King of the gods
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King of the Gods
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As
pantheon; such subsidiary courtier-deities are usually linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity who is responsible for the creation
.
Historically, subsequent social events, such as invasions or shifts in power structures, can cause the previous king of the gods to be displaced by a new divinity, who assumes the displaced god's attributes and functions.[citation needed] Frequently the king of the gods has at least one wife who is the queen of the gods.
According to
earth goddesses and achieve omnipotence.[1]
There is also a tendency for kings of the gods to assume more and more importance, syncretistically assuming the attributes and functions of lesser divinities, who come to be seen as aspects of the single supreme deity.
King of the gods in different cultures
Examples of kings of the gods in different cultures include:
- In the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, Enlil displaces Anu and is in turn replaced by Marduk.[2]
- In the Amun-Ra was the official deity of the Pharaoh and the people of Egypt.
- In the .
- In the
- In the Hurrian/Hittite pantheon, Teshub or Tarḫunz or Arinna displaces Kumarbi.
- In the Armenian Ar, later – Aramazd.
- In Hinduism, the King of the Gods is Indra, The God of Thunder and lightning and the ruler of heaven.[4][5]
- In the Ancient Greek system of Olympian Gods, Cronus displaces Uranus, and Zeus in turn displaces Cronus
- In Norse mythology, Odin assumes the role as the Allfather or King of the Gods, but Norse mythology has multiple tribes of Gods such as the Æsir and Vanir, and Odin starts off as only the leader of the former.
- Ancient Iranian Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians
- Thirumal
List of rulers of pantheons
The leaders of the various pantheons include:
- Berber pantheon: old: Amun; new: Poseidon[dubious ]
- Algonquin pantheon: Gitche Manitou
- Arabian pantheon: Allah[7][8]
- Nyame
- Australian Aboriginal pantheon: Baiame
- Ometeotl, Quetzalcoatl or Tezcatlipoca
- Basque pantheon: Sugaar or Mari
- Batak pantheon: (primordial) Debata Ompung Mulajadi na Bolon; (celestial) Batara Guru
- Baʿal (now usually identified with Hadad)
- Baʿal Hammon
- )
- Chinese pantheon: Yuanshi Tianzun, Jade Emperor, Shangdi, Tian
- Circassian pantheon: Theshxwe / Tha
- Dahomey pantheon: Nana Buluku
- Thirumaal
- Finnic pantheon: Ukko, possibly Ilmarinen
- Germanic pantheon: Odin
- Georgian pantheon: Armazi, Ghmerti
- Gondi pantheon: Kupar Lingo
- Greek pantheon: Zeus
- Guarani pantheon: Tupa
- Raven
- Hawaiian pantheon: Kāne
- Hindu pantheon: Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu, Indra or Brahman
- Hopi pantheon: Angwusnasomtaka
- Inca pantheon: Viracocha
- Inuit pantheon: Anguta or Anigut but only among the Greenlandic Inuit
- Amaterasu-Ōmikami
- Haneullim
- Lakota pantheon: Wakan Tanka or Inyan
- Lithuanian pantheon: Perkūnas
- Lusitanian pantheon: Endovelicus
- Mari pantheon: Kugu Jumo
- Māori pantheon: Tāne
- Mayan pantheon: Hunab Ku, Itzamna, Huracan, Kukulkan, Camazotz and Cabrakan.
- Mbuti pantheon: Khonvoum
- Pakhangba
- Miwok pantheon: Coyote
- Muisca pantheon: Chiminigagua
- Nabatean pantheon: Dushara
- Ossetian pantheon: Xucau
- Persian pantheon: Ahura Mazda
- Visayan)
- Jupiter
- Sami pantheon: Beaivi
- Vietnamese pantheon: Ông Trời; Lạc Long Quân
- Bondyé
- Yahwist pantheon: El, later Yahweh (via syncretism)
- Olorun
- Zulu pantheon: Unkulunkulu, Umvelinqangi
Characteristics
The following are the characteristics shared by virtually all Kings of the gods:
- Creation: Most of these gods derive their power from the fact that they created the world, formulated its laws and/or created life forms, notably humans. Ex: Ra, Odin.
- Jupiter.
- Lightning bolts as personal weapons: Commonly seen with sky gods.
- Divine Wisdom: Some Kings of Gods possess superior wisdom and clairvoyance, compared to most beings. Ex: Ra, Odin.
- Dyaus Pitr.
- Conquest, Law, Justice, Order, Time and Fate: Most kings of gods have the ability to control the events of battle and grant victory to those who deserve it. They are seen as paragons of law and promote order. They are seen as powerful manifestations of their respective civilizations. Some gods either possess great skill in war or tremendous physical strength. Some of them have some control over time and regulate it with seasons. Others have limited control over the fate of a human. Ex: Zeus, Odin, Ra, Jupiter.
- Divine authority over other gods: This may be because the concerned head of the pantheon is the father or creator of many gods and goddesses who swear allegiance to him. As a result, the king of the gods makes sure that all deities function properly, punish them for misdeeds, grant or take away immortality from lesser gods etc. Ex: Zeus, Odin, Enlil.
- Divine rival: In some cases, there may be another god, who is equal in supernatural power and thinks he can do a better job than the current king. This often results in conflict, and in extreme cases, war. Ex: Ra and Apophis; Osiris, Set and Horus; Apollo vs Python ; Mitra and the Daeva; Zeus and Poseidon; Cronos and Uranus; Typhon and Zeus etc.
See also
References
- ^
Compare:
Stookey, Lorena Laura (2004). "Primal Parents". Thematic Guide to World Mythology. Thematic Guides to Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 142–143. ISBN 9780313315053. Retrieved 2018-10-20.
Myths from many cultures posit the original existence of [...] primal parents, or world parents, that most commonly take the forms of earth mother and sky father [...]. [...] the association of the father with the sky also signifies the ascendancy of the male that occurs with the emergence of patriarchal culture. [...] As agricultural communities are supplanted by warrior societies, the primal parent known as the sky father is readily transformed into another familiar figure, the omnipotent sky god who can also take the form of the sun god or the god of storms.
- ^ "Marduk (God)".
- ISBN 0190291702.
In The Baile in Scail ("The God's Prophecy") Lugh is seen as a sacred solar king and king of the otherworld, associated with Rosmerta, who is herself a kind of personification of Ireland, sometimes known as "the Sovranty of Ireland." Lugh followed Nuada as king of the gods in Ireland, and was with the mortal Dechtire the father of the great hero Cuchulainn.
- ISBN 978-0-391-02960-6.
- ISBN 978-0-19-959334-7.
- ^ "Dravidian folk religion", Wikipedia, 2019-11-15, retrieved 2019-11-28
- ^ Campo 2009, p. 34.
- ^ Hughes 2013, p. 25.
Works cited
- Campo, Juan E. (2009). Encyclopedia of Islam. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-5454-1.
- ISBN 978-0-231-53192-4.
