Authors: J.F. Bierlein
Parallel Myths (6 page)
How Many Gods Are There?
From the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
, translated by R Max Müller.
Then Vidagdha Saklaya asked him: “How many gods are there, O Yajnavalkya?” He replied with this very Nivid (Sanskrit: “saying”): “As many as are mentioned in the Nivid of the hymn of praise addressed to the Visvedevas, … three and three hundred, three and three thousand.”
“Yes,” he said and asked again: “How many gods are there really, O Yajnavalkya?”
“Thirty-three,” he said.
“Yes,” he said and asked again: “How many gods are there really, O Yajnavalkya?”
“Six,” he said.
“Yes,” he said and asked again: “How many gods are there really, O Yajnavalkya?”
“Three,” he said.
“Yes,” he said and asked again: “How many gods are there really, O Yajnavalkya?”
“Two,” he said.
“Yes,” he said and asked again: “How many gods are there really, O Yajnavalkya?”
“One,” he said.
The Ennead
The word
ennea
means “nine” in Greek, and the principal Egyptian gods are nine in number. Ra, the ruler of the gods and the sun-god, emerged from the Watery Abyss to create the world. His children are Shu, the god of the air, a life spirit; and Tefnut, or moisture, the goddess of the world order. Their children are Geb, the earth god, and his wife, Nut, the sky-goddess, who in turn produced Osiris and Isis, who are husband and wife; and Set and Nephthys, who are also husband and wife.
Osiris, whose story is given later in this book, is the god of the dead. Isis is a goddess of wisdom and beauty. Set is the evil god of the desert, while Nephthys is the goddess of dusk. Osiris and Isis are the parents of Horus, the patron of the reigning pharoah.
Other Egyptian gods are:
Bast, the cat goddess who is the patroness of love and “feminine” things.
Hathor, the goddess of vengeance, the “eye” of Ra.
Maat, the goddess of justice.
Ernutet, patroness of women in childbirth.
The Polynesians, including the Hawaiians, Tahitians, Maori, and others, divide all forces in the universe into “Ao” (the masculine force, day, and the sky) and “Po” (the feminine principle, night, and the earth). The Ao god is Ku, whose name means “rising upright,” an allusion to both the sun and the phallus. The Po goddess is Hina, whose name means “leaning down,” an allusion to the setting sun.
Prayers to Ku are thus said facing east, and those to Hina are said facing west.
Ku is the god of agriculture, and is also invoked by fishermen for an abundant catch. Hina is the queen of the Underworld, patroness of women. Ku and Hina are the primordial parents of the gods:
Pele is the volcano goddess.
Kanaloa is the sea god, a squid god, who is invoked for healing and by travelers.
Maui is the trickster, the son of Kanaloa.
Lono is an agricultural deity.
Onteotl, the eternal and supreme god behind and above all gods.
Tlaloc, the rain god, leader of the rain spirits, the Tlaloques, who live on mountaintops.
Ehecatl, god of the winds, a form taken by Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent hero-god of the Aztecs.
Xipe Totec, god of the spring.
Xochipilli, god of flowers.
Tlatzoteotl, goddess of sexual desire and, curiously, the goddess to whom the confession of sins is addressed.
Huitzipochtli, the sun-god and patron of the Aztecs at war.
The Lesser Aztec Gods
Teteoinnan, mother of the gods; Coatlicue, “she who wears the snake-skirt;” Cihuacoatl, “snake-woman;” and Itzpapalotl, “obsidian butterfly,” are all goddesses of fertility and childbirth.
Huehueteotl, the fire god.
Centeotl, the god of maize.
Ometochtli, the god of drunkenness.
Chalchiuhtilicue, “the one who wears the jade skirt,” the goddess of fresh water, and her sister, Huixtochihuatl, the goddess of salt water and the ocean.
*
Triumdivate, triumdival:
A collection of three separate gods of three separate essences. This is in contrast to the Christian “Trinity” or the Hindu “Trimurti” of three personages that are in essence one God.
When Science from Creation’s face
Enchantment’s veil withdraws
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws.—Thomas Campbell,
Scottish Romantic poet,
“To a Rainbow”
THERE WAS NOTHING
NOTE
: This is the classic Nasadiya, or “There Was Not,” hymn contained in the ancient Hindu scriptures, the Rig Veda. The source for this is
Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism
.
T
here was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where? In whose protection? Was there water bottomlessly deep? There was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing sign of night, nor of day. That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond. Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning; with no distinguishing sign, all this was water. The life force that was covered with emptiness, that One arose through the power of heat.Desire came upon that One in the beginning; that was the first seed of mind. Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond of existence in non-existence. Their cord was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse beneath; there was giving-forth above.
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the creation of the universe. Who then knows whence it has arisen? Whence this creation has arisen—perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not—the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows—or perhaps he does not know.
THE THOUGHTS OF BRAHMA
NOTE
: The source of this story is the Brahamanda Purana, one of the earliest Hindu scriptures. In this myth, Brahma, the Creator, assumes various kinds of bodies made from the three elemental substances: darkness
(tamas)
, energy
(rajas)
, and goodness
(satva)
.
B
rahma has created and re-created the world many, many times. No one knows how many worlds there have been before this one or how many will come after it. There are four ages or
yugas
that together make one
kalpa
or eon. At the end of each
kalpa
, the creation is destroyed and returned to its transition state as a watery chaos.
As Brahma meditated, beings were born from his mind. He assumed a body made of darkness, and out of his rectum came a wind—thus were the demons born. Then Brahma discarded this body of darkness and the discarded body became night.
He then assumed a new body that was made mostly of goodness and light. Out of his mouth now came the shining gods or
devas
. He cast off this body, which became day. Even today, it is during the daytime that people visit the temples and worship the gods.
He took a third body that was all
satva
[goodness]. Brahma happened to be thinking fond thoughts of fathers and sons, mothers and
daughters, and thus the “ancestor spirits” were born. These spirits appear in the dusk and the dawn, where day and night meet.
Brahma then cast off his third body and assumed a fourth that was made of the energy that emitted from his mind. With these thoughts, human beings, the thinking creatures, were created. Then he discarded this body and it became the moon. To this day human beings love the moonlight for dancing, singing, and making love.
Brahma now had a rather strange thought as he assumed a fifth body made of both energy and darkness, which caused him to emit horrible creatures that wanted to devour the primordial sea of chaos; these were the ogres.
Brahma was so disturbed by this last creation that all the hairs on his head fell out. These hairs became all the creatures that crawl around on their bellies, the snakes and other reptiles. They recall their origins by hiding in swamps, brush piles, under rocks, and other dark places.
Brahma was still troubled about creating the ogres and, thinking dark thoughts, he created the horrible Gandharvas, or ghouls.
By this time Brahma had again regained his composure and began thinking pleasant thoughts. His mind went back to the peaceful and happy time of his youth. In this state of happiness, the birds were created. Now from the body of Brahma, much more sprang forth: mammals, plants, and other forms of life.
The qualities that all living things have today are the products of what Brahma’s thoughts were when they were born, and these features remain constant as long as the present world lasts.
BRAHMA IS LONELY
NOTE
: This very ancient myth comes from the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
, which may date from 1500
B.C
., and the telling of this myth is based on the translation by F. Max Müller.
I
n the beginning, there was nothing but the Great Self, Brahman. That is to say, nothing but Brahman existed. When you sacrifice
to this god or that goddess, it is really only Brahman that you are worshiping. He is behind all things.
Now Brahman looked around himself and saw nothing. He felt fear. Fear of what? Nothing but Brahman yet existed. He was all alone, and in order to fear, there must have been something else to fear. But Brahman was lonely. Even today lonely people often have fear as their only companion, whether or not there is an object to fear.
Brahman took the form of Brahma, the Creator. Brahma felt no delight; lonely people never do. He yearned for someone to keep him company and his thoughts split the temporary body he was using into two parts, like the halves of a clamshell coming apart. One of the two parts was male and the other female. They looked on each other as husband and wife. To this day, a happily married couple are like two parts of one being with Brahma in both of them. Now Brahma knew that these first humans would need fire to prosper. So he created fire out of his own mouth. In so doing, he singed the hairs off of the inside of his mouth. To this day, hair grows on the cheek, but not on the inside.
The male and female looked at each other and, recognizing that they were two halves of the same being, they united, making love in the usual way. Humankind was thus conceived.
But the female thought, “How can he make love to me if we are part of the same being?” So she now tried to elude the male by changing into a cow. But he then changed into a bull and they conceived the race of cattle. She then tried to elude him by becoming a mare; he became a stallion and horses were conceived. So it continued down to the tiniest of creatures. Why did she elude him? Women are still that way; they are often coy and will play hard to get. Men must sometimes change themselves in order to win a woman.
And so the creatures of the earth were developed by Brahma calling them forth by name and the action of the male and female. Thus, Brahma is inside of every living thing, for they came forth from him.