Mother goddess
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mother goddess is a goddess, often portrayed as the Earth Mother, who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. As such, not all goddesses should be viewed as manifestations of the mother goddess.
This goddess is depicted in Western traditions in many variations, the rock-cut images of Cybele, to Dione ("the Goddess") who was invoked at Dodona, along with Zeus, until late Classical times.
Some feminists claim that males have demonized these female deities hoping to replace them with a patriarchical god.
Contents |
[edit] Contention
Deities fitting the modern conception of the Mother Goddesses as a type have clearly been revered in many societies through to modern times. James Frazer (author of The Golden Bough) and those he influenced (like Robert Graves and Marija Gimbutas) advanced the theory that all worship in Europe and the Aegean that involved any kind of mother goddess had originated in Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies, and that their different goddesses were equivalent.
Although the type has been well accepted as a useful category for mythography, the idea that all such goddesses were believed in ancient times to be interchangeable has been discounted by modern scholars, most notably by Peter Ucko [1].
[edit] Paleolithic figures
Several small, corpulent figures have been found during archaeological excavations Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf being perhaps the most famous. Many archaeologists believe they were intended to represent goddesses, while others believe that they could have served some other purpose. These figurines predate the available records of the goddesses listed below as examples by many thousands of years, so although they seem to conform to the same generic type, it is not clear if they were indeed representations of a goddess or that there was any continuity of religion that connects them with Middle Eastern and Classical deities.
Several modern viewpoints propose that these objects had no religious significance. One such suggestion is that they were children's toys.
[edit] Examples of mother goddess type
There is no dispute that many ancient cultures worshipped female deities which match the modern conception of a mother goddess as part of their pantheons. The following are examples:
[edit] Sumerian, Mesopotamian and Greek goddesses
Tiamat in Sumerian mythology, Ishtar (Inanna) and Ninsun in Mesopotamia, Asherah in Canaan, `Ashtart in Syria, and Aphrodite in Greece, for example.
[edit] Celtic goddesses
The Irish goddess Anu, sometimes known as Danu, has an impact as a mother goddess, judging from the Dá Chích Anann near Killarney, County Kerry. Irish literature names the last and most favored generation of gods as "the people of Danu" (Tuatha de Dannan).
[edit] Norse goddesses
Amongst the Germanic tribes a female goddess was probably worshipped in the Nordic Bronze Age religion, which was later known as the Nerthus of Germanic mythology, and possibly living on in the Norse mythology worship of Freyja. Her counterpart in Scandinavia was the male deity Njord. Other female goddesses in different pantheons may also be considered mother goddesses. Also Yggdrasil, the World Ash, is often understood to be a mother goddess.[citation needed] Some scholars also argue that the figure of Grendel's mother, from the poem Beowulf, may have been based upon a goddess from Norse mythology.[citation needed]
[edit] Greek goddesses
In the Aegean, Anatolian, and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, a mother goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the 'Great Mother'), of Gaia, and of Rhea.
The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece had many characters with mother goddess attributes, including Hera and Demeter. The Minoan goddess Potnia theron, Mistress of the Animals, many of whose attributes were later absorbed by Artemis, seems to have been a mother goddess type. The archaic local goddess worshiped at Ephesus whose cult statue was adorned with rounded protuberances described variously as multiple breasts or bull testicles, and who was later also identified with Artemis, was probably also a mother goddess.
[edit] Mother goddess concepts in Hinduism
In the Hindu context, the worship of the Mother entity can be traced back to early Vedic culture, and perhaps even before. The Rigveda calls the divine female power Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Mother Earth. At places, the Vedic literature alludes to her as Viraj, the universal mother, as Aditi, the mother of gods, and as Ambhrini, the one born of Primeval Ocean. Durga, the wife of Shiva, is a warrior goddess who represents the empowering and protective nature of motherhood. An incarnation of Durga is Kali, who came from her forehead during war (as a means of defeating Durga's enemy, Mahishasura). Durga and her incarnations are particularly worshipped in Bengal.
Today, Devi is seen in manifold forms, all representing the creative force in the world, as Maya and prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos. She is not merely the Earth, though even this perspective is covered by Parvati (Durga's previous incarnation). All the various Hindu female entities are seen as forming many faces of the same female Divinity.
[edit] Shaktism
This form of Hinduism, known as Shaktism, is strongly associated with Vedanta, Samkhya and Tantra Hindu philosophies and is ultimately monist, though there is a rich tradition of Bhakti yoga associated with it. The feminine energy (Shakti) is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos in Hinduism. The cosmos itself is Brahman, the concept of the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality that is the Divine Ground of all being, the "world soul". Masculine potentiality is actualized by feminine dynamism, embodied in multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately reconciled in one.
The keystone text is the Devi Mahatmya which combines earlier Vedic theologies, emergent Upanishadic philosophies and developing tantric cultures in a laudatory exegesis of Shakti religion. Demons of ego, ignorance and desire bind the soul in maya (illusion) (also alternately ethereal or embodied) and it is Mother Maya, shakti, herself, who can free the bonded individual. The immanent Mother, Devi, is for this reason focused on with intensity, love, and self-dissolving concentration in an effort to focus the shakta (as a Shakti worshipper is sometimes known) on the true reality underlying time, space and causation, thus freeing one from karmic cyclism.
[edit] Mother goddess concepts in Christianity
Some people consider Mary to be a "mother goddess", since she not only fulfills a maternal role but is often viewed as a protective force and divine intercessory for humanity. In Roman Catholicism the Virgin Mary receives many titles, like Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, that are familiar from earlier Near Eastern traditions. Protestants often accuse Catholics of viewing Mary as a goddess; Catholics deny it.
Another aspect is that the Heavenly Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) can be is understood as feminine entity. Many Catholics understand God as subsuming and transcending both masculinity and femininity; God's masculine side is creator and omnipotence; God's feminine side is all-encompassing love and heavenly wisdom.
As in Catholicism, reverence of Mary in Orthodoxy has a strong basis. She is revered as the greatest of all human beings and been given the title of Mother of God and Birth-giver of God. While Mary is never worshipped as a deity, she has the position of the supreme saint and the patroness of the humankind.
Some of the Black Madonna icons are believed to derive from depictions of ancient goddesses, in particular the Egyptian Goddess Isis with her child Horus sitting on her lap.
In many languages the word for "spirit" takes the feminine gender. The Holy Spirit is discussed in feminine terms, and some scholars argue that it was based upon an original goddess figure that was minimized in later traditions.
Latter-day Saints (also known as Mormons) infer the existence of a Heavenly Mother based on tangential doctrine, but do not emphasize this belief. Some members have been chastened for praying to this goddess rather than to God the Father.
[edit] Neopaganism
The Mother Goddess, amalgamated and combined with various feminine figures from world cultures of both the past and present, is worshipped by modern Wiccans and others (see Triple Goddess). The mother goddess is usually viewed as mother earth by these groups.
Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans worship the Mother Goddess. Most commonly she is worshiped as a Triple Goddess; usually envisioned as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes. She is associated with the full moon and with Earth. Many ancient Pagan religions had mother goddesses; it has been argued that the figure of Mary the mother of Jesus is patterned on these. Even among those who are not Pagan, expressions such as Mother Earth and Mother Nature are in common usage, personifying the Earth's ecology as a fertile and sustaining mother.
[edit] Earth Mother
The Earth Mother is a motif that appears in many mythologies. The Earth Mother is a fertile goddess embodying the fertile earth itself and typically the mother of other deities, and so are also seen as patronesses of motherhood. This is generally thought of as being because the earth was seen as being the mother from which all life sprang.
The Rigveda calls the Female power Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Mother Earth.
[edit] See also
[edit] Figures
- Aphrodite
- Blessed Virgin Mary
- Brigid
- Demeter
- Devi
- Durga
- Freyja
- Frigg
- Gaia
- Ishtar
- Isis
- Jord
- Kamakhya
- Kali
- Nerthus
[edit] Other
- God (male deity)
- God and gender
- Goddess movement
- Goddess
- Great Mother
- Mother
- Sacred feminine
- Sky father
- Petrosomatoglyph
[edit] Further reading
- Neumann, Erich. (1991). The Great Mother. Bollingen; Repr/7th edition. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. ISBN 0-691-01780-8.
- J.F. del Giorgio. The Oldest Europeans. A.J. Place (2006). ISBN 980-6898-00-1
- Goldin, Paul R. (2002) "On the Meaning of the Name Xi wangmu, Spirit-Mother of the West." Paul R. Goldin. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, No. 1/January-March 2002, pp. 83-85.
- Knauer, Elfried R.(2006)"The Queen Mother of the West: A Study of the Influence of Western Prototypes on the Iconography of the Taoist Deity." In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp. 62-115. ISBN-13: ISBN 978-082-482-8844; ISBN-10: ISBN 0-8248-2884-4
[edit] External links
- Conception and Evolution of The Mother Goddess in India by Prof P. C. Jain.
- Reflections on Erta as named on the Franks Casket by Alfred Becker (PhD)
- The Ideals of Motherhood - Aesthetics of Form and Function by Sri Nitin Kumar
