Lesser Known Deities Starting With the Letter A

Throughout history, the world has seen the birth of many new religions and the worship of strange, beautiful and mysterious deities. Some of these gods (such as Zeus, Athena, Odin, Loki, Jupiter, Venus, etc) have still stayed with us in these modern times. However, there are thousands of lesser known deities from world mythology who are only really known to scholars.

There is a list of lesser known deities starting with the letter A:

1. Acrasia – the Greek personification of intemperance.

2. Ada-Ea - the Mesopotamian ferryman in the Babylonian underworld.

3. Adda-Nari – the Egyptian goddess of religion and truth.

4. Adhimukticarya – a Buddhist goddess and one of the 12 bhumis.

5. Afi – a storm god from the Caucasus.

6. Afrikete – an African sea goddess of the Fon people who was regarded as a trickster and a gossip.

7. Agas Xenas Xena – the deity of the evening star according to the Chinook of North America.

8. Agwatana – the god of the sun and the Nigerian supreme deity.

9. Aha – a river god of the Yakut people of Siberia.

10. Ah Peku – a Mayan thunder god.

11. Ah Uuc Ticab – a Mayan fertility god.

12. Ahi – the Egyptian goddess of the dawn.

13. Ai Apaec – the supreme god of the Mochica tribe in Central America.

14. Aion – the Greek male personification of time.

15. Akakanet – a vegetation god of the Araucanian tribe in South America. He is said to live in the Pleiades and provides flowers and fruit for the tribe.

16. Akano Jewel – a Japanese god of famine.

17. Ake – a Polynesian water god.

18. Akkruva –a fish-goddess in Finland.

19. Akongo – a creator god of the Ngombe people in Africa, who was said to have found the people so noisy that he left to live in the sky.

20. Akshobhya – one of the five Buddhist Dhyanibuddhas and one of the five Dhyanibodhisattvas.

21. Akua – a creator god of Hawaii.

22. Ala – a goddess of the earth and fertility of the Ibo people in Africa.

23. Alako – the god of the gypsies, according to Norwegian mythology. After teaching the gypsies his secret lore, he returned home in the heavens.

24. Alannus – a Celtic messenger god in Gaul who was worshipped by the Romans as well.

25. Alatanagana – the creator god of the Kono people in Africa.

26. Albunea – a Roman water nymph that had the gift of prophecy. Some of her revelations were recorded in the Sibylline Books.

27. Alcyone – a daughter of the Greek Titan Atlas, she was the leader of the Pleiades and the mother of Aethusa by Poseidon.

28. Algea – the Greek female personification of pain. She was an attendant of the goddess of strife, Eris.

29. Alilat – an ancient Arabian mother-goddess, she was worshipped by the Nabataeans in the form of a four-sided stone idol.

30. Allat – a Babylonian underworld goddess.

31. Almaqah – an Arabian sky god of the Saba tribe.

32. Alo’alo – a weather god in Tonga.

33. Alpan – an underworld deity of the Etruscans in ancient Italy.

34. Alrune-wife – a household goddess from Germany.

35. Aluberi – a distant and supreme god of the Arawak American Indians.

36. Ama – from ancient Mesopotamia, a Sumerian virgin mother-goddess.

37. Ama-no-ho – a divine messenger god in Japanese mythology.

38. Amaethon – a Welsh god of agriculture and the son of Beli and Don.

39. Amana – a creator goddess of the Calina tribe in South America. She lived in the Milky Way and was attended to by sea creatures.

40. Amarok – an Inuit deity in the form of a wolf-like monster.

41. Ar-tojon – a supreme god of the Yakut people in Siberia.

42. Aralo –a Georgian agricultural god.

43. Aramati – the Hindu female personification of devotion.

44. Aranyani – a woodland goddess in Hindu belief.

45. Aranzakh – a river god and the personification of the river Tigris in ancient Persian belief.

46. Areop-Enap – a creator deity in Nauru Island who made men from stones and had them support the sky.

47. Argimpasa – the Scythian goddess of love.

48. Asto-vidhotu –a demon in ancient Persia who was then later promoted to a god of death.

49. Astrild – a Norse god of love.

50. Azacca – an agricultural deity in Haiti.

The Goddess Hathor in History and Mythology

Ancient Egypt has fascinated the world for centuries; its long standing history is testament to the power and strength of the Empire and accomplished many remarkable achievements. Ancient Egyptian religion gave birth to a vast array of deities, including the first monotheistic faith under the Pharaoh Akhenaton.

The gods in the Egyptian pantheon reflected the lives of the ancient people; as a crop farming people many of the myths were inspired by the river Nile and the dependence on it to survive. In the early stages of this great civilization, each major city state had their own gods. When Egypt was eventually united under one pharaoh, many of the local gods were admitted into the national pantheon.

The goddess Hathor is still one of the most recognised deities from Ancient Egypt. She was the daughter of the sun god, Ra (also spelt Re), and worshipped as the goddess of joy, love, dance and song as well as being the protector of mothers and children. In addition, she was believed to carry the dead to the underworld where she would refresh them by offering them food and drink from the sycamore tree. As the Divine Cow, Hathor embodied the sky and was the mediating figure between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Hathor was connected with The Eye of Ra, which is one of her most famous myths. Long before Egypt had human rulers, the god Ra ruled the land. Near the end of his rule, Ra became angry with the lack of respect that his subjects offered him. At first he sent a wave of scorching heat, but the humans found shelter in the rocks, thus escaping his fury. Frustrated, he asked the other gods for advice on what to do next. The other gods suggested that he sent his Eye in the form of Hathor-Sekhmet.

Taking the form of a lioness, Hathor-Sekhmet relentlessly pursued the humans, killing whoever she could find. By the time Ra recalled her, Hathor-Sekhmet had acquired the taste for blood and was determined to destroy the rest of mankind.

On seeing this, Ra became alarmed. He had only wanted to teach his subjects a lesson, not to utterly destroy them. While Hathor-Sekhmet rested in the shade, Ra ordered the Priest of Heliopolis to ground a consignment of local red ochre and then mix it with barley beer. When completed, the result was 7,000 jars of what appeared to be blood. Ra then ordered the contents to be emptied over the fields where Hathor-Sekhmet planned her destruction the next day.

Hathor-Sekhmet was fooled. The next morning she saw a field of what looked to her, blood. She drank her fill, became intoxicated and fell into a stupor. When she awoke, she regain her senses; remembering what her original intentions were, she set off for home again and returned to being an benevolent goddess once more. As a gesture of good faith, Ra decreed that the Egyptian people could drink as much as they liked at Hathor’s festivals.

From this myth, we can see the dual nature of Hathor. She was both fierce and gracious, destructive and benevolent, and this can be seen in columns and amulets, and occasionally in reliefs, when two or even four faces of the goddess were depicted.

In art, Hathor’s benevolent nature is shown usually in the form of a cow, as this was the shape in which the goddess fashioned when she nursed the infant Horus when he was hidden from his murderous uncle Seth, in the marshes of Chemmis. At Deir el Bahari a magnificent statue of the Hathor cow was found intact in a rock shrine.

In addition to this, the goddess could be depicted as a beautiful young woman wearing a sun-disc with horns on her head. The two forms could also be combined – there are many instances where Hathor was shown as a beautiful young woman with the ears of a cow. There are very few occurrences where the goddess was shown in full human form.

The numerous aspects of Hathor were reflected in her worship and the offerings made to her. Large amounts of beads, scarabs and amulets made from the glazed composition known as Egyptian faience have been found at Deir el Bahari. Since one of Hathor’s many titles is ‘Lady of Turquoise’ it is possible that these objects were offered to her in the hope that they would please the goddess.

Also dedicated to Hathor were sistra, a musical instrument. Sistra were used in the worship of several goddesses, but particularly associated with Hathor. With these, Hathor, in the form of a cow-eared face, formed the base of the loop on each side.

Although an ancient goddess, known from the pre-dynastic period, Hathor’s worship became more prominent from the Middle Kingdom period onwards (c.2134 – 2040 BCE).

Our first textual reference to the goddess comes from an inscription on either side of the valley temple of Khafre, where the king is said to be beloved of Bastet (on the north side) and beloved of Hathor (on the south side).

With the reign of Menkaure (c.2532 – 2504 BCE), Hathor and her cult rose to prominence, with the king founding the priesthood of Hathor at Tehneh. A number of cylinder seals describe Menkaure as ‘beloved of’ and ‘one who worships’ Hathor. There are numbers of these during the reign of Khafre, but the quantity is much higher under the earlier pharaoh.

Hathor is one of the most fascinating and complex deities in the Egyptian pantheon; her worship was highly regarded during antiquity and her myths and legends still have the power to enthral and entertain us in today’s society.

Bibliography:

Gillam, Robyn A. (1995) Priestesses of Hathor: Their Function, Decline and Disappearance, Journal of the American Research Centre in Egypt, American Research Centre in Egypt.

Pinch, Geraldine (1982) Offerings to Hathor, Folklore, Taylor & Francis on behalf of Folklore Enterprises Ltd.

The History and Significance of the goddess Jata

Jata, according to the mythology and folklore of the Dayak people of Borneo, was an important goddess. Along with the sky god, Mahatala, Jata as the earth goddess, was responsible for creating the world. In the first epoch of creation, the sky, the mountains, the cliffs, the clouds, then sun and the moon came into being and then Jata fashioned the lands and hills during the second period of creation.

After creating all these wondrous items, Jata and Mahatala set about creating a world for man to live on. Mahatala created the Tree of Life, which had gold leaves and ivory fruit. Jata manifested herself as a female hornbill and Mahatala as a male. “She saw the Tree in the distance, flew to it and began to eat its fruit and buds. The male bird also flew to it and began to eat the moss on it, but when he saw that the female was eating the fruit he was overcome with envy. A fight broke out between them. The male hornbill broke off the buds and fruit and they changed into a gold boat. The knots were cut off by the female bird, and from them issued a young woman. She got into the gold boat and floated on the primeval ocean. The strife between the birds, that is to say between Mahatala and Jata, continued, and from bits of the Tree the rivers and lakes of the Upperworld were formed”.

It is believed that Jata dwells in the Underworld (or in the primeval waters), which is located under man’s earth. The entrance to her domain is located near villages at the deep junctions of streams, and the village of the goddess is on the Underworld river. “But in the Creation Myth the homes of the two deities are not considered as geographically separate: they are both placed in the Upperworld, one on a Jewel Mountain, the other on a Gold Mountain. They are there considered more as one deity than as a duality”.

Jata is seen as bad and the destroyer; in this, Mahatala is her counterpart who is good and the creator. Mahatala's emblem is a lance, Jata's is a cloth. Between the two deities, the sky god Mahatala reigns supreme.

Scholars have suggested that Jata’s role in the creation myth was important but subsidiary, and she has been said to be the sister or wife of Mahatala.

Bibliography:

Wales, H. G. Quaritch (1959) The Cosmological Aspect of Indonesian Religion, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

The History and Significance of the goddess Guanyin

Although the Buddhist religion venerates the Buddha, there are, in fact, a range of deities that continue to be worshipped. The Chinese Buddhist goddess Guanyin, or Kuan Yin, is one of these and a very popular deity throughout history.

The goddess of compassion and/or mercy, Guanyin is an interesting deity as she developed from the male bodhisavatta, or ‘buddha-to-be’, Avalokiteshvara. Throughout the years that Buddhism was introduced into China (around the first century CE), Avalokiteshvara developed female characteristics until he was completely female and was renamed Guanyin. In Japan, she is known as Kwannon.

There is another myth that claims that the goddess was originally born a mortal princess, named Maio Shan, who strangled herself. However, the Buddha revived her and placed her upon an island where she stayed for nine years before she became a goddess.

Another legend tells that she refused to marry and in retaliation her father sentenced her to death. However, when the executioner brought down the sword to behead her, the sword broke and she was unharmed. Later, her father had her smothered and she died. Upon arriving in the underworld, the gloomy place was transformed into a paradise which was not suited to Yama, the ruling god, so he had her revived.

Throughout history, Guanyin was highly popular with women and children and there have been sources which state that a month after a young woman’s marriage, she would be gifted with a pair of candlesticks and a censor with the image of Guanyin on them. These objects would be items where she could turn to, if times were troubled.
There has been much debate as to her origins and the transformation of her gender. Indeed, when she was first introduced into China, she had male attributes and one scholar suggests that it is the romantic legend of the princess Maio Shan that encouraged her feminine attributes.

Indeed, according to some scholars, there was no goddess of mercy in China before the arrival of Buddhism from India, although it should be stressed that not all scholars agree with this point. However, despite this, it is clear that she has strong Indian roots and was considered male until around the seventh or eighth century CE when she was transformed into a female form. From the 12th century onwards, this became her general form and when she was considered a goddess.

Her name can be translated as meaning ‘she who hears the sounds (prayers) of mortals; she who looks down upon the world and hears its cries’ and is also called the ‘Goddess of the Southern Sea’. She is commonly depicted with 1000 arms and eyes, due to the Maio Shan legend where her father commissioned a statue in her honour, but due to a misunderstanding with the artisan, he sculptured her likeness but with 1000 arms and eyes.

It is likely that she is a goddess of the sea due to her legend where she was placed on an island by the Buddha, or when the god Yama had her reborn on an island after her death. In this role, she is often depicted in temples with the waves of the sea and rocks around her. Before sailors set off for voyages, she was prayed to for protection, and those who had escaped shipwrecks often offered her gifts for her protection.

It is likely that it is her relationship with the sea that she is often prayed to for rain. When villages experience drought, the people often take her statues out of the temples and carried out in procession.

Guanyin, in both her mythology and the historical influence she had, is of great interest to historians. Indeed, her Indian and male roots and then the merging of feminine characteristics from a highly popular myth to create a fully female deity makes her a fascinating character who offers great insight into not only the history of the Indian and Chinese cultures, but to the history of religion as a whole.

Bibliography:

Chamberlayne, John H. (1962) The Development of Kuan Yin: Chinese Goddess of Mercy, Numen, BRILL.

The History and Significance of the god Ninigi

Ninigi, who is also known as Honinigi, is one of the great ancestral deities from the Japanese Shinto belief system. He was the son of Ame-no-Oshiho-mimi and the grandson of Taka-mi-musubi and the sun goddess Amaterasu.

According to mythology, Amaterasu had been desperately trying to find someone worthy of ruling over earth. Initially, she sent her son, Ame-no-Oshiho-mimi, to rule but as he looked over the Floating Bridge of Heaven, he saw the many disturbances on earth and refused to go.

The gods gathered and decided that Ame-No-Hohi should be sent. However, after three years the gods had not heard from him so they decided that his son, Ame-No-Wakahiko, should investigate. Before he left, they gave him a bow and arrows.

Ame-No-Wakahiko went to earth and eventually married Shitateru-Hime, the daughter of Okuninushi, the god of medicine and magic. This time, eight years passed without any word to the rest of the gods. Determined to find out, they sent a pheasant down to watch him.

The pheasant perched outside a tree of the god’s house. When one of the women of the house saw it, she told Ame-No-Wakahiko that it was a bad omen and immediately, the god shot it. However, the arrow passed straight through the bird and entered heaven, falling straight at the feet of Amaterasu. Recognising the arrow, she flung it back at the direction it came in fury, where it killed Ame-No-Wakahiko.

Two of the gods then visited earth themselves and came before Okuninushi, who told him that they had come on the sun goddess’ orders to bring peace and prosperity to the land under her control. Okuninushi spoke to his sons; the elder son agreed to worship Amaterasu but the younger son refused. The two gods then overcame the younger son who then promised not to resist the goddess. Okuninushi also agreed to recognise the sun goddess’ rule, on the condition that a place should be reserved for him amongst the major deities worshipped at the Izumo shrine. This Amaterasu agreed to.

The great sun goddess finally sent her grandson, Ninigi, to earth. Before he left, he was given many divine objects, including the mirror that Amaterasu had gazed into when she first emerged from the cave. He was also given the jewels that had produced Amaterasu’s sons and the storm god Susano-Wo’s sword, Kusanagi. It was these signs that would become the emblems of Japanese imperial power in later years.

On earth, Ninigi married Kono-Hana-Sakuyu-Hime, the daughter of a mountain god. When she conceived their child on the first night of their marriage, Ninigi suspected that she had been unfaithful to him. He built her a house with no doors and when she was ready to give birth, she entered it. She stated that if she had been unfaithful then her child would die. Eventually, Kono-Hana-Sakuyu-Hime gave birth to three sons; one of them, Hikohohodemi, would later go on to father a child who, upon his death, would be known as Jimmu-Tenno. It would be Jimmu-Tenno that would be the founder of the imperial line of Japan.

Looking at the history and significance of the god, one scholar states that Ninigi was the “exemplary ‘archetype’ of the historical Japanese emperors who, based on the richness and abundance of the rice harvest, maintain the cosmic order overarching the three cosmic zones”. His myth also establishes the most important event in the traditional, official myth structure of early Japan, accentuating the divine derivation of the imperial family line and the kinship theology, established in the Kojiki (compiled 712 CE) and the Nihongi (720 CE).

Bibliography:

Waida, Wanabu (1976) Sacred Kingship in Early Japan: A historical Introduction, History of Religions, The University of Chicago Press.

Waida, Wanabu (1973) Symbolism of “Descent” in Tibetan Sacred Kingship and Some East Asian Parallels, Numen, BRILL.

The History and Significance of the goddess Benten

Japanese mythology is full of interesting deities; for the scholar it can be somewhat difficult to unravel the ties between Shinto, the native religion of Japan, and the Indian gods that travelled with Buddhism to the country during the sixth century CE.

One of the most interesting goddesses in the Shinto pantheon is Benten, who is also known as Benzai-ten. She was a sea-goddess, a goddess of music and one of the seven Shinto deities of good fortune known as the Shichi Fukujin.

The Shichi Fukujin was a group of seven deities that were assembled sometime during the 17th century CE by a monk; it was his intention to present them as a symbol of all the virtues that a man of his time should inspire to.

Benten can be compared to that of the ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite and the Hindu Sarasvati, in that she was known as the Queen of Love. She is believed to help humans in acquiring material gains and to bring good fortune in marriage. Benten is also the patron of geishas and worshipped by gamblers and jealous women. As well as this, she is the goddess of oratory, happy wisdom, longevity, freedom from harm, and victory. The island of Enoshima is sacred to her and, according to the noh drama Chikubushima, is where the goddess resides.

According to mythology, Benten was said to have descended to earth where she met and married a dragon in order to stop him eating young children. Because of this, she is sometimes depicted as riding a dragon in art.

Another legend tells of how the goddess helped the young poet Baishu. He had found a poem written by a maiden and had fallen in love with her, despite never having seen what she looked like. Praying to the goddess for help, Benten arranged for the young poet and the girl to meet outside the shrine. Later, it turned out that the young girl Baishu had fallen in love with was actually the soul of the women he later met and married.

In art, Benten is sometimes shown with snakes. Some statues of her reveal eight arms, six of these which are raised and the hands holding different objects. These include a bow and arrow and two hands are folded in prayer.

Bibliography:

Shokyu, Arii and Sato, Hiroaki (2002) Record of an Autumn Wind: The Travel Diary of Arii Shokya, Monumenta Nipponica.