Question: I was reading the story about Ard and the fire god she loved and lost. This god sounds to me like either Agni or Surya from the Devas. What do you think?
I think you're right! It's almost certainly Agni (or a Persian memory of Agni, at any rate). Though Shiva is obviously the Lord of the Dance in the Hindu pantheon, Agni is also sometimes described or depicted as dancing, as a metaphor for leaping or dancing flames. The idea of using butter as a cosmetic is also very Agni-esque, as butter was considered one of the most pleasing sacrifices to the gods and Agni himself is said to have multiple tongues to lick it up when he consumes those sacrifices. Even more interesting, Agni's wife, Svaha, is also associated with butter and was said to have put clarified butter on her own skin when she was attempting to woo him.
I probably wouldn't consider Surya; he may have fire associations, but he's generally a little too dignified for dancing and has a sort of all-seeing perception thing going on, which would make it hard for anybody to sneak up on him without him knowing about it. Similarly, while the Yazata have a fire-god of their own, Atar doesn't share any of the traits from the story and spends most of his time setting dragons on fire and being holy. You could make a case for it being an African god far from home - Shango, after all, does breathe fire, is quite dark-skinned and is a sensual and skilled dancer according to his New World myths - but overall I'd say that Agni's the best bet.
Which isn't really surprising; the Yazata and Devas have a very long history together, so much so that some of them are members of both pantheons (there is a wind-god named Vayu among both sets of gods, and the parallels between figures like Mithra and Mitra, Haoma and Soma and Airyaman and Aryaman are just some of the most obvious cases). While the two religions certainly grew apart, they still echo one another strongly, which leads to a lot of fun interplay in the Scion world.
No comments:
Post a Comment