The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to The Ancient Tradition.  A Wonk Media Production.  Music provided by Joseph McDade.  He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the ancient tradition.  I’m your host,  Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the program. It’s great to have all of you listening in today. It’s beautiful outside my window. I hope it’s the same outside yours. Today’s episode is jam packed. So I’m going to just jump right in. Before I do though, I want to let our new listeners know that this podcast has a companion  website, theancienttradition.com. You can find pictures and links and a transcript for today’s episode  right on the site.

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And you can also find some general information about the podcast, past episodes, and a list of notable books and scholars if you want to continue researching. Sometimes there’s a delay between episodes, so if you’re curious as to when the next episode will be released, check out the website, because we usually post updates there. For the past couple of episodes, we’ve been examining who God is.

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You’ve probably noticed that much of what the ancients taught about the nature of God is at odds with what much of the modern world teaches about the nature of God. And one such  source of difference is God’s marital status.  In the past two episodes, we’ve seen that the ancients taught that God does not rule over the heavens as a solitary being. They taught that God is married, that

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He rules over the heavens with his divine consort, his wife, the queen of heaven. A divine woman who we learned in our last episode is described in the Ugaritic literature  as Kadesh, the personification of holiness, the personification of sacred space, which is quite something. So in those episodes, we established that the high God in Egypt

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Mesopotamia and Canaan were married. And then we also looked at some archeological evidence that indicated that some Israelites during the first temple period, particularly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, believed that the God of the Old Testament was married. So today we’re gonna wrap up  our discussion on God’s marital status by looking all over the world. We’re gonna look at all of the major civilizations.

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We’re gonna look at the Hindu, the Chinese, the Hittites, the Greeks, and the Maya, and a couple others.  And what you’re gonna see is that with the notable exception of Islam, in every one of these ancient civilizations, the high god  is married. So let’s start with the Hindu. Among the Hindu, the creator god is Brahma. He’s a member of the Trimurti.

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the Trinity of Supreme Divinity, which includes Vishnu and Shiva. If you remember, Brahma is the God who resided inside the Haranyagarbha, the golden egg, the universal womb, the sacred center, which is akin to the Holy of Holies. Remember, this is the egg that appeared over the primordial waters, then broke open. Brahma came forth and created the heavens and the earth.

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So what do the Hindu writings say about Brahma’s marital status? Well, in pretty much all of the Hindu scriptures, in the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Upanishads, and in the Puranas, Brahma is described as being married. He’s married to the goddess Saraswati. It’s in the Mutsya Purana, which is considered the oldest

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and the most authoritative of the Puranas. It’s dated to between 250 and 500 AD that we read of Brahma’s enchantment and then marriage to the goddess Saraswati. In this account, Brahma sees Saraswati, he’s enchanted with her, and then listen to what happens next. Starting in chapter three, line 35, we read, and this is the A Talukdhar of Ud translation.

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Brahma continued uttering, Oh, what an enchanting form. Oh, what an enchanting form in his love for the goddess Saraswati. And the latter, referring to Saraswati, after saluting him began to circumambulate him in reverence. Brahma fixed his gaze on Saraswati and could not distract himself from her as she was circumambulating him.

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He felt shy of turning his head each time to her direction. He therefore created four heads, each pointed to a direction in order that he may see Saraswati undisturbed without having to turn his head each time in course of her circumambulations. Brahma, fired with passion in her company, married Saraswati and began to pass his days in enjoyment inside a lotus.

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He enjoyed the company of Saraswati for a hundred years and after a long time Manu was born to them. Okay, there’s a lot of interesting things going on in this account.  Did you catch what Saraswati was doing? Because it’s important. The text tells us that she quote, began to circumambulate him in reverence. So she’s making a circle around him. Do you recognize what Saraswati is making here?

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If you’ve been listening to the program for a while, you should probably know. If Brahma is sitting in the middle and Saraswati is making a circle around him, what is Saraswati making? She’s making a circum-punked. Yes, a circum-punked. And what is the circum-punked meant to symbolize? If you recall, it’s meant to focus our attention on what’s in the center.

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the sacred center. It’s meant to symbolize that Brahma resides in the sacred center of all things, in the Holy of Holies. Are you beginning to see how in no matter which religion we look, we’re being taught the same doctrine here about God?  What accounts for this?  This is a serious historical, archaeological, anthropological, and sociological question. Now,

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Brahma is so struck by Saraswati that he doesn’t want to take his eyes off of her while she’s circling around him. So what does he do? He creates four heads, one head to face each of the cardinal points, north, south, east, and west. Keep in mind though that this is symbolic. Brahma didn’t literally create four heads for himself. The four heads are meant to convey a deeper meaning.

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If you recall in the ancient world, the four cardinal points were used to mark the center place. Where the four cardinal points converged marked the center, the sacred center. The sacred center again of all things. And it’s right where the four cardinal points converge that Brahma sits. So take note how this account is emphasizing the same symbolic message twice.

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that Brahma resides in the sacred center of the cosmos. Now it’s important to note here in this passage that Brahma is not symbolically associated with the sacred center until Saraswati comes onto the scene. It’s  Saraswati who creates the circum-punct. It’s Saraswati’s presence that triggers Brahma to create four heads.

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If you recall in the ancient world when the ancients used the four cardinal points, they used them to symbolize geographic totality. So in this passage, Brahma’s four heads are being used to convey the notion that he is the Lord  over the totality of his creations. He  is the King  of the four corners. For the purposes of today’s episode though, I want you to see that the author of this Hindu scripture wants you, the reader.

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recognize that Brahma doesn’t create four heads. He doesn’t become the king of the four corners until Saraswati comes onto the scene. The author wants you to understand that Saraswati played some sort of really important role in Brahma’s exaltation as a cosmic king. Now speaking of cosmic kingship in traditional Indian iconography

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Brahma is almost always depicted with these four heads that he created after meeting Saraswati. And then on each one of his head, he’s topped with a golden crown. Yes, a crown. And get this, each golden crown is shaped like a mountain. He’s wearing four mountain crowns called Makuta crowns. Why? Because this crown represents  the sacred mountain, Mount Maru.

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which is the Hindu cultural expression of the primordial mound. Yes, Brahma is wearing the primordial mound  on each of his foreheads. They are his crowns. You know, why would he do this? Well, he does this because it represents his personal spiritual ascent and his authority as the king that reigns on the top or the peak of the mound. Now, after this, the text tells us,

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directly that Brahma married Saraswati. The text reads, quote, Brahma married Saraswati and began to pass his days in enjoyment inside a lotus. The text couldn’t state it any more clearly than it has. The text directly states that the high Hindu god Brahma is married. So what did the text tell us that they did after they got married?

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It says that they began to pass their days in enjoyment living inside a lotus. Okay. The lotus is incredibly important in Hinduism. It’s one of the most revered,  one of the most important symbols in Hinduism. It represents some very important cosmological and theological concepts. First of all, it represents  creation. When the lotus blooms, this represents the cosmic birth  of the universe and our world.

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And it also represents  enlightenment, the spiritual birth of those that are seeking greater light. And it’s a really great symbol because the real life water lily or lotus sits right on the waters, just like the primordial waters. And as the lotus blooms, beauty and order and creation is born out of the waters, just like the primordial mound. The lotus is a kin.

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to the ancient Near Eastern  arc  or bark that sits on the waters. So just like the ancient Egyptian Ray sits on his throne  in the center of the arc that floats on the waters, the Hindu Brahma sits on his throne in the center of the lotus that floats on the waters. The lotus is also a great symbol for spiritual enlightenment or growth because in the morning when the sun shines down on the lotus,

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the petals unfold or blossom, which symbolizes the soul’s expansion that accompanies spiritual growth or enlightenment. And when the spiritual growth is fully  realized, when the lotus fully blossoms, it symbolizes divine perfection. So when we learn in this account that Brahma and Saraswati lived their days in a lotus,

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That’s akin to saying that they lived out their days in divine perfection together  in the sacred center. And don’t forget, Brahma sits on a lotus throne. This passage is basically telling us that the high God Brahma and his wife, Saraswati, lived out their days in the Holy of Holies, which is incredibly interesting, especially in light of our last episode where we

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learned that Mary Magdalene’s epitaph, Magdhal or Migdhal, meant tower. Both passages, this one here in the Hindu Mutsya Purana and the other one in the Christian New Testament, Matthew chapter 27 verses 55 to 56, associate female intimates of God with the Holy of Holies. That’s interesting.

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If you’d like to see a depiction of the four headed Brahma crowned with gilded Mount Marous, seated on a lotus throne, you can find it  on the webpage for this episode. In chapter four of the Muttsia Purana, we learn a little bit more about the high God Brahma and his wife Saraswati’s relationship. Round lines eight to nine, it reads, and this is speaking of the two, quote, she is the better half of the Lord.

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Brahma and Saraswati are inseparables. Sometimes only one of the two puts on appearance and sometimes both do the same, but all the same, both are always together. They never remain apart as sunshine or light never lives devoid of its shadow. Similarly, Brahma never lives apart from Saraswati. That’s a beautiful description of a very loving

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relationship between the high god Brahma, the lord of the four corners, and his consort, Saraswati, living together as inseparable companions,  divine husband and wife in the sacred lotus center. The passage we read earlier in chapter three ends with the following line, quote, he, Brahma, enjoyed the company of Saraswati for a hundred years, and after a long time,

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Manu was born to them. So this passage tells us that a long time after Brahma and Saraswati were married, Saraswati gave birth to a baby boy, a boy named Manu. Now this is very, very important because Manu is the Hindu atom, the first man, the progenitor of the human race. So note here how in  the oldest Hindu Purana, we read that God, the creator,

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and his wife Saraswati gave birth to the first human being on earth, Manu. This  is theologically significant and we’ll talk about this a lot more in coming episode. I just wanted to point it out here so it’s on your radar. When we look at the iconography of Saraswati, she’s usually depicted wearing a white sare and in Hinduism, white represents clarity.

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purity of mind. She’s usually wearing the Makuta crown, the sacred Mount Maru, just like her husband,  and she’s usually depicted in the company of a swan. The swan represents her ability to discern truth from falsehood or wisdom, higher truth and knowledge.  And like her husband, she’s usually depicted seated on a lotus.

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Let’s turn to the Hurrians now. We haven’t talked a bunch on the program about the Hurrians, but we should. Scholars believe the Hurrians were a non-Semitic, non-Indo-European people who spoke the language Hurrian and flourished during the Bronze Age, which was from the mid-third millennium BC to the early first millennium BC. They inhabited the area just north of Syria.

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and Upper Mesopotamia and then South Eastern Anatolia, which is modern day Turkey. The Hurrians played a really important role in this area and they  influenced a lot of their neighbors like the Hittites who inhabited the other parts of Anatolia or Turkey. The Hurrians were polytheistic and chief among the gods was Teshub, T-E-S-H-U-B. Teshub is sometimes referred to as a hero Hittite god.

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because of the religious syncretism that took place between the Hurrians and the Hittites. We’ve talked about Teshab  briefly on the program a couple of times. If you don’t remember, not surprising, we talk about a lot of stuff on this program, but to kind of refresh your memory, Teshab is the hero god who reigned as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. In the Hurrian literature, he was given the titles  Eri, which means Lord,  and Shari.

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which means king. And he was also referred to in the literature as Shari Enatze, which means king of the gods. And in at least one text, it refers to him as Eni Enaze, which means god of gods. There aren’t a lot of depictions of Teshub that we have in the ancient record, but the ones that we do have show him standing on a bull or, no surprise,

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standing on a mountain, which you know by now represents the Primordial Hill. Now don’t believe I’ve ever gone over the account of Teshub slaying the monster Ulcumi on the program. We’ve talked about it, but I don’t remember think I’ve ever shared the story. So I want to do that briefly here. In a text known as the Song  of Ulcumi, Teshub battles the terrible stone monster Ulcumi. Ulcumi’s name means

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Uli destroy and Kumi was the location of Teshub’s temple, his residence. It was the center of Teshub religious worship. So we can see by the monster’s name that his main objective here was to destroy Teshub and his dominion. His main objective was to supplant or usurp just like  all of the other monsters that we see across the ancient world. He wanted to usurp Teshub’s throne.

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Now, Ulikumi was a monster that was made of stone, but the text tells us that he came  up from the sea waters. In this text, Ulikumi is referred to as Basalt, which is a rock. The Song of Ulikumi, Tablet One, starting in Section 19 reads,  just as Qumarbi, now Qumarbi is Teshub’s father, raised Teshub. So now he has raised against him this Basalt.

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as a supplanter. The basalt kept growing. It was standing like a shaft with the sea coming up to its knees. The stone came out of the water. So we’re seeing a lot of parallels here with the sea serpent. In tablet two, we read about the battle. Starting in section 32, it reads, quote, Teshub, the king of Kumi set his eye. He set his eye upon the dreadful basalt.

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Teshub sat down on the ground and his tears flowed like streams. Tearfully, Teshub said, who can any longer behold the struggle of such a one? Who can behold the terrors of such a one any longer? And this is really interesting. Here we see the king of the gods, Teshub,  weeping over the terror that the terrible monster is causing. The tablet’s broken in this section.

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But at this point in the account, Teshub’s sister comes along to help Teshub by singing a song, which is like a prayer. A song that the text says, quote, heaven and earth echoed back, which is super interesting because we get the chorus idea here, like we talked about a long time ago when we talked about the Lord of the dance. At this point, a wave appears out of the water and says something really interesting to Teshub’s sister.

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The wave says, quote, for whose benefit are you singing? The man referring to Ulikumi is  deaf. He cannot hear. He is blind in his  eyes. He cannot see. He has no compassion. So go away and find your brother, referring to Tesheb, before the skull of his head becomes really terrifying.

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Keep the reference here to Ulikumi’s inability to hear or see in your back pocket, because it’s gonna be quite relevant when we get to ritual. At this point, the battle between Teshub and Ulikumi ensues. Now the text is pretty broken here, but it describes Ulikumi as growing to this  absolutely enormous size. It’s described in the text as growing.

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to 9,000 danas high  and 9,000 danas wide. A dana is 10.7 kilometers long. So we’re talking about an  absolutely enormous monster here. In section 43, it reads,  it, Uli Kumi, took its stand before the gates of the city Kumi like a shaft.

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So note here how Ulikumi stands outside the gate to the city. He’s outside the city wall, the cosmic wall we talked about in episodes number 51 to 53. Then in section 60 it says,  it, Ulikumi, has blocked heaven, the holy temples. Section 66, the valiant king of Kumi here. Then they came to the place of assembly.

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So we’re talking about the assembly of the gods here and all the gods began to bellow like cattle at Uli Kumi. Teshub  leaped into his wagon and with thunder came down to the sea. Teshub fought the basalt. The monster then says to Teshub, quote,  I will go up to heaven to kingship. I will take to myself Kumi, the God’s holy temples.

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and the Kuntara shrines. Now Kuntara shrines are temples. They’re the houses of the gods in the heavens.  I will scatter the gods down from the sky like meal, which is like flower. So this suggests that there’s a whole lot of gods in the heavens. Now, unfortunately the tablet breaks here, so we don’t know how the battle ends, but it’s presumed that Teshub came off victor, because in the other text it shows that Teshub is the one who ultimately reigns

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as the king of the gods and not Ulikumi. And there are other hero Hittite texts that confirm Teshub’s victory like the Song of the Sea, KBO 26.105 and the myth of Piscesa. Interestingly,  Gary Beckman, he’s a professor of Hittite in Mesopotamian studies at the University of Michigan. And he argues that the battle over kingship in heaven, like we’ve been arguing on this program, shows up  all over the ancient world.

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On page 570 of his book mythology, he writes,  parallels with Greek material, especially with the theogony of Hesiod have led to the question of whether the myth of battle for mastery in heaven might be of Indo-European origin. But since similarities are also to be noted in Mesopotamian and Syrian mythology, we may rather be dealing with a mythological aerial feature, common

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to the Eastern Mediterranean area, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Which of course is exactly what I’ve been arguing that this is all coming out of  one common fount. In terms of the premise of this podcast  and some of the stubborn bits that we’ve discussed in the program, I hope this gives you a better idea  of who the Hurrian High God Teshup is and how he fits right in with the dragon.

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divine kingship pattern that we see all across the ancient world. Now for the purposes of today’s episode though, the Hurrian Hittites tell us that the king of the gods, Tesheb, was married. And we find this  on a god list. It’s similar to the Sumerian god list  on equals Anum that we talked about a couple of episodes ago. Alfonso Archie, doctor of Anatolian studies and the author of the Western Hurrian Pantheon and its background.

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published in the book Beyond Hati, writes, speaking of the Hurrian god lists found in Aleppo, the following on page nine, quote, at the head of the pantheon are Teshub and his consort, Hebat,  H-E-B-A-T, each of whom is followed by a court known as a kaludi of deities, respectively male and female.

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According to KUB 29.8, 1, 3-7, and 50-57, the gods were aligned along the right side, the goddesses on the left. So like we saw with the Sumerian god list, Teshub is inscribed in the right hand column and his wife Hebet’s name is inscribed in the left hand column. It’s from this list that we see that the high Herohittite god, Teshub was married.

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Now, interestingly, French Assyriologist Jean-Marie Durand argues that Hebbat’s name  is likely derived from the Semitic root  H-B-B, which means to love. So he proposes interpreting her name, Hebbat,  as beloved. Now, we haven’t discussed this in the program yet, but this is quite significant. When we get into ritual, I’m going to argue that the phrase the beloved

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isn’t just a nice expression, but that it was used by the ancients as an epitaph to designate someone who was ritually complete, one who had experienced full spiritual rebirth as a son or in this case, a daughter of God. In the ancient world, the title beloved was used to designate someone who had gained favor or who had a special relationship with God. The epitaphs

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Beloved of Atum and Beloved of Reh were  regularly used in ancient Egypt by the pharaohs  right in their royal titularity to express their divine legitimacy, their close relationship with the gods. For example, Ramses II, his Horus name was Ka-Nacht-Meri-Ra, which renders the strong  bull Beloved of Ra.

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In ancient Egyptian, the word for beloved was Mary, rendered M-E-R-Y in English, which is why Ramsey’s the second’s horse name was Ka-Nacht-Mary-Ra. Now there’s lots of variants of his horse name. One of them, variate C3, has it Ka-Nacht-Sa-A-Tun, which renders the strong bull,  son of Atun. So we can see in this variant that beloved

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is replaced with son. And I’m going to talk about this a whole lot more down the line, but I wanted to point it out here because it highlights the significance of the Herohittite High God’s wife’s  name, Chabad, which according to Durand means the beloved. To be named beloved is also significant in terms of the discussion that we had in our last episode about Mary Magdalene. Why? Well,

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Because a lot of scholars argue that the popular name Mary, M-A-R-Y,  is  of Egyptian origin. The scholars argue that Egypt is most likely the origin for the name Mary because of the historical context of the Israelites in Egypt. They argue that Miriam, a name that was famously born by Moses’s sister, was derived from the Egyptian titled  Maryamun, meaning, like we just mentioned,

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beloved of Amun. They argue that Maryamun became Maryum and Maryum was then shortened to Mary, meaning, you guessed it, the beloved. So this would mean that Mary Magdalene’s name could be rendered  the beloved,  the tower. A rendering that I argue carries  absolutely profound theological

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significance. It’s not too much to surmise that Miriam is a name of Egyptian origin because it’s well established among scholars that the name of Miriam’s brother, Moses,  is an Egyptian name. And you’re never going to guess what Moses’s name is in Egyptian. It means son. So  for example, tutmoses, tutmoses means son of those. In the compound name, the God’s name comes first.

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and then it’s followed by Moses, which indicates to be born of or son of. So among the Israelites, the name Moses doesn’t tell us who Moses is the son of, but considering the Egyptian context of the name, this implies that Moses is the son of God, which you’ll see down the line, like I mentioned, is of profound theological significance. A significance that is like we see in ancient Egypt directly tied to kingship.

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Or in terms of today’s discussion, queenship.

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All right. In the Heru-Hittite literature, Teshub’s wife, Habat, is given some pretty great epitaphs. Queen or Lady of Heaven.  And in a Hittite treaty between Hatti and Egypt, it’s actually inscribed right on the walls of the Temple of Amun in Karnak. It’s known as the treaty between Ramses II and  Hattusalee III. Teshub’s wife, Habat.

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given the distinct epitaph, Queen of Heaven. There’s some interesting things in the Haryan religious tradition. For example, there are two distinct rituals there. The ritual of kingship is known as the Sarasi ritual. It confirmed Teshab’s status as the supreme divine ruler. It paralleled earthly kingship. But there’s also actually a ritual of ladyship or queenship. It’s known as the Alasi ritual.

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and it emphasized Chabot’s status as the Queen of Heaven or as the tablet that outlines this ritual known as CTH 718. It’s dated to between 1600 and 1180 BC, calls her in section 19, the quote,  lady of gods  and kings. I like that one. Gary Beckman, he’s the expert on the Alasi ritual and he wrote a whole book about

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cth 718 it’s titled the babalili ritual from hatusha and this is what it says about the purpose of the ritual on page five he writes quote the goal of the babalili ritual is the purification of a member of the royal family from the pollution of sin so note that the goal

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the Alasi Queenship Ritual is to purify those participating in the ritual from sin. In CTH 718 section 3 we learn that in this Queenship Ritual, a Katra woman, and a Katra woman is a priestess, is to go down to a spring and to make offerings into the spring of bread and wine and oil and then draw the water. The text refers to this water as the water of purification.

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So he’s then to take the purified water to the gate house, which scholars believe refers to the primary gate of the capital city of the Hittites, Hattusha. Now can’t remember if we’ve talked about this in the program or not, but Hattusha was surrounded by a massive wall. It was over five miles long and encircled the entire city. And if you’ve listened to episodes 51 to 53, you know why Hattusha was surrounded by a wall. There’s a lot of archeological remains still.

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So we know that outsiders could access the city through five different gates,  the Lion Gate, the King’s Gate, and the Sphinx Gate.  The most prominent gate was the Lion’s Gate. So this is likely the gate where the priestess was to take the water of purification. Like I mentioned, there’s a lot of remains today. So just as a quick aside,  in 1986, UNESCO designated the ancient Hittite city of Hattusha a World Heritage Site. So if you’d like to see pictures of the Lion Gate, you can find them.

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on the webpage for this episode. So at this point in the ritual, the participant ritually washes their hands. And then there’s this really elaborate ritual that unfolds. It’s significant to note that this purification ritual takes place at the gate of the city, because this implies that the participant cannot enter the city without being  washed or purified first. And this makes sense when we consider that the walled city itself

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is a  microcosm, a microcosmic representation of God’s grand cosmic temple. To enter the city of Atusha is to enter sacred space, so one must be purified to enter that space. As part of the Elasi queenship ritual, two sheep were involved. Beckman writes, quote, near the end of the tablet, the scene shifts to a riverbank where two additional sheep

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one for the deity and one for the offerent are introduced as substitutes. Unfortunately, the ultimate disposition of these animals is obscured by a break in the text. So we don’t know how these two sheep were used, but the ultimate purpose of the ritual was to purify the participant who was a member of the royal family from the pollution of sin. Overall, you can see

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According to the hero Hittite literature, the high god Teshub was married. And there’s a lot of very interesting things going on with his wife, Habat’s proper name, her epitaphs,  and the queenship rituals associated with her. Now let’s take a look at ancient Greece.  The high god of the Titans was Cronus. So according to the ancient Greek literature, was he married? Yes, yes he was. He was married to Rhea.

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Together Cronus and Rhea ruled  as the king and the queen of the Titans. In line 453 of Hesiod’s Theogony we read, and this is the Hugh G. Evelyn White translation, quote, But Rhea was subject in love to Cronus and bore splendid children, Hesia, Demeter, and gold-shot Hera, and strong Hades and wise Zeus. So as we can see here, Rhea is

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the mother of the gods. Now, what about the high god Zeus who overthrew Cronus  and became the high god? Was he married? Yes, yes he was. He was married to Hera. Together Zeus and Hera reigned on Mount Olympus as the king and queen of the gods. She is the queen of the 12 Olympians on Mount Olympus. We read of Zeus’s marriage to Hera.

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between lines 920 and 925 of  Hesiod’s theogony, which reads, quote, he, Zeus, made Hera his blooming  wife, and she was joined in love with the king of gods and men, and brought forth Hebe and Ares and Aletheia. In Aristophanes’ Greek comedy, Birds,

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dated to the fifth century BC, we also learn of Zeus’s marriage to Hera. Starting in line 1720, it reads, quote, let your nuptial hymns, your nuptial songs greet Zeus and his wife. It was in the midst of such wedding festivities that the fates formerly united Olympian Hera to the King Zeus, who governs the gods from the summit of his inaccessible throne.

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Oh Hymen. Now Hymen is the Greek god of marriage ceremonies.  Oh Hymenos, rosy Eros with the golden wings, held he reigns and guided the chariot, twas he who presided over the union of Zeus and the fortunate Hera. In this passage we can see it clearly indicates that Zeus and Hera were married. Interestingly, the goddess Gaia

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gave Zeus and Hera a tree with golden apples as their wedding gift. Hera was so delighted to receive this gift and she asked Gaia to plant it in her divine garden, which was located at the far western edge of the world. These golden apples were believed to grant immortality to those who ate them and they were guarded by a hundred headed dragon named Laedon who never slept.

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In the ancient Greek historian, Diodorus Siculeus’s history known as the Library of History, Book 5, we find a very interesting passage about how the Greeks on the island of Crete imitated or replicated the marriage between Zeus and Hera. Chapter 72, Section 4 reads,  men say that the marriage of Zeus and Hera was held in the territory of the Nassians  on the island of Crete.

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at the place near the river Theron, where now a temple stands in which the natives of the palace annually offer holy sacrifices  and imitate the ceremony of the marriage in the manner in which tradition tells it was originally performed. So when we read here that once a year, the people of Crete  reenacted the marriage of Zeus and Hera, it’s clear that their union was understood or honored as a heros gamos.

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Their divine union was more than myth. It symbolized the archetypal marriage, the cosmic union that guaranteed fertility,  order, and prosperity in the cosmos and on earth. Zeus and Hera’s marriage served as the divine model. As above, so below. For all marriages, the sacred bond believed to be the bedrock of both divine  and mortal society.

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In the Greek literature, Hera is given a lot of really important epitaphs like bride, patroness of marriage, the yoke of marriage, one who brings the fulfillment of marriage, as well as queen, she of the heights. And listen to this one, she of the mound,  life-giving,  bearing  arms or shield, the giver of victory. When we look at her name,  Hera,

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Entomologically speaking,  nobody’s quite sure what her name means or where it came from, but there’s been a lot of scholars and historians and philosophers who have offered up varying possibilities.  Two of these possibilities are actually quite interesting. One possibility is that her name is connected to the Greek word hora, which according to Strong’s Greek dictionary means a finite  season, a limited time. It’s where we get our English word hour.

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Hora is believed to be connected to the idea of being  ripe for marriage, which indicates that there was a right age or a season for marriage. And what’s really interesting is that Plato and other Greek writers  used the word errata to describe someone who was at their most desirable, most beautiful or in the right season. And you’re never going to guess what the Greek word errata  means. It means

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Beloved. Yes, beloved. According to Plato, errata is directly translated as beloved. It’s used in the ancient Greek literature and poetry to describe someone who is  deeply loved. All right, and the other possibility, and this is offered up by John Chadwick. He’s an English linguist and classical scholar. He argues on page 87 of his book, The Mycenaean World, quote,

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her name may be connected to the Greek, heros. Now, heros is rendered in English as heroes or hero. Chadwick goes on to add that, you know, it’s impossible to know since the entomology is pretty obscure, but the notion that her name could be associated with the notion of a hero is pretty intriguing, you know, especially since we’ve learned on this program, heroes are individuals who slay dragons and save others from the dragon.

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It’s intriguing to me to think that her name could possibly reflect the female personification of the hero. Like we saw in our last episode with Baal’s Anat who bound the dragon or El’s wife, Adara, who trampled the sea monster. Of course, it’s not a sure entomology for Hera, but I also want to point out it’s worth noting that the hero Heracles, the greatest of Greek heroes,  is named after her. Hera.

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Heracles, if you’ll recall Heracles in a fit of madness killed his wife and children.  Overwhelmed with grief for these actions, he went and sought guidance from the Oracle of Delphi and the Oracle instructed him to serve the King of Tyrrhyns. The King of Tyrrhyns told him that in order to be purified of his sin, he had to complete a series of 12 seemingly impossible tasks,  one of which included slaying,

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the nine-headed fire-breathing serpent Hydra, which he successfully did. In his name, Heracles, Hera of course refers to Hera, the queen of the gods. And Cleos  is the Greek word for glory. So Heracles means Hera’s glory or the glory of Hera.  In the end, Heracles victoriously triumphed over all 12 labors

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earning his redemption, bringing glory to the Queen of the Gods.

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If we turn to Persia, to Zoroastrianism, was the high god Uhura Mazda married? Well, it depends on who you ask. In mainstream Zoroastrianism, Uhura Mazda is not described as having a wife, at least not in the conventional sense, but he does have a very, very close female counterpart named Spenta Armaity. In other Zoroastrian traditions, Uhura Mazda is married.

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to Spenta are mighty. And together as God and goddess, they give birth to a very important person in Zoroastrianism, a person by the name of Caimars. Well, who was Caimars? Caimars was the very first human  being, the Zoroastrian atom, the progenitor of all mankind. Now, what’s really interesting in terms of this program is that in Zoroastrian religion,

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Caio Mars, the first man was taught, we presume by Ahura Mazda himself, in the very beginning, the quote,  good religion. Carlo Credi, he’s a professor of history of Iran at Sapienza University of Rome, and he said the following in an article he wrote on Caio Mars, quote, it is noteworthy that Caio Mars is assigned a

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prominent role in Zoroastrian religion, being the first to accept the good religion in its entirety. Caimars was the quote, first to accept the good religion in its entirety. Well, how is this possible? He’s the first man. I mean, this implies that God taught Caimars in the beginning. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but what Crete is saying here is the crux.

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of this entire podcast that in the very beginning, starting with the first man, God revealed a full religious tradition to human beings.  And here we have the Zoroastrians attesting to this very thing that the first human being, Caio Mars, was taught and fully accepted the religious tradition God gave him. Now, the Zoroastrian account of Caio Mars gets even better though, because guess what else the Zoroastrians teach about him? They teach that he was the very

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first king  or  shah of the world. Yes, the very first human king. The ruling shahs both  in antiquity and in the Middle Ages claimed descent from him. And we’re going to talk about this a whole lot more in a couple of episodes, but note in this account how everything is tied together, how we’re starting to get a cohesive religious theology here.

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The high god is married. He and his wife give birth to the first human being, whom they reveal a full religious tradition to and whom they coronate as the world’s first king. These are key  theological tenets  of the ancient tradition. There’s a Persian text, a Persian text of uncertain date known as the Awa de Omega.

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even refers to Khayomars as the quote, King of the mountain. In the Sanskrit version, he’s called the great King. Now, like I mentioned, we’ll talk about this a lot more in a couple of episodes, but for the purposes of this episode, I want you to see that the theology is directly tied to God. In this case, Ahura Mazda having a  wife, a wife who gave birth to the world’s first man,

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and first king. Let’s turn to the Maya of Mesoamerica now. We learned that the greatest of the gods of the Yucatan is the creator god Atsamna. Like the rest of the gods we’ve seen, Atsamna was married and he was married to the goddess Ishell. Ishell was a jaguar goddess associated with fertility, pregnant women,  midwives, medicine and war.

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She’s often depicted equipped with a shield and a spear. She, along with her husband, Yitzamna, gave birth to four sons, and in some accounts, she gave birth  to 13. And they are known as the B’qabs. Now these sons created the heaven and earth, and all four of them were charged with holding up and guarding the four corners of the universe. In the account of the 13 sons,

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Each son was tasked with ruling over one of the 13 upper levels of the heavens. We’re to talk about both of these accounts in much greater detail down the line. It’s important to note that under Yisamnus and Eshel’s union, the Mayan people experienced prosperity and fertility. Their union was foundational to the Mayan earthly  and divine order.

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In Eukatech Maya, the name E-Shell means E, Lady,  and Shell can mean light or shining or rainbow. So her name means something like  Lady of Light or Shining Lady or Rainbow Lady. If we turn to the Aztecs, you’ll notice that they held a lot of beliefs that were really similar to the Maya, and that’s because the Aztec arose

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prominence several centuries after Mayan influence had spread all across Mesoamerica. Let’s take a minute and listen to Adam Brown of Pantheon Mythology. Walk us through the Aztecs account.

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before the earth itself had taken shape. In this void, there existed two powerful deities, Omece Kutli and Omece Huatl. They were the divine duality, representing the ultimate source of all creation. Omece Kutli was often depicted as a male god, while Omece Huatl was his female counterpart. Together, they embodied the balance and unity of opposites, the fundamental forces from which all things would emerge.

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In the darkness of the cosmos, Ometekutli and Omesehwatl contemplated the state of the world. They desired to bring order to the chaos and give rise to a new cycle of creation. With their combined power, they initiated a cosmic dance, a divine union that sparked the birth of the gods. From their union, four gods were born. Weetzee Lopochli, Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl and Hipecotec.

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These gods held the key to creating the world and shaping its destiny. Each deity brought their unique qualities to the emerging universe, guiding the forces of creation, change, wisdom and transformation. As the gods ventured forth, they encountered the giant ancient earth monster, Tral Te Kutli. This fearsome creature possessed the power to create and destroy. Its body formed the foundation of the world to be. With determination,

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and divine might, the gods overpowered Tlaocatutli. They divided the monster’s body into two halves. From its upper half, they fashioned the heavens and the sky, adorning it with shimmering stars and the radiant sun. A great ball of fire that would light the world. Its lower half became the fertile earth, teeming with life and potential.

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The Aztecs held that the supreme god, the god who reigned in Omeyucan,  the highest of the 13 heavens, and who represented the source of all creation, was known as Ometiolto. He was believed to embody both male and female. He was known as the Lord of Duality, or as the Two God. The male aspect, or the Two Lord, was Ometikutli, and the female aspect, or the

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lady was Omei-sewado and they’re referred to as the father and mother of the gods  and the quote father and mother of us  all. Together Omeitekutli and Omeitewado produced four sons. Shipe-totec, Teske-lopoko, Ketse-kwado, and Weite-lopotli. These four sons are referred to as the Teske-lopokas and each one was assigned

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to be the ruler of a specific cardinal point, north, south, east, or west. If you recall, it was these four sons that took the dead carcass of the primordial dragon and used it to create the world, just like we saw Marduk do in the Mesopotamian enuma liege. We haven’t talked about world ages or dispensations yet, but each one of these four sons took turns

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ruling over a particular age and we’ll talk about all of this more down the line. But for our purposes here, these gods were the sons of the two Lord Omete Kutli and his counterpart, the two lady Omese Waddle, who resided as  one  in the highest heaven.

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Among the Inca, the chief god was the god Varacocha. Varacocha was believed to be the architect of the universe, the supreme creator, as well as the architect of civilization itself. Now we haven’t talked about Varacocha on the program yet, but we’re going to. For the purposes though of today’s episode, Varacocha was sometimes, it varied by account, described  as having a wife. A woman the Inca called

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Mama Kocha or Mama Kocha. And get this, just guess what Mama Kocha means in Quechua. No, it’s not beloved, but get this, it literally means mother of the sea. Mama means mother and Kocha means sea or body of water. So Mama Kocha means mother of the sea. And why did the Inca call her this? Well, because she had the power to calm the sea.

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Where have we heard this before? Where have we heard that the high god’s wife  had the power to rule the sea? Well, it was in our last episode. If you remember, we learned in that episode that the Canaanite high god, El’s wife, Otterod, was given the epitaph,  Lady of the Sea, or the lady who trampled the sea. Well here, halfway around the world,  thousands of years later, among a totally different group of peoples,

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the Incan high God Vera Koch’s wife is given the name Mother of the Sea precisely because she has the power to calm the sea. Now I might think this is just coincidence. mean, practically speaking, it made sense that people who live in coastal regions or near lakes would develop a God who had the power to calm the sea. But I get skeptical of this explanation

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when this exact power is assigned to a female god. And I get even more skeptical when this exact power is assigned to a female god who is the high god’s  wife. And then that’s when it just gets a little too coincidental for me to think it’s coincidence. In one legend, Veracocha and Mamacucha had a son, Enti, the Incan sun god.

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who was himself married to Mamma Kea, who gave birth to Monco Cawpock, the legendary founder and first Sapa Inca, the first emperor or king of the Incan Empire. Are you starting to see a pattern? Because you should. Among the Chinese, the high god, the Jade Emperor, is always described as married.

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He’s married to Shi Huangmu, also known as the Queen Mother of the West. In Taoist mythology and Chinese folklore, Shi Huangmu is regarded as the supreme goddess of heaven. She’s portrayed as powerful,  the leader of all of the goddesses. In Taoist temples, she’s described as absolutely beautiful,  one who looks to be in her  30s. I love that.

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All accounts agree that she holds significant authority and rules right alongside her husband, the Jade Emperor, as the supreme empress of heaven, the mystical mountain, Mount Kunlun. In her palace, a retinue of important goddesses and spiritual attendants surround her. Shiwangmu is mentioned in the oldest known Chinese writings, the Oracle Bones.

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where she’s described as a warrior goddess, which is interesting, much like Anat, who we learned in our last episode went to war against the terrible dragon and bound him. A scholar by the name of Masako Mori wrote this really fascinating article titled Quest for the Archetypal Image of Shi Huangmu, where he actually argues in chapter two that the development of the Chinese Shi Huangmu was heavily influenced

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by a knot. On page 20, he writes, quote,

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literary treasure trove and archaeological findings. Shi Huangmu is a mother goddess par excellence. Mori makes a point here that I’ve been trying to make throughout the podcast that  nearly  all of the religious traditions of today can be traced back to one fount in the ancient Near East. In the Chinese literature, the Jade Emperor’s wife Shi Huangmu

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is said to have a very special garden on Mount Kunlun, which contains an orchard of peach trees, the fruit of which peaches  grants one immortality.  On Mount Kunlun, at a special feast that’s held right on her birthday, Shiwangmu serves these peaches to her honored guests, granting them immortality. Now,

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Don’t miss the cosmic symbolism here of Shiwangmu’s Peach Orchard. Because remember, symbolically in the ancient world, trees represented divine royal people. And if you’ll recall in episode number 50, a cosmic temple, we learned that the gold one appeared to the old yellow one, the Chinese Adam, in the beginning and taught him that the cosmos was structured like a stone fruit.

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He said, quote, the great earth lies in the middle of the world sea. The water flows around all the sides of the great earth as the juicy meat surrounds the seed of fruit. Now I don’t know what precise type of fruit the gold one used for this demonstration, but since we’re talking about a Chinese account here, I’m gonna guess that it was a peach. Peaches are the

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stone, fruit, par, nun.  What I’m trying to say here is that when we consider what the Gold One taught the Chinese Abbot, then we understand that every single peach  in Xu Angmu’s peach orchard represents  a cosmic kingdom, innumerable cosmic kingdoms. And when we consider the orchard represents hundreds of trees, exalted people, like we discussed in episode number 56,

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and each person tree contains hundreds of peaches, then what we have by an orchard of peaches is universes beyond universes. A Tang dynasty collection of poems that was commissioned by Emperor Kangxi of the Qing dynasty in 1705 gives us this really beautiful description of Shiwangmu’s residence in the heavens. Take a listen.

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This is starting in line 49, 42.  reads,  riding on the mist, I wandered to lofty world wind peak. That’s speaking here of the peak of Mount Koon Loon. The lady of the Supreme primordial descends through Jade interior doors. The queen mother opens her blue gem palace. Celestial people, what a crowd.

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So notice how there are loads of people there. A lofty meeting inside the Scion audience hall. Scion is a color of blue. Arrayed attendants perform cloud songs. Realized intonations fill the grand empty space. So it sounds like there’s a lot of beautiful singing there. So convivial and certainly infinite.

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by convivial it sounds like this  is a friendly lively and enjoyable place and infinite it’s eternal where God and his wife reside sounds like a truly wonderful place I’m running out of time so I’m gonna run through these next few quickly among the Shinto the indigenous religion of Japan the male creator God is a Nagi is married to is a Nami  if you’ll recall is a Nagi and is a Nami were the ones who

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together used a jeweled spear to stir the chaotic primordial waters. And when they lifted the spear, drops fell from its tip and solidified to form the first Japanese island, Onogoro Shima. After this island was created, Izanagi and Izanami descended upon the island and built a great palace there and built a heavenly pillar on the top of the palace.

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right there they performed a marriage ritual by circling the pillar. The account of this is recorded in the Japanese Kojiki. It’s the earliest known compilation of Japanese oral traditions believed to have been composed between 711 and 712 AD. In chapter four it reads and this is the Donald A. Philippi translation quote

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descending from the heavens to this island. They erected a heavenly pillar and a spacious palace. Izanagi said, then let us, you and me, walk in a circle around this heavenly pillar and meet and have conjugal intercourse. After thus agreeing, Izanagi then said, you walk around from the right and I will walk around from the left and meet you.

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After having agreed to this, they circled around. So I hope you see how they’re making a circum-punked here again. Notice how this is similar to the Hindu account of Saraswati, circumambulating Brahma. And I don’t have time to go into all the symbolism of the pillar and the circumambulation of the pillar, but I hope knowing what you’ve learned on this program that you might have some idea of what’s being symbolized here. We’ll definitely talk about this more when we get into ritual.

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After Izanagi and Izanami are married, we learn in chapter seven that they gave birth to a number of Shinto gods known as Kami. From here, the myth gets a little bit convoluted and Izanami and Izanagi actually get divorced. And ultimately in chapter 11, Izanagi produces by himself a daughter,  the supreme goddess Amaterasu, considered today to be the chief deity of the Shinto pantheon.

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She’s important because she’s considered the progenitor of the Imperial House of Japan.  All Japanese emperors claim to be her direct descendant. I wonder sometimes if Izanami was removed from the mythological picture by way of divorce so that there would be no goddess that could challenge Amaterasu’s supremacy. We definitely see things like that in ancient literature and in ancient mythology. But regardless,

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Note that all Japanese emperors claim that they have the right to the throne because Amaterasu,  the great August goddess who shines in heaven,  is their mother. Like we saw in ancient Egypt when the deceased pharaoh  claimed legitimacy to their throne, having been born from Atum’s wife, you saw us.

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If we turn to Islam, revealed to Muhammad in 610 AD, the high god  Allah  is  unequivocally  not married. But remember in Islam, Allah is not believed to have a body, nor is Allah believed to be male or female. Allah is believed to be beyond sex or gender. So it’s not surprising that Allah is not believed to be married.

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Finally, let’s turn to Scandinavia. Among the Norris, the high god Odin was married and he was married to Frigg,  F-R-I-G-G. In Snorri Sturluson’s 13th century, Prose Ida in the Gelfangining in section nine, it reads, and this is the Arthur Broder translation, quote, there is one abode called Hildesgald. Hildesgald is the name of Odin’s throne.

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And when all father, which is Odin, sat in the high seat there, he looked out over the whole world and saw every man’s acts and knew all things which he saw. His wife  was called Frigg, daughter of Fjörgen. And their blood has come that kindred which we all call the races of Assyr. Now the Assyr are the gods that have people the elder Asgard. Asgard is the heavenly realm.

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and those kingdoms which pertain to it. And that is a divine race. So we can see this passage that Odin and Frigg were the parents of a line of divine children. In the Norse writings, Frigg is described as the foremost of the Assyr, the highest ranking goddess who’s surrounded by a retinue of goddesses like Fulla, Gnaw, and Hiln.

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In the text, she’s described as a loving mother,  one who possesses great wisdom,  and the relationship between her and Odin is depicted as one of mutual respect and partnership and a very deep affection. In honor of Odin’s wife, the queen of the gods,  Frigg,  I’m releasing today’s episode on a Friday. So what’s the connection?

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Well, the English word Friday is derived from the old English word Frihag, which means Frigg’s  Day. Yes, Friday is just the modern day English way of saying Frigg’s Day. See, the Romans named each day of the week after one of the seven classical planets, and they named Friday after Venus, the goddess of love. So when the Germanic peoples adopted the Roman calendar,

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they replaced the Roman gods with their own gods. And since Frigg was like Venus, was considered a goddess of love and beauty, they changed Venus Day to Frigg’s Day. Before I close out this episode, I have to say one last thing about Odin’s beautiful wife, Frigg. You’re never gonna believe what Frigg’s name means.  Just take a guess. Yes, Frigg means

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beloved. See, the name Frigg is entomologically derived from the Proto-Germanic word Frio, which means beloved. And Frio is built from the Proto-Indo-European root Priya, which also means beloved. This root is the source of her name, be it Frigg in Old Norris,

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Freia in Old High German or Freig in Old English. They all carry the same meaning, beloved. The sense of deep  love and endearment. I can’t make this stuff up. It’s all right in the historical record. That’s it for me. I’ll leave you with the words of William Shakespeare.  Knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

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Happy Frig Day, everyone. I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition.  A Wonk Media Production.