| Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
|---|---|---|
| Goddess name "Manasa" | Hindu | Snake goddess. The daughter of KASYAPA and KADRU and the sister of the lord of serpents, Vasuki. She is also a gracious aspect of PARVATI. Known particuarly from Bihar, Bengal and Assam. She stands upon, or is shaded by, a seven-headed snake. Attributes: snake and waterjar.... |
| Goddess name "Mandulis [Greek]" | Nubian | Sun god. Mandulis was chiefly revered in a Greco-Roman cult. His most important sanctuary was at Kalabsha, close to the Aswan High Dam, and now relocated. A sanctuary was also constructed on the Greek island of Philae where he seems to have enjoyed an åśśociation with the goddess ISIS. Also Merwel (Egyptian).... |
| Goddess name "Mari (1) (killing)" | Buddhist | (1) Deification of literature. One of a group of DHARANIS. Color: reddish white. Attributes: needle, thread and staff.(2) Mother goddess. Dravidian (Tamil) [southern India]. See also MARI MAI.... |
| Goddess name "Mari (2) (queen)" | Basque / Pyrenean region | Supreme mother goddess. She is both a sky and chthonic goddess and her consort is MAJU. She is depicted dressed in rich clothing and jewels. Her home is within the earth but she also rides through the air in a chariot pulled by four horses or carried by a ram. She may breathe fire and is symbolized by the Rainbow. When she and her consort meet, a thunderstorm forms. Her symbol is a sickle which is still employed as a device to ward off evil.... |
| Goddess name "Marici (shining)" | Buddhist / Mahayana | (1) Astral goddess. An emanation of VAIROCANA and also his female aspect or SAKTI. She is further identified as a buddha-designate or BODHISATTVA. She may also be the mother of SAKYAMUNI (a form of the BUDDHA). Considered by some to be the equal of the Hindu SURYA. She may be depicted in a three-headed form (as the Sakti of HAYAGRIVA), in which case her left head is that of a pig. She rides in a chariot drawn by seven boars. Color: red, yellow or white. Attributes: arrow, bow, fly whisk, horse's head image in the hair, needle, prayer wheel, staff, sword, thread and trident. Three-eyed.(2) Demiurge. Hindu. A product of the creator god BRAHMA.... |
| Goddess name "Mariyamman (mother of smallpox)" | Dravidian / Tamil / southern India | Plague goddess. A terrible goddess, one of the NAVASAKTIS and linked with the goddess KALI. She is honored in a ritual during which victims (in penance) are suspended from a rope and an iron hook through the flesh of the back and whirled around a pole. Also Mariyattal.... |
| Goddess name "Mata (great mother)" | Hindu | Primeval mother goddess. The archetypal progenitrix of all living things. She becomes the tutelary goddess of every village in northern India, but is also seen as a plague goddess åśśociated with smallpox, in which case her epithet becomes Maha Mai. Her Tamil counterpart is Amman.... |
| Goddess name "Matara" | Hindu | Mother goddess. Applied collectively to groups of deities, the Divine mothers, also more specifically to the consort of the god KASYAPA. As Divine mothers they are also regarded as SAKTIS. The numbers vary according to separate traditions and they are therefore identified as the SAPTAMATARAS (seven), ASTAMATARAS (eight) and NAVASAKTIS (nine). Less commonly there may be up to fifty mataras in a group. Their images are normally carved in stone (very few exist in metal) and they are depicted seated, often upon a corpse, and may be of terrifying appearance.... |
| Goddess name "Mater Matuta" | Italic | sky goddess. The personification of the dawn light who evolved into a fertility deity concerned with childbirth. She is also a tutelary goddess of mariners.See also ISIS.... |
| 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 "Mawu" | Fon / Benin, West Africa | (1) moon goddess. The sister of the Sun god LISA. She is also considered to bestow fertility and motherhood and is generally benevolent in nature.(2) sky god. Ewe [Togo, West Africa]. Among the tribe neighboring the Fon. Mawu is perceived as male and a creator deity. He favors the color white and is also benevolent and generous in nature.... |
| Goddess name "Maya(devi)" | Buddhist | Mother goddess. The mother of the BUDDHA perceived as the world lotus or PADMA from which the Buddha was born. She equates with the Hindu goddess LAKSMI. The term is also applied to the personification of the visible universe and, in Hinduism, as an epithet of the goddess DURGA.... |
| Goddess name "Messene" | Greek | A daughter of Triopas, and wife of Polycaon, whom she induced to take possession of the country which was called after her, Messenia. She is also said to have introduced there the worship of Zeus and the mysteries of the great goddess of Eleusis. In the town of Messene she was honoured with a temple and heroic worship. Greek |
| Goddess name "Meter" | The essence of the great mother of all gods, equating most closely to GAIA | Mother goddess, Greek. Known throughout the Greek Empire and generally the object of devotion by individuals rather than large cult followings. Also known as Meter oriae (mother of the mountain). Her popularity is thought to have spread from northern Ionia. Herodotus mentions a festival of Meter in Kyzikos. Probably derived originally from the western Asiatic great mother (see KYBELE).... |
| Goddess name "Mictlantecuhtli" | Aztec / Mesoamerican / Mexico | Chthonic underworld god. The creator of the underworld, Mictlan. Depicted with a skull-like appearance and protruding teeth. Also one of a pair of deities with MICTECACIHUATL. In the primeval waters of the cosmos, they generated the monstrous goddess CIPACTLI, from whom the earth was formed. In alternative traditions he is the god of the sixth of the thirteen heavens, Ilhuicatl Mamalhuazocan (the heaven of the fire drill), or he is one of the gods who support the lowest heaven at the four cardinal points. Mictlantecuhtli is perceived to reside in the south (codices Borgia and Vaticåñuś B). He is also one of the four great temple deities (codices Borgia, Cospi and Fejervery-Mayer).... |
| Goddess name "Mihos" | Egypt | Lion god. The son of the goddess BASTET. Depicted in leonine form and originating from a cult center at Leontopolis [Tell el'Muqdam] in Lower Egypt. A sanctuary in his honor was built at Bubastis. Also Miysis (Greek).... |
| Goddess name "Mika-Hiya-Hi (terrible swift sun)" | Shinto / Japan | Sun god. A deity subservient to the Sun goddess AMATERASU and engendered from the blood of the fire KAMI KAGU-TSUCHI. Certain Japanese still worship the Sun, going outside in the morning, facing east, bowing and clapping their hands in a daily ritual.See also HI-HIYA-HI.... |
| Goddess name "Moirai" | Greek | Collective name for a group of goddesses. The Fates of human life: KLOTHO, the spinner, LACHESIS, the caster of lots, and ATROPOS, the unturnable inevitability of death. The daughters of ZEUS and THEMIS, depicted with spindle, scroll and scales respectively. Also Moires.... |
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