Many cultures have incorporated a god of death into their mythology or religion. As death, along with birth, is among the major parts of human life, these deities may often be one of the most important deities of a religion. In some religions with a single powerful deity as the source of worship, the death deity is an antagonistic deity against which the primary deity struggles. The related term death worship has most often been used as a derogatory term to accuse certain groups of morally-abhorrent practices which set no value on human life, or which seem to glorify death as something positive in itself.
Occurrence
In polytheistic religions or mythologies which have a complex system of deities governing various natural phenomena and aspects of human life, it is common to have a deity who is assigned the function of presiding over death. The inclusion of such a "departmental" deity of death in a religion's pantheon is not necessarily the same thing as the glorification of death which is commonly condemned by the use of the term "death-worship" in modern political rhetoric.
In the theology of monotheistic religion, the one god governs both life and death. However in practice this manifests in different rituals and traditions and varies according to a number of factors including geography, politics, traditions and the influence of other religions.
Gods of Death
- Aztec: Mictlantecuhtli
- Babylonian: Ereshkigal Nergal
- Buddhist: Yama
- Canaanite - The name of the god Mot was the Canaanite word for "death".
- Celtic - Morrigan
- Chinese: Yanluo (transileration of Yama)
- Ancient Egypt - The Gods Anubis and Osiris were Gods of the Underworld or Death.
- Finnish: Tuoni, his wife and children
- Greek: Thanatos (Death) and Hades (Underworld)
- Haitian Vodou: Ghede
- Hindu: Yama
- Igbo: Ogbunabali. Literal translation similar to "[one] who kills in the night".
- Japan: Enma (transileration of Yama) (See Also: Shinigami)
- Maori: Hine-nui-te-pō . Literal translation similar to "Great-Lady-of-the-Darkness".
- Maya: Ah Puch
- Mexico - Contemporary Mexicans worship Santa Muerte or Saint Death in conjunction with the Catholic faith.
- Norse: (Death) Odin and Freya; (Underworld) Hel, Odin and Freya
- Roman: Mors (Death), Pluto, Orcus and Dis Pater (Underworld)
- Slavic: Morana
- Western Civilization: The Grim Reaper
India
The Hindu gods Mara (Hindu goddess), Yama and Kali are Gods of death and deadly forces. In the 19th-century, the Thuggees, who blended Islam and Hinduism like many of the living religious variations of the region, were accused of literal death-worship. Recently the term has also been applied by Christian writers to apply to those who support suicide terrorists.
1984
In the universe of George Orwell's novel 1984, "Death Worship" was the common propagandistic English-language translation of the name of the governing philosophy of Eastasia (more accurately translated as "Obliteration of Self"). This ideology presumably made some allusion to Buddhist cultural concepts, but was functionally indistinguishable from the totalitarian "oligarchical collectivist" ideologies of the other two superpowers (Ingsoc in Oceania and "Neo-Bolshevism" in Eurasia).
See also
References
General
- Encyclopedia Mythica, pantheon.org
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday July 21, 2008 at 23:12:19 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
Many cultures have incorporated a god of death into their mythology or religion. As death, along with birth, is among the major parts of human life, these deities may often be one of the most important deities of a religion. In some religions with a single powerful deity as the source of worship, the death deity is an antagonistic deity against which the primary deity struggles. The related term death worship has most often been used as a derogatory term to accuse certain groups of morally-abhorrent practices which set no value on human life, or which seem to glorify death as something positive in itself.
Occurrence
In polytheistic religions or mythologies which have a complex system of deities governing various natural phenomena and aspects of human life, it is common to have a deity who is assigned the function of presiding over death. The inclusion of such a "departmental" deity of death in a religion's pantheon is not necessarily the same thing as the glorification of death which is commonly condemned by the use of the term "death-worship" in modern political rhetoric.
In the theology of monotheistic religion, the one god governs both life and death. However in practice this manifests in different rituals and traditions and varies according to a number of factors including geography, politics, traditions and the influence of other religions.
Gods of Death
- Aztec: Mictlantecuhtli
- Babylonian: Ereshkigal Nergal
- Buddhist: Yama
- Canaanite - The name of the god Mot was the Canaanite word for "death".
- Celtic - Morrigan
- Chinese: Yanluo (transileration of Yama)
- Ancient Egypt - The Gods Anubis and Osiris were Gods of the Underworld or Death.
- Finnish: Tuoni, his wife and children
- Greek: Thanatos (Death) and Hades (Underworld)
- Haitian Vodou: Ghede
- Hindu: Yama
- Igbo: Ogbunabali. Literal translation similar to "[one] who kills in the night".
- Japan: Enma (transileration of Yama) (See Also: Shinigami)
- Maori: Hine-nui-te-pō . Literal translation similar to "Great-Lady-of-the-Darkness".
- Maya: Ah Puch
- Mexico - Contemporary Mexicans worship Santa Muerte or Saint Death in conjunction with the Catholic faith.
- Norse: (Death) Odin and Freya; (Underworld) Hel, Odin and Freya
- Roman: Mors (Death), Pluto, Orcus and Dis Pater (Underworld)
- Slavic: Morana
- Western Civilization: The Grim Reaper
India
The Hindu gods Mara (Hindu goddess), Yama and Kali are Gods of death and deadly forces. In the 19th-century, the Thuggees, who blended Islam and Hinduism like many of the living religious variations of the region, were accused of literal death-worship. Recently the term has also been applied by Christian writers to apply to those who support suicide terrorists.
1984
In the universe of George Orwell's novel 1984, "Death Worship" was the common propagandistic English-language translation of the name of the governing philosophy of Eastasia (more accurately translated as "Obliteration of Self"). This ideology presumably made some allusion to Buddhist cultural concepts, but was functionally indistinguishable from the totalitarian "oligarchical collectivist" ideologies of the other two superpowers (Ingsoc in Oceania and "Neo-Bolshevism" in Eurasia).
See also
References
General
- Encyclopedia Mythica, pantheon.org
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Monday July 21, 2008 at 23:12:19 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
Copyright © 2008, Dictionary.com, LLC. All rights reserved.