Part 5 (1/2)
Sun wors.h.i.+p was of great antiquity in Babylonia, but appears to have been seasonal in its earliest phases. No doubt the sky G.o.d Anu had his solar as well as his lunar attributes, which he shared with Ea. The spring sun was personified as Tammuz, the youthful shepherd, who was loved by the earth G.o.ddess Ishtar and her rival Eresh-ki-gal, G.o.ddess of death, the Babylonian Persephone. During the winter Tammuz dwelt in Hades, and at the beginning of spring Ishtar descended to search for him among the shades.[67] But the burning summer sun was symbolized as a destroyer, a slayer of men, and therefore a war G.o.d. As Ninip or Nirig, the son of Enlil, who was made in the likeness of Anu, he waged war against the earth spirits, and was furiously hostile towards the deities of alien peoples, as befitted a G.o.d of battle. Even his father feared him, and when he was advancing towards Nippur, sent out Nusku, messenger of the G.o.ds, to soothe the raging deity with soft words.
Ninip was symbolized as a wild bull, was connected with stone wors.h.i.+p, like the Indian destroying G.o.d s.h.i.+va, and was similarly a deity of Fate. He had much in common with Nin-Girsu, a G.o.d of Lagash, who was in turn regarded as a form of Tammuz.
Nergal, another solar deity, brought disease and pestilence, and, according to Jensen, all misfortunes due to excessive heat. He was the king of death, husband of Eresh-ki-gal, queen of Hades. As a war G.o.d he thirsted for human blood, and was depicted as a mighty lion. He was the chief deity of the city of Cuthah, which, Jastrow suggests, was situated beside a burial place of great repute, like the Egyptian Abydos.
The two great cities of the sun in ancient Babylonia were the Akkadian Sippar and the Sumerian Larsa. In these the sun G.o.d, Shamash or Babbar, was the patron deity. He was a G.o.d of Destiny, the lord of the living and the dead, and was exalted as the great Judge, the lawgiver, who upheld justice; he was the enemy of wrong, he loved righteousness and hated sin, he inspired his wors.h.i.+ppers with rect.i.tude and punished evildoers. The sun G.o.d also illumined the world, and his rays penetrated every quarter: he saw all things, and read the thoughts of men; nothing could be concealed from Shamash. One of his names was Mitra, like the G.o.d who was linked with Varuna in the Indian _Rigveda_. These twin deities, Mitra and Varuna, measured out the span of human life. They were the source of all heavenly gifts: they regulated sun and moon, the winds and waters, and the seasons.[68]
These did the G.o.ds establish in royal power over themselves, because they were wise and the children of wisdom, and because they excelled in power.--_Prof. Arnold's trans. of Rigvedic Hymn_.
Mitra and Varuna were protectors of hearth and home, and they chastised sinners. ”In a striking pa.s.sage of the _Mahabharata_” says Professor Moulton, ”one in which Indian thought comes nearest to the conception of conscience, a kingly wrongdoer is reminded that the sun sees secret sin.”[69]
In Persian mythology Mitra, as Mithra, is the patron of Truth, and ”the Mediator” between heaven and earth[70]. This G.o.d was also wors.h.i.+pped by the military aristocracy of Mitanni, which held sway for a period over a.s.syria. In Roman times the wors.h.i.+p of Mithra spread into Europe from Persia. Mithraic sculptures depict the deity as a corn G.o.d slaying the harvest bull; on one of the monuments ”cornstalks instead of blood are seen issuing from the wound inflicted with the knife”.[71] The a.s.syrian word ”metru” signifies rain[70]. As a sky G.o.d Mitra may have been a.s.sociated, like Varuna, with the waters above the firmament. Rain would therefore be gifted by him as a fertilizing deity.
In the Babylonian Flood legend it is the sun G.o.d Shamash who ”appointed the time” when the heavens were to ”rain destruction” in the night, and commanded Pir-napishtim, ”Enter into the midst of thy s.h.i.+p and shut thy door”. The solar deity thus appears as a form of Anu, G.o.d of the sky and upper atmosphere, who controls the seasons and the various forces of nature. Other rival chiefs of city pantheons, whether lunar, atmospheric, earth, or water deities, were similarly regarded as the supreme deities who ruled the Universe, and decreed when man should receive benefits or suffer from their acts of vengeance.
It is possible that the close resemblances between Mithra and Mitra of the Aryan-speaking peoples of India and the Iranian plateau, and the sun G.o.d of the Babylonians--the Semitic Shamash, the Sumerian Utu--were due to early contact and cultural influence through the medium of Elam. As a solar and corn G.o.d, the Persian Mithra links with Tammuz, as a sky and atmospheric deity with Anu, and as a G.o.d of truth, righteousness, and law with Shamash. We seem to trace in the sublime Vedic hymns addressed by the Indian Aryans to Mitra and Varuna the impress of Babylonian religious thought:
Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky, Yea, all that is beyond, King Varuna perceives....
_Rigveda_, iv, 16.[72]
O Varuna, whatever the offence may be That we as men commit against the heavenly folk, When through our want of thought we violate thy laws, Chastise us not, O G.o.d, for that iniquity.
_Rigveda_, vii, 89.[73]
Shamash was similarly exalted in Babylonian hymns:
The progeny of those who deal unjustly will not prosper.
What their mouth utters in thy presence Thou wilt destroy, what issues from their mouth thou wilt dissipate.
Thou knowest their transgressions, the plan of the wicked thou rejectest.
All, whoever they be, are in thy care....
He who takes no bribe, who cares for the oppressed, Is favoured by Shamash,--his life shall be prolonged.[74]
The wors.h.i.+ppers of Varuna and Mitra in the Punjab did not cremate their dead like those who exalted the rival fire G.o.d Agni. The grave was the ”house of clay”, as in Babylonia. Mitra, who was identical with Yama, ruled over departed souls in the ”Land of the Pitris”
(Fathers), which was reached by crossing the mountains and the rus.h.i.+ng stream of death.[75] As we have seen, the Babylonian solar G.o.d Nergal was also the lord of the dead.
As Ma-banda-anna, ”the boat of the sky”, Shamash links with the Egyptian sun G.o.d Ra, whose barque sailed over the heavens by day and through the underworld of darkness and death during the night. The consort of Shamash was Aa, and his attendants were Kittu and Mesharu, ”Truth” and ”Righteousness”.
Like the Hitt.i.tes, the Babylonians had also a sun G.o.ddess: her name was Nin-sun, which Jastrow renders ”the annihilating lady”. At Erech she had a shrine in the temple of the sky G.o.d Anu.
We can trace in Babylonia, as in Egypt, the early belief that life in the Universe had a female origin. Nin-sun links with Ishtar, whose Sumerian name is Nana. Ishtar appears to be identical with the Egyptian Hathor, who, as Sekhet, slaughtered the enemies of the sun G.o.d Ra. She was similarly the G.o.ddess of maternity, and is depicted in this character, like Isis and other G.o.ddesses of similar character, suckling a babe. Another Babylonian lady of the G.o.ds was Ama, Mama, or Mami, ”the creatress of the seed of mankind”, and was ”probably so called as the 'mother' of all things”.[76]
A characteristic atmospheric deity was Ramman, the Rimmon of the Bible, the Semitic Addu, Adad, Hadad, or Dadu. He was not a presiding deity in any pantheon, but was identified with Enlil at Nippur. As a hammer G.o.d, he was imported by the Semites from the hills. He was a wind and thunder deity, a rain bringer, a corn G.o.d, and a G.o.d of battle like Thor, Jupiter, Tarku, Indra, and others, who were all sons of the sky.
In this brief review of the representative deities of early Babylonia, it will be seen that most G.o.ds link with Anu, Ea, and Enlil, whose attributes they symbolized in various forms. The prominence accorded to an individual deity depended on local conditions, experiences, and influences. Ceremonial practices no doubt varied here and there, but although one section might exalt Ea and another Shamash, the religious faith of the people as a whole did not differ to any marked extent; they served the G.o.ds according to their lights, so that life might be prolonged and made prosperous, for the land of death and ”no return”
was regarded as a place of gloom and misery.
When the Babylonians appear before us in the early stages of the historical period they had reached that stage of development set forth so vividly in the _Orations_ of Isocrates: ”Those of the G.o.ds who are the source to us of good things have the t.i.tle of Olympians; those whose department is that of calamities and punishments have harsher t.i.tles: to the first cla.s.s both private persons and states erect altars and temples; the second is not wors.h.i.+pped either with prayers or burnt sacrifices, but in their case we perform ceremonies of riddance”.[77]