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A Mother Goddess is a goddess portrayed as the Earth Mother, the original creator of the world, who survives as the general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth, mostly, but not always, in
polytheistic religions. Her cult was already established in Neolithic times, as surviving followers attest. At her oracle at Dodona in Epirus, later taken over by Zeus, she was invoked until late Classical times as "Dione" ("the Goddess").
In the Aegean, Anatolian and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, the Mother Goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the 'Great Mother'), of Gaia, and of Rhea.
The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece eclipsed the Mother Goddess without ever really supplanting her. Her roles were
divided among Hera, Demeter and Athena. In Minoan Crete one of her aspects was the Mistress of the Animals (Potnia Theron) who devolved into the huntress Artemis; the archaic Artemis of many breasts worshiped at Ephesus,
retained some of her older divinity. The Triple Goddess devolved into
Olympian Persephone - Demeter -
Hecate, the Maiden (Kore), Mother and
Crone.
Thus the Mother Goddess may be revered in a society that is not formed as a matriarchy, though James Frazer (The Golden
Bough) and his followers (like Robert Graves in The
White Goddess) thought that all European and Aegean Mother Goddess worship had originated in neolithic materiarchies, as
also has the mythographer Marija Gimbutas.
The neolithic context of idols like the Venus of
Willendorf has not been securely established. Not all fertile goddesses who engender offspring are the Mother Goddess. Many
female deities have been worshipped in the past: Ishtar (Inanna), in Mesopotamia, (Asherah in Canaan, ‘Ashtart in Syria, Aphrodite in
Greece), is well-known. In Scandinavia a female goddess was probably
worshipped during the Bronze Age and (probably) later in Norse mythology as Freya. Other
female goddesses in different pantheons may also be considered mother
goddesses.
Modern Mother Goddess worship
Perhaps a problem with identifying all female entities as one prototypical mother goddess is the fact that, within different
contexts, the meaning of 'Mother' may change drastically. According to foregoing standards, some may even consider Mother Mary to
be a 'mother goddess,' being that she fulfills not only a maternal role but is often viewed as a protective force and divine
intercessory for humanity. Most Christians, however, would object strongly to
this characterization.
In the Hindu context, the worship of the Mother entity can certainly be traced back to
early Vedic culture, and perhaps even before. Today, Devi is seen in manifold forms, all representing the creative force in the world, as Maya and prakriti, the force
that galvanizes the Divine Ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos. She is not merely the Earth, though even this
perspective is covered by Parvati. All the various Hindu female entities are seen as
forming many faces of the same Truth of female Divinity. This form of Hinduism, known as Shaktism, is strongly associated with Vedanta and Samkhya Hindu philosophy and is
considered to be monist, contrary to less-developed polytheist cultures of old.
Feminine energy (Shakti) is considered to be the motive force behind all action and
existence in the phenomenal cosmos in Hinduism, and thus, as the immanent Mother, Devi is focused on with love and intensity. See
Devi for an in-depth look at Hindu worship of the Divine Mother.
The Mother Goddess, amalgamated and combined with various feminine figures from world cultures of both the
past and present, is also worshipped by modern Wiccans and other Neo-Pagans. The mother goddess is usually viewed as mother earth by these particular
groups.
Information about the Mother Goddess can be found under all the linked entries.
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