| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| Goddess name "Inana, Istar,Ishtar" | Akkadian / Sumerian | The most important of all Mesopotamian goddesses, and a multi-faceted personality, occurring in cuneiform texts of all periods. The Sumerian name probably means "Lady of heaven";, and the Akkadian name Ishtar is related to the Syrian Astarte and the biblical Ashtaroth is usually considered as a daughter of Anzu, with her cult located in Uruk, but there are other traditions as to her ancestry, and it is probable that these reflect originally different goddesses that were identified with her. Ishtar is the subiect of a cycle of texts describing her love affair and ultimately fatal relationship with Tammuz. |
| Goddess name "Inara" | Hittite / Hurrian | Minor goddess. Daughter of the weather god TESUB. In the legendary battle with the dragon Illuyankas she åśśists her father to triumph over evil.... |
| God name "Jar Sub" | Turkey | This is the god of the universe |
| Goddess name "Katyayarii" | Hindu / Puranic | Form of the goddess DURGA or PARVATI. Parvati, as the ascetic KALI, possessed a black skin. When SIVA ridiculed her she cast it off, and it was subsequently filled with the combined brilliance of the gods to create Katyayani. Her attendant animal is a lion or tiger.... |
| Goddess name "Keawe" | Hawaiian | Creator god. An androgynous though apparently male principle or monad, he lived once in the dark empty abyss of Po. There, Keawe transformed primordial chaos into an orderly cosmos. He fashioned the sky from the lid of his calabash (a water-carrying gourd) and the Sun from an orange disc formerly kept inside the calabash. Keawe's first son was KANE, the god of light, and his daughter was Na Wahine, both created through his own powers of conception. He subsequently entered into an incestuous relationship with Na Wahine to father the chief pantheon of Hawaiian gods and goddesses, including most notably KU, LONO and Kanaloa, who became known, collectively, as the tripartite god.... |
| Goddess name "Khons(u) (wanderer)" | Egypt / Upper | moon god. Recognized from at least 2500 BC but best known during the New kingdom (mid-sixteenth century BC). A significant deity at Thebes, where he is described as an offspring of AMUN and MUT. His sacred animal is the baboon. There is a Khonsu precinct as part of the Temple of Amun in the Karnak complex. From the Greco-Roman period there exists a sanctuary of Kom-ombo where Khonsu is seen as the offspring of the crocodile god SOBEK and the mother goddess HATHOR. Depicted anthropomorphically or with a falcon's head, but in either case enveloped in a close-fitting robe. He wears a crown consisting of a crescent moon subtending a full moon orb.... |
| God name "Lianja" | Nkundo / Democratic Republic of Congo, central Africa | God. He became the subject of an epic known as Nsongo and Lianja and is regarded today less as a god than a heroic figure, probably under the influence of Christianity.... |
| God name "Little-Endians" | Swift | The two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu waged a destructive war against each other, exhausted their treasures, and decimated their subjects on their different views of interpreting this vital direction contained in the 54th chapter of the Blun-decral: "All true believers break their eggs at the convenient end." The godfather of Calin Deffar Plane, the reigning emperor of Lilliput, happened to cut his finger while breaking his egg at the big end, and very royally published a decree commanding all his liege and faithful subjects, on pains and penalties of great severity, to break their eggs in future at the small end. The orthodox Blefuscudians deemed it their duty to resent this innovation, and declared a war of extermination against the heretical Lilliputians. Swift |
| God name "MITHRA (friend)" | Persian / Iran | God of the upper air. Originating in India, Mithra is a god of light who was translated into the attendant of the god AHURA MAZDA in the light religion of Persia; from this he was adopted as the Roman deity Mithras. He is not generally regarded as a sky god but a personification of the fertilizing power of warm, light air. According to the Avesta, he possesses 10,000 eyes and ears and rides in a chariot drawn by white horses. In dualistic Zoroastrianism, which effectively demoted him, Mithra is concerned with the endless battle between light and dark forces; he represents truth. He is responsible for the keeping of oaths and contracts. He was born from a rock and, according to legend, engaged in a primeval struggle with Ahura Mazda's first creation, a wild bull, which he subdued and confined to a cave. The bull escaped, but was recaptured by Mithra, who slit its throat. From the blood sprang plant life on earth. His chief adversary is AHRIMAN, the power of darkness. Mithra is not generally worshiped on his own, but as an integral part of the Mithraic worship of Ahura Mazda, where he acts as an intercessor between gods and men. In the Hellenic period he was transformed more closely to the role of a Sun god. See also AHURA MAZDA.... |
| Goddess name "Maia" | Greco - Roman | Chthonic or earth goddess. Originally, in pre-Homeric times, a mountain spirit who subsequently became a minor consort of ZEUS. The Romans worshiped her as an obscure goddess of the plains who became briefly a consort of JUPITER, and they perceived her as the mother of the messenger god Mercury. Her cult was åśśociated with that of VulcanUS. Possibly the origin of the name of the month of May.See also MERCURIUS.... |
| Goddess name "Mamitu" | Mesopotamian / Babylonian - Akkadian | Goddess of oaths and treaties. One of the consorts of NERGAL and subsequently identified as a chthonic underworld deity. Also Mammetu.... |
| God name "Marnas" | Pre - Islamic northern Arabian | Local tutelary god. Probably regarded as a fertility deity, his cult was centered at Gaza at the Marneion sanctuary and probably succeeded that of Dagon. He may have been the subject of a colossal statue attributed to ZEUS found near Gaza.See also DAGAN.... |
| Goddess name "Maui" | Polynesian / Maori / New Zealand | Tutelary god. Not a creator god but one who åśśists mankind in various supernatural ways. According to tradition he was aborted at birth and cast into the sea by his mother, who thought he was dead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. He is the deity who drew the islands of New Zealand from the floor of the ocean in a net. Maui caught the Sun and beat it into submission, making it travel more slowly across the sky so that the days became longer. He also brought fire from the underworld for mankind and tried, unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for him by entering the vulva of the underworld goddess HINE-NUI-TE-PO while she was asleep. She awoke and crushed him to death. Though a deity, he had been made vulnerable to death by a mistake during his rites of birth (see also Balder). Also Mawi.... |
| Goddess name "Mayahuel" | Aztec / Mesoamerican / Mexico | Minor fertility goddess. One of the group clåśśed as the Ometochtli complex åśśociated with the maguey plant from which pulque is brewed. She may be depicted seated upon a tortoise beside an agave plant in bloom. According to legend she was abducted by QUETZALCOATL and subsequently dismembered by wild animals. From the fragments grew the first agave plants.... |
| Goddess name "Melinoe" | Greek | Or Chthonia, may mean the subterraneous, or the goddess of the earth, that is, the protectress of the fields, whence it is used as a surname of infernal divinities, such as Hecate, but especially of Demeter. Greek |
| God name "Men" | Phrygian / Turkey | moon god. Ruler of both upper and lower worlds. Probably also a god of healing, he was subsequently adopted by the Greeks and Romans. The cult was popular during the imperial period, but its inscriptions were written in Greek.... |
| God name "Men Ascaenus" | Antioch - near - Pisidia | Local tutelary god. Possibly originating as a Persian moon god and known chiefly from a description by Strabo. He enjoyed a substantial cult including a temple some 1,200 meters above sea level. His symbol is the head of a bull above a crescent moon and wreath; it appears on local coinage circa AD 200. The popularity of the cult earned antagonism from the Roman occupation.See also MEN.... |
| Goddess name "Mika-Hiya-Hi" | Japan | God of the Sun, subservient to Goddess of the Sun Japan / Shinto |
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