Mother goddess

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.

She ranges in Western traditions from the elegant snake-offering goddess figures of Knossos to the rock-cut images of Cybele, to Dione ("the Goddess") who was invoked at Dodona, along with Zeus, until late Classical times.

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]. The actual cultural and religious context of Upper Paleolithic figures like the Venus of Willendorf has not been established.

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, that there was any continuity of religion that connects them with Middle Eastern and Classical deities.

Several extreme modern viewpoints propose to de-mystify these objects. One is the suggestion which has been made that they were children's toys.

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

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.

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).

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 Freya. 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 as the Mother Goddess. 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.

Olympian 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, Demeter and Athena. In Minoan Crete one of her aspects was the Mistress of the Animals (Potnia Theron) who some say devolved into the huntress Artemis; the archaic Artemis of many breasts worshiped at Ephesus retained some of these aspects.

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.

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.

Mother goddess worship in Catholicism

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 (Sophia) is understood as feminine entity. Many Catholics understand God as both masculine and feminine; God's masculine side is Creator and omnipotence; God's feminine side is all-encompassing love and Heavenly Wisdom.

On a somewhat-related note, Latter Day Saints give reverence to, but do not worship, a Heavenly Mother.

Mother goddess worship in Orthodoxism

As in Catholicism, reverence of Mary 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. Likewise, the Heavenly Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) is understood as a feminine entity.

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 other (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.

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.

Some of the Black Madonnas are believed to stem from ancient statues of Earth Mother, whose partner was the Moon above her. When Virgin Mary dethroned Earth Mother the Moon was placed under her feet.

The Rigveda calls the Female power Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Mother Earth.

Popular Culture

In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and related books, the character Galadriel has many attributes of the Earth Mother.

External links

*City of the Mother Goddess Metropolis
*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

Mother goddess: Encyclopedia BETA

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