The Encyclopedia of World Religions

182 S gospels

goddesses as well as gods. Hindu villages have local goddesses that look after their needs. Written mythologies tell about different goddesses who are consorts to gods. They include S ARASWATI , L AKSHMI , Sita, and P ARVATI . Hindus often say that the sakti or power of a god is a goddess. Two especially pow erful goddesses in east India are D URGA and Kali. Some Hindu traditions teach that all goddesses are manifestations of a single, supreme being. She is simply called Devi, “the Goddess.” Ancient Americans such as the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs worshipped goddesses ( see I NCA RELI GION , M AYA RELIGION , and A ZTEC RELIGION ). So do indigenous North Americans ( see N ATIVE A MERICAN RELIGIONS ). Recently some scholars suggested that indigenous North Americans began to worship mother earth only after contact with Europeans. Others strongly disagree. In any case, respect for the sacredness of the Earth is an important part of indigenous American religion today. THE GODDESS TODAY Traditional goddesses remain important religious figures. In addition, some women and a few men in North America and Europe have begun to wor ship the Goddess anew. They found in the wor ship of the Goddess religious strength, power, and support that they had not found in the traditional European religions. Further reading: Martha Ann, Goddess in World Mythology (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1993); Elizabeth Bernard and Beverly Moon, Goddess Who Rule (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Adele Getty, Goddess: Mother of Living Nature (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990); David Kinsley, The Goddesses’ Mirror: Visions of the Divine from East and West (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989); Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. 20th anniversary ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999).

period of human life. It ends around 10,000 B . P . (before the present). Paleolithic remains include large numbers of female statues. The oldest date to 30,000 or even 40,000 B . P . The statues come in many shapes, fat and thin, realistic and stylized. Scholars still debate what the images meant and how they were used. Around 10,000 B . P . agriculture began, and the Paleolithic gave way to the Neolithic. A Neolithic community lived at Catal Huyuk in Turkey from about 6500 to 5500 B . C . E . It seems to have wor shipped a mother goddess who is connected with plant life and served by male attendants. Since there are no written documents from this period (writing was not yet invented), it is difficult to know what to make of Neolithic remains. One scholar, Marija Gimbutas, tried to identify the different Neolithic goddesses of southeastern Europe by classifying the different types of statues these people made. Writing begins by 3000 B . C . E . Then there is plentiful evidence for the worship of goddesses. Goddesses played major roles in the religions of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Canaan, Greece, and Rome ( see E GYPTIAN RELIGION , M ESOPOTAMIAN RELIGIONS , C ANAANITE RELIGION , G REEK RELIGION , and R OMAN RELIGION ). As noted above, their symbols, personalities, and spheres of activity varied con siderably. J UDAISM tended to conceive of its god, YHWH (“the Lord”), in masculine terms. But some have pointed out that YHWH has feminine sides, too: his Wisdom and his Presence ( Shekhinah ). The traditional symbols of C HRISTIANITY —God as Father and Son—are masculine. But the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches both venerate Mary as theotokos, “mother of God.” In many places the veneration of Mary seems to continue ancient traditions of goddess worship. One exam ple is the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico. I SLAM , like Protestant Christianity, has had little use for goddesses or feminine images of the divine. Goddesses have been extremely important in east and south Asia. In China, Japan, and Tibet, a “goddess of mercy” known as Kuan-yin, Kannon, and Tara, respectively, has been very important. She is AVALOKITESVARA , a BODHISATTVA in feminine form. Hinduism knows a tremendous variety of

gospels Writings about the teachings and deeds of J ESUS . Gospels are a special kind of biography.