept together by a tie-beam (nuki)). The pillars may have a slight inward inclination called uchikorobi (内転び) or just korobi (転び). Its parts are always straight:

  • Torii may be unpainted or painted vermilion and black. The color black is limited to the kasagi and the nemaki (根巻, see illustration). Very rarely torii can be found also in other colors. Kamakura‘s Kamakura-gū for example has a white and red one.
  • The kasagi may be reinforced underneath by a second horizontal lintel called shimaki or shimagi (島木).
  • Kasagi and the shimaki may have an upward curve called sorimashi (反り増し).
  • The nuki is often held in place by wedges (kusabi ()). The kusabi in many cases are purely ornamental.
  • At the center of the nuki there may be a supporting strut called gakuzuka (額束), sometimes covered by a tablet carrying the name of the shrine (see photo in the gallery).
  • The pillars often rest on a white stone ring called kamebara (亀腹, turtle belly) or daiishi (台石, base stone). The stone is sometimes replaced by a decorative black sleeve called nemaki (根巻, root sleeve).
  • At the top of the pillars there may be a decorative ring called daiwa (台輪, architrave).
  • The gate has a purely symbolic function and therefore there usually are no doors or board fences, but exceptions exist, as for example in the case of Ōmiwa Shrine‘s triple-arched torii (miwa torii).” ref

“Structurally, the simplest is the shime torii or chūren torii (注連鳥居) (see illustration below). Probably one of the oldest types of torii, it consists of two posts with a sacred rope called shimenawa tied between them. All other torii can be divided in two families, the shinmei family (神明系) and the myōjin family (明神系). Torii of the first have only straight parts, the second have both straight and curved parts. The shinmei torii and its variants are characterized by straight upper lintels.” ref

Bīja and mantra

“In Japan, the places of worship dedicated to Benzaiten are often called “辯天堂” (benten-dō) or benten-sha (弁天社). Shinto shrines dedicated to her are also called by this name. Entire Shinto shrines can be dedicated to her, as in the case of Kamakura’s Zeniarai Benzaiten Ugafuku Shrine or Nagoya’s Kawahara Shrine. Benzaiten temples or shrines places are commonly located near bodies of water like rivers, ponds, or springs due to her association with water. Benzaiten’s worship became integrated with native Japanese beliefs, including serpent and dragon symbolism, as she was originally a river goddess.” ref

“Benzaiten is enshrined on numerous locations throughout Japan; for example, the Enoshima Island in Sagami Bay, the Chikubu Island in Lake Biwa and the Itsukushima Island in Seto Inland Sea (Japan’s Three Great Benzaiten Shrines); and she and a five-headed dragon are the central figures of the Enoshima Engi, a history of the shrines on Enoshima written by the Japanese Buddhist monk Kōkei (皇慶) in 1047. According to Kōkei, Benzaiten is the third daughter of the dragon-king of Munetsuchi (無熱池; literally “lake without heat”), known in Sanskrit as Anavatapta, the lake lying at the center of the world according to an ancient Buddhist cosmological view. Ryōhō-ji, also known as the “Moe Temple”, enshrines Benzaiten. It is famous for anime style depictions of Buddhist deities.” ref

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The Origins of Torii Gates

What is a torii? 

“The word “torii” is the combination of two kanji: 鳥居. 鳥 means bird, and 居 which means existing. If you travel to Japan, you will inevitably see at least one. Indeed, Torii are the gate of every Shinto shrine. These gateways are made from wood and symbolize the barrier between the profane world and the deities’ world. When you go through a torii gate, be careful to always walk on the sides and never in the middle, which is the path reserved for deities.” ref

“When you hear the word “shrine”, the first image that comes to your mind is probably the “torii” gate. It is probably the same for us Japanese. It’s one of the icons that easily reminds us of Japan, isn’t it? The “torii” gate is the entrance to the Shinto shrine, and represents the boundary between human society and the sacred realm. As a matter of fact, we don’t know the detailed origins because there is nothing definite… There are a lot of theories. To name a few representative theories… This is one of the episodes in Japanese mythology. When Amaterasu-Omikami, one of the gods of Japan, was locked up in Amanoiwato (it is rock door), the other gods crowed chickens to make her open the door. One theory is that “Torii” is modeled after the perch where the chicken used to perch.” ref

“The other theory is that the name “Torii” came from the meaning of the word “Tohriiru(passing through)”. Even though it is very familiar to Japanese people, there are still many unknowns about it. Well, it’s one of those cultures that has been handed down for such a long-ago time. “Torii” can be classified into several categories according to the characteristics of each part. Originally, the shape of the “torii” was determined by the lineage or character of the deity being enshrined. However, due to the influence of various architectural styles, including Buddhist architecture introduced from the continent, the architectural styles of shrines have also diversified. That is why today, except for a few “shrines”, the shape is not so strictly defined.” ref

“Shinto shrines are easy to recognize when traveling around Japan. If you see a red gate, it means that you are in front of a sacred place. The variety in size and locations of Shinto shrines in Japan is amazing: One can not only find shrines of all dimensions, from small to enormous ones, but also in exposed as well as inconspicuous places, such as in a neighborhood garden or next to a bustling street. Similar torii-like constructions when visiting South Korea or Thailand. In India, there is an ornamental gate called ‘torana’, which was used for ceremonial purposes in the Hindu and Buddhist architecture. With the spread of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the torana were brought to other countries, such as China, Korea, Thailand, and Japan. The name used for this ornamental gate was not the same in these countries, indeed in China, the gate is known as ‘pailou’, in Korea as ‘hongsalmun’, and as ‘sao ching cha’ in Thailand.” ref

“In Japan this gate is called torii. If you look at the kanji of torii in Japanese, the meaning of the first kanji is ‘bird’ and the second refers to ‘existence’. Now the first question is why the name of a gate has nothing to do with ‘gate’ or ‘entrance’. The second question is why the word torii contains ‘bird’ when it does not even have the shape of a bird… Well, there is a story behind the use of these two kanji 鳥居. As mentioned before, there is a variety of views regarding the origin of the torii. In the following, we will have a look at one version including the sun goddess Amaterasu. In Japanese mythology, Amaterasu is the daughter of the two creator deities Izanami and Izanagi. She is radiant, kind and brings joy to life; characteristics which stand in contrast to her brothers the moon deity Tsukuyomi and the storm god Susanoo.” ref

“The episode, which presents a possible explanation for the word torii, occurs shortly after Susanoo was banished from heaven by Izanagi. Before leaving Susanoo went to bid Amaterasu farewell. As Amaterasu did not trust her brother, she proposed a contest to prove his sincerity. But Amaterasu tricked him and won the challenge. Out of frustration Susanoo destroyed Amaterasu’s loom and her rice fields and killed her favorite attendant. Amaterasu was incredibly upset and hid herself away in the ama-no-iwato (天岩戸 ‘heavenly rock cave’). Due to Amaterasu’s status as the sun goddess, hiding in a cave resulted in an eclipse, and the people worried that they would never see sunlight again.” ref

“An old wise man advised to build a large wooden bird perch, placing all the roosters of the towns there. As they crowed, the big noise reached Amaterasu who was still inside the cave. Driven by curiosity, she took a peek out of the cave, and as soon as she opened the cave, strong gods quickly pushed the boulder aside, which was blocking the sun goddess and thus saved the world. The torii became a symbol of the entrance to the sacred, a gate that brings one from darkness into light. According to this story a bird perch was the first torii gate, which explains the two kanji ‘bird’ and ‘existence’. As the world has been blessed with light again due to the very first torii, they have become a symbol of prosperity and good fortune in Japan.” ref

ref

“Gate at Yoshinogari Yayoi site in Kyushu acting as bird perch (tori-i).” ref

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“A model of how Yayoi-era rituals may have looked in Himiko’s time during the third century.” ref

“Korean connections and the possibility that tori-i (bird’s roost) may have served as a perch for chickens and roosters at the gateway to villages.  Roosters are special in Shinto because they wake up the sun in the morning, and in the famous Rock Cave myth they wake up the Sun Goddess herself. A long article on torii origins has been published on the fascinating Japanese Mythology website.  The website declares its purpose as ‘to map the mythologies of Japan and to back-track the trails of their origins outside of Japan.’  It’s a refreshingly broad and international approach to what can often be stiflingly insular.” ref

“One possibility the article explores is the notion that the bird in question is not the rooster, but the phoenix.  Strange one might think, ’till one realises that the phoenix sits on top of the mikoshi which bears kami in parades.  Intriguing…   it is after all a symbol of renewal, and renewal lies at the very heart of Shinto. Moreover, it’s associated with fire, and fire is the very essence of the sun.  ‘To the Japanese the Phoenix is a Talisman for Rectitude…. and they consider it a manifestation of the Sun,’ wrote William Thomas and Kate Pavitt in1922 (The Book of Talismans, Amulets and Zodiacal Gems).” ref

The Japanese Mythology website traces the phoenix gate connection back to Persia, or to Indo-Iranic influences spread by Saka migrants.  Photos show evidence of the trail of symbolic gates across Asia from India up to Korea, from where they may have spread to Japan.  There’s even analysis of blood groups to back up the possibility of immigrants into Japan bringing such customs with them….” ref

“It may be that early forms of the eruv doorpost emerged from and were carried by an extremely ancient migratory lineage of Semitic-Arab origin who are represented by haplogroup D-bearing  (Y-DNA) ethnic population groups including the Druzes, the Kalash(pre-Vedic culture of Pamir-Hindu Kush mountains), the Sindhi of Pakistan, etc. (see the map of the haplogroup D trail) who eventually reached Japan during the Kofun Period in substantial numbers as bearers of pre-Vedic rituals and horse and sacrificial culture with them.” ref

“Most fascinating of all, to me personally, is the notion that the sixth-century Japanese capital at Asuka may derive its name from the Persian for ‘Ark Saca’ or sacred place of the Saccas (Scythians). It’s noted too that the written characters used for Asuka – 飛鳥 –  mean ‘flying bird’.  Flying bird?!!  For shamanic cultures flying birds were emissaries from on high, acting as the intermediaries between earth and  heaven.  Is this linked to the introduction of the torii in Japan, and if so which sacred bird would it be referring to?” ref

“The Japanese Mythology site has its own suggestion, deriving from the area around the Indian subcontinent.  But while travelling through Manchuria, I came across bird representations associated with shamanism that led me to suppose they may well be linked with or been imported into Japan.  It’s surely no coincidence that the emperor of Japan has a bird-shaped walking stick, not unlike the bird-surmounted pillar that stood in the Manchurian emperor’s palace. Whatever the truth about its origins, the torii like other components in Shinto clearly shares a common heritage with East Asia.  There’s nothing unique about it, but there is something deeply appealing about it.” ref

Amaterasu

Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神, 天照大神), often called Amaterasu for short, also known as Ōhirume no Muchi no Kami (大日孁貴神), is the goddess of the sun in Japanese mythology. Often considered the chief deity (kami) of the Shinto pantheon, she is also portrayed in Japan’s earliest literary texts, the Kojiki (c. 712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (720 CE), as the ruler (or one of the rulers) of the heavenly realm Takamagahara and as the mythical ancestress of the Imperial House of Japan via her grandson Ninigi. Along with two of her siblings (the moon deity Tsukuyomi and the impetuous storm-god Susanoo) she ranks as one of the “Three Precious Children” (三貴子, mihashira no uzu no miko / sankishi), the three most important offspring of the creator god Izanagi.” ref

“Amaterasu’s chief place of worship, the Grand Shrine of Ise in IseMie Prefecture, is one of Shinto’s holiest sites and a major pilgrimage center and tourist spot. As with other Shinto kami, she is also enshrined in a number of Shinto shrines throughout Japan. The goddess is referred to as Amaterasu Ōmikami (天照大御神 / 天照大神; historical orthography: あまてらすおほみかみ, Amaterasu OhomikamiOld JapaneseAmaterasu Opomi1kami2) in the Kojiki, while the Nihon Shoki gives the following variant names:

  • Ōhirume-no-Muchi (大日孁貴; Man’yōgana: 於保比屢咩能武智; hist. orthography: おほひるめのむち, Ohohirume-no-Muchi; Old Japanese: Opopi1rume1-no2-Muti)
  • Amaterasu Ō(mi)kami (天照大神; hist. orthography: あまてらすおほ(み)かみ, Amaterasu Oho(mi)kami)
  • Amaterasu Ōhirume no Mikoto (天照大日孁尊)
  • Hi-no-Kami (日神; OJ: Pi1-no-Kami2)” ref

“Amaterasu is thought to derive from the verb amateru ‘to illuminate / shine in the sky’ (ama ‘sky, heaven’ + teru ‘to shine’) combined with the honorific auxiliary verb -su, while Ōmikami means ‘great august deity’ (ō ‘great’ + honorific prefix mikami). Notably, Amaterasu in Amaterasu Ōmikami is not technically a name the same way Susanoo in Susa no O no Mikoto or Ōkuninushi in Ōkuninushi no Kami are. Amaterasu is an attributive verb form that modifies the noun after it, ōmikami. This epithet is therefore, much more semantically transparent than most names recorded in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, in that it means exactly what it means, without allusion, inference or etymological opacity, literally ‘The Great August Goddess Who Shines in Heaven’. This usage is analogous to the use of relative clauses in English, only different in that Japanese clauses are placed in front of the noun they modify. This is further exemplified by (1) an alternative epithet, Amateru Kami (天照神, ” ref

“The Goddess Who Shines in Heaven’), which is a plain, non-honorific version of Amaterasu Ōmikami, (2) alternative forms of the verb amaterasu used elsewhere, for example its continuative form amaterashi (天照之) in the Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku, and (3) similar uses of attributive verb forms in certain epithets, such as Emperor Jimmu‘s Hatsu Kunishirasu Sumeramikoto (始馭天下之天皇, ‘His Majesty Who First Rules the Land’). There are, still, certain verb forms that are treated as proper names, such as the terminal negative fukiaezu in ‘Ugayafukiaezu no Mikoto’ (鸕鷀草葺不合尊, ‘His Augustness, Incompletely-Thatched-with-Cormorant-Feathers’)” ref

“Her other name, Ōhirume, is usually understood as meaning ‘great woman of the sun / daytime’ (cf. hiru ‘day(time), noon’, from hi ‘sun, day’ + me ‘woman, lady’), though alternative etymologies such as ‘great spirit woman’ (taking hi to mean ‘spirit’) or ‘wife of the sun’ (suggested by Orikuchi Shinobu, who put forward the theory that Amaterasu was originally conceived of as the consort or priestess of a male solar deity) had been proposed. A possible connection with the name Hiruko (the child rejected by the gods Izanagi and Izanami and one of Amaterasu’s siblings) has also been suggested. To this name is appended the honorific muchi, which is also seen in a few other theonyms such as ‘Ō(a)namuchi‘ or ‘Michinushi-no-Muchi’ (an epithet of the three Munakata goddesses). ” ref

“As the ancestress of the imperial line, the epithet Sume(ra)-Ō(mi)kami (皇大神, lit. ’great imperial deity’; also read as Kōtaijin[) is also applied to Amaterasu in names such as Amaterasu Sume(ra) Ō(mi)kami (天照皇大神, also read as ‘Tenshō Kōtaijin’) and ‘Amaterashimasu-Sume(ra)-Ōmikami’ (天照坐皇大御神). During the medieval and early modern periods, the deity was also referred to as ‘Tenshō Daijin’ (the on’yomi of 天照大神) or ‘Amateru Ongami’ (an alternate reading of the same).” ref

“The name Amaterasu Ōmikami has been translated into English in different ways. While a number of authors such as Donald Philippi rendered it as ‘heaven-illuminating great deity’, Basil Hall Chamberlain argued (citing the authority of Motoori Norinaga) that it is more accurately understood to mean ‘shining in heaven’ (because the auxiliary su is merely honorific, not causative, such interpretation as ‘to make heaven shine’ would miss the mark), and accordingly translated it as ‘Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity’. Gustav Heldt’s 2014 translation of the Kojiki, meanwhile, renders it as “the great and mighty spirit Heaven Shining.” ref

“Both the Kojiki (c. 712 CE) and the Nihon Shoki (720 CE) agree in their description of Amaterasu as the daughter of the god Izanagi and the elder sister of Tsukuyomi, the deity of the moon, and Susanoo, the god of storms and seas. The circumstances surrounding the birth of these three deities, known as the “Three Precious Children” (三貴子, mihashira no uzu no miko or sankishi), however, vary between sources:

  • In the Kojiki, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susanoo were born when Izanagi went to “[the plain of] Awagihara by the river-mouth of Tachibana in Himuka in [the island of] Tsukushiand bathed (misogi) in the river to purify himself after visiting Yomi, the underworld, in a failed attempt to rescue his deceased wife, Izanami. Amaterasu was born when Izanagi washed his left eye, Tsukuyomi was born when he washed his right eye, and Susanoo was born when he washed his nose. Izanagi then appoints Amaterasu to rule Takamagahara (the “Plain of High Heaven”), Tsukuyomi the night, and Susanoo the seas. ” ref

“The main narrative of the Nihon Shoki has Izanagi and Izanami procreating after creating the Japanese archipelago; to them were born (in the following order) Ōhirume-no-Muchi (Amaterasu), Tsukuyomi, the ‘leech-child’ Hiruko, and Susanoo:

After this Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto consulted together, saying:—”We have now produced the Great-eight-island country, with the mountains, rivers, herbs, and trees. Why should we not produce someone who shall be lord of the universe?” They then together produced the Sun-Goddess, who was called Oho-hiru-me no muchi. […]” ref

“The resplendent lustre of this child shone throughout all the six quarters. Therefore the two Deities rejoiced, saying:—”We have had many children, but none of them have been equal to this wondrous infant. She ought not to be kept long in this land, but we ought of our own accord to send her at once to Heaven, and entrust to her the affairs of Heaven.”
At this time Heaven and Earth were still not far separated, and therefore they sent her up to Heaven by the ladder of Heaven.” ref

  • “A variant legend recorded in the Shoki has Izanagi begetting Ōhirume (Amaterasu) by holding a bronze mirror in his left hand, Tsukuyomi by holding another mirror in his right hand, and Susanoo by turning his head and looking sideways.
  • A third variant in the Shoki has Izanagi and Izanami begetting the sun, the moon, Hiruko, and Susanoo, as in the main narrative. Their final child, the fire god Kagutsuchi, caused Izanami’s death (as in the Kojiki).
  • A fourth variant relates a similar story to that found in the Kojiki, wherein the three gods are born when Izanagi washed himself in the river of Tachibana after going to Yomi. ” ref

Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi

“One of the variant legends in the Shoki relates that Amaterasu ordered her brother Tsukuyomi to go down to the terrestrial world (Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, the “Central Land of Reed-Plains”) and visit the goddess Ukemochi. When Ukemochi vomited foodstuffs out of her mouth and presented them to Tsukuyomi at a banquet, a disgusted and offended Tsukuyomi slew her and went back to Takamagahara. This act upset Amaterasu, causing her to split away from Tsukuyomi, thus separating night from day. Amaterasu then sent another god, Ame-no-Kumahito (天熊人), who found various food-crops and animals emerging from Ukemochi’s corpse. ” ref

“On the crown of her head there had been produced the ox and the horse; on the top of her forehead there had been produced millet; over her eyebrows there had been produced the silkworm; within her eyes there had been produced panic; in her belly there had been produced rice; in her genitals there had been produced wheat, large beans and small beans. Amaterasu had the grains collected and sown for humanity’s use and, putting the silkworms in her mouth, reeled thread from them. From this began agriculture and sericulture. This account is not found in the Kojiki, where a similar story is instead told of Susanoo and the goddess Ōgetsuhime.” ref

“When Susanoo, the youngest of the three divine siblings, was expelled by his father Izanagi for his troublesome nature and incessant wailing on account of missing his deceased mother Izanami, he first went up to Takamagahara to say farewell to Amaterasu. A suspicious Amaterasu went out to meet him dressed in male clothing and clad in armor, at which Susanoo proposed a trial by pledge (ukehi) to prove his sincerity. In the ritual, the two gods each chewed and spat out an object carried by the other (in some variants, an item they each possessed). Five (or six) gods and three goddesses were born as a result; Amaterasu adopted the males as her sons and gave the females – later known as the three Munakata goddesses – to Susanoo.” ref

“Susanoo, declaring that he had won the trial as he had produced deities of the required gender, then “raged with victory” and proceeded to wreak havoc by destroying his sister’s rice fields and defecating in her palace. While Amaterasu tolerated Susanoo’s behavior at first, his “misdeeds did not cease, but became even more flagrant” until one day, he bore a hole in the rooftop of Amaterasu’s weaving hall and hurled the “heavenly piebald horse” (天斑駒, ame no fuchikoma), which he had flayed alive, into it. One of Amaterasu’s weaving maidens was alarmed and struck her genitals against a weaving shuttle, killing her. In response, a furious Amaterasu shut herself inside the Ame-no-Iwayato (天岩屋戸, ‘Heavenly Rock-Cave Door’, also known as Ama-no-Iwato), plunging heaven and earth into total darkness.” ref

“The main account in the Shoki has Amaterasu wounding herself with the shuttle when Susanoo threw the flayed horse in her weaving hall, while a variant account identifies the goddess who was killed during this incident as Wakahirume-no-Mikoto (稚日女尊, lit. ’young woman of the sun / day(time)’).” ref

“Whereas the above accounts identify Susanoo’s flaying of the horse as the immediate cause for Amaterasu hiding herself, yet another variant in the Shoki instead portrays it to be Susanoo defecating in her seat:

In one writing it is said:—”The august Sun Goddess took an enclosed rice-field and made it her Imperial rice-field. Now Sosa no wo no Mikoto, in spring, filled up the channels and broke down the divisions, and in autumn, when the grain was formed, he forthwith stretched round them division ropes. Again when the Sun-Goddess was in her Weaving-Hall, he flayed alive a piebald colt and flung it into the Hall. In all these various matters his conduct was rude in the highest degree. Nevertheless, the Sun-Goddess, out of her friendship for him, was not indignant or resentful, but took everything calmly and with forbearance.” ref

“When the time came for the Sun-Goddess to celebrate the feast of first-fruits, Sosa no wo no Mikoto secretly voided excrement under her august seat in the New Palace. The Sun-Goddess, not knowing this, went straight there and took her seat. Accordingly the Sun-Goddess drew herself up, and was sickened. She therefore was enraged, and straightway took up her abode in the Rock-cave of Heaven, and fastened its Rock-door.” ref

“After Amaterasu hid herself in the cave, the gods, led by Omoikane, the god of wisdom, conceived a plan to lure her out:

[The gods] gathered together the long-crying birds of Tokoyo and caused them to cry. (…) They uprooted by the very roots the flourishing ma-sakaki trees of the mountain Ame-no-Kaguyama; to the upper branches they affixed long strings of myriad magatama beads; in the middle branches they hung a large-dimensioned mirror; in the lower branches they suspended white nikite cloth and blue nikite cloth.” ref

“These various objects were held in his hands by Futotama-no-Mikoto as solemn offerings, and Ame-no-Koyane-no-Mikoto intoned a solemn liturgy. Ame-no-Tajikarao-no-Kami stood concealed beside the door, while Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto bound up her sleeves with a cord of heavenly hikage vine, tied around her head a head-band of the heavenly masaki vine, bound together bundles of sasa leaves to hold in her hands, and overturning a bucket before the heavenly rock-cave door, stamped resoundingly upon it. Then she became divinely possessed, exposed her breasts, and pushed her skirt-band down to her genitals. Then Takamanohara shook as the eight-hundred myriad deities laughed at once.” ref

“Inside the cave, Amaterasu is surprised that the gods should show such mirth in her absence. Ame-no-Uzume answered that they were celebrating because another god greater than her had appeared. Curious, Amaterasu slid the boulder blocking the cave’s entrance and peeked out, at which Ame-no-Koyane and Futodama brought out the mirror (the Yata-no-Kagami) and held it before her. As Amaterasu, struck by her own reflection (apparently thinking it to be the other deity Ame-no-Uzume spoke of), approached the mirror, Ame-no-Tajikarao took her hand and pulled her out of the cave, which was then immediately sealed with a straw rope, preventing her from going back inside. Thus was light restored to the world.” ref

“As punishment for his unruly conduct, Susanoo was then driven out of Takamagahara by the other gods. Going down to earth, he arrived at the land of Izumo, where he killed the monstrous serpent Yamata no Orochi to rescue the goddess Kushinadahime, whom he eventually married. From the serpent’s carcass Susanoo found the sword Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi (天叢雲剣, ‘Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven’), also known as Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (草薙剣 ‘Grass-Cutting Sword’), which he presented to Amaterasu as a reconciliatory gift. ” ref

“After a time, Amaterasu and the primordial deity Takamimusubi (also known as Takagi-no-Kami) declared that Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, which was then being ruled over by Ōkuninushi (also known as Ō(a)namuchi), the descendant (Kojiki) or the son (Shoki) of Susanoo, should be pacified and put under the jurisdiction of their progeny, claiming it to be teeming with “numerous deities which shone with a lustre like that of fireflies, and evil deities which buzzed like flies”. Amaterasu ordered Ame-no-Oshihomimi, the firstborn of the five male children born during her contest with Susanoo, to go down to earth and establish his rule over it. However, after inspecting the land below, he deemed it to be in an uproar and refused to go any further.” ref

“At the advice of Omoikane and the other deities, Amaterasu then dispatched another of her five sons, Ame no Hohi. Upon arriving, however, Ame no Hohi began to curry favor with Ōkuninushi and did not send back any report for three years. The heavenly deities then sent a third messenger, Ame-no-Wakahiko, who also ended up siding with Ōkuninushi and marrying his daughter Shitateruhime. After eight years, a female pheasant was sent to question Ame-no-Wakahiko, who killed it with his bow and arrow. The blood-stained arrow flew straight up to Takamagahara at the feet of Amaterasu and Takamimusubi, who then threw it back to earth with a curse, killing Ame-no-Wakahiko in his sleep.” ref

“The preceding messengers having thus failed to complete their task, the heavenly gods finally sent the warrior deities Futsunushi and Takemikazuchi[d] to remonstrate with Ōkuninushi. At the advice of his son Kotoshironushi, Ōkuninushi agreed to abdicate and left the physical realm to govern the unseen spirit world, which was given to him in exchange. The two gods then went around Ashihara-no-Nakatsukuni, killing those who resisted them and rewarding those who rendered submission, before going back to heaven. With the earth now pacified, Amaterasu and Takamimusubi again commanded Ame-no-Oshihomimi to descend and rule it. He, however, again demurred and suggested that his son Ninigi be sent instead.” ref

“Amaterasu thus bequeathed to Ninigi, the sword Susanoo gave her, along with the two items used to lure her out of the Ame-no-Iwayato: the mirror Yata-no-Kagami and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama. With a number of gods serving as his retinue, Ninigi came down from heaven to Mount Takachiho in the land of Himuka and built his palace there. Ninigi became the ancestor of the emperors of Japan, while the mirror, jewel, and sword he brought with him became the three sacred treasures of the imperial house. Five of the gods who accompanied him in his descent – Ame-no-Koyane, Futodama, Ame-no-Uzume, Ishikoridome (the maker of the mirror), and Tamanoya (the maker of the jewel) – meanwhile became the ancestors of the clans involved in court ceremonial such as the Nakatomi and the Inbe. ” ref

Primordial Waters

“All cultures naturally recognize water as a necessary source of life and survival, making it a useful symbol of creative fertility – spiritual and psychological fertility as well as physical fertility. At the same time, large masses of water are uncontrollable and, therefore, aptly representative of chaos – the chaos that precedes creation. Together, these two symbolic functions lead us, like the cosmic egg symbol, to the idea of potential, as yet unformed reality. The primordial waters figure strongly in creation myths from all corners of the world. The waters speak to the larger metaphor of creation as birth. We are all born of the maternal waters, and so, in creation mythology, worlds are typically born of the waters. In the earth diver type of creation myth, a diver, usually a humble animal, is sent by the creator to the depths of the waters to find soil with which to begin the creation of Earth. In several Native American myths, a toad, for instance.” ref

“A creation myth or cosmogonic myth is a type of cosmogony, a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness. Creation myths often share several features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore (‘at that time’). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, and/or the life-giving bounties thereof in a maternal relation with humanity or other gods. When equated in this lattermost function with the earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as the Mother Earth or Earth Mother, deity in various animistic or pantheistic religions.  The earth goddess is archetypally the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky Father or Father Heaven, particularly in theologies derived from the Proto-Indo-European sphere (i.e. from Dheghom and Dyeus). In some polytheistic cultures, such as the Ancient Egyptian religion which narrates the cosmic egg myth, the sky is instead seen as the Heavenly Mother or Sky Mother as in Nut and Hathor, and the earth god is regarded as the male, paternal, and terrestrial partner, as in Osiris or Geb who hatched out of the maternal cosmic egg.” ref

In Egyptian mythology, sky goddess Nut is sometimes called “Mother” because she bore stars and Sun god. Nut was thought to draw the dead into her star-filled sky, and refresh them with food and wine. In Kongo religion, the Sky Mother, Nzambici, was the female counterpart of the Sky Father and Solar god, Nzambi Mpungu. Originally, they were seen as one spirit with one half male and the other half female. After the introduction of Christianity to Central Africa, the description of Nzambi changed to Creator God and Nzambici to his wife, “God the essence, the god on earth, the great princess, the mother of all the animals, and the mystery of the Earth.ref

“In Hinduism, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Radha, Parvati, Durga and other goddesses represents both the feminine aspect and the shakti (power) of the supreme being known as the Brahman The divine mother goddess, manifests herself in various forms, representing the universal creative force. She becomes Mother Nature (Mula Prakriti), who gives birth to all life forms and nourishes them through her body. Ultimately she re-absorbs all life forms back into herself, or “devours” them to sustain herself as the power of death feeding on life to produce new life. She also gives rise to Maya (the illusory world) and to prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos.ref

“The Shakti sect is strongly associated with Samkhya, and Tantra Hindu philosophies and ultimately, is monist. The primordial feminine creative-preservative-destructive energy, Shakti, is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos. The cosmos itself is purusha, the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality that is the divine ground of all being, the “world soul”. This masculine potential is actualized by feminine dynamism, embodied in multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately all manifestations of the one great mother. Shakti, herself, can free the individual from demons of ego, ignorance, and desire that bind the soul in maya (illusion). Practitioners of the Tantric tradition focus on Shakti to free themselves from the cycle of karma. The worship of the mother deity can be traced back to early Vedic culture. The Rigveda calls the divine female power Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33) which means “great mother.ref

A list of earth deities. An Earth god or Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth associated with a figure with chthonic or terrestrial attributes. There are many different Earth goddesses and gods in many different cultures mythology. However, Earth is usually portrayed as a goddess. Earth goddesses are often associated with the chthonic deities of the underworldIn Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology have the sky goddesses, Nut and Hathor, with the earth gods, Osiris and Geb. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses.” ref

Aztec mythology

Haudenosaunee mythology

  • Atsi tsien ke:ion (pronunciation Ageejenguyuon) meaning Mature flower – Sky woman who fell from the sky and created North America on the back of a turtle.
  • Hah-nu-nah, the turtle that bears the world.

Inca mythology

Inuit mythology

Lakota mythology

  • Maka-akaŋ, the earth goddess

Lucumi

Mapuche

Southwestern

Before the Sun: The Primordial Waters of Nun

The Concept of Nun in Ancient Egyptian Cosmology

“In the ancient Egyptian worldview, the cosmos began with a primordial state of limitless, formless waters known as Nun. This concept of Nun is central to Egyptian cosmology, representing the origin of all existence and the very foundation of the universe. Nun was not simply water, but a vast, watery chaos that held within it the potential for everything that would come to be. It was a state of infinite possibility, a void pregnant with the seeds of creation. It is a concept that echoes in similar creation myths around the world, reflecting humanity’s deep-seated curiosity about the origins of the universe.” ref

Nun: The Primeval Waters and the Origin of All

“The Egyptians saw Nun as the ultimate source of all things. It was a boundless, primordial ocean, a chaotic yet fertile expanse that existed before the creation of the world. From this watery abyss, the gods and goddesses emerged, and the universe itself took shape. Nun represented the absolute beginning, a state of pure potentiality, a cosmic womb from which everything, from the stars to humans, originated. This concept is rooted in ancient Egypt’s profound connection to the Nile River, which they viewed as a life-giving force, a symbol of fertility and renewal. The annual flooding of the Nile brought life to the land, mirroring the creation of the world from the waters of Nun.” ref

Nun as a Chaotic and Formless Abyss

“While Nun represents the source of creation, it was also associated with chaos and formlessness. The concept of Nun is not to be mistaken for a benign, peaceful ocean. It was a chaotic, watery abyss, a realm of darkness and unknown potential. It is in this formless void that the first god, Atum, emerged. This chaotic nature of Nun reflects the primal stage of the universe before order and structure arose. It is a testament to the creative power of chaos, the potential for order and beauty to emerge from the seemingly formless.” ref

The Role of Atum/Ra in Emerging from Nun

“From the depths of Nun, the self-created god Atum, later identified with the sun god Ra, emerged. Atum was the first being, the creator god who brought order and structure to the chaotic waters of Nun. He did this through a process of self-creation, birthing the world from his own being. This act of emergence is seen as a symbolic representation of the transition from a state of chaos to order, the beginning of the cosmic journey towards a structured universe. The concept of a single god emerging from chaos echoes across cultures, signifying the importance of order and structure in the face of the unknown.” ref

The Creation of the World from the Waters of Nun

“The creation of the world from Nun was not a violent or destructive act but a process of emergence and transformation. Atum, as Ra, brought light to the darkness of Nun, separating the waters above and below. From this act, the land, sky, and air emerged. This process of creation was often depicted in Egyptian mythology as a series of births, with Atum giving rise to the other gods and goddesses who, in turn, created the world and its inhabitants. This process reflects the Egyptian understanding of the universe as a dynamic and interconnected system, with every element playing a vital role in the cosmic order.” ref

The Significance of Nun in Egyptian Mythology and Ritual

“Nun’s significance in Egyptian mythology and ritual is immense. The waters of Nun were seen as a source of life and renewal, a sacred element that embodied the power of creation and the cyclical nature of existence. In rituals, offerings were made to Nun, seeking blessings and protection. The act of bathing in the Nile River was seen as a symbolic connection to the primordial waters of Nun, a way to cleanse and reconnect with the source of life. The concept of Nun underscored the Egyptian understanding of the cyclical nature of life, death, and rebirth, a belief that deeply influenced their daily rituals and worldview.” ref

The Symbolism of Nun: Water, Darkness, and Potential

“The symbolism of Nun is rich and multifaceted. Water, representing life and fertility, was the primary element of Nun. Darkness, associated with the unknown and the potential for creation, further defines Nun. Nun also symbolizes the potential for creation, the endless possibility that lies within chaos. The concept of Nun reminds us that everything, both beautiful and terrifying, ultimately comes from the same source. The journey from chaos to order, from the formless to the structured, is a central theme in many ancient creation myths and continues to fascinate and inspire us today.” ref

Nun’s Relationship with Other Deities: Geb, Nut, and Shu

“Nun played a significant role in the creation of other Egyptian deities. From the primordial waters of Nun, Atum/Ra gave birth to Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. These two deities, in turn, gave birth to Geb, the god of earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky, creating the fundamental elements of the cosmos. This complex web of relationships highlights the interconnectedness of creation, where every god and goddess plays a vital role. It reflects how the universe is a complex system where each element, from the primordial waters to the air we breathe, is essential.” ref

The Enduring Influence of Nun in Ancient Egyptian Thought

“The concept of Nun exerted a profound influence on ancient Egyptian thought, permeating their mythology, religion, and daily life. The idea of a primordial ocean from which all things arose influenced their understanding of the universe, the cycle of life and death, and the very nature of existence. It also provided a framework for understanding the relationship between chaos and order, the power of creation, and the interconnectedness of all things. The memory of Nun, the primordial waters, remained a powerful symbol, reminding the Egyptians of their origins and their place in the grand cosmic order.” ref

Nu (mythology)

“Nu (“Watery One”) or Nun (“The Inert One”) (Ancient Egyptiannnw NānawCopticⲚⲟⲩⲛ Noun), in ancient Egyptian religion, is the personification of the primordial watery abyss which existed at the time of creation and from which the creator sun god Ra arose. Nu is one of the eight deities of the Ogdoad representing ancient Egyptian primordial Chaos from which the primordial mound arose. Nun can be seen as the first of all the gods and the creator of reality and personification of the cosmos. Nun is also considered the god that will destroy existence and return everything to the Nun whence it came. No cult was addressed to Nun. Nun’s consort (or his female aspect) was the goddess Nunut or Naunet (Ancient Egyptian: nnwt).” ref

The ancient Egyptians envisaged the oceanic abyss of the Nun as surrounding a bubble in which the sphere of life is encapsulated, representing the deepest mystery of their cosmogony. In ancient Egyptian creation accounts, the original mound of land comes forth from the waters of the Nun. The Nun is the source of all that appears in a differentiated world, encompassing all aspects of divine and earthly existence. In the Ennead cosmogony, Nun is perceived as transcendent at the point of creation alongside Atum the creator god.” ref

“In the beginning the universe only consisted of a great chaotic cosmic ocean, and the ocean itself was referred to as Nu. In some versions of this myth, at the beginning of time Mehet-Weret, portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns, gives birth to the sun, said to have risen from the waters of creation and to have given birth to the sun god Ra in some myths. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben, a pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and from this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of the sun’s emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. In Heliopolis, the creation was attributed to Atum, a deity closely associated with Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being.” ref

Beginning with the Middle Kingdom, Nun is described as “the father of the gods” and he is depicted on temple walls throughout the rest of ancient Egyptian religious history. The Ogdoad includes along with Naunet and Nun, Amaunet and Amun; Hauhet and Heh; and Kauket and Kek. Like the other Ogdoad deities, Nu did not have temples or any center of worship. Even so, Nu was sometimes represented by a sacred lake, or, as at Abydos, by an underground stream. During the Late Period when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers, the negative aspect of Nun (ie. chaos) became the dominant perception, reflecting the forces of disorder that were set loose in the country.” ref

“Nun was depicted as an anthropomorphic large figure and a personification of the primordial waters, with water ripples filling the body, holding a notched palm branch. Nun was also depicted in anthropomorphic form but with the head of a frog, and he was typically depicted in ancient Egyptian art holding aloft the solar barque or the sun disc. He may appear greeting the rising sun in the guise of a baboon. Nun is otherwise symbolized by the presence of a sacred cistern or lake as in the sanctuaries of Karnak and Dendara.” ref

“Nu was shown usually as male but also had aspects that could be represented as female or male. Naunet (also spelt Nunet) is the female aspect, which is the name Nu with a female gender ending. The male aspect, Nun, is written with a male gender ending. As with the primordial concepts of the Ogdoad, Nu’s male aspect was depicted as a frog, or a frog-headed man. In Ancient Egyptian art, Nun also appears as a bearded man, with blue-green skin, representing water. Naunet is represented as a snake or snake-headed woman.” ref

The Primeval Waters: The Source of All That Is

“The concept of the primeval waters, a vast and formless sea from which all existence emerged, resonates across cultures and time. From ancient myths to modern spirituality, this primordial ocean symbolizes the origin and potential of creation, holding the seeds of everything that is, was, and will be. Ancient civilizations across the globe wove tales of cosmic waters, often personified as powerful deities. In Mesopotamian mythology, Apsu and Tiamat, the freshwater and saltwater deities, respectively, represented the primeval chaos. From their union, the world was born, a testament to the creative power of the primordial waters. In Egyptian mythology, Nun, the boundless ocean of primordial waters, gave birth to the gods and goddesses, signifying the life-giving essence of the waters. The Greek concept of Chaos, a primordial void, embodied the chaotic potential of the universe before the emergence of order. From Chaos, Gaia, the earth goddess, rose, representing the birth of the physical world. Norse mythology tells of Ymir, a frost giant born from the primordial ice, a representation of the raw, unformed potential of the universe.” ref

The Waters as a Symbol of Fertility and Life

The life-giving properties of water have been recognized since time immemorial. Water is essential for all life, providing sustenance, nourishment, and the means for growth. This intrinsic connection to life and vitality makes water a powerful symbol of birth, renewal, and the cycle of creation. In many cultures, water is associated with the feminine principle, representing the nurturing and creative power of the mother goddess. This association reinforces the role of water as a source of life and the vital force that drives the world.” ref

The Waters as a Source of Mystery and Uncertainty

The primeval waters, as the origin of all things, represent the unknown and the unknowable. The vast, uncharted depths of the ocean symbolize the mysteries of the universe, a realm of endless possibilities and unfathomable secrets. The oceans are both a source of awe and fear, inspiring wonder and reminding us of our own insignificance in the face of the vast and unknown. Water, therefore, embodies the unconscious, the realm of dreams, and the hidden depths of the human psyche.” ref

The Waters as a Bridge Between Worlds

“In mythology and folklore, water serves as a medium for travel and transformation. Rivers and oceans connect different lands and cultures, acting as pathways between realms, both physical and spiritual. In many traditions, water is associated with the afterlife. For example, the river Styx in Greek mythology separates the world of the living from the realm of the dead, and the ocean in many cultures is seen as a gateway to the otherworld. The fluidity of water symbolizes the fluidity of boundaries and the possibility of shifting between different states of being.” ref

The Waters in Religious and Spiritual Traditions

“The symbolism of the primeval waters, finds expression, in various religions and spiritual traditions. Water baptism, a central ritual in Christianity, represents purification and rebirth, washing away sins and symbolizing a new beginning. In Hinduism and Buddhism, water is revered as a symbol of purity, enlightenment, and the cleansing of the soul. Indigenous cultures around the world hold water as a sacred element, acknowledging its connection to life, fertility, and the spiritual realm. In these traditions, water ceremonies and rituals are used to venerate the life-giving properties of the water, seeking blessings and purification.” ref

Cosmic Ocean

cosmic oceanprimordial waters, or celestial river is a mythological motif that represents the world or cosmos enveloped by a vast primordial ocean. Found in many cultures and civilizations, the cosmic ocean exists before the creation of the Earth. From the primordial waters the Earth and the entire cosmos arose. The cosmic ocean represents or embodies chaos. The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times. The emergence of earth from water and the curbing of the global flood or underground waters are usually presented as a factor in cosmic ordering.” ref

“In creation myths, it is common for the primordial ocean to be separated into upper and lower bounds of water (i.e. cosmic bodies of water located above the sky or below the earth) by the creation of a solid structure known as a firmament. Some cosmologies depict the world plain as being surrounded by a circular ocean-river, such as Oceanus in Greek cosmology or Raŋhā in Zoroastrian cosmologyThe cosmic ocean is also present in the mythology of Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Abrahamic, Ancient Indians, Ancient Persians, Sumerians, and Zoroastrians. It plays a prominent role in ancient near eastern, biblical, and other cosmologies.ref

“In creation myths, the primordial waters are often represented as having filled the entire universe and are the first source of the gods. The act of creation is the establishment of an inhabitable space separate from the enveloping waters. The cosmic ocean is the shape of the universe before creation. The ocean is boundless, unordered, unorganized, amorphous, formless, dangerous, and terrible. In some myths, its cacophony is opposed to the ordered rhythm of the sea.ref

Chaos can be personified as water or by the unorganized interaction of water and fire. The transformation of chaos into order is also the transition from water to land. In many ancient cosmogonic myths, the ocean and chaos are equivalent and inseparable. The ocean remains outside space even after the emergence of the land. At the same time, the ability of the ocean to generate is realized in the appearance of the Earth from it and in the presence of a mythological creature in the ocean that promotes generation or, on the contrary, zealously defends the “old order” and prevents the beginning of the chain of births from the ocean.ref

“Yu. E. Berezkin and E. N. Duvakin generalize the motif of primary waters as follows: “Waters are primary. The Earth is launched into the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters subsided, etc.” The idea of the primacy of the ocean as an element, from the bowels of which the Earth arises or is created, is universally prevalent. This representation is present in many mythologies of the world.ref

“In North Asia and North America, the Earth diver myth is found. In this myth, a creator god dives into the cosmic ocean to bring up and form the Earth. A diving bird, catching a lump of earth from the primordial ocean, often appears in mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Samoyedic peoples. In totemic myths, bird people are often presented as phratrial ancestors. World eggs are a common theme in creation myths. A waterfowl extracts silt from the waters, from which land is gradually created. In Polynesian mythology, Maui fishes islands out of the ocean. In Scandinavian mythology, the gods raise the earth, and Thor catches the “serpent of middle earth“, which lives at the bottom of the ocean. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the Earth itself comes to the surface in the form of a mound. In the Brahmana it was said that Prajapati took the Earth out of the water, taking the form of a boar.ref

“In the mythologies of many Asian countries, in which there is an image of an endless and eternal primordial ocean or sea, there is a motif of the creation of the Earth by a celestial being descending from the sky and interfering with the water of the ocean with an iron club, spear or other object. This results in condensation which gives rise to the Earth. In Japanese mythology, the islands of Japan arose from foam raised by mixing the waters of the ocean with the spear of the gods (Izanagi and Izanami). In the mythologies of the Mongolic peoples, the role of the compactor of the ocean waters is played by the wind, which creates a milky substance out of them, which then becomes the Earth’s firmament. According to the Kalmyks, plants, animals, people and gods were born from this milky liquid. Indian mythology has a similar myth about the churning of the Ocean of Milk.ref

“Myths about the world’s oceans are universally accompanied by myths about its containment when the earth was already created, and myths about the attempts of the ocean to regain its undivided dominance. In Chinese mythology, there is the idea of a giant depression or pit that determines the direction of the ocean waters and takes away excess water. In many mythologies there are numerous narratives regarding the flood. The opposition of two types of myths is known (for example, in Oceania) – about the earth sinking in the ocean, and about the retreat of the ocean or sea. An example of the first type is the legend about the origin of Easter Island, recorded on this island. In the creation myth of the Nganasan people, at first, the Earth was completely covered with water, then the water subsided and exposed the top of the Shaitan ridge Koika-mou.ref

“The first two people fall to this peak – a man and a woman. In the myth of creation of the Tuamotus, the creator Tāne, “Spilling Water”, created the world in the waters of the lord of the waters, Pune, and invoked the light that initiated the creation of the Earth. The motif of the cosmogonic struggle with the dragon or serpent is widespread in terms of suppressing water and chaos. The serpent in most mythologies is associated with water, often as its abductor. He threatens either with a flood or a drought, that is, a violation of the measure, the water “balance”. Since the cosmos is identified with order and measure, chaos is associated with the violation of measure.ref

“The Genesis creation narrative has a much-reduced description of Yahweh and Tehom. The transition from the formless water element to land is the most important act necessary for the transformation of chaos into space. The next step in the same direction is the separation of the sky from the earth, which, perhaps, essentially coincides with the first act, given the initial identification of the sky with the oceans. But it was precisely the repetition of the act – first down, and then up – that led to the allocation of three spheres – earthly, heavenly and underground, which represents the transition from binary division to trinity. The middle sphere, the earth, opposes the watery world below and the heavenly world above. A trichotomous scheme of the cosmos arises, including the necessary space between earth and sky. This space is often represented as a cosmic tree.ref

“Earth and sky are almost universally represented as feminine and masculine, a married couple standing at the beginning of a theogonic or theocosmogonic process. At the same time, the feminine principle is sometimes associated with the element of water and with chaos; usually it is conceived on the side of “nature” rather than “culture.” Mythical creatures personifying chaos, defeated, shackled, and overthrown, often continue to exist on the outskirts of space, along the shores of the oceans, in the underground “lower” world, in some special parts of the sky. In Scandinavian mythology, the jǫtnar, primordial giants, precede time and are located on the outskirts of the earth’s circle in cold places near the oceans.ref

“In Sumerian mythology, there was an image of the original sea abyss – Abzu, on the site of which the most active of the gods Enki, representing the earth, fresh water and agriculture on irrigated lands, made his home. In the beginning, the entire space of the world was filled with an ocean that had neither beginning nor end. It was probably believed that he was eternal. In its bowels lurked the foremother Nammu. In her womb arose a cosmic mountain in the form of a hemisphere, which later became the earth. An arc of shiny tin, encircling the hemisphere vertically, later became the sky. In the Babylonian version, in the endless primordial Ocean there was nothing but two monsters – the forefather Apsu and foremother Tiamat.” ref

In Ancient Egyptian mythology, in the beginning, the universe only consisted of a great, chaotic cosmic ocean, and the ocean itself was referred to as Nu. In some versions of this myth, at the beginning of time Mehet-Weret, portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns, gives birth to the sun, said to have risen from the waters of creation and to have given birth to the sun god Ra in some myths. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben, a pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of the sun’s emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. In Heliopolis, the creation was attributed to Atum, a deity closely associated with Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being. Some strands of Egyptian cosmology appear to have also had the idea of a river-ocean encircling the earth, as one of the words used for sea, shen-wer, means “great encircle.ref

“The concept of chaos is etymologically associated with darkness (kek), but primarily, chaos in the form of the primary ocean (Nu) or, in the Germanic version, five divine pairs representing its different aspects. The primary hill is identified with the sun god Ra. Water chaos is opposed by the first earthly mound protruding from it, with which Atum is associated in Heliopolis (as Ra-Atum), and in Memphis, Ptah. Initially, the existing ocean is personified in the image of the “father of the gods” Nu. In the historical era, the ocean, which was placed underground, gave rise to the river Nile. In the Heracleopolis version of the myth, an internal connection between the ocean and chaos is noted.ref

“The ideas of early Greek cosmology about the ocean demonstrate a typologically more advanced stage, when the image of Oceanus becomes the object of “pre-scientific” research and natural philosophy. Oceanus is presented first of all as the greatest world river (Hom. Il. XIV 245), surrounding the earth and the sea, giving rise to rivers, springs, sea currents (XXI 196), shelter of the sun, moon and stars, which they rise from the ocean and enter it (VII 422; VIII 485). The Ocean River touches the sea, but does not mix with it. In the extreme west, the ocean washes the boundaries between the world of life and death.ref

“In Homer, Oceanus is without beginning. In Theogony 282, Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē ‘spring, well’, referring to “the pegai of Okeanos, where he was born”. In Homer and Hesiod, the Ocean is a living being, the progenitor of all gods and titans (Hom. Il. XIV 201, 246), but Oceanus also had parents. According to Hesiod, Oceanus is the son of the oldest of the titans Uranus and Gaia (Theogony 133). Oceanus is the brother and husband of Tethys, from whom he gave birth to all the rivers and sources – three thousand daughters – oceanids (Theogony 346–364) and the same number of sons – river flows (Theogony 367–370). The gods revere Oceanus as an aged parent, take care of him, although he lives in solitude. Oceanus did not participate in the battle of the titans against Zeus and retained its power and the trust of the Olympians. Oceanus is the father of Metis, the wise wife of Zeus (Apollod. I 2, 1).ref

“Known for his peacefulness and kindness (Euripides tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Prometheus with Zeus; Prometheus Bound 284–396). Herodotus contains criticism of the mythological concept of Oceanus as a poetic invention (Herodot. II, 23, cf. also IV 8, 36, etc.). Euripides called the ocean the sea (Orestes 1376). Since that time, a tendency has been established to distinguish between a large outer sea – ocean – and inland seas. Later, Euripides begins to divide the ocean into parts: the Ethiopian Ocean, Eritrean ocean, Gallic ocean, Germanic Ocean, Hyperborean Ocean, etc.ref

“In Indian cosmology, there is an idea of darkness and the abyss, but also of the primary waters generated by night or chaos. Ancient Indian myths about the oceans contain both typical and original motifs. In Mandala 10 of the Rigveda, the original state of the universe is presented as the absence of existing and non-existent, airspace and sky above it, death and immortality, day and night, but the presence of water and disorderly movement. In the waters of the eternal ocean, there was a life-giving principle generated by the power of heat and giving birth to everything else. Another mandala of the Rigveda contains a different version: “Law and truths were born from the kindled heat…”, hence the surging ocean. Out of the tumultuous ocean a year was born, distributing days and nights.ref

“The Rigveda repeatedly mentions the generative power of the ocean (“multiple,” it roars at its first spread, giving rise to creations, the bearer of wealth), its thousands of streams flowing from the depths, it is said that the ocean is the spouse of rivers. The cosmic ocean forms the frame of the cosmos, separating it from chaos. The ocean is personified by the Varuna, who is associated both with the destructive and uncontrolled power of the waters of the oceans and with fruitful waters that bring wealth to people.ref

The churning of the ocean of milk myth contains the motif of the confrontation between the elements of water and fire. As a result of the rapid rotation, a whorl lights up – Mount Mandara, but trees and grasses emit their juices into the drying ocean. This motif echoes the Tungus myths about the creation of the earth by a celestial being, which, with the help of fire, dries up part of the primordial ocean, thus reclaiming a place for the earth. The motif of the struggle of water and fire in connection with the theme of the world ocean is also present in other traditions. Indian mythology is characterized by the image of the creator god (Brahma or Vishnu), floating on the primary waters in a lotus flower, on the nāga SheshaKurma, also known as “Tortoise”, is an avatar of Vishnu who is depicted as churning the cosmic ocean. Vishnu adopts the form of a tortoise to help hold the stick used to churn the cosmic ocean.ref

Vourukasha is the name of a heavenly sea in Zoroastrian mythology. It was created by Ahura Mazda and in its middle stood the Harvisptokhm or the “tree of all seeds”. Another cosmic ocean from Persian mythology is Fraxkard (Middle Persian: plʾhwklt, Avestan: Vourukaša; also called Warkaš in Middle Persian). According to the Vendidad, Ahura Mazda sent the clean waters of Vourukasha down to the earth in order to cleanse the world and sent the water back to the heavenly sea Puitika. This phenomenon was later interpreted as the coming and going of the tide. At the centre of Vourukasha was located the Harvisptokhm or “tree of all seeds”, which contains the seeds of all plants in the world. There is a bird Sinamru on the tree which causes the bough to break and seeds to sprinkle all around when it alights. At the center of the Vourukasha also grows the Gaokerena or “White Haoma“, considered to be the “king of healing plants”. It is surrounded by ten thousand other healing plants. In later times, Vourukasha was connected with the Persian Sea and the Puitika with the Gulf of Oman.ref

In the first creation story in the Bible the world is created as a space inside of the water or Tehom, and is hence surrounded by it. “God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water, that it may separate water from water.” God made the expanse, and it separated the water which was below the expanse from the water which was above the expanse. And it was so.” (Genesis 1:6). It is not clear as to if this upper water refers to the clouds or a “sky ocean” beyond the stars. There are hints though that indicate the cosmic ocean was enveloped in thick clouds.ref

“In the Book of Exodus, the cosmic ocean is the Yam Suph and is mentioned in Exodus 15:4, the Song of the Sea. The army of Pharaoh was thrown into the “Sea of Extinction.” Yahweh rises Egypt up from this sea. Sargon II, ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, is said to have washed his weapons in the cosmic ocean. The cosmic ocean is mentioned again in Joshua 1:4 and signified as a boundary of the universe. In the myth of Noah’s Ark, after forty days and nights of rain, the cosmic ocean floods the earth.ref

Greek Primordial Deities

“In Greek and Roman mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses. These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.” ref

Hesiod, in his Theogony, considers the first beings (after Chaos) to be ErebusGaiaTartarusEros and Nyx. Gaia and Uranus in turn gave birth to the Titans, and the Cyclopes. The Titans Cronus and Rhea then gave birth to the generation of the OlympiansZeusPoseidonHadesHestiaHera and Demeter, who overthrow the Titans, with the reign of Zeus marking the end of the period of warfare and usurpation among the gods.” ref

Hesiod‘s Theogony, (c. 700 BCE) which could be considered the “standard” creation myth of Greek mythology, tells the story of the genesis of the gods. After invoking the Muses (II.1–116), Hesiod says the world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (the Earth), “the ever-sure foundation of all”; “dim” Tartarus (the Underworld), in the depths of the Earth; and Eros (Love) “fairest among the deathless gods”. (Although in other myths, Eros was the name of Aphrodite‘s and Ares‘s son.)” ref

“From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night). And Nyx “from union in love” with Erebus produced Aether (Light) and Hemera (Day). From Gaia came Uranus (Sky), the Ourea (Mountains), and Pontus (Sea). In Hesiod’s creation myth, Chaos is the first being to ever exist. Chaos is both seen as a deity and a thing, with some sources seeing chaos as the gap between Heaven and Earth. In some accounts Chaos existed first alongside Eros and Nyx, while in others Chaos is the first and only thing in the universe. In some stories, Chaos is seen as existing beneath Tartarus. Chaos is the parent to Night and Darkness.” ref

“Gaia was the second being to be formed, right after Chaos, in Hesiod’s theogony, and parthenogenetically gave birth to Uranus, who would later become her husband and her equal, the Sea, and to the high Mountains. aia is a mother earth figure and is seen as the mother of all the gods, while also being the seat on which they exist. Gaia is the Greek Equivalent to the Roman goddess, Tellus / Terra. The story of Uranus’ castration at the hands of Cronus due to Gaia’s involvement is seen as the explanation for why Heaven and Earth are separated. In Hesiod’s story, Earth seeks revenge against Heaven for hiding her children the Cyclopes deep within her.” ref

“Gaia then goes to her other children and asks for their help to get revenge against their cruel father; of her children, only Cronus, the youngest and “most dreadful” of them all, agrees to do this. “Gaia plans an ambush against Uranus where she hides Cronus and gives him the sickle to castrate Uranus. From the blood Gaia again become pregnant with the Furies, the Giants, and the Melian nymphsCronus goes on to have six children with his sister, Rhea; who become the Olympians. Cronus is later overthrown by his son, Zeus, much in the same way he overthrew his father. Gaia is the mother to the twelve TitansOceanusCoeusCriusHyperionIapetusTheiaRheaThemisMnemosynePhoebeTethys, and Cronus.” ref

“Later in the myth, after his succession, Cronus learns from Gaia and Uranus that his own son (Zeus) will overthrow him, just as Cronus did Uranus. To prevent this, Cronus swallows all of his children as soon as they are born. Rhea seeks out Gaia for help in hiding her youngest son, Zeus, and gives Cronus a rock to swallow instead. Zeus later goes on to defeat his father and become the leader of the Olympians. After Zeus’s succession to the throne, Gaia bears another son with TartarusTyphon, a monster who would be the last to challenge Zeus’s authority. Sky and Earth have three sets of children: the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires.” ref

Tartarus is described by Hesiod as both a primordial deity and also a great abyss where the Titans are imprisoned. Tartarus is seen as a prison, but is also where DayNightSleep, and Death dwell, and also imagined as a great gorge that is a distinct part of the underworld. Hesiod tells that it took nine days for the Titans to fall to the bottom of Tartarus, describing how deep the abyss is. In some versions Tartarus is described as a “misty darkness” where Death, Styx, and Erebus reside. Eros is the god of love in Greek mythology, and in some versions is one of the primordial beings that first came to be parentlessly. In Hesiod’s version, Eros was the “fairest among the immortal gods … who conquers the mind and sensible thoughts of all gods and men.” ref

“In some variations of Hesiod’s Theogony, Nyx (Night) is told as having black wings; and in one tale she laid an egg in Erebus from which Eros sprang out. One version of Hesiod’s tale tells that Night shares her house with Day in Tartarus, but that the two are never home at the same time. However, in some versions Nyx’s home is where Chaos and Tartarus meet, suggesting to the idea that Chaos resides beneath Tartarus.” ref

“Hyginus also includes Epaphus and Porphyrion among Nyx’s children. Some accounts also include Hecate (Crossroads and Magic) among Nyx’s children. Aether, Hemera, and Eros are Nyx’s only children who are among the primordial gods. Hesiod says Nyx and Erebus together had Aether and Hemera, but Nyx had the other children on her own. Cicero and Hyginus say Nyx had all her children with Erebus. In Virgil‘s Aeneid, Nox is said to be the mother of the Furies by Hades.” ref

“Some authors made Nyx the mother of Eos, the dawn goddess, who was often conflated with Nyx’s daughter Hemera. When Eos’ son Memnon was killed during the Trojan War, Eos made Helios (the sun god) downcast, and asked Nyx to come out earlier so that she would collect her son’s dead body undetected by the Greek and the Trojan armies. The ancient Greeks entertained different versions of the origin of primordial deities. Some of these stories were possibly inherited from the pre-Greek Aegean cultures. The Iliad, an epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan War (an oral tradition of c. 700–600 BCE), states that Oceanus (and possibly Tethys, too) is the parent of all the deities.” ref

“Scholars dispute the meaning of the primordial deities in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. Since the primordials give birth to the Titans, and the Titans give birth to the Olympians, one way of interpreting the primordial gods is as the deepest and most fundamental nature of the cosmos.

“For example, Jenny Strauss Clay argues that Homer’s poetic vision centers on the reign of Zeus, but that Hesiod’s vision of the primordials put Zeus and the Olympians in context. Likewise, Vernant argues that the Olympic pantheon is a “system of classification, a particular way of ordering and conceptualizing the universe by distinguishing within it various types of powers and forces.” But even before the Olympic pantheon were the Titans and primordial gods. Homer alludes to a more tumultuous past before Zeus was the undisputed King and Father.” ref

Mitchell Miller argues that the first four primordial deities arise in a highly significant relationship. He argues that Chaos represents differentiation, since Chaos differentiates (separates, divides) Tartarus and Earth. Even though Chaos is “first of all” for Hesiod, Miller argues that Tartarus represents the primacy of the undifferentiated, or the unlimited. Since undifferentiation is unthinkable, Chaos is the “first of all” in that he is the first thinkable being. In this way, Chaos (the principle of division) is the natural opposite of Eros (the principle of unification). Earth (light, day, waking, life) is the natural opposite of Tartarus (darkness, night, sleep, death). These four are the parents of all the other Titans.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Snake, Turtle, Fish, Alligator, Spider, Frog, and Bird

Animals That Lay Eggs

“All members of the avian world lay eggs. Here is a list of popular flight and flightless egg-laying birds. Animals vary from each other when it comes to the modes of reproduction. On this basis, one could classify them as oviparous and viviparous. Animals that lay eggs are called oviparous. In this case, the eggs’ fertilization and development don’t occur within the female’s body, and the eggs hatch outside. In the case of viviparous reproduction, the embryo develops in the mother’s body resulting in the birth of live young.” ref

“Ovoviviparous is the third form and a mid-way between the oviparous and viviparous methods. Here, the eggs are hatched in the mother’s body, fertilized internally, and the young are born. All birds lay eggs; however, when it comes to mammals, just a handful, including the platypus and echidnas, are egg-layers. When speaking of amphibiansreptiles, and fish, most are oviparous, while few are viviparous and ovoviviparous.” ref

“Animals that Lay Eggs but are Not Birds: Duck-billed Platypus, Echidnas, Alligators, Crocodiles, Turtles, Frogs, Salamanders, Seahorses, Sharks, Snakes, Lizards, Spiders, Crabs, and Centipedes.” ref

Sky Father and Earth Mother

First, Sky Father was a bird?

First, Earth Mother was a snake?

In my prehistory art in this blog, I offer my speculations relating to art with possible religious/supernatural thinking which I think are loose, justified, or reasoned speculations/conjectures.

“My Holy Three thinking is me wondering if they have a 30,000-year belief connection so it may be loose speculations/conjectures.”

Trinity Evolution Started over 30,000 years ago, Maybe?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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1. Kebaran culture 23,022-16,522 Years Ago, 2. Kortik Tepe 12,422-11,722 Years Ago, 3. Jerf el-Ahmar 11,222 -10,722 Years Ago, 4. Gobekli Tepe 11,152-9,392 Years Ago, 5. Tell Al-‘abrUbaid and Uruk Periods, 6. Nevali Cori 10,422 -10,122 Years Ago, 7. Catal Hoyuk 9,522-7,722 Years Ago

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Sky Burials: Animism, Totemism, Shamanism, and Paganism

“In archaeology and anthropology, the term excarnation (also known as defleshing) refers to the practice of removing the flesh and organs of the dead before burial, leaving only the bones. Excarnation may be precipitated through natural means, involving leaving a body exposed for animals to scavenge, or it may be purposefully undertaken by butchering the corpse by hand. Practices making use of natural processes for excarnation are the Tibetan sky burial, Comanche platform burials, and traditional Zoroastrian funerals (see Tower of Silence).  Some Native American groups in the southeastern portion of North America practiced deliberate excarnation in protohistoric times. Archaeologists believe that in this practice, people typically left the body exposed on a woven litter or altar.” ref

Ancient Headless Corpses Were Defleshed By Griffon Vultures

Sky burial ( Animal Worship mixed with Ancestor Worship) is a funeral practice where a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop, elevated ground, tree, or constructed perch to decompose while be eaten by scavenging animals, especially birds. This Animal Worship (or Zoolatry) rituals may go back to the  Neanderthals who seem to Sacralize birds starting around 130,000 years ago in Croatia with eagle talon jewelry and oldest confirmed burial. Or possible (Aurignacian) “Bird Worship” at  Hohle Fels cave, Germany, early totemism and small bird figurine at around 33,000 years old, which had been cited as evidence of shamanism.

As well as possible ‘Bird Worship’ (in the Pavlovian culture/Gravettian culture) part of Early Shamanism at Dolní Věstonice (Czech Republic) from around 31,000-25,000 years ago, which held the “first shaman burial.” The shamanistic Mal’ta–Buret’ culture of Siberia, dating to 24,000-15,000 years ago, who connect to the indigenous peoples of the Americas show Bird Worship. The Magdalenian cultures in western Europe, dating from around 17,000-12,000 years ago have a famous artistic mural with a bird that I think could relate to reincarnation and at least bird symbolism. Likewise, there is evidence of possible ‘Bird Worship’ at  Göbekli Tepe (Turkey), dated to around 13,000/11,600-9,370 Years ago with “first human-made temple” and at Çatalhöyük (Turkey), dated to around 9,500-7,700 Years ago with “first religious designed city” both with seeming ancestor, animal, and possible goddess worship.

The Tibetan sky-burials appear to have evolved from ancient practices of defleshing corpses as discovered in archeological finds in the region. These practices most likely came out of practical considerations, but they could also be related to more ceremonial practices similar to the suspected sky burial evidence found at Göbekli Tepe (11,500 years ago) and Stonehenge (4,500 years ago). ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Leda and the Swan: possibly relates back to 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta–Buret’ culture, Lake Baikal, Siberia? 

Leda and the Swan

“Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduces Leda, the Queen of Sparta. A sixteenth-century copy of the lost original by Michelangelo.” ref

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta.” ref

“In the W. B. Yeats version, it is subtly suggested that Clytemnestra, although being the daughter of Tyndareus, has somehow been traumatized by what the swan has done to her mother (see below). According to many versions of the story, Zeus took the form of a swan and raped Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus. In some versions, she laid two eggs from which the children hatched. In other versions, Helen is a daughter of Nemesis, the goddess who personified the disaster that awaited those suffering from the pride of Hubris.” ref

“The subject was rarely seen in the large-scale sculpture of antiquity, although a representation of Leda in sculpture has been attributed in modern times to Timotheus (compare illustration, below left); small-scale sculptures survive showing both reclining and standing poses, in cameos and engraved gems, rings, and terracotta oil lamps. Thanks to the literary renditions of Ovid and Fulgentius it was a well-known myth through the Middle Ages, but emerged more prominently as a classicizing theme, with erotic overtones, in the Italian Renaissance.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art 

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24,000 Years Old Sacred Burial of a Siberian Mal’ta Boy

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Investigating Asian Shamanism: “Wu” (Chinese shaman) and (Chinese shamanism) “Wuism” or “Wu” religion as well as Others to Understand

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Based on the seeming evidence, I speculate that around 14,000 years ago, it could be possible Siberian Shamanism (along with dogs and a bird carving, different but yet possibly related to the bird carvings in Siberia dating from 24,000 to 15,000 years ago) was transferred to China, after “N” DNA reached Siberia bringing them pottery. Bird sculptures through ethnographic comparison at 24,000–15,000 years old Mal’ta with objects used by Siberian shamans, suggest a fully developed shamanism.

ref

“Similar looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufian, a final Epipaleolithic period when sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers started practicing agriculture.” ref

“The engravings found in Ein Qashish South involve symbolic conceptualization. They suggest that the figurative and non-figurative images comprise a coherent assemblage of symbols that might have been applied in order to store, share and transmit information related to the social activities and the subsistence of mobile bands.

“They also suggest a level of social complexity in pre-Natufian foragers in the Levant. The apparent similarity in graphics throughout the Late Pleistocene world and the mode of their application support the possibility that symbolic behavior has a common and much earlier origin.” ref

“Evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant has been found in engraved limestone plaquettes from the Epipaleolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley, Israel. The engravings were uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23,000 and ca. 16,500 BP), and include the image of a bird, the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic site, together with geometric motifs such as chevrons, cross-hatchings, and ladders.” ref

“Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds, and may be interpreted as “systems of notations” or “artificial memory systems” related to the timing of seasonal resources and related important events for nomadic groups.” ref

 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Three-legged crow

“The three-legged (or tripedal) crow is a mythological creature in various mythologies and arts of East Asia. It is believed to inhabit and represent the Sun. Evidence of the earliest bird-Sun motif or totemic articles excavated around 5000 BCE from the lower Yangtze River delta area. This bird-Sun totem heritage was observed in later Yangshao and Longshan cultures. The Chinese have several versions of crow and crow-Sun tales. But the most popular depiction and myth of the Sun crow is that of the Yangwu or Jinwu, the “golden crow“.It has also been found figured on ancient coins from Lycia and Pamphylia.” ref

“In Chinese mythology and culture, the three-legged crow is called the sanzuwu and is present in many myths. It is also mentioned in the Shanhaijing. The earliest known depiction of a three-legged crow appears in Neolithic pottery of the Yangshao culture. The sanzuwu in a disc represents the sun and is also one of the Twelve ornaments that is used in the decoration of formal imperial garments in ancient China.” ref

“The most popular depiction and myth of a sanzuwu is that of a sun crow called the Yangwu (陽烏; yángwū) or more commonly referred to as the Jīnwū (金烏; jīnwū) or “golden crow“. Even though it is described as a crow or raven, it is usually colored red instead of black. A silk painting from the Western Han excavated at the Mawangdui archaeological site also depicts a “golden crow” in the sun.” ref

“In ancient Chinese depictions, the Chinese god of creation, Fuxi, is often depicted carrying the sun disk with the jīnwū (金烏; jīnwū; ‘golden crow’) while the Chinese goddess of creation, Nüwa, holds the moon disk which contains a gold stripped toad. The sanzuwu is also depicted with the Queen Mother of the West (Chinese: 西王母; pinyin: Xi Wangmu) who are believed to be her messengers.” ref

“According to folklore, there were originally ten sun crows which settled in 10 separate suns. They perched on a red mulberry tree called the Fusang (扶桑; fúsāng), literally meaning “the leaning mulberry tree”, in the East at the foot of the Valley of the Sun. This mulberry tree was said to have many mouths opening from its branches. Each day one of the sun crows would be rostered to travel around the world on a carriage, driven by Xihe, the ‘mother’ of the suns. As soon as one sun crow returned, another one would set forth in its journey crossing the sky.” ref

“According to Shanhaijing, the sun crows loved eating two grasses of immortality, one called the Diri (地日; dìrì), or “ground sun”, and the other the Chunsheng (春生; chūnshēng), or “spring grow”. The sun crows would often descend from heaven on to the earth and feast on these grasses, but Xihe did not like this; thus, she covered their eyes to prevent them from doing so. Folklore also held that, at around 2170 BCE or 4,192 years ago, all ten sun crows came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi, the celestial archer saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun crows. (See Mid-Autumn Festival for variants of this legend.)” ref

Other tripedal creatures in Chinese mythology

“In Chinese mythology, there are other three-legged creatures besides the crow, for instance, the yu  “a three-legged tortoise that causes malaria”. The three-legged crow symbolizing the sun has a yin yang counterpart in the chánchú 蟾蜍 “three-legged toad” symbolizing the moon (along with the moon rabbit). According to an ancient tradition, this toad is the transformed Chang’e lunar deity who stole the elixir of life from her husband Houyi the archer, and fled to the moon where she was turned into a toad.” ref

“The Fènghuáng is commonly depicted as being two-legged but there are some instances in art in which it has a three-legged appearance. Xi Wangmu (Queen Mother of the West) is also said to have three green birds (青鳥; qīngniǎo) that gathered food for her and in Han-period religious art they were depicted as having three legs. In the Yongtai Tomb dating to the Tang Dynasty Era, when the Cult of Xi Wangu flourished, the birds are also shown as being three-legged.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

refrefrefrefrefref, ref

Trialetian culture (16,000–8000 years ago) the Caucasus, Iran, and Turkey, likely involved in Göbekli Tepe. Migration 1?

Haplogroup R possible time of origin about 27,000 years in Central Asia, South Asia, or Siberia:

Trialetian sites

Caucasus and Transcaucasia:

Eastern Anatolia:

Trialetian influences can also be found in:

Southeast of the Caspian Sea:

  • Hotu (Iran)
  • Ali Tepe (Iran) (from cal. 10,500 to 8,870 BCE)
  • Belt Cave (Iran), layers 28-11 (the last remains date from ca. 6,000 BCE)
  • Dam-Dam-Cheshme II (Turkmenistan), layers7,000-3,000 BCE)” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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I hear possible similarities to Proto-Indo-Eutopian mythology in China’s 7,022–6,522 years ago Hemudu culture as well as to 7,000-year-old ritual items found in the Balkans area such as the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.

PIE Proto-Indo-Eutopian mythology: *Dyḗws Ph₂tḗr, the daylight-sky god; his consort/wife *Dʰéǵʰōm, the earth mother.

Hemudu culture mythology (5500 to 3300 BCE or 7,522-5,322 years ago): Hemudu’s inhabitants worshiped a sun spirit as well as a fertility spirit. They also enacted shamanistic rituals to the sun and believed in bird totems.

Various schools of thought exist regarding possible interpretations of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European mythology. The main mythologies used in comparative reconstruction are Indo-Iranian, Baltic, Roman, and Norse, often supported with evidence from the Celtic, Greek, Slavic, Hittite, Armenian, Illyrian, and Albanian traditions as well.

The mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is not directly attested and it is difficult to match their language to archaeological findings related to any specific culture from the Chalcolithic or Copper Age, also known as the Eneolithic or Aeneolithic (from Latin aeneus “of copper”). Nonetheless, scholars of comparative mythology have attempted to reconstruct aspects of Proto-Indo-European mythology based on the existence of linguistic and thematic similarities among the deities, religious practices, and myths of various Indo-European peoples.” ref, ref

“In the Chalcolithic period, copper predominated in metalworking technology. Hence it was the period before it was discovered that by adding tin to copper one could create bronze, a metal alloy harder and stronger than either component. The archaeological site of Belovode, on Rudnik mountain in Serbia, has the worldwide oldest securely-dated evidence of copper smelting at high temperature, from c. 5000 BCE (7022 years ago).” ref

“The first copper/arsenic bronzes date from 4200 BCE or 6,222 years ago from Asia Minor/Anatolia within modern Turkey. The transition from Copper Age to Bronze Age in Europe occurred between the late 5th and the late 3rd millennia BCE. In the Ancient Near East the Copper Age covered about the same period, beginning in the late 5th millennium BCE and lasting for about a millennium before it gave rise to the Early Bronze Age.” ref

7,022–6,522 years ago Hemudu culture Yuyao and Zhoushan, Zhejiang

“The Hemudu culture (5500 to 3300 BCE) was a Neolithic culture that flourished just south of the Hangzhou Bay in Jiangnan in modern Yuyao, Zhejiang, China. The culture may be divided into early and late phases, before and after 4000 BCE or 6,022 years ago respectively. The site at Hemudu, 22 km northwest of Ningbo, was discovered in 1973. Hemudu sites were also discovered at Tianluoshan in Yuyao city, and on the islands of Zhoushan. Hemudu are said to have differed physically from inhabitants of the Yellow River sites to the north. Some authors propose that the Hemudu Culture was a source of the pre-Austronesian cultures.” ref

“The Hemudu people lived in long, stilt houses. Communal longhouses were also common in Hemudu sites, much like the ones found in modern-day Borneo. The Hemudu culture was one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Recent excavations at the Hemudu period site of Tianluoshan has demonstrated rice was undergoing evolutionary changes recognized as domestication. Most of the artifacts discovered at Hemudu consist of animal bones, exemplified by hoes made of shoulder bones used for cultivating rice.” ref

“The culture also produced lacquer wood. A red lacquer wood bowl at the Zhejiang Museum is dated to 4,000-5,000 BCE or 6,022-7,022 years ago. It is believed to be the earliest such object in the world. The remains of various plants, including water caltrop, Nelumbo nucifera, acorns, melon, wild kiwifruit, blackberries, peach, the foxnut, or Gorgon euryale, and bottle gourd, were found at Hemudu and Tianluoshan. The Hemudu people likely domesticated pigs but practiced extensive hunting of deer and some wild water buffalo. Fishing was also carried out on a large scale, with a particular focus on crucian carp.” ref

“The practices of fishing and hunting are evidenced by the remains of bone harpoons and bows and arrowheads. Music instruments, such as bone whistles and wooden drums, were also found at Hemudu. Artifact design by Hemudu inhabitants bears many resemblances to those of Insular Southeast Asia. The culture produced a thick, porous pottery. This distinctive pottery was typically black and made with charcoal powder. Plant and geometric designs were commonly painted onto the pottery; the pottery was sometimes also cord-marked. The culture also produced carved jade ornaments, carved ivory artifacts, and small clay figurines.” ref

“The early Hemudu period is considered the maternal clan phase. Descent is thought to have been matrilineal and the social status of children and women comparatively high. In the later periods, they gradually shifted into patrilineal clans. During that period, the social status of men rose and descent was passed through the male line.” ref

“Hemudu’s inhabitants worshiped a sun spirit as well as a fertility spirit. They also enacted shamanistic rituals to the sun and believed in bird totems. A belief in an afterlife and ghosts is thought to have been widespread as well. People were buried with their heads facing east or northeast and most had no burial objects. Infants were buried in urn-casket style burials, while children and adults received earth level burials.” ref

“They did not have a definite communal burial ground, for the most part, but a clan communal burial ground has been found from the later period. Two groups in separate parts of this burial ground are thought to be two intermarrying clans. There were noticeably more burial goods in this communal burial ground.” ref

“Fossilized amoeboids and pollen suggests Hemudu culture emerged and developed in the middle of the Holocene Climatic Optimum. A study of a sea-level highstand in the Ningshao Plain from around 7000 to 5000 years ago shows that there may have been stabilized lower sea levels at this time, followed by frequent flooding from around 5000 to 3900 years ago. The climate was said to be tropical to subtropical with high temperatures and much precipitation throughout the year.” ref

Three Pure Ones

“The Three Pure Ones (Chinese: 三清; pinyin: Sānqīng), also translated as the Three Pure Pellucid Ones, the Three Pristine Ones, the Three Divine Teachers, the Three Clarities, or the Three Purities, are the Taoist Trinity, the three highest gods in the Taoist pantheon. They are regarded as pure manifestation of the Tao and the origin of all sentient beings.” ref

The “Three” in Taoism

“From the Taoist classic Tao Te Ching, it was held that “The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things.” It is generally agreed by Taoist scholars that Tao produced One means Wuji produced Taiji, and One produced Two means Taiji produced Yin and Yang [or Liangyi (兩儀) in scholastic term]. However, the subject of how Two produced Three has remained a popular debate among Taoist Scholars. Most scholars believe that it refers to the Interaction between Yin and Yang, with the presence of Chi, or life force.” ref

“In religious Taoism, the theory of how Tao produces One, Two, and Three is also explained. In Tao produces One—Wuji produces Taiji, it represents the Great Tao, embodied by Hundun (Chinese: 混沌無極元始天王; pinyin: Hùndùn Wújí Yuánshǐ Tiānwáng, “Heavenly King of the Chaotic Never-ending Primordial Beginning”) at a time of pre-Creation when the Universe was still null and the cosmos was in disorder; manifesting into the first of the Taoist Trinity, Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn. Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn oversees the earliest phase of Creation of the Universe, and is henceforth known as Dàobǎo (道寶) “Treasure of the Tao.” ref

“In One produces Two—Taiji produces Yin Yang, Yuanshi Tianzun manifests into Lingbao Tianzun who separated the Yang from the Yin, the clear from the murky, and classified the elements into their rightful groups. Therefore, he is also known as Jīngbǎo (經寶) “Treasure of the Law/Scripture”. While Jīng in popular understanding means “scriptures”, in this context it also mean “passing through” [the phase of Creation] and the Laws of Nature of how things are meant to be. In the final phase of Creation, Daode Tianzun is manifested from Língbăo Tiānzūn to bring civilization and preach the Law to all living beings. Therefore, He is also known as Shībǎo (師寶) “Treasure of the Master.” ref

“Each of the Three Pure Ones represents both a deity and a heaven. Yuanshi Tianzun rules the first heaven, Yu-Qing, which is found in the Jade Mountain. The entrance to this heaven is named the Golden Door. “He is the source of all truth, as the sun is the source of all light”. Lingbao Tianzun rules over the heaven of Shang-Qing. Daode Tianzun rules over the heaven of Tai-Qing. The Three Pure Ones are often depicted as throned elders.” ref

“Schools of Taoist thought developed around each of these deities. Taoist Alchemy was a large part of these schools, as each of the Three Pure Ones represented one of the three essential fields of the body: jing, qi, and shen. The congregation of all three Pure Ones resulted in the return to Tao.” ref

“The first Pure One is universal or heavenly chi. The second Pure One is human plane chi, and the third Pure One is earth chi. Heavenly chi includes the chi or energy of all the planets, stars, and constellations as well as the energy of God (the force of creation and universal love). Human plane chi is the energy that exists on the surface of our planet and sustains human life, and the earth force includes all of the forces inside the planet as well as the five elemental forces.” ref

“As the Three Pure Ones are manifestations of Primordial Celestial Energy, they are formless. But to illustrate their role in Creation, they are often portrayed as elderly deities robed in the three basic colors from which all colors originated: Red, Blue, and Yellow (or Green) depending on personal interpretation of color origins by additive or subtractive means. Each of them holds onto a divine object associated with their task. Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn is usually depicted holding the Pearl of Creation, signifying his role in creating the Universe from void and chaos.” ref

“The Ruyi held by Lingbao Tianzun represents authority: the second phase of Creation where the Yang was separated from the Yin and the Law of Things was ordered in place. Lingbao Tianzun then took his seat on the left of Yuanshi Tianzun. Later, when all was complete, Daode Tianzun took his place on the right, with the fan symbolizing the completion of Creation, and the act of fanning representing the spreading of Tao to all Mankind.” ref

Divine Birds?

“The logic is pretty simple: the gods, as everyone knows, live somewhere up in the sky. Birds also inhabit the sky, or at least spend more time there than any other creature in common experience. Therefore, birds have a special connection with the divine. Many cultures see birds as bearers of omens, whether good or bad depending on the type of bird, and some go even farther, with myths and tales depicting them as messengers proffering instructions and advice to mortals, or even providing services of some sort. Angels, additionally, are often depicted as winged and are seen mainly as messengers of God in scripture. Specific species of bird can be associated with certain gods. Eagles are particular favorites and often serve the Top God of a particular pantheon; however, note that eagles are also used to represent mundane values and so are not always part of this trope. If the writer is feeling more fantastically-inclined, mythical birds such as phoenixes might get used. Gods of death or the underworld have their own preferred representatives which would best be avoided: see Creepy Crows and Owl Be Damned. Vultures are another popular choice. Other flighted creatures are sometimes seen in the same way: see Butterfly of Death and Rebirth and Macabre Moth Motif. Birds being seen as sinister in general are Feathered Fiends.” ref

Double-headed eagle

“In heraldry and vexillology, the double-headed eagle (or double-eagle) is a charge associated with the concept of Empire. Most modern uses of the symbol are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the Byzantine Empire, whose use of it represented the Empire’s dominion over the Near East and the West. The symbol is much older, and its original meaning is debated among scholars. The eagle has long been a symbol of power and dominion. The double-headed eagle or double-eagle is a motif that appears in Mycenaean Greece and in the Ancient Near East, especially in Hittite iconography. It re-appeared during the High Middle Ages, from around the 10th or 11th centuries, and was notably used by the Byzantine Empire, but 11th or 12th century representations have also been found originating from Islamic Spain, France, and the Serbian principality of Raška. From the 13th century onward, it became even more widespread, and was used by the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and the Mamluk Sultanate within the Islamic world, and within the Christian world by the Holy Roman Empire, Serbia, several medieval Albanian noble families, and Russia. Used in the Byzantine Empire as a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi, it was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire on the one hand, and in Orthodox principalities (Serbia and Russia) on the other, representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or Aquila associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle.” ref

Ancient Near East and Anatolia

Polycephalous mythological beasts are very frequent in the Bronze Age and Iron Age pictorial legacy of the Ancient Near East, especially in the Assyrian sphere. These latter were adopted by the Hittites. Use of the double-headed eagle in Hittite imagery has been interpreted as “royal insignia”. A monumental Hittite relief of a double-headed eagle grasping two hares is found at the eastern pier of the Sphinx Gate at Alaca Hüyük. For more examples of double-headed eagles in the Hittite context see Jesse David Chariton, “The Function of the Double-Headed Eagle at Yazılıkaya.” ref

Mycenaean Greece

“In Mycenaean Greece, evidence of the double-eagle motif was discovered in Grave Circle A, an elite Mycenaean cemetery; the motif was part of a series of gold jewelry, possibly a necklace with a repeating design.” ref

Middle Ages

“After the Bronze Age collapse, there is a gap of more than two millennia before the re-appearance of the double-headed eagle motif. The earliest occurrence in the context of the Byzantine Empire appears to be on a silk brocade dated to the 10th century, which was, however, likely manufactured in Islamic Spain; similarly, early examples, from the 10th or 11th century, are from Bulgaria and from France.” ref

Byzantine Empire

“The early Byzantine Empire continued to use the (single-headed) imperial eagle motif. The double-headed eagle appears only in the medieval period, by about the 10th century in Byzantine art, but as an imperial emblem only much later, during the final century of the Palaiologos dynasty. In Western European sources, it appears as a Byzantine state emblem since at least the 15th century. A modern theory, forwarded by Zapheiriou (1947), connected the introduction of the motif to Byzantine Emperor Isaac I Komnenos (1057–1059), whose family originated in Paphlagonia. Zapheiriou supposed that the Hittite motif of the double-headed bird, associated with the Paphlagonian city of Gangra (where it was known as Haga, Χάγκα) might have been brought to the Byzantine Empire by the Komnenoi.” ref

Adoption in the Muslim world

“The double-headed eagle motif was adopted in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm and the Turkic beyliks of medieval Anatolia in the early 13th century. A royal association of the motif is suggested by its appearance on the keystone of an arch of the citadel built at Konya (former Ikonion) under Kayqubad I (r. 1220–1237). The motif appears on Turkomen coins of this era, notably on coins minted under Artuqid ruler Nasir al-Din Mahmud of Hasankeyf (r. 1200–1222). It is also found on some stone reliefs on the towers of Diyarbakır Fortress. Later in the 13th century, the motif was also adopted in Mamluk Egypt; it is notably found on the pierced-globe handwarmer made for Mamluk amir Badr al-Din Baysari (c. 1270), and in a stone relief on the walls of the Cairo Citadel.” ref

Adoption in Christian Europe

“Adoption of the double-headed eagle in Albania, Serbia, Russia, and in the Holy Roman Empire begins still in the medieval period, possibly as early as the 12th century, but widespread use begins after the fall of Constantinople, in the late 15th century. The oldest preserved depiction of a double-headed eagle in Serbia is the one found in the donor portrait of Miroslav of Hum in the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Bijelo Polje, dating to 1190. The double-headed eagle in the Serbian royal coat of arms is well attested in the 13th and 14th centuries. An exceptional medieval depiction of a double-headed eagle in the West, attributed to Otto IV, is found in a copy of the Chronica Majora of Matthew of Paris (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Parker MS 16 fol. 18, 13th century).” ref

Early Modern use

“In Serbia, the Nemanjić dynasty adopted a double-headed eagle by the 14th century (recorded by Angelino Dulcert 1339). The double-headed eagle was used in several coats of arms found in the Illyrian Armorials, compiled in the early modern period. The white double-headed eagle on a red shield was used for the Nemanjić dynasty, and the Despot Stefan Lazarević. A “Nemanjić eagle” was used at the crest of the Hrebeljanović (Lazarević dynasty), while a half-white half-red eagle was used at the crest of the Mrnjavčević. The use of the white eagle was continued by the modern Karađorđević, Obrenović, and Petrović-Njegoš ruling houses.” ref

Russia

“After the fall of Constantinople, the use of two-headed eagle symbols spread to Grand Duchy of Moscow after Ivan III‘s second marriage (1472) to Zoe Palaiologina (a niece of the last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, who reigned 1449–1453),[17] The last prince of Tver, Mikhail III of Tver (1453–1505), was stamping his coins with two-headed eagle symbol. The double-headed eagle remained an important motif in the heraldry of the imperial families of Russia (the House of Romanov (1613-1762)). The double-headed eagle was a main element of the coat of arms of the Russian Empire (1721–1917), modified in various ways from the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505) onwards, with the shape of the eagle getting its definite Russian form during the reign of Peter the Great (1682–1725). It continued in Russian use until abolished (being identified with Tsarist rule) with the Russian Revolution in 1917; it was restored in 1993 after that year’s constitutional crisis and remains in use up to the present, although the eagle charge on the present coat of arms is golden rather than the traditional, imperial black.” ref

Holy Roman Empire

“The use of a double-headed Imperial Eagle, improved from the single-headed Imperial Eagle used in the high medieval period, became current in the 15th to 16th centuries. The double-headed Reichsadler was in the coats of arms of many German cities and aristocratic families in the early modern period. A distinguishing feature of the Holy Roman eagle was that it was often depicted with haloes. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the double-headed eagle was retained by the Austrian Empire, and served also as the coat of arms of the German Confederation. The German states of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen continued to use the double-headed eagle as well until they were abolished shortly after the First World War, and so did the Free City of Lübeck until it was abolished by the Nazi government in 1937. Austria, which switched to a single-headed eagle after the end of the monarchy, briefly used a double-headed eagle – with haloes – once again when it was a one-party state 1934–1938; this, too, was ended by the Nazi government. Since then, Germany and Austria, and their respective states, have not used double-headed eagles.” ref

Mysore

“The Gandabherunda is a bicephalous bird, not necessarily an eagle but very similar in design to the double-headed eagle used in Western heraldry, used as a symbol by the Wadiyar dynasty of the Kingdom of Mysore from the 16th century. Coins (gold pagoda or gadyana) from the rule of Achyuta Deva Raya (reigned 1529–1542) are thought[by whom?] to be the first to use the Gandabherunda on currency. An early instance of the design is found on a sculpture on the roof of the Rameshwara temple in the temple town of Keladi in Shivamogga. The symbol was in continued use by the Maharaja of Mysore into the modern period, and was adopted as the state symbol of the State of Mysore (now Karnataka) after Indian independence.” ref

Albania

“The Kastrioti family in Albania had a double-headed eagle as their emblem in the 14th and 15th centuries. Some members of the Dukagjini family and the Arianiti family also used double-headed eagles, and a coalition of Albanian states in the 15th century, later called the League of Lezhë, also used the Kastrioti eagle as its flag. The current flag of Albania features a black two-headed eagle with a crimson background. During John Hunyadi’s campaign in Niš in 1443, Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg and a few hundred Albanians defected from the Turkish ranks and used the double-headed eagle flag. The eagle was used for heraldic purposes in the Middle Ages by a number of Albanian noble families in Albania and became the symbol of the Albanians. The Kastrioti‘s coat of arms, depicting a black double-headed eagle on a red field, became famous when he led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire resulting in the independence of Albania from 1443 to 1479. This was the flag of the League of Lezhë, which was the first unified Albanian state in the Middle Ages and the oldest Parliament with extant records.” ref

Modern use

Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Russia have a double-headed eagle in their coat of arms. In 1912, Ismail Qemali raised a similar version of that flag. The flag has gone through many alterations, until 1992 when the current flag of Albania was introduced. The double-headed eagle is now used as an emblem by a number of Orthodox Christian churches, including the Greek Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. In modern Greece, it appears in official use in the Hellenic Army (Coat of Arms of Hellenic Army General Staff) and the Hellenic Army XVI Infantry Division, The two-headed eagle appears, often as a supporter, on the modern and historical arms and flags of Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Austria (1934–1938), Albania, Armenia, Montenegro, the Russian Federation, Serbia. It was also used as a charge on the Greek coat of arms for a brief period in 1925–1926. It is also used in the municipal arms of a number of cities in Germany, Netherlands, and Serbia, the arms and flag of the city and Province of Toledo, Spain, and the arms of the town of Velletri, Italy. An English heraldic tradition, apparently going back to the 17th century, attributes coats of arms with double-headed eagles to the Anglo-Saxon earls of Mercia, Leofwine, and Leofric. The design was introduced in a number of British municipal coats of arms in the 20th century, such as the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon in London, the supporters in the coat of arms of the city and burgh of Perth, and hence in that of the district of Perth and Kinross (1975). The motif is also found in a number of British family coats of arms. In Turkey, General Directorate of Security and the municipality of Diyarbakır have a double-headed eagle in their coat of arms. The Double-Headed Eagle is used as an emblem by the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. It was introduced in France in the early 1760s as the emblem of the Kadosh degree. In 2021, Alexei Navalny revealed in a documentary that many double-headed eagles appear in the gigantic palace secretly built for Vladimir Putin on the Russian coast of the Black Sea, especially on the front portal, using the same design as used in the Winter Palace.” ref

Chickens and Their Role in Mythology and Culture

“Chickens are more than just farm animals. They have been important in many cultures throughout history. In ancient Egypt, chickens were symbols of fertility and renewal. Egyptians believed that chickens could bring new life because they saw hens laying eggs, which turned into chicks. This process symbolized the cycle of life and rebirth. Chickens were often depicted in Egyptian art, and they played a role in various rituals and offerings to the gods. The chicken’s ability to lay many eggs made it a powerful symbol of abundance and prosperity.” ref

“In ancient Greece, chickens were admired for their courage. Greek soldiers used chickens in rituals before going to war, believing that the bird’s bravery would transfer to them. The rooster, with its bold crowing at dawn, was seen as a herald of new beginnings and a symbol of vigilance. In Greek mythology, the rooster was associated with the god Apollo, representing the sun and light. The Greeks believed that the rooster’s crow could ward off evil spirits, making it a protective symbol as well.” ref

“In Chinese culture, the rooster is one of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. People born in the Year of the Rooster are thought to be honest, hardworking, and punctual, reflecting the rooster’s nature. The rooster is also a symbol of fidelity and punctuality, as it crows at the break of dawn, marking the start of a new day. During Chinese New Year, rooster imagery is often used in decorations to bring good fortune and ward off evil spirits.” ref

“In Japan, chickens hold a sacred place in Shinto beliefs. There is a famous myth about a chicken that crowed to summon the sun goddess Amaterasu, who had hidden in a cave, plunging the world into darkness. The rooster’s crow convinced Amaterasu to come out, bringing light back to the world. This story underscores the chicken’s association with the dawn and new beginnings. In many Shinto shrines, chickens roam freely as they are considered messengers of the gods.” ref

“The chicken (Gallus domesticus) is a large and round short-winged birddomesticated from the red junglefowl of Southeast Asia around 8,000 years ago. Most chickens are raised for food, providing meat and eggs; others are kept as pets or for cockfighting.” ref

“Water or ground-dwelling fowl similar to modern partridges, in the Galliformes, the order of bird that chickens belong to, survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that killed all tree-dwelling birds and their dinosaur relatives. Chickens are descended primarily from the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) and are scientifically classified as the same species. Domesticated chickens freely interbreed with populations of red junglefowl. The domestic chicken has subsequently hybridised with grey junglefowlSri Lankan junglefowl and green junglefowl; a gene for yellow skin, for instance, was incorporated into domestic birds from the grey junglefowl (G. sonneratii). It is estimated that chickens share between 71 and 79% of their genome with red junglefowl.” ref

“According to one early study, a single domestication event of the red junglefowl in present-day Thailand gave rise to the modern chicken with minor transitions separating the modern breeds. The red junglefowl is well adapted to take advantage of the vast quantities of seed produced during the end of the multi-decade bamboo seeding cycle, to boost its own reproduction. In domesticating the chicken, humans took advantage of the red junglefowl’s ability to reproduce prolifically when exposed to a surge in its food supply.” ref

“Exactly when and where the chicken was domesticated remains controversial. Genomic studies estimate that the chicken was domesticated 8,000 years ago in Southeast Asia and spread to China and India 2,000 to 3,000 years later. Archaeological evidence supports domestic chickens in Southeast Asia well before 6000 BCE, China by 6000 BCE and India by 2000 BCE or around 8,000 to 4,000 years ago. A landmark 2020 Nature study that fully sequenced 863 chickens across the world suggests that all domestic chickens originate from a single domestication event of red junglefowl whose present-day distribution is predominantly in southwestern China, northern Thailand and Myanmar. These domesticated chickens spread across Southeast and South Asia where they interbred with local wild species of junglefowl, forming genetically and geographically distinct groups. Analysis of the most popular commercial breed shows that the White Leghorn breed possesses a mosaic of divergent ancestries inherited from subspecies of red junglefowl.” ref

“Middle Eastern chicken remains go back to a little earlier than 2000 BCE in Syria. Phoenicians spread chickens along the Mediterranean coasts as far as Iberia. During the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BCE), in the southern Levant, chickens began to be widely domesticated for food. The first pictures of chickens in Europe are found on Corinthian pottery of the 7th century BC. Chicken remains have been difficult to date, given the small and fragile bird bones; this may account for discrepancies in dates given by different sources. Archaeological evidence is supplemented by mentions in historical texts from the last few centuries BCE, and by depictions in prehistoric artworks, such as across Central Asia. Chickens were widespread throughout southern Central Asia by the 4th century BCE.” ref

 “There are numerous cultural references to chickens in mythfolklorereligion, and literatureChickens are a sacred animal in many cultures, being deeply embedded in belief systems and religious worship practices. Roosters are sometimes used for a divination practice called Alectryomancy, a Latin phrase combining “rooster” and “divination”. This would sometimes involve sacrificing a sacred rooster during a ritual cockfight to communicate with the gods.” ref

“Chickens reached Egypt via the Middle East for purposes of cockfighting about 1400 BCE or 3,400 years ago and became widely bred in Egypt around 300 BCE or around 2,300 years ago. Three possible routes of introduction into Africa around the early first millennium CE could have been through the Egyptian Nile Valley, the East Africa Roman-Greek or Indian trade, or from Carthage and the Berbers, across the Sahara.” ref

“The Rooster is the tenth of the twelve animal symbols in the Chinese zodiac. In Taoism, the spring Hanshi or Cold Food festival was a traditional holiday in which fires were left to die down and then re-lit. Both fire and the rooster are symbols of yang and the sun. Thus, to have a rooster fight another rooster was the same in substance as the fire-renewal custom, and cockfighting was instituted as a springtime ritual. The Hanshi festival was eventually moved to coincide with the Qingming Festival (also called the Pure Brightness Festival), retaining the rooster and cockfights. Many roosters are found around Shinto shrines, with the rooster being associated with the sun goddess Amaterasu.” ref

“Indigenous beliefs on the veneration of spirits and deities still remain strong in Southeast Asia. The veneration of traditional spirits (Antio) still exists for practicing Christians. A popular form of fertility worship among most of Southeast Asia is the Animist belief in the rooster and the cockfight. In East Timor the cock is admired for courage and perseverance. Man’s courage is often compared with that of the cock, and cockfights are a regular occurrence. Many tais designs include the cock.” ref

“In Indonesia, many religions place symbolic importance on the rooster. A sect of Balinese Hinduism within the Toraja society called Aluk, or Aluk To Dolo, embraces rituals such as funeral ceremonies including a sacred cockfight. In several myths, the cock has the power to revive the dead or to make a wish come true. Kaharingan, an animist folk religion of the Iban branch of the Dayak people, includes the belief in a deity associated with the rooster and cockfighting, and the belief that humans become the fighting cocks of god. The Iban further believe that the rooster and cockfight was introduced to them by god. Gawai Dayak, a festival of the Dayaks, includes the cockfight and the waving of a rooster over offerings while asking for guidance and blessings; the rooster is then sacrificed. The Tiwah festival involves the sacrifice of animals such as chickens as offerings to the Supreme God.” ref

Miao (i.e. Hmong) are animistsshamanists, and ancestor worshipers with beliefs influenced by TaoismBuddhism and Christianity. At the Miao New Year, there may be domestic animal sacrifices or cockfights.  The Hmong of Southeast Guizhou cover the rooster with a piece of red cloth, then hold it up to worship and sacrifice. In Hmong Shamanism, a shaman may use a rooster in a religious ceremony; it is said that the rooster shields the shaman from evil spirits, as the evil spirits see only the rooster’s spirit. In a 2010 trial of a Sheboygan Wisconsin Hmong charged with staging a cockfight, it was stated that the roosters were “kept for both food and religious purposes”, resulting in an acquittal. In Vietnam fighting roosters or fighting cocks are colloquially called “sacred chickens.” ref

“The Bayon Temple in Cambodia is an ancient Buddhist temple which includes a depiction of a cockfight within its walls. During April, the Three Pagodas Pass becomes the site of the Songkran Festival, which includes cockfights. Many sacred Buddhist amulets depict Buddha with cocks in fighting stance. Cocks are also interpreted as a symbol of greed in Tibetan Buddhist murals.” ref

“In Greek mythologyAlectryon was the guard of Ares, waiting beside his door and alerting him if anyone came near while he was sleeping with Aphrodite, wife of Hephaestus. However, Alectryon once fell asleep, and Helios, the sun, saw the two lovers and alerted Hephaestus. In anger over Alectryon’s incompetence, Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster for his disobedience, thus fulfilling his promise to Ares for eternity. The rooster was one of Helios’ sacred animals.” ref

“In Ancient Greece, chickens were not normally used for sacrifices, perhaps because they were still considered exotic animals. Due to its valor, the cock is often depicted as an attribute of AresHeracles, and Athena. The alleged last words of Socrates, as recounted by Plato, were: “Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”, signifying that death was a cure for the illness of life. The term “Persian bird” for the rooster appears to have been given by the Greeks after Persian contact because of their great importance and religious use among Persians.” ref

“The Greeks believed that even lions were afraid of roosters. Several of Aesop’s Fables reference this belief. The poet Cratinus (mid-5th century BC, according to the later Greek author Athenaeus) calls the chicken “the Persian alarm”. In Aristophanes‘s comedy The Birds (414 BCE) a chicken is called “the Median bird”, which points to an introduction from the East. Pictures of chickens are found on Greek red figure and black-figure pottery.” ref

“In Ancient Greece, chickens were still rare and were rather prestigious food for symposiaDelos seems to have been a center of chicken breeding (Columella, De Re Rustica 8.3.4). “About 3200 BCE chickens were common in Sindh. After the attacks of the Aria people, these fowls spread from Sindh to Balakh and Iran. During attacks and wars between Iranians and Greeks, the chickens of Hellanic breed came to Iran and about 1000 BCE Hellenic chickens came into Sindh through Medan.” ref

“The mythological basilisk or cockatrice is depicted as a reptile-like creature with the upper body of a rooster. Abraxas, a figure in Gnosticism, is portrayed similarly as well. The Romans used chickens as oracles, both when flying (“ex avibus“, Augury) and when feeding (“auspicium ex tripudiis“, Alectryomancy). The hen gave a favourable omen (“auspicium ratum“), when appearing from the left (Cic., de Div. ii.26), like the crow and the owl.” ref

“According to Cicero (Cic. de Div. ii.34) any bird could be used in auspice, and at one point any bird could perform the tripudium. Normally only chickens were consulted. The chickens were cared for by the pullarius, who fed them pulses or a special kind of cake when an augury was needed. If the chickens stayed in their cage, made noises, beat their wings, or flew away, the omen was bad; if they ate, the omen was good.” ref

“In 249 BCE, the Roman general Publius Claudius Pulcher had his sacred chickens thrown overboard when they refused to feed before the battle of Drepana, saying “If they won’t eat, perhaps they will drink.” He promptly lost the battle against the Carthaginians, and was heavily fined for impiety back in Rome.” ref

“In 162 BCE, the Lex Faunia forbade fattening hens on grain, a measure enacted to reduce grain demand. To get around this, the Romans castrated roosters (capon), which resulted in a doubling of size, despite a law in Rome forbidding the consumption of fattened chickens. According to Aldrovandi, capons were produced by burning “the hind part of the bowels, or loins or spurs” with a hot iron. Fattening chickens with bread soaked in milk was thought to give especially delicious results. The Roman gourmet Apicius offers 17 recipes for chicken, mainly boiled chicken with sauce. All parts of the animal are used: the recipes include the stomach, liver, testicles, and even the pygostyle.” ref

“The Roman author Columella advises on chicken breeding in the eighth book of his treatise, De Re Rustica (On Agriculture). He commented on various breeds of chicken and their uses in different functions, ideal practices of flock keeping, construction of chicken coops, what feed to use, and when to slaughter.” ref

Plutarch said the inhabitants of Caria carried the emblem of the rooster on the end of their lances and relates that origin to Artaxerxes, who awarded a Carian who was said to have killed Cyrus the Younger at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 B.C “the privilege of carrying ever after a golden cock upon his spear before the first ranks of the army in all expeditions”. The Carians also wore crested helmets at the time of Herodotus, for which reason “the Persians gave the Carians the name of cocks.” ref

“The Khasi people of Northeast India believe the rooster is sacrificed as a substitute for humans, as it’s thought that the cock “bears the sins of the man.” in sacrifice. Kukkuta Sastra, or cock astrology, is a form of divination based on the rooster fight common in coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is prevalent in the districts of KrishnaGunturEast Godavari and West Godavari and the Sankranti festival. Chickens are ritually sacrificed in the Santería religion which originated in Cuba and developed from native Caribbean culture, Catholicism, and the Yoruba religion of West Africa.” ref

Hindu war god Kartikeya is depicted with a rooster on his flag. A demon Surapadman was split into two and the halves turned into the peacock (his mount) and the rooster in his flag. Balinese Hinduism includes the religious belief of Tabuh Rah, a religious cockfight where a rooster is used to fight against another rooster. The altar and deity Ida Ratu Saung may be seen with a fighting cock in his hand with the spilling of blood serving as a purification rite to appease the evil spirits. Ritual fights usually occur outside the temple and follow an ancient and complex ritual set out in the sacred lontar manuscripts.” ref

“Likewise, a popular Hindu ritual form of worship from North Malabar in Kerala, India is the blood offering to the Theyyam gods. Despite being forbidden in the Vedic philosophy of sattvic Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, Theyyam deities are propitiated through a rooster sacrifice in which the religious cockfight serves as an offering of blood to the Theyyam gods. Pongal or Makar Sankranti is a Hindu harvest festival. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu and the western state of Gujarat, one event of the celebrations is rooster fighting, also known as Seval Sandai or Kozhi kettu. It is also practised in Tulunadu. Kozhi kettu organized as part of religious events are permitted.” ref

Yoruba oral history tells of God lowering Oduduwa down from the sky, the ancestor of all people, bringing with him a rooster, some dirt, and a palm seed. The dirt was thrown into the water and the cock scratched it to form land, and the seed grew into a tree with sixteen limbs, the original sixteen kingdoms. Ikenga, an alusi of the Igbo people in southeastern Nigeria, requires consecration with offerings before religious use, which include the sacrificial blood of a rooster or ram for the spirit.” ref

“In many Central European folk tales, the devil is believed to flee at the first crowing of a rooster. In modern Greece, when laying the foundation of a new building, it is customary to sacrifice a cock, ram, or lamb, and let its blood flow on the stone of the foundation. The Imbolc festivities in honor of the pan-Celtic goddess Brighid included the ritual sacrifice of a rooster and cockfighting. In the 20th century, Imbolc was resurrected as a religious festival in Neopaganism, specifically in WiccaNeo-druidry and Celtic reconstructionism.” ref

“A black cockerel was believed in Medieval Europe to be a symbol of witchcraft along with the black cat. A cockatrice is an English mythological creature said to have been born from an egg laid by a rooster and hatched by a serpent, and which could be killed by a rooster’s call.” ref

“In Norse mythology, the crowing of three particular roosters occurs at the beginning of the foretold events of Ragnarök. In the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, references to Ragnarök begin from stanza 40 until 58, with the rest describing the aftermath. In the poem, a völva—a Norse seeress—recites information to the wisdom-seeking god Odin.” ref

“The völva then describes three roosters crowing: In stanza 42, the jötunn herdsman Eggthér sits on a mound and cheerfully plays his harp while the crimson rooster Fjalar (Old Norse “hider, deceiver”) crows in the forest Gálgviðr. The golden rooster Gullinkambi crows to the Æsir in Valhalla, and the third, unnamed soot-red rooster crows in the halls of the underworld location of Hel in stanza 43.  The poem Fjölsvinnsmál also mentions a rooster by the name of Víðópnir. According to the poem, the rooster sits atop the tree Mímameiðr, likely another name for the central cosmological tree Yggdrasil. It is suggested that the Pleiades were called the hens of Frigg or of Freya by Norse peoples. The three stars of Orion‘s belt were called the Distaff of Frigg.” ref

“Astrology and the constellations comprising the zodiac originated in ancient Babylonia, modern day Iraq. The lore of the True Shepherd of Anu (SIPA.ZI.AN.NA) – Orion and his accompanying animal symbol, the Rooster, with both representing the herald of the gods, being their divinely ordained role in communicating messages of the gods. “The Heavenly Shepherd” or “True Shepherd of Anu” – Anu being the chief god of the heavenly realms. On the star map, the figure of the Rooster was shown below and behind the figure of the True Shepherd, both representing the herald of the gods, in his bird and human forms respectively.” ref

Nergal is an idol of the AssyriansBabyloniansPhoenicians, and Persians whose name means, “a dunghill cock”. According to astrological mythology, Nergal represented the planet Mars, the emblem of violence and bloodshed. The Samaritans or ‘Cutheans’ also worshiped the Mesopotamian deity Nergal. Zoroastrianism opposes animal sacrifices. In it, the rooster is a “symbol of light.” The cock in Zoroastrianism is associated with “good against evil because of its heraldic actions. In Iran during the Kianian Period, from about 2000 BCE to about 700 BCE, among domestic birds, “the cock was the most sacred” and within that religion the devout, “had a cock to guard [them] and ward off evil spirits.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Kapparot

Kapparot (Hebrew: כפרות, Ashkenazi transliteration: Kapporois, Kapores) is a customary atonement ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews on the eve of Yom Kippur. This is a practice in which either money is waved over a person’s head and then donated to charity, or else a chicken is waved over the head and then slaughtered in accordance with halachic rules and donated to the hungry. PETA has made the claim that more than two-thirds of all the slaughtered birds are simply thrown in the trash, while the kapparot organizers claim that the sites donate the dead chickens to feed the poor. Kapparah (כפרה), the singular of kapparot, means “atonement” and comes from the Semitic root כ־פ־ר k-p-r, which means ‘to cover’, the derived meaning being one of covering or blotting out sin.” ref

“The practice of kapparot is mentioned for the first time by Amram ben Sheshna of Sura Academy in Babylonia in 670 and later by Natronai ben Hilai, also of Sura Academy, in 853. According to Joshua Trachtenberg, the rite probably originated toward the end of the Talmudic period. Jewish scholars in the ninth century explained that since the Hebrew word גבר means both “man” and “rooster”, a rooster may substitute as a religious and spiritual vessel in place of a man. Kapparot was strongly opposed by some rabbis, among them Nachmanides, Shlomo ben Aderet, and the Sephardi rabbi Joseph ben Ephraim Karo in the Shulchan Aruch. According to the Mishnah Berurah, his reasoning was based on the caution that it is similar to non-Jewish rites.ref

“The Ashkenazi rabbi Moses Isserles disagreed with Karo and encouraged kapparot. In Ashkenazi communities especially, Rabbi Isserles’ position came to be widely accepted, since Ashkenazi Jews will generally follow the halachic rulings of Rabbi Isserles where the Sephardic and Ashkenazic customs differ. It was also approved by Asher ben Jehiel (c. 1250–1327) and his son Jacob ben Asher (1269–1343) and other commentators. The ritual was also supported by Kabbalists, such as Isaiah Horowitz and Isaac Luria, who recommended the selection of a white rooster as a reference to Isaiah 1:18 and who found other mystic allusions in the prescribed formulas. Consequently, the practice became generally accepted among the Ashkenazi Jews and Hasidim of Eastern Europe. The Mishnah Berurah agrees with Rabbi Isserles, solidifying support for the practice among Lithuanian Jews as well. The Mishnah Berurah only supports the use of money (i.e., not a chicken) if there might be a problem with the slaughter due to haste or fatigue. In the late 19th-century work Kaf Hachaim, Yaakov Chaim Sofer approves of the custom for Sephardi Jews as well.ref

“On the afternoon before Yom Kippur, one prepares an item to be donated to the poor for consumption at the pre-Yom Kippur meal, recites the two biblical passages of Psalms 107:17–20 and Job 33:23–24, and then swings the prepared charitable donation over one’s head three times while reciting a short prayer three times. In one variant of the practice of kapparot, the item to be donated to charity is a rooster. In this case, the rooster is swung overhead while still alive. After the kapparot ritual is concluded, the rooster is treated as a normal kosher poultry product, i.e., it is slaughtered according to the laws of shechita. It is then given to charity for consumption at the pre-Yom Kippur meal. In modern times, this variant of the ritual is performed with a rooster for men and a hen for women.” ref

In this case, the prayer recited translates as:

This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This rooster (hen) will go to its death, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.ref

“In a second variant of the practice of kapparot, a bag of money is swung around the head and then given to charity. In this case, the prayer recited translates as:

This is my exchange, this is my substitute, this is my atonement. This money will go to charity, while I will enter and proceed to a good long life and to peace.ref

Judaism includes many references to roosters as important animals. The Zohar, a book of Jewish mysticism and collection of writings on the Torah, tells of a celestial manifestation causing the crowing of roosters (iii. 22b, 23a, 49b). The Talmud states: “Blessed be He who has given the cock intelligence” (Ber. 60b). In the rabbinic literature, the cockcrow is used as a general marker of time, and some of the Sages interpreted the “cockcrow” to mean the voice of the Temple officer who summoned all priests, Levites, and Israelites to their duties. The Hebrew gever or geber was used to mean “rooster” in addition to the literal meaning of “(strong) man.” ref

“The Talmud provides the statement: “Had the Torah not been given to us, we would have learned modesty from cats, honest toil from ants, chastity from doves, and gallantry from cocks” (Jonathan Ben Nappaha. Talmud: Erubin 100b), which may be understood as the gallantry of cocks being taken in a religious context of a “girt one of the loins” (Young’s Literal Translation) which is to be “stately in his stride” or “move with stately bearing” as within the Book of Proverbs 30:29-31. Saadia Gaon identifies the definitive trait of a “cock girded about the loins” within Proverbs 30:31(Douay–Rheims Bible) as “the honesty of their behavior and their success”, identifying a spiritual purpose and use within Judaeo-Christian traditions.” ref

“The Hebrew term zarzir, which means “girt”; “that which is girt in the loins” (BDB 267 s.v.) is recognized in the Targum as well as the Chaldaic, Syriac, Arabic, LXX, and Vulgate, all referencing the fighting rooster or fighting cock as a religious vessel. The ancient Hebrew versions identified the Hebrew “a girt one of the loins” of Proverbs 30:31 as a rooster, “which most of the old translations and Rabbis understood to be a fighting cock”, the Arabic sarsar or sirsir being an onomatopoeia for rooster (alektor) as the Hebrew zarzir of Proverbs 30:31. “Rooster bones were identified at Lachish dating to early Iron II”, but even earlier is not to be ruled out, as “for Palestine, the earliest chicken bones are present in Iron Age I strata in Lachish and Tell Hasben.” ref

“The rooster has also been depicted within the Star of David, a symbol of Judaism and Jewish identity. Excavations at Gibeon have found potsherds dating to the seventh century BCE. incised with roosters inside Stars of David. The seal of Jaazaniah, an 6th-century B.C. onyx seal found during the excavation of Tell en-Nasbeh, carries the insignia of a rooster with the inscription “belonging to Jaazaniah, servant to the king”. Tell en-Nasbeh is likely the ruins of the biblical city of Mizpah, and according to II Kings 25:23, Jaazaniah was an official at Mizpah under the governor Gedaliah, whose reign corresponds to the onyx seal’s time. The seal constitutes the first known representation of the chicken in Palestine. It is Carites in II Kings 11 who were used by Jehoiada to protect Joash son of Ahaziah of the line of David, ancestor to Christ from Athaliah.” ref

“In the Jewish religious practice of kapparos, a rooster is swung around the head and then slaughtered on the afternoon before Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The meat is then distributed among the poor for their pre-fast meal. The purpose of the ritual is the atonement of the man’s sins as the animal symbolically receives them; Jewish scholars in the ninth century wrote that, as symbolized by the Hebrew word gever or geber meaning both “man” and “rooster”, the rooster may serve as a religious vessel in place of man. The religious practice is mentioned for the first time by Natronai ben Hilai, Gaon of the Academy of Sura in Babylonia, in 853 C.E., who describes it as a custom of the Babylonian Jews. Kapparos has also been practiced by Persian Jews.” ref

Cosmic Egg

The cosmic eggworld egg, or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures and civilizations, including in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Typically, there is an egg which, upon “hatching”, either gives rise to the universe itself or gives rise to a primordial being who, in turn, creates the universe. The egg is sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the Earth. Typically, the upper half of the egg, or its outer shell, becomes the heaven (firmament) and the lower half, or the inner yolk, becomes the Earth. The motif likely stems from simple elements of an egg, including its ability to offer nourishment and give rise to new life, as is reflected by the Latin proverb omne vivum ex ovo (‘all life comes from an egg’).” ref

“The term “cosmic egg” is also used in the modern study of cosmology in the context of emergent Universe scenarios. Various versions of the cosmic egg myth are related to the creator, Pangu. Heaven and earth are said to have originally existed in a formless state, like the egg of a chicken. The egg opens and unfolds after 18,000 years: the light part rose to become heaven and the heavy part sank to become the earth. A version of this myth deriving from the Zhejiang Province holds that Pangu, experiencing discomfort in being contained in a dark and stuffy egg, shatters it into pieces, after which heaven and earth form by the same process (with the addition that parts of the shell then form the sun, moon, and stars).” ref

“In Dogon mythology from Burkina Faso, the creator-god Amma takes the form of an egg. The egg is divided into four sections representing the four elements: air, fire, water, and earth. This also establishes the four cardinal directions. Failing to create the Earth on her first attempt, Amma plants a seed in herself that forms two placentas, each containing a pair of twins. One twin, Ogo, breaks out and unsuccessfully tries to create a universe. Amma, however, is able to create the Earth now from a part of Ogo’s placenta. Ogo’s twin, Nommo, is killed by Amma, and parts of the body are scattered across the world to give it order. The parts were then reconstituted to revive Nommo. Nommo creates four spirits that become the ancestors of the Dogon people. These spirits are sent with Nommo into an ark to populate the world.” ref

The creation account proceeds as follows:

In the beginning, Amma dogon, alone, was in the shape of an egg: the four collar bones were fused, dividing the egg into air, earth, fire, and water, establishing also the four cardinal directions. Within this cosmic egg was the material and the structure of the universe, and the 266 signs that embraced the essence of all things. The first creation of the world by Amma was, however, a failure. The second creation began when Amma planted a seed within herself, a seed that resulted in the shape of man. But in the process of its gestation, there was a flaw, meaning that the universe would now have within it the possibilities for incompleteness. Now the egg became two placentas, each containing a set of twins, male and female. After sixty years, one of the males, Ogo, broke out of the placenta and attempted to create his own universe, in opposition to that being created by Amma. But he was unable to say the words that would bring such a universe into being. He then descended, as Amma transformed into the earth the fragment of placenta that went with Ogo into the void. Ogo interfered with the creative potential of the earth by having incestuous relations with it. His counterpart, Nommo, a participant in the revolt, was then killed by Amma, the parts of his body cast in all directions, bringing a sense of order to the world. When, five days later, Amma brought the pieces of Nommo’s body together, restoring him to life, Nommo became ruler of the universe. He created four spirits, the ancestors of theDogon people; Amma sent Nommo and the spirits to earth in an ark, and so the earth was restored. Along the way, Nommo uttered the words of Amma, and the sacred words that create were made available to humans. In the meantime, Ogo was transformed by Amma into Yuguru, the Pale Fox, who would always be alone, always be incomplete, eternally in revolt, ever wandering the earth seeking his female soul.ref

The ancient Egyptians accepted multiple creation myths as valid, including those of the HermopolitanHeliopolitan, and Memphite theologies. The cosmic egg myth can be found from Hermopolitus. Although the site, located in Middle Egypt, currently sports a name deriving from the name of the god Hermes, the ancient Egyptians called it Khemnu, or “Eight-Town.” The number eight, in turn, refers to the Ogdoad, a group of eight gods who are the main characters in the Hermopolitan creation myth. Four of these gods are male, and have the heads of frogs, and the other four are female with the heads of serpents. These eight existed in the primordial, chaotic water that pre-existed the rest of creation. At some point these eight gods, in one way or another, bring about the formation of a cosmic egg, although variants of the myth describe the origins of the egg in different ways. In any case, the egg in turn gives rise to the deity who forms the rest of the world as well as the first land to arise out of the primordial waters, called the primeval mound. When the omund appeared, a lotus blossom bloomed to signal the birth of the sun god, after which the formation of the rest of creation could finally proceed.ref

Ideas similar to the cosmic egg myth are mentioned in two different sources from Greek and Roman mythology. One is in the Roman author Marcus Terentius Varro, living in the 1st century BC. According to Varro, heaven and earth can respectively be likened to an egg shell and its yolk. The air, in turn, is represented by the moisture functioning as a form of humidity between the shell and yolk. The second mention is found in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 10:17, although from an oppositional standpoint, insofar as Clement is presented as summarizing a ridiculous cosmological belief found among pagans: according to the description given, there is a primordial chaos which, over time, solidified into an egg. As is with an egg, a creature began to grow inside, until at some point it broke open to produce a human that was both male and female (i.e. androgynous) named Phanetas. When Phanetas appeared, a light shone forth that resulted in “subsance, prudence, motion, and coition,” and these in turn resulted in the creation of the heavens and the earth. The Recognitions 10:30 presents, then, a second summary of the idea, this time attributed to the cosmogony of Orpheus as described by a “good pagan” named Niceta. This summary, in contrast to the first one, is presented in a serious manner. This myth appears to have had occasional influence, insofar as a manuscript of it is associated with the reappearance of the idea at a library of Saint Gall in a 9th-century commentary on Boethius. Another three appearances occur again in the twelfth century.” ref

“In one Vedic myth/Hindu mythology recorded in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, the earliest phase of the cosmos involves a primordial ocean out of which an egg arose. Once the egg split, it began the process of forming heaven (out of the upper part) and earth (out of the lower part) over the course of one hundred divine years. Another text, the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, also has the sequence of a primordial ocean and then an egg, but this time, the god Prajapati emerges from the egg after one year. He creates the cosmos and then the gods and antigods from his speech and breath. The Rigveda speaks of a golden embryo (called the hiraṇyagarbha) which is located on a “high waters” out of which all else develops. Finally, a version of the story appears in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad.” ref

“In the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg. The goddess of the air, Ilmatar, longed to have a son. To achieve this, she and the East Wind make love until she conceives Väinämöinen, the child of the wind. However, she was not able to give birth to her child. A pochard swooped down and impregnated her: as a result, six golden cosmic eggs were birthed or laid, as well as an iron egg. The pochard took these eggs for himself and protected them by sitting on them, but this came with sitting on Ilmatar as well. Upon the movement of the air goddess, they rolled into the sea, and the shell broke: the fragments formed heaven, earth, the sun, moon, stars, and (from the iron egg) a thundercloud.” ref

“The following is the translation of the part of the text describing the formation of the cosmos from the fragments of the egg, published by William Forsell Kirby in 1906:

In the ooze they were not wasted, Nor the fragments in the water, But a wondrous change came o’er them,
And the fragments all grew lovely. From the cracked egg’s lower fragment, Now the solid earth was fashioned,
From the cracked egg’s upper fragment, Rose the lofty arch of heaven, From the yolk, the upper portion,
Now became the sun’s bright lustre; From the white, the upper portion, Rose the moon that shines so brightly;
Whatso in the egg was mottled, Now became the stars in heaven, Whatso in the egg was blackish, In the air as cloudlets floated.” ref

In Zoroastrian cosmography, the sky was considered to be spherical with an outer boundary (called a parkān), an idea that likely goes back to Aristotle. The Earth is also spherical and exists within the spherical sky. To help convey this cosmology, a number of ancient writers, including Empedocles, came up with the analogy of an egg: the outer spherical and bounded sky is like the outer shell, whereas the Earth is represented by the inner round yolk within. This analogy, in turn, is found in a number of Zoroastrian texts, including the Zādspram.” ref

As the concept of a true singularity came under increasing criticism, alternative nonsingular “cosmic egg” (emergent Universe) scenarios started being developed. In 1913, Vesto Slipher published his observations that light from remote galaxies was redshifted, which was gradually accepted as meaning that all galaxies (except Andromeda) receding from the Earth. Alexander Friedmann predicted the same consequence in 1922 from Einstein‘s equations of general relativity, once the previous ad-hoc cosmological constant was removed from it (which had been inserted to conform to the preconceived eternal, static universe). Georges Lemaître proposed in 1927 that the cosmos originated from what he called the primeval atom. Edwin Hubble observationally confirmed Lemaître’s findings two years later, in 1929. In the late 1940s, George Gamow‘s assistant cosmological researcher Ralph Alpher, proposed the name ylem for the primordial substance that existed between the Big Crunch of the previous universe and the Big Bang of our own universe. Ylem is closely related to the concept of supersymmetry.” ref

“Cosmology in the ancient Near East (ANE) refers to the plurality of cosmological beliefs in the Ancient Near East, covering the period from the 4th millennium BCE to the formation of the Macedonian Empire by Alexander the Great in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE. These beliefs include the Mesopotamian cosmologies from BabyloniaSumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the Anatolian cosmologies from the Hittites. This system of cosmology went on to have a profound influence on views in early Greek cosmology, later Jewish cosmologypatristic cosmology, and Islamic cosmology (including Quranic cosmology). Until the modern era, variations of ancient near eastern cosmology survived with Hellenistic cosmology as the main competing system.

“Ancient near eastern cosmology can be divided into its cosmography, the physical structure and features of the cosmos; and cosmogony, the creation myths that describe the origins of the cosmos in the texts and traditions of the ancient near eastern world. The cosmos and the gods were also related, as cosmic bodies like heaven, earth, the stars were believed to be and/or personified as gods, and the sizes of the gods were frequently described as being of cosmic proportions.

Ancient near eastern civilizations held to a fairly uniform conception of cosmography. This cosmography remained remarkably stable in the context of the expansiveness and longevity of the ancient near east, but changes were also to occur. Widely held components of ancient near eastern cosmography included:

  • a flat earth and a solid heaven (firmament), both of which are disk-shaped
  • a primordial cosmic ocean. When the firmament is created, it separates the cosmic ocean into two bodies of water:
    • the heavenly upper waters located on top of the firmament, which act as a source of rain
    • the lower waters that the earth is above and that the earth rests on; they act as the source of rivers, springs, and other earthly bodies of water
  • the region above the upper waters, namely the abode of the gods
  • the netherworld, the furthest region in the direction downwards, below the lower waters

Keyser, categorizing ancient near eastern cosmology as belonging to a larger and more cross-cultural set of cosmologies he describes as a “cradle cosmology,” offers a longer list of shared features. Some cosmographical features have been misattributed to Mesopotamian cosmologies, including the idea that ziggurats represented cosmic objects reaching up to heaven or the idea of a dome- or vault-shaped (as opposed to a flat) firmament. Another controversy concerns if the ancient near eastern cosmography was purely observational or phenomenological. However, a number of lines of evidence, including descriptions from the cosmological texts themselves, presumptions of this cosmography in non-cosmological texts (like incantations), anthropological studies of contemporary primitive cosmologies, and cognitive expectations that humans construct mental models to explain observation, support that the ancient near eastern cosmography was not phenomenological.

“Ancient near eastern cosmogony also included a number of common features that are present in most if not all creation myths from the ancient near east. Widespread features included:

  • Creatio ex materia from a primordial state of chaos; that is, the organization of the world from pre-existing, unordered and unformed (hence chaotic) elements, represented by a primordial body of water
  • the presence of a divine creator
  • the Chaoskampf motif: a cosmic battle between the protagonist and a primordial sea monster[b]
  • the separation of undifferentiated elements (to create heaven and earth)
  • the creation of mankind

Lisman uses the broader category of “Beginnings” to encompass three separate though inter-related categories: the beginning of the cosmos (cosmogony), the beginning of the gods (theogony), and the beginning of humankind (anthropogeny). There is evidence that Mesopotamian creation myths reached as far as Pre-Islamic Arabia.

“The 4th millennium BCE spanned the years 4000 BCE to 3001 BCE. Some of the major changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing, which played a major role in starting recorded historyThe city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established and grew to prominence. Agriculture spread widely across EurasiaWorld population growth relaxed after the burst that came about from the Neolithic Revolution. World population was largely stable in this time at roughly 50 million, growing at an average of 0.027% per year.

Overview of the whole cosmos

“The Mesopotamian cosmos can be imagined along a vertical axis, with parallel planes of existence layered above each other. The uppermost plane of existence was heaven, being the residence of the god of the sky Anu. Immediately below heaven was the atmosphere. The atmosphere extended from the bottom of heaven (or the lowermost firmament) to the ground. This region was inhabited by Enlil, who was also the king of the gods in Sumerian mythology. The cosmic ocean below the ground was the next plane of existence, and this was the domain of the sibling deities Enki and Ninhursag. The lowest plane of existence was the underworld. Other deities inhabited these planes of existence even if they did not reign over them, such as the sun and moon gods. In later Babylonian accounts, the god Marduk alone ascends to the top rank of the pantheon and rules over all domains of the cosmos. The three-tiered cosmos (sky-earth-underworld) is found in Egyptian artwork on coffin lids and burial chambers.” ref

“A variety of terms or phrases were used to refer to the cosmos as a whole, acting as rough equivalents to contemporary terms like “cosmos” or “universe”. This included phrases like “heaven and earth” or “heaven and underworld”. Terms like “all” or “totality” similarly connoted the entire universe. These motifs are found in temple hymns and royal inscriptions located in temples. The temples symbolized cosmic structures that reached heaven at their height and the underworld at their depths/foundations. Surviving evidence does not specify the exact physical bounds of the cosmos or what lies beyond the region described in the texts.” ref

Three Heavens and Three Earths

“In Mesopotamian cosmology, heaven and earth both had a tripartite structure: a Lower Heaven/Earth, a Middle Heaven/Earth, and an Upper Heaven/Earth. The Upper Earth was where humans existed. Middle Earth, corresponding to the Abzu (primeval underworldly ocean), was the residence of the god Enki. Lower Earth, the Mesopotamian underworld, was where the 600 Anunnaki gods lived, associated with the land of the dead ruled by Nergal. As for the heavens: the highest level was populated by 300 Igigi (great gods), the middle heaven belonged to the Igigi and also contained Marduk’s throne, and the lower heaven was where the stars and constellations were inscribed into. The extent of the Babylonian universe therefore corresponded to a total of six layers spanning across heaven and Earth. Notions of the plurality of heaven and earth are no later than the 2nd millennium BC and may be elaborations of earlier and simpler cosmographies. One text (KAR 307) describes the cosmos in the following manner, with each of the three floors of heaven being made of a different type of stone:

30 “The Upper Heavens are Luludānītu stone. They belong to Anu. He (i.e. Marduk) settled the 300 Igigū (gods) inside. 31 The Middle Heavens are Saggilmud stone. They belong to the Igīgū (gods). Bēl (i.e. Marduk) sat on the high throne within, 32 the lapis lazuli sanctuary. And made a lamp? of electrum shine inside (it). 33 The Lower Heavens are jasper. They belong to the stars. He drew the constellations of the gods on them. 34 In the … …. of the Upper Earth, he lay down the spirits of mankind. 35 [In the …] of the Middle earth, he settled Ea, his father. 36 […..] . He did not let the rebellion be forgotten. 37 [In the … of the Lowe]r earth, he shut inside 600 Anunnaki. 38 […….] … […. in]side jasper.” ref

“Another text (AO 8196) offers a slightly different arrangement, with the Igigi in the upper heaven instead of the middle heaven, and with Bel placed in the middle heaven. Both agree on the placement of the stars in the lower heaven. Exodus 24:9–10 identifies the floor of heaven as being like sapphire, which may correspond to the blue lapis lazuli floor in KAR 307, chosen potentially for its correspondence to the visible color of the sky. One hypothesis holds that the belief that the firmament is made of stone (or a metal, such as iron in Egyptian texts) arises from the observation that meteorites, which are composed of this substance, fall from the firmament.” ref

Seven Heavens and Seven Earths

“Some texts describe seven heavens and seven earths, but within the Mesopotamian context, this is likely to refer to a totality of the cosmos with some sort of magical or numerological significance, as opposed to a description of the structural number of heavens and Earth. Israelite texts do not mention the notion of seven heavens or earths.” ref

Unity of the cosmos

“Mythical bonds, akin to ropes or cables, played the role of cohesively holding the entire world and all its layers of heaven and Earth together. These are sometimes called the “bonds of heaven and earth”. They can be referred to with terminology like durmāhu (typically referring to a strong rope made of reeds), markaṣu (referring to a rope or cable, of a boat, for example), or ṣerretu (lead-rope passed through an animals nose). A deity can hold these ropes as a symbol of their authority, such as the goddess Ishtar “who holds the connecting link of all heaven and earth (or netherworld)”. This motif extended to descriptions of great cities like Babylon which was called the “bond of [all] the lands,” or Nippur which was “bond of heaven and earth,” and some temples as well.” ref

Center of the cosmos

“The idea of a center to the cosmos played a role in elevating the status of whichever place was chosen as the cosmic center and in reflecting beliefs of the finite and closed nature of the cosmos. Babylon was described as the center of the Babylonian cosmos. In parallel, Jerusalem became “the navel of the earth” (Ezekiel 38:12). The finite nature of the cosmos was also suggested to the ancients by the periodic and regular movements of the heavenly bodies in the visible vicinity of the Earth.” ref

Firmament: Firmament

 

“The firmament was believed to be a solid boundary above the Earth, separating it from the upper or celestial waters. In the Book of Genesis, it is called the raqia. In ancient Egyptian texts, and from texts across the near east generally, the firmament was described as having special doors or gateways on the eastern and western horizons to allow for the passage of heavenly bodies during their daily journeys. These were known as the windows of heaven or the gates of heaven. Canaanite text describe Baal as exerting his control over the world by controlling the passage of rainwater through the heavenly windows in the firmament. In Egyptian texts particularly, these gates also served as conduits between the earthly and heavenly realms for which righteous people could ascend. The gateways could be blocked by gates to prevent entry by the deceased as well. As such, funerary texts included prayers enlisting the help of the gods to enable the safe ascent of the dead. Ascent to the celestial realm could also be done by a celestial ladder made by the gods. Multiple stories exist in Mesopotamian texts whereby certain figures ascend to the celestial realm and are given the secrets of the gods.” ref

“Four different Egyptian models of the firmament and/or the heavenly realm are known. One model was that it was the shape of a bird: the firmament above represented the underside of a flying falcon, with the sun and moon representing its eyes, and its flapping causing the wind that humans experience. The second was a cow, as per the Book of the Heavenly Cow. The cosmos is a giant celestial cow represented by the goddess Nut or Hathor. The cow consumed the sun in the evening and rebirthed it in the next morning. The third is a celestial woman, also represented by Nut. The heavenly bodies would travel across her body from east to west. The midriff of Nut was supported by Shu (the air god) and Geb (the earth god) lay outstretched between the arms and feet of Nut. Nut consumes the celestial bodies from the west and gives birth to them again in the following morning. The stars are inscribed across the belly of Nut and one needs to identify with one of them, or a constellation, in order to join them after death. The fourth model was a flat (or slightly convex) celestial plane which, depending on the text, was thought to be supported in various ways: by pillars, staves, scepters, or mountains at the extreme ends of the Earth. The four supports give rise to the motif of the “four corners of the world.” ref

Earth

“The ancient near eastern earth was a single-continent disk resting on a body of water sometimes compared to a raft. An aerial view of the cosmography of the earth is pictorially elucidated by the Babylonian Map of the World. Here, the city Babylon is near the Earth’s center and it is on the Euphrates river. Other kingdoms and cities surround it. The north is covered by an enormous mountain range, akin to a wall. This mountain range was traversed in some hero myths, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh travels past it to an area only accessible by gods and other great heroes. The furthest and most remote parts of the earth were believed to be inhabited by fantastic creatures. In the Babylonian Map, the world continent is surrounded by a bitter salt-water Ocean (called marratu, or “salt-sea”) akin to Oceanus described by the poetry of Homer and Hesiod in early Greek cosmology, as well as the statement in the Bilingual Creation of the World by Marduk that Marduk created the first dry land surrounded by a cosmic sea. Egyptian cosmology appears to have also shared this view, as one of the words used for sea, shen-wer, means “great encircler”. World-encircling oceans are also found in the Fara tablet VAT 12772 from the 3rd millennium BC and the Myth of Etana.” ref

Four corners of the earth

A common honorific that many kings and rulers ascribed to themselves was that they were the rulers of the four quarters (or corners) of the Earth. For example, Hammurabi (ca. 1810–1750 BCE) received the title of “King of Sumer and Akkad, King of the Four Quarters of the World”. Monarchs of the Assyrian empire like Ashurbanipal also took on this title. (Although the title implies a square or rectangular shape, in this case it is taken to refer to the four quadrants of a circle which is joined at the world’s center.) Likewise, the ‘four corners’ motif would also appear in some biblical texts, such as Isaiah 11:12.” ref

Cosmic mountain

“According to iconographic and literary evidence, the cosmic mountain, known as Mashu in the Epic of Gilgamesh, was thought to be located at or extend to both the westernmost and easternmost points of the earth, where the sun could rise and set respectively. As such, the model may be called a bi-polar model of diurnal solar movement. The gates for the rising and setting of the sun were also located at Mashu. Some accounts have Mashu as a tree growing at the center of the earth with roots descending into the underworld and a peak reaching to heaven. The cosmic mountain is also found in Egyptian cosmology, as Pyramid Text 1040c says that the mountain ranges on the eastern and western sides of the Nile act as the “two supports of the sky.” In the Baal Cycle, two cosmic mountains exist at the horizon acting as the point through which the sun rises from and sets into the underworld (Mot). The tradition of the twin cosmic mountains may also lie behind Zechariah 6:1.” ref

Sun

“The sun god (represented by the god Utu in Sumerian texts or Shamash in Akkadian texts) rises in the day and passes over the earth. Then, the sun god falls beneath the earth in the night and comes to a resting point. This resting point is sometimes localized to a designated structure, such as the chamber within a house in the Old Babylonian Prayer to the Gods of the Night. To complete the cycle, the sun comes out in the next morning. Likewise, the moon was thought to rest in the same facility when it was not visible. A similar system was maintained in Egyptian cosmology, where the sun travelled beneath the surface of the earth through the underworld (known among ancient Egyptians as Duat) to rise from the same eastern location each day. These images result from anthropomorphizing the sun and other astral bodies also conceived as gods. For the sun to exit beneath the earth, it had to cross the solid firmament: this was thought possible by the existence of opening ways or corridors in the firmament (variously illustrated as doors, windows or gates) that could temporarily open and close to allow astral bodies to pass across them.” ref

“The firmament was conceived as a gateway, with the entry/exit point as the gates; other opening and closing mechanisms were also imagined in the firmament like bolts, bars, latches, and keys. During the sun’s movement beneath the earth, into the netherworld, the sun would cease to flare. This enabled the netherworld to remain dark. But when it rose, it would flare up and again emit light. This model of the course of the sun had an inconsistency that later models evolved to address. The issue was to understand how, if the sun came to a resting point beneath the earth, could it also travel beneath the earth the same distance under it that it was observed to cross during the day above it such that it would rise periodically from the east. One solution that some texts arrived at was to reject the idea that the sun had a resting point. Instead, it remained unceasing in its course.” ref

“Overall, the sun god’s activities in night according to Sumerian and Akkadian texts proceeds according to a regular and systematic series of events: (1) The western door of heaven opens (2) The sun passes through the door into the interior of heaven (3) Light falls below the western horizon (4) The sun engages in certain activities in the netherworld like judging the dead (5) The sun enters a house, called the White House (6) The sun god eats the evening meal (7) The sun god sleeps in the chamber agrun (8) The sun emerges from the chamber (9) The eastern door opens and the sun passes through as it rises. In many ancient near eastern cultures, the underworld had a prominent place in descriptions of the sun journey, where the sun would carry out various roles including judgement related to the dead.” ref

“In legend, many hero journeys followed the daily course of the sun god. These have been attributed to Gilgamesh, Odysseus, the Argonauts, Heracles and, in later periods, Alexander the Great. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh reaches the cosmic mountain Mashu, which is either two mountains or a single twin-peaked mountain. Mashu acts as the sun-gate, from where the sun and sets in its path to and from the netherworld. In some texts, the mountain is called the mountain of sunrise and sunset.” ref

“According to the Epic:

The name of the mountain was Mashu. When [he] arrived at Mount Mashu, which daily guards the rising [of the sun,] – their tops [abut] the fabric of the heavens, their bases reach down to Hades – there were scorpion-men guarding its gate, whose terror was dread and glance was death, whose radiance was terrifying, enveloping the uplands – at both sunrise and sunset they guard the sun…” ref

“Another texts describing the relationship between the sun and the cosmic mountain reads:

O Shamash, when you come forth from the great mountain, When you come forth from the great mountain, the mountain of the deep, When you come forth from the holy hill where destinies are ordained, When you [come forth] from the back of heaven to the junction point of heaven and earth…” ref

“A number of additional texts share descriptions like these.” ref

Moon

“Mesopotamians believed the moon to be a manifestation of the moon god, known as Nanna in Sumerian texts or Sîn in Akkadian texts, a high god of the pantheon, subject to cultic devotion, and father of the sun god Shamash and the Venus god Inanna. The path of the moon in the night sky and its lunar phases were also of interest. At first, Mesopotamia had no common calendar, but around 2000 BC, the semi-lunar calendar of the Sumerian center of Nippur became increasingly prevalent. Hence, the moon god was responsible for ordering perceivable time. The lunar calendar was divided into twelve months of thirty days each. New months were marked by the appearance of the moon after a phase of invisibility.” ref 

“The Enuma Elish creation myth describes Marduk as arranging the paths of the stars and then spends considerable space on Marduk’s ordering of the moon:

12 He made Nannaru (=the moon-god) appear (and) entrusted the night to him. 13 He assigned him as the jewel of the night to determine the days. 14 Month by month without cease, he marked (him) with a crown: 15 “At the beginning of the month, while rising over the land, 16 you shine with horns to reveal six days. 17 On the seventh day, (your) disc shall be halved. 18 On the fifteenth day, in the middle of each month, you shall stand in opposition. 19 As soon as Šamaš (= the sun-god) sees you on the horizon, 20 reach properly your full measure and form yourself back. 21 At the day of disappearance, approach the path of Šamaš. 22 [… 3]0. day you shall stand in conjunction. You shall be equal to Šamaš.” ref

“The ideal course of the moon was thought to form one month every thirty days. However, the precise lunar month is 29.53 days, leading to variations that made the lunar month counted as 29 or 30 days in practice. The mismatch between the predictions and reality of the course of the moon gave rise to the idea that the moon could act according to its expected course as a good omen or deviate from it as a bad omen. In the 2nd millennium BC, Mesopotamian scholars composed the Enūma Anu Enlil, a collection of at least seventy tablets concerned with omens. The first fourteen (1–14) relate to the appearance of the moon, and the next eight (15–22) deal with lunar eclipses.” ref

“The moon was also assigned other functions, such as providing illumination during the night, and already in this period, had a known influence on the tides. During the day when the moon was not visible, it was thought that the moon descended beneath the flat disk of the earth and, like the sun, underwent a voyage through the underworld. The cosmic voyage and motion of the moon also allowed it to exert influence over the world; this belief naturally allowed for the practice of divination to arise.” ref

Stars and planets: Classical planet

 

“Mesopotamian cosmology would differ from the practice of astronomy in terms of terminology: for astronomers, the word “firmament” was not used but instead “sky” to describe the domain in which the heavenly affairs were visible. The stars were located on the firmament. The earliest texts attribute to Anu, Enlil, and Enki (Ea) the ordering of perceivable time by creating and ordering the courses of the stars. Later, according to the Enuma Elish, the stars were arranged by Marduk into constellations representing the images of the gods. The year was fixed by organizing the year into twelve months, and by assigning (the rising of) three stars to each of the twelve months. The moon and zenith were also created. Other phenomena introduced by Marduk included the lunar phases and lunar scheme, the precise paths that the stars would take as they rose and set, the stations of the planets, and more.” ref 

“Another account of the creation of the heavenly bodies is offered in the Babyloniaca of Berossus, where Bel (Marduk) creates stars, sun, moon, and the five (known) planets; the planets here do not help guide the calendar (a lack of concern for the planets also shared in the Book of the Courses of the Heavenly Luminaries, a subsection of 1 Enoch). Concern for the establishment of the calendar by the creation of heavenly bodies as visible signs is shared in at least seven other Mesopotamian texts. A Sumerian inscription of Kudur-Mabuk, for example, reads “The reliable god, who interchanges day and night, who establishes the month, and keeps the year intact.” Another example is to be found in the Exaltation of Inanna.” ref

“The word “star” (mul in Sumerian; kakkabu in Akkadian) was inclusive to all celestial bodies, stars, constellations, and planets. A more specific term for planets existed however (udu.idim in Sumerian; bibbu in Akkadian, literally “wild sheep”) to distinguish them from other stars (of which they were a subcategory): unlike the stars thought to be fixed into their location, the planets were observed to move. By the 3rd millennium BC, the planet Venus was identified as the astral form of the goddess Inanna (or Ishtar), and motifs such as the morning and evening star were applied to her. Jupiter became Marduk (hence the name “Marduk Star”, also called Nibiru), Mercury was the “jumping one” (in reference to its comparatively fast motion and low visibility) associated with the gods Ninurta and Nabu, and Mars was the god of pestilence Nergal and thought to portend evil and death. Saturn was also sinister.” ref

“The most obvious characteristic of the stars were their luminosity and their study for the purposes of divination, solving calendrical calculations, and predictions of the appearances of planets, led to the discovery of their periodic motion. From 600 BC onwards, the relative periodicity between them began to be studied. “Above the firmament was a large, cosmic body of water which may be referred to as the cosmic ocean or celestial waters. In the Tablet of Shamash, the throne of the sun god Shamash is depicted as resting above the cosmic ocean. The waters are above the solid firmament that covers the sky. In the Enuma Elish, the upper waters represented the waters of Tiamat, contained by Tiamat’s stretched out skin. Canaanite mythology in the Baal Cycle describes the supreme god Baal as enthroned above the freshwater ocean. Egyptian texts depict the sun god sailing across these upper waters. Some also convey that this body of water is the heavenly equivalent of the Nile River.” ref

Lower waters: Abzu and Nu

“Both Babylonian and Israelite texts describe one of the divisions of the cosmos as the underworldly ocean. In Babylonian texts, this is coincided with the region/god Abzu. In Sumerian mythology, this realm was created by Enki. It was also where Enki lived and ruled over. Due to the connection with Enki, the lower waters were associated with wisdom and incantational secret knowledge. In Egyptian mythology, the personification of this subterranean body of water was instead Nu. The notion of a cosmic body of water below the Earth was inferred from the realization that much water used for irrigation came from under the ground, from springs, and that springs were not limited to any one part of the world. Therefore, a cosmic body of water acting as a common source for the water coming out of all these springs was conceived.” ref

Underworld: Ancient Mesopotamian underworld and Egyptian underworld

“The Underworld/Netherworld (kur or erṣetu in Sumerian) is the lowest region in the direction downwards, below even Abzu (the primeval ocean/lower waters). It is geographically parallel with the plane of human existence, but was so low that both demons and gods could not descend to it. One of its names was “Earth of No Return”. It was, however, inhabited by beings such as ghosts, demons, and local gods. The land was depicted as dark and distant: this is because it was the opposite of the human world and so did not have light, water, fields, and so forth.” ref

“According to KAR 307, line 37, Bel cast 600 Annunaki into the underworld. They were locked away there, unable to escape, analogous to the enemies of Zeus who were confined to the underworld (Tartarus) after their rebellion during the Titanomachy. During and after the Kassite period, Annunaki were largely depicted as underworld deities; a hymn to Nergal praises him as the “Controller of the underworld, Supervisor of the 600”. In Canaanite religion, the underworld was personified as the god Mot. In Egyptian mythology, the underworld was known as Duat and was ruled by Osiris, the god of the afterlife. It was also the region where the sun (manifested by the god Ra) made its journey from west (where it sets) to the east (from where it would rise again the next morning).” ref

Origins of the Cosmos

 

“The world was thought to be created ex materia. That is, out of pre-existing, and unformed, eternal matter. This is in contrast to the later notion of creation ex nihilo, which asserts that all the matter of the universe was created out of nothing. The primeval substance had always existed, was unformed, divine, and was envisioned as an immense, cosmic, chaotic mass of water or ocean (a representation that still existed in the time of Ovid). In the Mesopotamian theogonic process, the gods would be ultimately generated from this primeval matter, although a distinct process is found in the Hebrew Bible where God is initially distinct from the primeval matter. For the cosmos and the gods to ultimately emerge from this formless cosmic ocean, the idea emerged that it had to be separated into distinct parts and therefore be formed or organized.” ref

“This event can be imagined of as the beginning of time. Furthermore, the process of the creation of the cosmos is coincident or equivalent to the beginning of the creation of new gods. In the 3rd millennium BC, the goddess Nammu was the one and singular representation of the original cosmic ocean in Mesopotamian cosmology. From the 2nd millennium BC onwards, this cosmic ocean came to be represented by two gods, Tiamat and Abzu who would be separated from each other to mark the cosmic beginning. The Ugaritic god Yam from the Baal Cycle may also represent the primeval ocean.” ref

“Sumerian and Akkadian sources understand the matter of the primordial universe out of which the cosmos emerges in different ways. Sumerian thought distinguished between the inanimate matter that the cosmos was made of and the animate and living matter that permeated the gods and went on to be transmitted to humans. In Akkadian sources, the cosmos is originally alive and animate, but the deaths of Abzu (male deity of the fresh waters) and Tiamat (female sea goddess) give rise to inanimate matter, and all inanimate matter is derived from the dead remains of these deities.” ref

Origins of the gods

“The core Mesopotamian myth to explain the gods’ origins begins with the primeval ocean, personified by Nammu, containing Father Sky and Mother Earth within her. In the god-list TCL XV 10, Nammu is called ‘the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth’. The conception of Nammu as mother of Sky-Earth is first attested in the Ur III period (early 2nd millennium BC), though it may go back to an earlier Akkadian era. Earlier in the 3rd millennium BC, Sky and Earth were the starting point with little apparent question about their own origins.” ref

“The representation of Sky as male and Earth as female may come from the analogy between the generative power of the male sperm and the rain that comes from the sky, which respectively fertilize the female to give rise to newborn life or the Earth to give rise to vegetation. In the desert-dweller milieu, life depended on pastureland. Sky and Earth are in a union. Because they are the opposite sex, they inevitably reproduce and their offspring are successive pairs or generations of gods known as the Enki-Ninki deities. The name comes from Enki and Ninki (“Lord and Lady Earth”) being the first pair in all versions of the story. The only other consistent feature is that Enlil and Ninlil are the last pair.” ref

“In each pair, one member is male (indicated by the En- prefix) and the other is female (indicated by the Nin- prefix). The birth of Enlil results in the separation of heaven and earth as well as the division of the primordial ocean into the upper and lower waters. Sky, now Anu, can mate with other deities after being separated from Earth: he mates with his mother Nammu to give birth to Enki (different from the earlier Enki) who takes dominion over the lower waters. The siblings Enlil and Ninlil mate to give birth to Nanna (also known as Sin), the moon god, and Ninurta, the warrior god. Nanna fathers Utu (known as Shamash in Akkadian texts), the sun god, and Inanna (Venus). By this point, the main features of the cosmos had been created/born. A variation of this myth existed in Egyptian cosmology. Here, the primordial ocean is given by the god Nu. The creation act neither takes its materials from Nu, unlike in Mesopotamian cosmology, nor is Nu eliminated by the creation act.” ref

Separation of Heaven and Earth

“3rd millennium BCE texts speak of the cosmic marriage or union of Heaven and Earth. Only one towards the end of this era, the Song of the hoe, mentions their separation. By contrast, 2nd millennium texts entirely shift in focus to their separation. The tradition spread into Sumerian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and early Greek mythology. The cause of the separation involves either the agency of Enlil or takes place as a spontaneous act. One recovered Hittite text states that there was a time when they “severed the heaven from the earth with a cleaver”, and an Egyptian text refers to “when the sky was separated from the earth” (Pyramid Text 1208c). OIP 99 113 ii and 136 iii says Enlil separated Earth from Sky and separated Sky from Earth. Enkig and Ninmah 1–2 also says Sky and Earth were separated in the beginning. The introduction of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld says that heaven is carried off from the earth by the sky god Anu to become the possession of the wind god Enlil. Several other sources also present this idea. There are two strands of Mesopotamian creation myths regarding the original separation of the heavens and earth. The first, older one, is evinced from texts in the Sumerian language from the 3rd millennium BC and the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. In these sources, the heavens and Earth are separated from an original solid mass. In the younger tradition from Akkadian texts, such as the Enuma Elish, the separation occurs from an original water mass. The former usually has the leading gods of the Sumerian pantheon, the King of Heaven Anu and the King of Earth Enlil, separating the mass over a time-frame of “long days and nights”, similar to the total timeframe of the Genesis creation narrative (six days and nights). The Sumerian texts do not mention the creation of the cosmic waters but it may be surmised that water was one of the primordial elements.” ref

Stretching out the Heavens

“The idiom of the heavens and earth being stretched out plays both a cultic and cosmic role in the Hebrew Bible where it appears repeatedly in the Book of Isaiah (40:22; 42:5; 44:24; 45:12; 48:13; 51:13, 16), with related expressions in the Book of Job (26:7) and the Psalms (104:2). One example reads “The one who stretched out the heavens like a curtain / And who spread them out like a tent to dwell in” (Is 40:22). The idiom is used in these texts to identify the creative element of Yahweh‘s activities and the expansion of the heavens signifies its vastness, acting as Yahweh’s celestial shrine. In Psalmic tradition, the “stretching” of the heavens is analogous to the stretching out of a tent. The Hebrew verb for the “stretching” of the heavens is also the regular verb for “pitching” a tent. The heavens, in other words, may be depicted as a cosmic tent (a motif found in many ancient cultures). This finds architectural analogy in descriptions of the tabernacle, which is itself a heavenly archetype, over which a tent is supposed to have been spread. The phrase is frequently followed by an expression that God sits enthroned above and ruling the world, paralleling descriptions of God being seated in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle where he is stated to exercise rule over Israel. Biblical references to stretching the heavens typically occur in conjunction with statements that God made or laid the foundations of the earth.” ref

 

“Similar expressions may be found elsewhere in the ancient near east. A text from the 2nd millennium BC, the Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, says “Wherever the earth is laid, and the heavens are stretched out”, though the text does not identify the creator of the cosmos. The Enuma Elish also describes the phenomena, in IV.137–140:

137 He split her into two like a dried fish: 138 One half of her he set up and stretched out as the heavens. 139 He stretched the skin and appointed a watch. 140 With the instruction not to let her waters escape.” ref

“In this text, Marduk takes the body of Tiamat, who he has killed, and stretches out Tiamat’s skin to create the firmamental heavens which, in turn, comes to play the role of preventing the cosmic waters above the firmament from escaping and being unleashed onto the earth. Whereas the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible states that Yahweh stretched heaven like a curtain in Psalm 104:2, the equivalent passage in the Septuagint instead uses the analogy of stretching out like “skin”, which could represent a relic of Babylonian cosmology from the Enuma Elish. Nevertheless, the Hebrew Bible never identifies the material out of which the firmament was stretched. Numerous theories about what the firmament was made of sprung up across ancient cultures.” ref

Origins of Humanity

“Many stories emerged to explain the creation of humanity and the birth of civilization. Earlier Sumerian language texts from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC can be divided into two traditions: those from the cities of Nippur or Eridu. The Nippur tradition asserts that Heaven (An) and Earth (Ki) were coupled in a cosmic marriage. After they are separated by Enlil, Ki receives semen from An and gives rise to the gods, animals, and man. The Eridu tradition says that Enki, the offspring of An and Namma (in this tradition, the freshwater goddess) is the one who creates everything. Periodical relations between Enki and Ninhursaga (in this tradition, the personification of Earth) gives rise to vegetation. With the help of Namma, Enki creates man from clay. A famous work of the Eridu tradition is Eridu Genesis. A minority tradition in Sumerian texts, distinct from Nippur and Eridu traditions, is known from KAR 4, where the blood of a slaughtered deity is used to create humanity for the purpose of making them build temples for the gods.” ref

 

“Later Akkadian language tradition can be divided into various minor cosmogonies, cosmogonies of significant texts like Enuma Elish and Epic of Atrahasis, and finally the Dynasty of Dunnum placed in its own category. In the Atrahasis Epic, the Anunnaki gods force the Igigi gods to do their labor. However, the Igigi became fed up with this work and rebel. To solve the problem, Enlil and Mami create humanity by mixing the blood of gods with clay, who in the stead of the Igigi are assigned the gods’ work. In the Enuma Elish, divine blood alone is used to make man.” ref

Cosmic Egg Motif

“The cosmic egg motif is a major symbol in creation myths, occurring in all parts of the world. Ancient Egyptians saw the cosmic egg as the soul of the primeval waters out of which creation arose. In one story the sun god emerged from the primeval mound, itself a version of the cosmic egg resting in the original sea. One Chinese creation myth describes a huge primordial egg containing the primal being, the giant Pangu. The egg broke and Pangu then separated chaos into the many opposites of the yin and the yang, that is, into creation itself. The Satapatha Brahmana of India contains the story of the desire of the original maternal waters’ desire to reproduce. Through a series of prolonged rituals, the waters became so hot that they gave birth to a golden egg. Eventually, after about the time it takes for a woman or a cow to give birth, the creator, Prajapati, emerged from the egg and creation took place. The Pelasgians of ancient Greece explained that it was the original being.” ref

Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths: From Watery Chaos to Cosmic Egg

“Where did we come from, and how did our world begin? For thousands of years, people from cultures all around the globe have devised stories to explain the creation of their domains. The ancient Egyptians were no different in this regard. By examining their religious literature and accompanying representations, we can come away with an understanding of how they explained the creation of the world in which they lived. Their beliefs were complex and reflected their natural environment. In this essay for Glencairn Museum News, Dr. Jennifer Houser Wegner, Associate Curator in the Egyptian Section at the Penn Museum, introduces us to the fascinating subject of ancient Egyptian creation myths, including the cosmological context for several objects in Glencairn Museum’s Egyptian gallery.” ref

“The Egyptian pantheon was filled with deities who inhabited the heavens but whose influence was experienced on earth. In the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, which first appeared on the interiors of the pyramids of the kings of the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (c. 2500–2350 BCE or around 4,500 to 4,350 years ago), we learn that the Egyptians regarded the sky as a dwelling place of their gods and a location connected to the afterlife. Just as their daily life depended upon the Nile River, the Egyptians envisioned this heavenly realm as a landscape that divine beings navigated in sacred boats.” ref

“The sun god, Re, was of paramount importance to the ancient Egyptians, and the sun’s daily passage from east to west and its daily rising and setting served as a metaphor for the cycle of life—from birth, to adulthood, to death, to rebirth. The omnipresent sun in what was largely a desert environment may also explain the early Egyptians’ interest in solar concepts. At dusk, the sun god proceeded into the underworld (the Duat). New Kingdom funerary texts (1292–1075 BCE) and the associated images found on the walls of royal tombs record his nighttime journey. The sun god spent the twelve hours of the night traveling in the underworld, ultimately merging with Osiris, the primary funerary deity. The journey was treacherous, and the sun god faced his enemy, Apophis, a serpent who threatened him as he traveled in his solar boat nightly.” ref

Another of Re’s important roles was as a creator god. The sun’s reappearance on the horizon at dawn each day was a symbol of the re-creation of the world. However, Re was not the sole creator god in Egyptian mythology. The Egyptians had several elaborate myths describing the origins of their world. Each of these creation stories was centered at a different city in ancient Egypt. The Hermopolitan cosmology arose at the site of Hermopolis in Middle Egypt. Hermopolis was a city sacred to Thoth, the god of wisdom. The ancient Greeks equated Thoth with their god Hermes, which gives us the name Hermopolis, or “city of Hermes.” ref

“The ancient Egyptian name for this city was Khemnu, or “Eight-Town.” The number eight in this place-name makes references to the eight deities (the Ogdoad) who are the main characters in this version of the creation story. The Ogdoad consisted of four frog-headed male gods and their serpent-headed female counterparts. This divine group represented the dark, watery, unknown, and eternal state of the cosmos prior to creation. Nun and Naunet represented water. Heh and Hauhet expressed the notion of infinity. Kek and Kauket stood for darkness. Amun and Amaunet reflected the concept of hiddenness. These eight gods existed within the watery chaos of pre-creation.” ref

“Within this unchanging “nothingness,” there was the potential for creation. The Egyptians believed that from these eight gods came a cosmic egg that contained the deity responsible for creating the rest of the world, including the primeval mound—the first land to arise out of the waters of pre-creation. In some versions of the myth, the egg was laid by a goose named “the Great Cackler,” while in other versions an ibis, the bird associated with the god Thoth, is responsible for the egg. Thoth’s appearance here in the myth is probably the work of the Hermopolitan priesthood, who wanted to recognize the importance of the city’s patron deity. After the mound appeared, a lotus blossom bloomed signaling the birth of the newborn sun god. After the sun made its first appearance, the rest of creation could follow. In some cases, this myth further describes a scarab beetle that emerges from the lotus. The scarab is often a solar symbol, and the texts describe how this beetle transforms into a child. When this child cried, his tears became humankind.” ref

“The importance of the sun in the creation of the world is highlighted in another creation myth that makes reference to a collective of gods known as the Heliopolitan Ennead. These nine deities (the Ennead) are mentioned in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts. This myth seems to have originated at the city of Iunu (or Heliopolis, meaning “City of the Sun” in Greek). Here, the creation of the world begins with a creator god named Atum (or Re-Atum). Just as we see with the Hermopolitan version of creation, there is a chaotic, watery state of pre-creation, in which Atum resides before he is born. Atum is self-created and arises in the shape of an obelisk-like pillar (the benben) in Heliopolis. He engenders by means of his own bodily fluids. To begin the creation of the world, Atum spits out a pair of divine beings: Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, his female counterpart, the goddess of moisture.” ref

“Shu and Tefnut in turn produce a second generation of gods. Their son, Geb, is the god of the earth, and his sister-wife, Nut, is the sky goddess. With this second generation, the Egyptian cosmos comes into existence and all the elements necessary for life on earth—the sun, air, moisture, land, and sky—are now in place. The iconography of Geb and Nut together is particularly evocative. Geb appears as a human male lying on the ground. Arched above him, separated by their father Shu, stretches the figure of his sister-wife Nut, often shown as a nude female whose body is covered in stars. The Egyptians envisioned her arms and legs as the pillars of the sky and each of her limbs as indicators of the four cardinal points. Before their separation by their father, Geb and Nut were able to produce another generation of gods: Isis, Osiris, Seth, and Nephthys. Isis and Osiris in turn produced Horus. (It is interesting to consider that the Heliopolitan genealogy can also be viewed as the family tree of the Egyptian king. Each king was considered a representative of Horus while he was alive, and was then associated with the god Osiris, the king of the dead, after his death.)” ref 

“In addition to their roles in the creation of the cosmos, members of the Ennead are involved in other cycles of life and rebirth. For example, the sky goddess Nut is believed to give birth to the sun each day, and in some traditions she also gives birth to the stars. When observing the nighttime sky, the Egyptians may have noticed that the outer arm of the Milky Way resembled a female form and identified this celestial feature with the goddess Nut. As a goddess responsible for the sun’s daily rebirth, Nut was also accorded a role in the resurrection of the dead. Representations of Nut on the ceilings of New Kingdom (1539–1075 BCE) royal tombs show the goddess with the sun entering her mouth and passing through her star-covered body during the night, to be reborn in the morning. She often appears on the inside lids of sarcophagi, protecting the deceased until he or she, like the sun god Re, would be reborn. Nut can also appear on the lids of coffins as a woman with wings spread protectively across the chest of the deceased.” ref

“A third version of the creation of the cosmos can be found in a text known as the Memphite Theology. Memphis was one of the most important cities in ancient Egyptian history. Situated along the Nile at the point where the Nile River branches out into the Nile Delta, Memphis was Egypt’s first capital city. Throughout Egypt’s long history, Memphis remained an important religious and administrative center even during times when its status as the country’s capital city had shifted. According to the historian Manetho, Memphis was founded by the legendary king Menes around 3200 BCE or around 5,200 years ago. The divine triad who protected the city consisted of Ptah, his consort Sekhmet, and their child, Nefertem. Ptah was the patron deity of craftsmen, and in the Memphite version of creation he plays the role of the primary creator god (see also lead photo above).” ref

Unlike the versions of creation expressed in the Hermopolitan and Heliopolitan creation myths, which have been reconstructed from various ancient religious texts, the Memphite creation myth is preserved on a single document known as the Shabaka Stone. The text inscribed on this monument relates how King Shabaka, a Nubian pharaoh of Egypt’s 25th Dynasty (705–690 BCE), found a worm-eaten papyrus in the library of the Temple of Ptah at Memphis. Realizing how important the damaged document was, Shabaka purportedly ordered that the words be carved anew in stone to preserve them. In this text Ptah is credited with the creation of the world. He creates by means of thought and words: “Sight, hearing, breathing—they report to the heart, and it makes every understanding come forth. As to the tongue, it repeats what the heart has devised. Thus all the gods were born and his Ennead was completed. For every word of the god came about through what the heart devised and the tongue commanded.” The text describes how Ptah was responsible for the creation of all the gods and the establishment of their worship throughout Egypt:

“He gave birth to the gods.
He made the towns,
He established the nomes,
He placed the gods in their shrines,
He settled their offerings,
He established their shrines,
He made their bodies according to their wishes.
Thus the gods entered into their bodies,
Of every wood, every stone, every clay,
Everything that grows upon him
In which they came to be.
Thus were gathered to him all the gods and their kas,
Content, united with the Lord of the Two Lands.” ref

Reference to the moment of creation is not only seen in Egyptian texts. Most temples have architectural features that mimic elements of the cosmos at the beginning of creation. A large gateway called a pylon usually fronts a temple. The form of the pylon consists of two tapering towers joined by a lower section. The shape of the pylon imitates the hieroglyph for the word “horizon” (akhet), represented as two hills with a sun disk in the center. Further adding to the solar imagery, a pair of obelisks often stands before the entrance to the temple. An obelisk is a four-sided standing stone that tapers as it rises and ends in a small pyramid called a “pyramidion.” Obelisks were sacred to the sun god and were a symbol of the sun related to the benben, which calls to mind the primordial mound described in the Heliopolitan and Hermopolitan creation myths.” ref

“Each temple was a microcosm of the world wherein the creation was repeated on a daily basis. Beyond the entrance pylon, the typical temple contained one or more open courts, a hypostyle hall, and, at the innermost space, the sanctuary. The columns found throughout the temple often had capitals that are papyriform or lotiform in design, echoing the marshy plants that emerged on the primeval mound. The dark sanctuary or shrine that housed the image of the temple’s resident god imitated the mound upon which creation began. When priests carried out the morning rituals and opened the god’s shrine, they reenacted the very moment of creation, and the temple’s resident deity took the position of the creator god. Many temple precincts are also bounded by walls whose bricks are laid in a wavy design, perhaps symbolizing the chaotic waters of pre-creation which are held at bay by the creation of the (primordial) mound upon which the temple structure was built.” ref

“In addition to the creator gods depicted in the three main creation myths, there are other deities who were also considered creator gods such as Min, Amun, Khnum, and the Aten. One of Egypt’s earliest known deities was the god Min. Depictions of him appear as early as the Predynastic Period. Three colossal statues of Min dating to around 3300 BCE were excavated by W.M.F. Petrie at the site of Coptos. These statues, while fragmentary, originally depicted this god with the erect phallus that became standard for his representations. As a god connected with fertility and creation, Min is usually shown in this distinctive ithyphallic pose. He grasps a flail in one upraised arm and wears a tall plumed crown very similar to that of Amun-Re.” ref

A member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad, Amun’s name means “the hidden one.” During the Middle Kingdom (c. 1945-1640 BCE) this god became increasingly important, and by the New Kingdom he rose to prominence as a state god and was given the epithet “king of the gods.” Amun, together with his consort Mut, and their child, Khonsu, comprise the Theban triad, the patron deities of the city of Thebes. At the same time, Amun (or his combined form, Amun-Re) became thought of as a creator god in his own right. Amun was usually shown as a human, and when he was in the form of Amun-Re he wore a crown with two tall plumes. The ram and the goose were animals sacred to him. The ram-headed god Khnum is described in the Coffin Texts, a collection of funerary spells composed around 1991-1786 BCE, as a creator of humans and animals. By the reign of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut (reigned 1479-1458 BCE), Khnum is described as a god who is responsible for fashioning gods, humans, and animals on a potter’s wheel.” ref

“During the Amarna Period, when the pharaoh Akhenaten (reigned 1353-1336 BCE) changed the religious system from a polytheistic one to one that approached monotheism, his chosen deity, the Aten, naturally took position as creator god (Figure 25). The Aten was a solar deity, and his role in creation is celebrated in hymns composed during this period. In one version, the Aten is praised and described as follows. (It is interesting to note that scholars have long observed the similarity of this hymn to the phraseology of Psalm 104 in the Bible):

“How numerous are your works, though hidden from sight.
Unique god, there is none beside him.
You mold the earth to your wish, you and you alone.
All people, herds and flocks,
All on earth that walk on legs,
All on high that fly with their wings.
And on the foreign lands of Khar and Kush, the land of Egypt
You place every man in his place,
you make what they need,
so that everyone has his food,
his lifespan counted.” ref

“This religious experiment did not last long beyond the death of Akhenaten. By the beginning years of the reign of Tutankhamun, the traditional religious system with its many gods had been restored and the Aten returned to being just one of many solar deities in the Egyptian pantheon. As we can see, there was no one single creation story in Egyptian religious tradition. There were several different ways in which the Egyptians explained the origin of the world. These various traditions were not mutually exclusive. They often complimented and intersected each other, yet distinctions can be drawn amongst the various creation myths, which helps to distinguish one from the other.” ref

Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

ref, ref, ref, ref

“A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.” ref

“Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore (‘at that time’). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.” ref

Creation myth definitions from modern references:

  • “A “symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of central importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe, and for the basic patterns of life and culture.”
  • “Creation myths tell us how things began. All cultures have creation myths; they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, or cosmogonies. … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.”
  • A “philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality … The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.” ref

Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation:

“Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the “beginnings.” In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution.” ref

“All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world formed and where humanity came from. Myths attempt to explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson. ref

“Some Ethnologists and anthropologists who study origin myths say that in the modern context theologians try to discern humanity’s meaning from revealed truths and scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. In the past, historians of religion and other students of myth thought of such stories as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. Today, however, they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes: “The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, plants – are forms of power grasped existentially. The myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity.” ref

“While creation myths are not literal explications, they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They provide the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. A creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. In this sense, cosmogonic myths serve as a philosophy of life – but one expressed and conveyed through symbol rather than through systematic reason. And in this sense, they go beyond etiological myths (which explain specific features in religious rites, natural phenomena, or cultural life). Creation myths also help to orient human beings in the world, giving them a sense of their place in the world and the regard that they must have for humans and nature.” ref

Historian David Christian has summarised issues common to multiple creation myths:

“Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. … Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. … There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery …. And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.” ref

Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types: Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha.” ref

  • Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream, or bodily secretions of a divine being.
  • Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world.
  • Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world.
  • Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being.
  • Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos.” ref

Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice, and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.” ref

An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:

  • “Primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space.
  • Originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss.
  • Originator deity poised above the abyss.
  • Cosmic egg or embryo.
  • Originator deity creating life through sound or word.
  • Life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity.” ref

Creation from Chaos

“In creation from chaos myths, initially there is nothing but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word “chaos” means “disorder”, and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to “order” (cosmos) which is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss. One example is the Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.” ref

“Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanizedkháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap / abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth. Greek kháos (χάος) means ‘emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss‘, related to the verbs kháskō (χάσκω) and khaínō (χαίνω), ‘gape, be wide open’, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂n-, cognate to Old English geanian, ‘to gape’, whence English yawn.” ref

“It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BCE) interprets chaos as water, like something formless that can be differentiated. The motif of Chaoskampf (German: [ˈkaːɔsˌkampf]; lit. ‘struggle against chaos’) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon. Parallel concepts appear in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian duality of Maat and Isfet or the battle of Horus and Set.” ref

Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod’s Chaos has been interpreted as either “the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity” or “the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests.” Passages in Hesiod’s Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus.” ref

“In Roman tradition For Ovid, (43 BCE – 17/18 CE), in his Metamorphoses, Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a “shapeless heap”. According to Hyginus: “From Mist (Caligo) came Chaos. From Chaos and Mist, came Night (Nox), Day (Dies), Darkness (Erebus), and Ether (Aether).” An Orphic tradition apparently had Chaos as the son of Chronus and Ananke.” ref

“Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelumunus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque molesnec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodemnon bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all—the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap. ref 

“And in Biblical tradition, Chaos has been linked with the term abyss / tohu wa-bohu of Genesis 1:2. The term may refer to a state of non-being prior to creation or to a formless state. In the Book of Genesis, the spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters, displacing the earlier state of the universe that is likened to a “watery chaos” upon which there is choshek (which translated from the Hebrew is darkness/confusion).” ref

“The Septuagint makes no use of χάος in the context of creation, instead using the term for גיא, “cleft, gorge, chasm”, in Micah 1:6 and Zacharia 14:4. The Vulgate, however, renders the χάσμα μέγα or “great gulf” between heaven and hell in Luke 16:26 as chaos magnum. This model of a primordial state of matter has been opposed by the Church Fathers from the 2nd century, who posited a creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God.” ref

“In modern biblical studies, the term chaos is commonly used in the context of the Torah and their cognate narratives in Ancient Near Eastern mythology more generally. Parallels between the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish were established by Hermann Gunkel in 1910. Besides Genesis, other books of the Old Testament, especially a number of Psalms, some passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Book of Job are relevant.” ref

“In Hawaiian folklore, a triad of deities known as the Ku-Kaua-Kahi (AKA “Fundamental Supreme Unity”) were said to have existed prior to and during Chaos ever since eternity, or put in Hawaiian terms, mai ka po mai, meaning ‘from the time of night, darkness, Chaos’. They eventually broke the surrounding Po (‘night’) and light entered the universe. Next the group created three heavens for dwelling areas together with the earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and assistant spirits.” ref

Creation Ex nihilo

“Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for “creation out of nothing”) is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to Ex nihilo nihil fit or “nothing comes from nothing“, which means that all things were formed from preexisting things; an idea by the Greek philosopher Parmenides (c.540-480 BCE) about the nature of all things, and later more formally stated by Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – c. 55 BCE).” ref

“The myth that God created the world out of nothing  ex nihilo – is central today to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared. Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible. The authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function. In the early 2nd century CE, early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God, and by the beginning of the 3rd-century creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.” ref

“Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda, and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In most of these stories, the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator’s bodily secretions.” ref

“The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is “from nothing” but in many creation myths, the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In ex nihilo creation myths, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void.” ref

“Ex nihilo nihil fit means that nothing comes from nothing. In ancient creation myths, the universe is formed from eternal formless matter, namely the dark and still primordial ocean of chaos. In Sumerian myth this cosmic ocean is personified as the goddess Nammu “who gave birth to heaven and earth” and had existed forever; in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish pre-existent chaos is made up of fresh-water Apsu and salt-water Tiamat, and from Tiamat the god Marduk created Heaven and Earth; in Egyptian creation myths a pre-existent watery chaos personified as the god Nun and associated with darkness, gave birth to the primeval hill (or in some versions a primeval lotus flower, or in others a celestial cow); and in Greek traditions the ultimate origin of the universe, depending on the source, is sometimes Okeanos (a river that circles the Earth), Night, or water.” ref

“To these can be added the account of the Book of Genesis, which opens with God separating and restraining the waters, not creating the waters themselves out of nothing.[9] The Hebrew sentence which opens Genesis, Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz, can be translated into English in at least three ways:

  1. As a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning (In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth).
  2. As a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless).
  3. As background information (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!).” ref

“It has been known since the Middle Ages that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds option 1 is not the preferred translation. Our society sees the origin of matter as a question of crucial importance, but for ancient cultures this was not the case, and the authors of Genesis wrote of creation they were concerned with God bringing the cosmos into operation by assigning roles and functions.” ref

“Creatio ex nihilo, in contrast to ex nihilo nihil fit, is the idea that matter is not eternal but was created by God at the initial cosmic moment. In the second century, a new cosmogony arose, articulated by Plotinus, that the world was an emanation from God and thus part of God. This view of creation was repugnant to Christian church fathers as well as to Arabic and Hebrew philosophers, and they forcefully argued for the otherness of God and his creation and that God created all things from nothing by the word of God. The first articulation of the notion of creation ex nihilo is found in the 2nd century writing To Autocylus (2.10) authored by Theophilus of Antioch. By the beginning of the 3rd century, the tension was resolved and creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology. Theophilus of Antioch is the first post New Testament author to unambiguously argues for an ontological ex nihilo creation from nothing, contrasting it to the views of Plato and Lucretius who asserted clearly that matter was preexistent.” ref

“In modern times some Christian theologians argue that although the Bible does not explicitly mention creation ex nihili, various passages suggest or imply it. Others assert that it gains validity from having been held by so many for so long; and others find support in modern cosmological theories surrounding the Big Bang. Some examine alternatives to creatio ex nihilo, such as the idea that God created from his own self or from Christ, but this seems to imply that the world is more or less identical with God; or that God created from pre-existent matter, which at least has biblical support, but this implies that the world does not depend on God for its existence.” ref

Earth-Diver Creation

“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often, a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fishes in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.” ref

“This earth-diver myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well. Closely related to the above type of myth is the myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, it is stated, The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po.” ref, ref

“The widely distributed earth-diver myth is the most familiar example of dualistic creation. The most widespread account of the creation among the Finno-Ugric peoples is the earth-diver myth. In the north it is known in an area extending from eastern Finland to the Ob River, and in the south it is found, for example, among the Mordvins. This myth, which is well known in North America and Siberia, is fairly constant in form among the Finno-Ugric peoples. In the Mordvin variant, God sits on a rock in the middle of the primeval sea and spits into the water; the saliva begins to grow and God strikes it with a staff, whereupon the Devil comes out of it (sometimes in the form of a goose). God orders the Devil to dive into the sea for earth from the bottom; at the third attempt, he succeeds but tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth. While God scatters sand, the earth begins to grow and the Devil’s deceit is unmasked, and the earth found in his cheek becomes mountains and hills. The eastern Finnish myth contains an interesting detail: God stands on the top of a golden statue and orders his reflection on the water to rise, and this becomes the Devil.” ref, ref

Etiological (explanatory and expanding) continuations of the basic myth are common. The Devil demands for himself a piece of earth the size of the end of a stick, and from the hole that results vermin emerge—mice, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, and other such living things. Indo-Iranian influence has been seen in the dualism of the myth—setting God against the Devil—since religious dualism is most significant in Indo-Iranian religion. A water bird may be older than the Devil. It also occurs, however, without the dualistic emphasis. Thus, in an account by the Yenisey Khanty, the great shaman (a medicine man with psychic abilities) Doh glides above the primeval sea among the water birds, and asks the red-throated loon to dive for earth from the bottom of the sea, and with the earth makes an island. A rarer, but apparently ancient, myth is found among the Mansi: the god of the skies lets earth come down from heaven and places it on the surface of the great primeval sea.” ref

“Creation myths are a part of the oral tradition and culture of every Native North American tribe. The different creation myths reflect different levels of creation or existence. Some describe the beginning of the universe, or the creation of the earth, or the birth of humankind.  The earth diver stories portray a heavenly, celestial world from which a being falls and creates the earth. This type of myth is similar to many other of the world’s creation myths that place creation in the hands of higher beings like the Elohim (angelic beings, gods, and goddesses) and can be seen in comparing the Iroquois, Seneca, and Blackfoot creation myths.” ref

“The earth diver myths begin with beings who falls to the earth plane below from a higher plane inhabited by more evolved beings. The woman who falls creates the earth as we know it.  This storyline is present in the Blackfoot, Seneca, and Iroquois myths. The Iroquois legend states that “the first people were the Sky People” the higher beings from which the human race was created. These beings are human-like in their description, as in the Seneca story The Woman who fell from the Sky, named “sky woman”, and describes the beings of her world as resembling the Seneca people, only more handsome and well-kept.  When sky woman falls from her celestial world, she encounters an earth made of water.  The watery earth is another motif of the earth diver myths and is seen in the myths of many tribes such as Iroquois, Blackfoot, Cherokee, and Lakota myths.” ref

“When sky woman falls from above, she clutches a handful of soil from the heavenly realm, and with this the great turtle dives into the ocean to find the tree in order to fecundate the earth. The great turtle, who is also a principal protagonist in the earth diver stories, counsels sky woman and rallies the other animals to help build the earth, which will be sky woman’s home.  One by one the animals sacrifice themselves to dive into the sea and gather materials to build sky woman a home.” ref

“At the end of the myth, sky woman sacrifices her body “from her head grew the corn, beans, and squash…the three sisters” which become staples of the Native American diet, and “from her heart, the sacred tobacco”.  These interactions show the interdependent relationship between humans and animals. There is no dominion portrayed in how they relate to each other, only collaboration.  For example,  in the Iroquois version of the Sky Woman myth, called Turtle Dives to the Bottom of the Sea, sky woman lives on the back of great turtle. The turtle sees the woman as a blessing and generously offers her a home. She uses the soil she clutched from the celestial Tree of Life, to fecundate the earth plane below.” ref

“The way human, animal and plant relationships are portrayed speak of a time when human life was in balance with the earth’s offerings and rhythms (i.e. seasonal rounds). Duality and balance are portrayed as twin brothers in many myths such as the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Sioux stories, and the sky woman myths, too.  The twins represent the duality of human life and the coexistence of night and day, light and dark, good and evil, and how they are inseparable and necessary.  In the Seneca myth, sky woman gives birth to twins and these twins manage earth’s creation.” ref

For example, the historian Axtell recounts the myth a time when humankind and animals lived in harmony and cooperation as related from the Iroquois tradition:

“the world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world…the plant-eating animals created by the right-handed twin would eat up all the vegetation if their numbers was not kept down by the meat-eating animals which the left-handed twin created. But if these carnivorous animals ate too many other animals they would run out of meat and starve. so the right and the left-handed twins built balance into the world.” ref

“This excerpt beautifully demonstrates how many the Iroquois people viewed and accepted duality in their lives and saw them as inseparable. Geographically, the Seneca and Iroquois tribes lived near the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, but the Blackfoot and Lakota were plains people. Perhaps, the fact that the Iroquois and Seneca (whom are considered part of the Iroquois Nation) were geographically surrounded by water influenced their earth diver creation myths.” ref

“Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found. Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth diver cosmogony is attested in Iroq