Death deity

From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)

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.

1 Gods of death (listed alphabetically by culture)
2 See also
3 References
- 3.1 General

[edit]

Gods of death (listed alphabetically by culture)

Aztec: Mictlantecuhtli
Babylonian: Ereshkigal "The counterpart to these deities of sky, air, water, and earth was the underworld, the realm of the dead, originally seen as ruled by the powerful Goddess Ereshkigal." (Ruether, Rosemary Radford Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23146-5) "After consulting his mistress Ereshkigal, the queen of the Nether World, he admits Ishtar" (Kramer, Ishtar in the Nether World According to a New Sumerian Text Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 1940). [1] [2]
Chinese: Yan Luo
Egyptian: Anubis
Finnish: Tuoni, his wife and children
Greek: Thanatos
Hindu: Yama
Roman: Mors
Norse: (Death) Odin and Freya (Kveldulf Gundarsson Our Troth ISBN 0-9770165-0-1); (Underworld) Hel, Odin and Freya The dwelling one went to after death varied depending on where one died, at the battlefield or not. If not at the battlefield, one would go to Hel (not to be confused with the Christian Hell). Of the slain at the battlefield, some went to Folkvang, the dwelling of Freya and some went to Valhalla, the dwelling of Odin (see Grímnismál):