[Compiled by: Kandiah
Thillaivinayagalingam]
Hundreds of deities were recognized in the Sumerian
pantheon. Many were wives, children, and servants of the more powerful deities.
The gods were organized into a caste system. At the head of the system was the
king or supreme ruler. The four most important &
powerful gods were the water-god Enki ,the air-god Enlil and the
heaven-god An/Anu.[An="sky, heaven"]They are part of a triad or a
triple deity or Trimurti like Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.The fourth god is the
great mother goddess Ninhursang,She is principally a fertility
goddess.Nin-hursag means "lady of the sacred mountain" (from Sumerian
NIN "lady" and ḪAR.SAG "sacred mountain, foothill".Also she
is a daughter of An and Nammu. Often stated as Enlil's sister, but also as his
wife. These were the four creator deities who created all of the other gods.An.
was one of the oldest gods in the Sumerian pantheon and was called Anu by the
later Akkadians in Babylonian culture..An means "sky, heaven" &
Hence,he was called as a sky-god or the god of heaven. An was initially the
head of the pantheon,though he was eventually seceded by Enlil &
become a leader of the pantheon from at
least 2500 BC, Enlil meant Lord Wind: both the hurricane and the gentle winds
of spring were thought of as the breath issuing from his mouth.He was sometimes
called as Lord of the Air.Enlil became the greatest of the gods, the god who
punished people and watched over their safety and well-being. Enlil is seen as the most important god. He
is known as "the king of heaven and earth," "the father of the
gods," and "the king of all the gods." Enlil developed the broad
designs for the universe. However, it was Enki who further developed and
carried out his plans.Enki is later
known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology.He is known as the god of waters & a god of wisdom Ninhursag was
regarded as the mother of all living beings.
Except enki/Ea,who sometimes took a form that was half-man
and half-fish ,all other Mesopotamian/sumerians gods are human in form.Other
Archaeological excavation of mesopotamia shows that
sumerian had over 2500 different deities.Many gods have what sounds like the
same role. Usually, these are all the same deity, just different epithets of
the one deity. For instance, earth goddesses –Ki, Ninhursaga ,Ninki, are all
the same goddesses just different aspects. Though they had worshipped number of
gods & goddess,sun god Utu/Shamash was one of the the main Sumerian deities
[Anu,Enlil,Enki,Ereshkigal,Inanna,Nammu,Ninhursag,Nanna,Ningal,Ninlil ,Ninurta
& Utu].Shamash, as the solar deity, exercised the power of light over
darkness and evil. In this capacity he became known as the god of justice and
equity and was the judge of both gods and men.According to legend, the
Babylonian king Hammurabi received his code of laws from Shamash.Also at night,
Shamash became judge of the underworld.They worshipped moon too.The god of moon
called Nanna.He is commonly designated as En-zu, which means "lord of
wisdom"The two chief seats of Nanna's/Sin's worship were Ur in the south
of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north.
The Sumerians believed they had been created to serve their
gods, and they served their gods with sacrificial offerings and supplications.
However common people could not approach god directly.This was done through
sumerian Priests,who were very powerful and important. in ancient sumerian
society. They also told people how to behave to keep the gods happy.
Sometimes gods were kind,but sometimes gods were
cruel.Either way ,the sumerians believed that they had no control over what the
gods did.In fact,the sumerians believed that they were slaves of the gods &
that they were put on earth to serve and take care of the gods.The Sumerians
believed that if the gods were happy, everything would be great. Food would be
plentiful, the flooding of the rivers would be regular and predictable, there
would be no earthquakes, bad sand storms or other disasters, and life would be
just great. We all know that there are periods when life is great. It always
eventually takes a turn, however, and in Sumer, when life took a turn,the
people blamed themselves for doing something to upset the gods.They believed
that If the gods weren’t happy, they became cranky and took it out on the
people."The sumerians story of the creation of people" tells why:
We also find number of deities were recognized in the
sangam literature.For example,In the earliest Tamil work, Tolkappiyam
(Porulatikaram 5) a group of gods is
mentioned in respect to land division as:Mayon[Tirumal,], Seyon[Murugan],
Ventan[Indran],Varunan[Varunan] &
Kotravai [Sakti].Also we found few references of Siva in the latter Sangam
literature,Here Sivan was mentioned as the supreme God, and Murugan was as the
one celebrated by the masses.Further we find that chief occupation,of Murugan
was hunting and honey collection.similarly,chief occupation, of Mayon was
cattle-rearing and dealing with dairy products and so on.
Murugan was originally a formless dravidian god of the
hills and worshiped as a spirit.,then later in the form tree &
stone,finally as a human form god.He may be probably worshiped in ancient Indus
valley civilization cities like Harappa & Mohanjo-daro 5000 years ago as
Tree god-"Ahmuvan" & also we found Siva as "Pasupathi"
along with great mother goddess there.
Other than above,We find Tamil Village Guardian
spirits,known as "Kaval Theivam" such as peaceful gods like Mariamman
or warrior gods ,like Ayyannar or Karuppaswamy.In tamil,the word mari would
mean rain & amman mean mother,but here it is more like mother nature.She
was worshiped to bring prosperity ,this includes bring rain & fertility and curing disease.Similarly Karuppaswamy is
the god of justice & Ayyannar is Guardian deity of village protection'
Also we find that during sangam period,the Hero Stone was
erected in memory of the bravery shown by the warrior in battle & these
Fallen heroes and other varieties of martyrs were deified(as a god] and
worshipped by the people.Sangam Literature sang the praises of these deities
as:
"There are no gods, other than the memorial stones of
heroes who blocked
enemies, killed their elephants with lifted, shiny tusks
and got killed,
to be worshiped with rice showerings."--Purananuru 335
Out all of above Tamil Guardians, Gods and Goddesses The
most venerated god of the Tamils was known by the two names Seyon and Murugan
since the time of their known history. In Tamil lexicon, the term chey
indicates: redness.Thus, Seyon refers to one who is young, having a ruddy
complexion Purananuru 56 also calls Murugan as Seyon--the red one:As per nature
worship,Seyon → Murugan→ Kurinji land’s
ruling deity[குறிஞ்சி நிலத் தலைவன்].Therefore,Mayon / Seyon .....May be the warriors of the
respective land divisions?Similarly, all other deities also may be the warriors of the respective land
divisions?
PART:39 WILL
FOLLOW in next week
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