Hieros gamos

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Hieros gamos of Hera (shown with Iris) and Zeus, 1900 drawing of a fresco at Pompeii.

Hieros gamos, hieros (ἱερός) meaning "holy" or "sacred" and gamos (γάμος) meaning "marriage," or Hierogamy (Greek ἱερὸς γάμος, ἱερογαμία "holy marriage"), is a sacred marriage that plays out between gods, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities.

The notion of hieros gamos does not always presuppose literal sexual intercourse in ritual, but is also used in purely symbolic or

Jungian psychology. Hieros gamos is described as the prototype of fertility rituals.[1]

Ancient Near East

Further information: Barton Cylinder and Sacred prostitution

Sacred sexual intercourse is thought to have been common in the

Dumuzid, consort of Inanna, in a hieros gamos celebrated during the annual Duku ceremony, just before Invisible Moon, with the autumn Equinox[5]
(Autumnal Zag-mu Festival).

Greek mythology

In

cultus, Walter Burkert found the Greek evidence "scanty and unclear": "To what extent such a sacred marriage was not just a way of viewing nature, but an act expressed or hinted at in ritual is difficult to say".[9] The best-known ritual example surviving in classical Greece is the hieros gamos enacted at the Anthesteria by the wife of the Archon basileus, the "Archon King" in Athens, originally therefore the queen of Athens, with Dionysus, presumably represented by his priest or the basileus himself, in the Boukoleion in the Agora.[10]

The brief fertilizing mystical union engenders

Greek heroes such as Theseus and Heracles.[clarification needed
]

Tantric Buddhism

In

Anuttarayoga tantra where the male figure is usually linked to compassion (karuṇā) and skillful means (upāya-kauśalya), and the female partner to 'insight' or 'wisdom' (prajñā).[11][12] Yab-yum is generally understood to represent the primordial (or mystical) union of wisdom and compassion.[13]

Maithuna at Khajuraho

Panchatattva, and Tattva Chakra
.

The symbolism of union and polarity is a central teaching in

Tantric Buddhism
, especially in Tibet. The union is realized by the practitioner as a mystical experience within one's own body.

Alchemy and Jungian psychology

Further information:
Lapis philosophorum and Holy Grail
Depiction of the fermentatio stage[clarification needed] as hieros gamos, woodcut from the 16th century Rosary of the Philosophers.

The hieros gamos is one of the themes that

Symbols of Transformation
.

Wicca

Further information: Sex magic

In

chalice
, the action symbolizing the union of the male and female divine. In British Traditional Wicca, the Great Rite is sometimes carried out in actuality by the High Priest and High Priestess.

See also

References

  1. S2CID 163770380
    .
  2. James Frazer (1922), The Golden Bough, 3e, Chapter 31: Adonis in Cyprus
  3. ^ é-an-na = sanctuary ('house' + 'Heaven'[='An'] + genitive) [John Halloran's Sumerian Lexicon v. 3.0 -- see link below]
  4. Erech
  5. ^ Wolkstein, D.; Kramer, S. Noah (1983). Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth.
  6. ^ Walter Burkert warns that "the Hera festival is much too complicated to be understood simply as Hera's wedding" (Burkert, Greek Religion, J. Raffan, tr. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) §II.7.7 "Sacred Marriage" 108.
  7. ^ For example 'H. Sauer, in Der Kleine Pauly, s.v.
  8. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 969f.
  9. ^ Burkert 1985:108.
  10. Karl Kerenyi
    , Zeus und Hera. Urbild des Vaters des Gatten und der Frau (Leiden:Brill 1972) 83-90.
  11. ISBN 0-19-860560-9
    .
  12. ^ "Yab Yum Iconography and the Role of Women in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism." The Tibet Journal. Vol. XXII, No. 1. Spring 1997, pp. 12-34.
  13. ^ The Marriage of Wisdom and Method Archived 2011-06-17 at the Wayback Machine By Marco Pallis

External links

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