Deities of Life and Death

Diverse cultures of antiquity mythologized a diverse set of deities of life and death. Most reside in a land of life after death, sometimes as judges, and some are male while others are female. Some deities of life and death rule as couples in love, others govern as a family; some are gracious hosts, and others are haunting ghosts. Some deities are agents of torment who punish, whereas others are angels of transformation who transport the dead to life.

In this entry the diverse deities of life and death are selected from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas to illustrate the global universality of the topic without regard to any particular definitions or interpretation. Mythologies about deities of life and death from India, Egypt, Greece, Haiti, New Zealand, and Finland have been selected for the unique way each addresses and answers questions about the relationship between life and death.

Historical Presentation of the Deities

Scholarship on the deities of life and death is nearly unanimous in discerning, declaring, and defending one universal theme; however, there is no consensus concerning exactly what that theme might be. For this reason deities of life and death have no universal definition because no single unifying characteristic is common to all deities of life and death. According to one interpretation, the meaning of the motif of the dying and rising god entails the devotees' vicarious experience through the transpersonal mystical identification with the god or goddess.

According to another interpretive tradition, the deities of life and death are metaphors that personify the cyclical nature of agricultural seasons that rotate between the death of winter and the rebirth of spring. In still other traditions, deities of life and death serve as guides or psychopomps who help the deceased navigate the way to life after death. For still others, deities of life and death dramatize the interdependence of life and death; the life of one is sustained by the death of another.

Despite the conflicting and competing definitions and interpretations of deities of life and death, the universality of the topic consists of the questions engendered by a global curiosity about the relationship between life and death. People everywhere have wondered about that relationship. This wonder is embodied in the many mythologies that entertain and provide responses to the questions people pose about the relationship between life and death—questions such as What happens after death? How are people judged and who judges them? Who has power over life and death? Why do people die? What does it feel like to be dead?

India

What is the meaning and purpose of life in the face of death? On the South Asian subcontinent, Yama, the mythical first man to die, has since then been the guardian god of deceased ancestors in the afterlife. Yama is invoked in the liturgy of every Hindu death ritual. Mythologies of Yama are narrated in 2nd millennium B.C.E. Vedic literature is nearly as old as the Pyramid texts of ancient Egypt. Yama is described as the head of the grateful dead and the ruler of the departed souls, who prepares a place for the dead to rest in the world of the ancestors. In addition to being the first person to die, Yama was the first to discover the path leading to the other world. One ancient Sanskrit text records a young boy's dialogue with death. In a fit of anger, a father offered his son as a sacrifice, but when the son ascended in the sacrificial ritual flames toward the realm of Yama, he discovered that Yama was not at home. When Yama finally returned, as consolation to the boy for making him wait so long, Yama granted the boy three wishes. The first two requests were easy for Yama to fulfill. The boy asked to be restored to life and reconciled with his father, and he requested [Page 344]instruction in the fire sacrifice that leads to heaven. The boy's third wish was to know the mystery of what happens after death. He asked Yama to resolve the controversy about whether or not there is life after death. Yama begged the boy not to ask that question and offered to fulfill any other wish he might have, but the boy could not be dissuaded and insisted that Yama grant this third wish. Yama acknowledged that not even the gods knew how to answer this question; nevertheless, Yama disclosed the mystery by revealing the reality of a self that is never born and never dies and recommended that the boy search for that self.

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