List of thunder gods

Polytheistic peoples of many cultures have postulated a thunder god, the personification or source of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction, and will vary based on the culture. In Indo-European cultures, the thunder god is frequently known as the chief or King of the Gods, e.g. Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, and Perun in ancient Slavic religion.

For other uses, see God of Thunder (disambiguation).
Indra, the Indian/ Hindu god of thunder.

Thunder Gods

Mediterranean

Northwestern Eurasia

East Asia

South Asia

Americas

Sub-Saharan Africa

Oceania

Australia

New Zealand

In literature

The Hindu God Indra was the chief deity and at his prime during the Vedic period, where he was considered to be the supreme God.[1][2] Indra was initially recorded in the Rigveda, the first of the religious scriptures that comprise the Vedas.[3] Indra continued to play a prominent role throughout the evolution of Hinduism and played a pivotal role in the two Sanskrit epics that comprise the Itihasas, appearing in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Although the importance of Indra has since been subsided in favor of other Gods in contemporary Hinduism, he is still venerated and worshipped.

In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, was the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous, evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios.[4] This could be a reference to Zeus, the god of lightning, so "lightning-struck" could be saying that the person was blessed (struck) by Zeus (/lightning/fortune). Egyptologist Jan Assmann has also suggested that Greek Elysion may have instead been derived from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.[5]

  • H. Munro Chadwick, The Oak and the Thunder-God, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1900).

Music

Video games
  • Raiden (Mortal Kombat)
  • Orlanth (King of Dragon Pass)
  • Raijin (Smite)
  • Zapdos (Pokémon)
  • Raikou (Pokémon)
  • Thundurus (Pokémon)
  • Karana (Everquest)
  • Phosphora (Kid Icarus: Uprising), although she is not a goddess but a heavenly warrior in the service of Viridi
  • Ishtar (Fire Emblem), given the title of Goddess of Thunder due to wielding the holy thunder tome Mjölnir

See also

References
  1. Perry, Edward Delavan (1885). "Indra in the Rig-Veda". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 11: 117–208. doi:10.2307/592191. JSTOR 592191.
  2. Kaegi, Adolf (1886). The Rigveda: The Oldest Literature of the Indians. https://books.google.com/books?id=85WR0ae1WRQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false: Boston: Ginn and Company. p. 40. ISBN 978-1428626676.CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. Kaegi, Adolf (1886). The Rigveda: The Oldest Literature of the Indians. https://books.google.com/books?id=85WR0ae1WRQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false: Boston: Ginn and Company. p. 41. ISBN 978-1428626676.CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, 1985. p. 198.
  5. Assmann, Jan (2001). Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt. Cornell University Press. p. 392
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.