Part 1: Lord Venkatesvara and Padmavati
Part 3: From Eshwari to Eshnunna to Ishtar
Among the many gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon identified in the excavated artefacts, few remain unidentified mainly because they bear no resemblance to any of the god-forms excavated so far or to the scribal description of Gods. One such image of Isin-Larsa period (2000-1600 BCE) found by this writer among the exhibits of the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago is shown in figure 1. This god standing out from others is a bit odd, but tells a different story for one coming from India!
Figure 1
The board says, “Two nude figures flank a bearded divinity whose face has been severely
damaged. He wears a horned
crown and seems to be enveloped in a tufted covering. He stands on the
back of a reclining bull.”
The figure in the middle of this
mold-impression looks like a decorated
image of Shiva Linga! A garland – the completely missing decorative
accessory in other Mesopotamian God-figures - can be seen hanging in the front
of what looks like a Linga. The note says that the figure was a bearded
divinity whose face has been damaged. But the location of the garland shows
that it cannot be a face. When we enlarge the damaged part (figure 2), it
matches perfectly well with a garlanded Shiva Linga mounted on a raised platform
and covered with decorative garments.
Figure
2
More importantly the image of a bull in
the front strengthens the idea of Shiva linga. The two men on the sides are
carrying a vase or water pot - which is once again a feature that goes with
Shiva linga. Linga is always bathed by Ganga (water from river Ganga) and it is
a common and a continuing practice in India for the devotee to offer libation
to Shiva Linga.
The two men are naked; and we cannot
ignore a comparison with the naked Naga Sadhus, the devotees of Shiva. They also grow beard and are
found not removing the hair on the head. In this particular depiction, the religious concept is evident and cannot be compared
with the other nude figures that often appear in Mesopotamia. Though nudity in
males and females appear in Mesopotamia right from 6000 BCE, male nudity in religious activities appear only from 3200 BCE.[1] Such
figurines were found in Shara
temple excavation, dedicated to Shara, the son
of Anu in later literacy texts.[2] One
of them is found to carry a pot on the head (Figure 3). Nude and bearded men
carrying water pots and offering libations are found from this period onwards. Not
to be missed is the fact that bathing the deities is a common practice in Hindu
culture and continuous libation of water to Shiva linga is all the more common.
Figure
3
Tell
Agrab, Shara Temple, Early Dynastic period, 2900-2700 BC, calcite - Oriental
Institute Museum, University of Chicago - DSC07462.JPG
The presence of naked
Naga sadhus in India comes from an undated past. Additionally the
specific depiction of only two figures in the plaque reminds us of the two
sages always associated with the worship of Shiva. They were Patanjali
and Vyāghrapada, known for their intense worship of Shiva. Was this
memory taken by the devotees of Shiva to Mesopotamia?
The devotees of Shiva are supposed to
sport a Third eye on the face. The selective damages on
this plaque to the face and forehead of the two men and to the main deity to
give an impression of a beard (a common feature of almost all Mesopotamian
gods) cannot go unnoticed.
Another feature mentioned in the note
pertains to the “horned
crown” on the head of the deity (Shiva Linga). The close-up view shows
that it does not cover the head fully, as how it is seen on other deities of
Mesopotamia. For comparison, the horned crown of Ninurta is shown in Figure 4.
Figure
4
The conical feature on top of the linga
look-alike resembles the libation vessel fixed above Shiva Linga (in India)
from which water drips continuously on the deity.
The horned crown is unique for the deity
Anu, also known as
An. This deity, regarded as the first and the foremost among the Mesopotamian
pantheon, shares many similarities with lord Shiva.
Similarities
between Shiva and Anu[3]
Only ‘Anu’ (or An), the
supreme God of Mesopotamia under whom all gods are clubbed together as ‘Anunnaki’
has a parallel with the above image – the look-alike of Shiva Linga.
The foremost similarity is the presence of
bull,
the carrier of Shiva, also found associated with Anu! The bull never leaves Shiva; in the same way
Anu and his bull were inseparable.
There is no
clear iconography of Anu, perhaps along the lines that he is formless; the same
formlessness is a unique feature of Shiva. The formless Shiva is worshiped as
the Linga in the Hindu culture, whereas until now researchers had not located
any form for Anu, though Anu seems to be the first one God whom all the other
deities had descended.
There is no origin history for Anu in
the period of the Shiva linga look-alike; it appears only in the epic Enūma
eliš of the 1st millennium BCE giving the names of the parents of
Anu, as Anšar and Kišar, who are said to be
descendants of Lahmu and Lahamu. However the name Anšar is found interchanged
with Ashur of neo-Assyrian period, giving rise
to the conjecture that the
parents of Anu are an invented mythology.
However further connection of the
so-called parents of Anu with Tiamet,[4]
(wife of Apsu) a name referring to the primordial sea,
gives rise to a speculation that these Gods were primarily brought to Mesopotamia by a people who came by
sea, or in other words, the
Gods had come from places across the sea. This will be elaborated later
in the context of Indic parallels with Marduk.
Anu was credited with creating the Universe, either alone, or along with
Enlil and Ea. He was supposed to occupy the Highest level of the ‘three’ levels of Heaven, said to be made of the reddish luludānitu stone! Similar kinds of attributes
are there for Shiva also, as the creator. The three world concept is also very
much part of the Vedic culture from a long past. The red colour is also
amazingly associated with Shiva, as he is known as red-haired
(Tamil tradition) and as a personification of fire (reddish).
An or Anu was regarded as the “Father of the Gods”.
Along with the Gods, he created the monsters and demons that are part of
Mesopotamian mythologies. He ordained some of the demons to protect Gods and
others to kill human beings![5] In
the epics of Erra and Isum, Anu was supposed to give weapons of massacre. This
has parallel to Shiva who is also associated with the act
of destruction.
Anu’s importance was such that the
Mesopotamian society and mythologies had drawn their genesis from the idea of
Anu. The epicentre of Anu’s cult was Uruk – the city ruled by Isin kings![6] The
Shiva linga look-alike was found in Isin-Larsa period only (2000-1800 BCE). The
surrounding cities of Der, Lagas and Ur also had temples of Anu (Figure 5)
Figure
5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Agrab#/media/File:Hammurabi's_Babylonia_1.svg
Only from the 5th century BCE
onwards, Anu came to be depicted with a form - a statue with rituals that very
much resemble Hindu temple practices, with the only difference being, the food
is always a sacrificed animal.[7]
No one exactly knows the appearance of
the temples of Anu, but can make a fair guess from the engravings available.
Figure
6
The “horned crown” on top of the temple like structures
in Figure 6 could perhaps refer to the temples of Anu – the God without form,
but who was identified with a form that is a replica of Shiva linga!! With many
parallels between Shiva Linga and Anu, and the crown of Anu modelled after the
linga, the Shiva linga look-alike plaque seems to endorse the origin of Anu
concept from Shiva linga, carried by migrants who
happened to be the devotees of Shiva, the God in their former land, i.e. India!
It must be noted that the numerous
Mesopotamian deities were not indigenous in origin, as known from the fact that
ideas had kept changing from time to time, and within short time.
An or Anu appears in the God list
roughly around the mid-third millennium BCE and
regularly from the 2nd millennium BCE in literary texts,
inscriptions and as personal names – the period in which the Shiva Linga
look-alike is found. [8]
This time period is pertinent for a
probable migration when we talk later about Kish Dynasty coming up after a flood that coincided with the flood at
Dwaraka when Krishna left the world in the year 3101 BCE! I prefer to
call this as the cut-off date
for the history of both India and Mesopotamia.
It is important to note that the Anu concept came up only after this cut-off date. By the 2nd millennium BCE (the
date attributed to the Shiva Linga look-alike), Anu started appearing in
literary works. In the Old Babylonian period
(2000 BCE – 1595 BCE) Anu gained more importance as protector of kings.
Anu appears for the first time in Assyrian royal inscriptions around 1700 BCE. After
that we start finding direct evidence of Shiva Linga in the Greek pantheon.
The appearance of Omphalos and the apparent
etymology of the name seem to be an amalgam of the linga look-alike and the
sacred utterance of AUM of the Vedic culture.
Migration of Shiva concept from Mesopotamia to
Greece!
The continued presence of Shiva-concept from
Mesopotamia to Greek pantheon can be identified by the bull and bathing!
For example quite a few artefacts and
paintings recovered from Delphi and housed in
the museums of Europe show Artemis
and Apollo pouring libation on ‘Omphalos’ which sounds a compound
word of Om and Phallus,
a reference to Shiva linga. Figure 7 shows one such depiction where a bull’s head is also featured above, as if to convey
that it is the Bull of Heaven of Anu while it original concept can be traced to
Shiva and his bull.
Figure
7
Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/355221489333431433/
Between these two - the Linga look-alike
of Isin-Larsa period (figure 1) and libation to Omphalos (figure 7), the
concept of Shiv linga had undergone gradual
transformation in Mesopotamia while the concept had retained its purity in
India, its original home.
Let’s begin from Anu, the first and
supreme god of Mesopotamian pantheon. There is no scribal document on how he
looked like, but every other God was connected with him. Many of those gods
underwent changes from time to time and there was a time even Anu was abandoned
and his bull was killed! All these show a cacophonous
development of Thought over time and not an original and well thought-out
development of theology evolving from within. In fact the very region or
civilization that we call Mesopotamia was not recognised by that name or as a
single unit by the inhabitants themselves. It was a conglomeration of many
small states peopled by different communities having their own perception of
gods for different things. The continuous political instability and the fads of
the rulers in patronising the deity they liked resulted in changes and
modifications in gods themselves. But most of the Gods were retained in memory or even in worship until
the times Hatti and Mitanni became dominant kingdoms.
Tracing the presence of Linga in Mesopotamia,
the earliest figures were the ‘Foundation
figures’ dated at 2130 BCE each holding a Linga-like stone (figure 8).
These figures were kept inside brick boxes and buried in what looks like
strategic locations of a temple, such as under the doors, pathways and the
periphery. This is similar to what is done in Vaastu rituals for foundation.
Figure
8
The ironical part of it is that the researchers
concentrate on the head gear of these images and compare it with the headgears
of other figures, but fail to probe what the identical cylindrical objects held
by the men are about. The head gear seems to be that of Anu but the cylindrical
objects are of linga form. A Linga is an organ of generation, creation and
growth. This symbolism and sacredness had perhaps gone into placing it as a foundation
upon which temples were raised.
Chronologically the next appearance of
Linga in Mesopotamia is what we showed in figure 1. The only explanation for
its presence is that some migrant population from India had continued with the
worship of Shiva in Linga form. It was around the same time the ‘Sealand’ dynasty
made its appearance in Isin.[9] They
occupied southernmost part of Mesopotamia in what can be termed as the head of
the Persian Gulf. Though the name Sealand is coined by modern researchers,
their location makes it possible to deduce that they entered the Persian Gulf
from the Arabian Sea and made Mesopotamia their home. This location lends scope
to speculate that they were migrants from India.
The Sealand kings kept records on ‘Kudurru’
stones that look like Linga. The oft repeated expression in the royal
inscriptions of the Sealand king Damiq-ilīšu on Kudurru is that he was a
“farmer who piles up the
produce (of the land) in granaries”![10] In a
surprising connection, Kudurru is phonetically closer to the word ‘Kudhir’ in Tamil for granary! Colloquially it is
pronounced as ‘kuduru’ in Tamil. The Kudhir is cylindrical in shape or like an
inverted jar as shown in figure 9. Even today these granaries can be seen in
rural Tamilnadu.
Figure 9
The Kudurru stone is shown in figure 10
for comparison.
Figure
10
Source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kudurru_of_Gula-Eresh.jpg
Was Kudhir, the granary, the chosen
shape for the Sealand king to write his edicts as it was the symbol of his prosperity? The shape is also like that
of the Linga. The
inscribed features also sync well with Shiva-concept. One can see the crescent moon on top of many Kudurrus, similar to the
crescent on Shiva’s head. The crescent is how it looks for an observer in the
tropical region of the world – like a cup. The crescent gets tilted as one goes
towards northern latitudes. The cup-like crescent does
not look the same in Mesopotamia – in the regions where the Kudurrus are found.
Does this mean that the very first king (of Sealand) who conceived the idea of
engraving the crescent moon on the Kudurru, got it engraved in the shape and
position as how it
appeared in his previous location, that
is, in the tropics? The region of Tamils in whose language the word ‘Kudhir’
appears to mean ‘granary’, is in the tropics where the crescent moon appears as
how it is engraved on the Kudurru.
Taking up for analysis the Kudurru in
figure 11 issued in the name of a governor of Sealand dynasty, there is a snake
on the side of the stone reaching up to the top like how snakes coil around Shiva’s body.
A close-up of this Kudurru reveals more information of Indian connection.
Figure
11
The snake and the crescent are features
associated with Lord Shiva. The tortoise positioned
more or less in the middle is an inevitable feature that forms the base of Indian
temple architecture like the flag-posts. Known as Kūrma it is considered
as divine manifestation of Lord Vishnu that forms the axis of the created world
by holding the world on its back. The two buildings on the left (identified
within a square) have the ‘horned crown’ of Anu, but one cannot ignore the resemblance
with the tower (Gopuram) of the south Indian temples (Dravida style architecture). Researchers
have explanation for the stars and other features in this Kudurru, but can a
sincere researcher disregard the similarities with
Indic features and the concept development traceable only to India?
Most of the Kudurrus were land donation records and as such they were regarded as boundary stones. But the Linga-shape was the preferred one for most of the dynasties whenever they wanted to pass a royal decree. The famous code of Hammurabi was carved on a Linga-shaped stone (figure 12)[11]. It shows him receiving the law from the Sun God which has a parallel with Danda-niti imparted by Lord Shiva.
Figure
12
It is wrongly believed that Manu was the
author of code of law for people. Originally Lord Shiva was credited with being
the first one to have given the laws of chastisement (Danda-niti).
Mahabharata describes (Ch 12:58) how Danda-niti was codified by Shiva from the compilation of
Brahma and transferred to Indra who in turn taught it to Brihaspati from
whom Shukracharya received. Similar type of code of law appearing in the
stele of Hammurabi raises a question on why he chose
the Linga-shaped stone for inscribing the codes.
He could not have known anything about
Shiva, but his choice of the Linga-stone shows that some notion of sacredness and central authority
were attached to that shape. Many steles and obelisks carrying the royal
decrees of the succeeding periods were also linga-shaped.
From Mesopotamia the Linga concept had
spread to Greece and other parts of Europe. The most glaring connection with
Lord Shiva is seen in the Omphalos found in many
places (figure 13) and even in coinage.
Figure
13
The Omphalos comes with an additional
feature called ‘oracles’ which pre-suppose some
meditative or thought connection with Omphalos. This is also true for Linga,
for, Shiva was the foremost Yogi whom ascetics meditated on for
Self-realisation. The ‘Om’ in Omphalos is proof of an original connection with
Hindu Thought that however was forgotten in due course. But the development of
the idea had gone from Mesopotamia. The presence of the Linga look-alike (figure
1) in Mesopotamia fills the missing link with India.
If Shiva worshippers had gone to
Mesopotamia, could they have left out his consort, whom we call variously as
Shakti, Devi, Parvati,
Eshwari and so on? This writer was stunned to
see an image resembling the consort of Shiva in the category of “Ishtar” in the same
museum in Chicago. Will write about it in the next part.
[1] Zainab Bahrani, “ The iconography of the nude in Mesopotamia” https://www.jstor.org/stable/23202931?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[3] An / Anu (God) http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/an/
[5] “Mesopotamian God Anu:
Facts and Mythology” https://study.com/academy/lesson/mesopotamian-god-anu-facts-mythology.html
[6] “Isin- Larsa and the
Old Babylonian Periods” https://webcourses.ucf.edu/courses/1298370/pages/isin-larsa-and-old-babylonian-periods
