History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 20 - Ch. 2: The Temples and the Gods of Chaldaea, pt. 7

It would appear that the triad had begun by having in the third place a goddess, Ishtar of Dilbat.

Ishtar is the evening star which precedes the appearance of the moon, and the morning star which heralds the approach of the sun: the brilliance of its light justifies the choice which made it an associate of the greater heavenly bodies.

“In the days of the past....

Ea charged Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar with the ruling of the firmament of heaven; he distributed among them, with Anu, the command of the army of heaven, and among these three gods, his children, he apportioned the day and the night, and compelled them to work ceaselessly.

” [Illustration: 173. jpg ISHTAR HOLDING HER STAR BEFORE SIN.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from an intaglio at Rome.

Ishtar was separated from her two companions, when the group of the planets was definitely organized and claimed the adoration of the devout; the theologians then put in her place an individual of a less original aspect, Ramman.

Ramman embraced within him the elements of many very ancient genii, all of whom had been set over the atmosphere, and the phenomena which are daily displayed in it--wind, rain, and thunder.

These genii occupied an important place in the popular religion which had been cleverly formulated by the theologians of Uruk, and there have come down to us many legends in which their incarnations play a part.

They are usually represented as enormous birds flocking on their swift wings from below the horizon, and breathing flame or torrents of water upon the countries over which they hovered.

The most terrible of them was Zu, who presided over tempests: he gathered the clouds together, causing them to burst in torrents of rain or hail; he let loose the winds and lightnings, and nothing remained standing where he had passed.

He had a numerous family: among them cross-breeds of extraordinary species which would puzzle a modern naturalist, but were matters of course to the ancient priests.

His mother Siris, lady of the rain and clouds, was a bird like himself; but Zu had as son a vigorous bull, which, pasturing in the meadows, scattered abundance and fertility around him.

The caprices of these strange beings, their malice, and their crafty attacks, often brought upon them vexatious misfortunes.

Shutu, the south wind, one day beheld Adapa, one of the numerous offspring of Ea, fishing in order to provide food for his family.

In spite of his exalted origin, Adapa was no god; he did not possess the gift of immortality, and he was not at liberty to appear in the presence of Anu in heaven.

He enjoyed, nevertheless, certain privileges, thanks to his familiar intercourse with his father Ea, and owing to his birth he was strong enough to repel the assaults of more than one deity.

When, therefore, Shutu, falling upon him unexpectedly, had overthrown him, his anger knew no bounds: “‘Shutu, thou hast overwhelmed me with thy hatred, great as it is,--I will break thy wings!

‘Having thus spoken with his mouth unto Shutu, Adapa broke his wings.

For seven days,--Shutu breathed no longer upon the earth.

” Anu, being disturbed at this quiet, which seemed to him not very consonant with the meddling temperament of the wind, made inquiries as to its cause through his messenger Ilabrat.

“His messenger Ilabrat answered him: ‘My master,--Adapa, the son of Ea, has broken Shutu’s wings.

’--Anu, when he heard these words, cried out: ‘Help!

’” and he sent to Ea Barku, the genius of the lightning, with an order to bring the guilty one before him.

Adapa was not quite at his ease, although he had right on his side; but Ea, the cleverest of the immortals, prescribed a line of conduct for him.

He was to put on at once a garment of mourning, and to show himself along with the messenger at the gates of heaven.

Having arrived there, he would not fail to meet the two divinities who guarded them,--Dumuzi and Gishzida: “‘In whose honour this garb, in whose honour, Adapa, this garment of mourning?

’ ‘On our earth two gods have disappeared--it is on this account I am as I am.

’ Dumuzi and Gishzida will look at each other,* they will begin to lament, they will say a friendly word--to the god Anu for thee, they will render clear the countenance of Anu,--in thy favour.

When thou shalt appear before the face of Anu, the food of death, it shall be offered to thee, do not eat it.

The drink of death, it shall be offered to thee, drink it not.

A garment, it shall be offered to the, put it on.

Oil, it shall be offered to thee, anoint thyself with it.

The command I have given thee observe it well.

’” * Dumuzi and Gishzida are the two gods whom Adapa indicates without naming them; insinuating that he has put on mourning on their account, Adapa is secure of gaining their sympathy, and of obtaining their intervention with the god Anu in his favour.

As to Dumuzi, see pp. 158, 159 of the present work;

the part played by Gishzida, as well as the event noted in the text regarding him, is unknown.

Everything takes place as Ea had foreseen.

Dumuzi and Gishzida welcome the poor wretch, speak in his favour, and present him: “as he approached, Anu perceived him, and said to him: ‘Come, Adapa, why didst thou break the wings of Shutu?

’ Adapa answered Anu: ‘My lord,--for the household of my lord Ea, in the middle of the sea,---I was fishing, and the sea was all smooth.

--Shutu breathed, he, he overthrew me, and I plunged into the abode of fish.

Hence the anger of my heart,--that he might not begin again his acts of ill will,--I broke his wings.

’” Whilst he pleaded his cause the furious heart of Anu became calm.

The presence of a mortal in the halls of heaven was a kind of sacrilege, to be severely punished unless the god should determine its expiation by giving the philtre of immortality to the intruder.

Anu decided on the latter course, and addressed Adapa: “‘Why, then, did Ea allow an unclean mortal to see--the interior of heaven and earth?

’ He handed him a cup, he himself reassured him.

--‘We, what shall we give him?

The food of life--take some to him that he may eat.

’ The food of life, some was taken to him, but he did not eat of it.

The water of life, some was taken to him, but he drank not of it.

A garment, it was taken to him, and he put it on.

Oil, some was taken to him, and he anointed himself with it.

” Anu looked upon him; he lamented over him: “‘Well, Adapa, why hast thou not eaten--why hast thou not drunk?

Thou shalt not now have eternal life.

’ Ea, my lord, has commanded me: thou shalt not eat, thou shalt not drink.

” Adapa thus lost, by remembering too well the commands of his father, the opportunity which was offered to him of rising to the rank of the immortals; Anu sent him back to his home just as he had come, and Shutu had to put up with his broken wings.

Bamman absorbed one after the other all these genii of tempest and contention, and out of their combined characters his own personality of a hundred diverse aspects was built up.

[Illustration: 177. jpg THE BIRDS OF THE TEMPEST] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a Chaldaean cylinder in the Museum of New York.

Lenormant, in a long article, which he published under the pseudonym of Mansell, fancied he recognized here the encounter between Sabitum and Gilgames on the shores of the Ocean.

He was endowed with the capricious and changing disposition of the element incarnate in him, and passed from tears to laughter, from anger to calm, with a promptitude which made him one of the most disconcerting deities.

The tempest was his favourite role.

Sometimes he would burst suddenly on the heavens at the head of a troop of savage subordinates, whose chiefs were known as Matu, the squall, and Barku, the lightning;

sometimes these were only the various manifestations of his own nature, and it was he himself who was called Matu and Barku.

He collected the clouds, sent forth the thunder-bolt, shook the mountains, and “before his rage and violence, his bellowings, his thunder, the gods of heaven arose to the firmament--the gods of the earth sank into the earth” in their terror.

The monuments represent him as armed for battle with club, axe, or the two-bladed flaming sword which was usually employed to signify the thunderbolt.

As he destroyed everything in his blind rage, the kings of Chaldaea were accustomed to invoke him against their enemies, and to implore him to “hurl the hurricane upon the rebel peoples and the insubordinate nations.

” When his wrath was appeased, and he had returned to more gentle ways, his kindness knew no limits.

From having been the waterspout which overthrew the forests, he became the gentle breeze which caresses and refreshes them: with his warm showers he fertilizes the fields: he lightens the air and tempers the summer heat.

[Illustration: 178. jpg RAMMAN ARMED WITH AN AXE.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Loftus.

The original, a small stele of terra-cotta, is in the British Museum.

The date of this representation is uncertain.

Ramman stands upon the mountain which supports the heaven.

He causes the rivers to swell and overflow their banks; he pours out the waters over the fields, he makes channels for them, he directs them to every place where the need of water is felt.

But his fiery temperament is stirred up by the slightest provocation, and then “his flaming sword scatters pestilence over the land: he destroys the harvest, brings the ingathering to nothing, tears up trees, and beats down and roots up the corn.

” [Illustration: 179. jpg RAMMAN, THE GOD OF TEMPESTS AND THUNDER.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Layard.

Properly speaking, this is a Susian deity brought by the soldiers of Assurbanipal into Assyria, but it carries the usual insignia of Ramman.

In a word, the second triad formed a more homogeneous whole when Ishtar still belonged to it, and it is entirely owing to the presence of this goddess in it that we are able to understand its plan and purpose; it was essentially astrological, and it was intended that none should be enrolled in it but the manifest leaders of the constellations.

Ramman, on the contrary, had nothing to commend him for a position alongside the moon and sun; he was not a celestial body, he had no definitely shaped form, but resembled an aggregation of gods rather than a single deity.

By the addition of Ramman to the triad, the void occasioned by the removal of Ishtar was filled up in a blundering way.

We must, however, admit that the theologians must have found it difficult to find any one better fitted for the purpose: when Venus was once set along with the rest of the planets, there was nothing left in the heavens which was sufficiently brilliant to replace her worthily.

The priests were compelled to take the most powerful deity they knew after the other five--the lord of the atmosphere and the thunder.

* * Their embarrassment is shown in the way in which they have classed this god.

In the original triad, Ishtar, being the smallest of the three heavenly bodies, naturally took the third place.

Ramman, on the contrary, had natural affinities with the elemental group, and belonged to Anu, Bel, Ea, rather than to Sin and Shamash.

So we find him sometimes in the third place, sometimes in the first of the second triad, and this post of eminence is so natural to him, that Assyriologists have preserved it from the beginning, and describe the triad as composed, not of Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, but of Ramman, Sin, and Shamash, or even of Sin, Ramman, and Shamash.