Religion is one of the dominant factors of society. But the question remains: When and how did it start?
In different civilizations, the timing of the origin of religious ideas also varies. As of now, it seems that the heirs of different civilizations all want to claim that it was their civilization that first came up with the idea of religion or a powerful entity or many entities who govern everything under the sun.
Here we will take a look at the origin and practice of religion in Sumerian civilization.
When did the Sumerians start practicing religion?
Around the third millennium BC, the people of the Sumer developed their idea of religion. However, it was very different from the idea of religion that we have today in the modern world. Their idea was very similar to the concept of spirituality. The religion and practices that started during the Sumerian civilization left a long-lasting imprint on the human race. All the Abrahamic religions, like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam maintain some semblance with the religion of the Sumerian people.
It is not hard to imagine that the idea of an all-knowing entity or entities may have arisen out of a need for answers, answers regarding the questions humans have always had. How did life start? Or why did it start in the first place? How does the universe work? The conclusions at the sages and intellectuals of the time constitute the theology of the Sumerian religion.
Their theology was comprised of such strong convictions and clarity that it dominated much of the thinking of the surrounding areas for the coming centuries. In the history of human civilization, it is a well-established fact that religion must be relevant to the common people. What started as a type of theology or idea for sages and intellectuals looking for answers turned into mythology for the common people.
What was their idea of the universe?
To find the answers, Sumerian philosophers and sages had to start from scratch; they had no ancestor civilization from which to borrow a blueprint and modify it according to their contemporary society like most of the later civilizations did. The universe, according to the Sumerian civilization was made up of the earth and Heaven. The Sumerian sages used the word an-ki and the meaning of this compound word was “heaven-earth.” The earth was a solid flat surface and the sky denoted Heaven for them.
In between the earth and heaven, there was a substance, called lil. The word “lil” is equivalent to the wind, air, or spirit. According to the Sumerian sages, the moon, the sun, the stars, and everything else were made up of the same element, lil, but they had illuminating power. Everything, including the never-ending sea, constituted the universe, a universe that remained completely fixed in its place.
The universe did not existing nor operate on its own, of course; there was a grouping of never-dying living beings with superpowers who governed it. Sumerian sages believed that there was a well-organized plan in place for the universe and these super, human-like but immortal, beings were following prescribed laws.
Everything in society, from farming to making houses, was done by humans and not by some unseen god or gods, so they came to the conclusion that, in order to tend to the matters of far distant things like the stars and the sky, some humans must have extraordinary powers. That was their idea of the gods. They called those super, immortal humans by a unique word, dingir, which could be understood as their version of God.
The Powerful and Not So Powerful Gods
The gods of the Sumerian religion were like humans in shape and size, and they had to perform tasks according to the rules. Some immortal beings had some very significant work to do while some had very rudimentary work to do. This division of work led to the difference in stature among the gods of the Sumerian people. For example, the gods in charge of the entire earth could not be of the same calibre as the god in charge of carpentry. This notion led to the assembly of gods in mythology. The prominent gods were part of the most important assembly whose work was to “decree the fate” and there were seven gods in this assembly. They were then followed by a group of fifty immortal deities who were usually referred to as “the great gods.”
Some Famous Gods in the Sumerian Religion
Among the numerous gods in Sumerian mythology, only four gods were of utmost importance. The first one was the God of Heaven, An. After An, there was Enlil, the god of air, followed by the God of water, Enki. Then there was the great mother-goddess whose name was Ninhursag.
An
Study of the Sumerians led modern archaeologists to believe that the God of Heaven, An, was head of all the gods in the Sumerian religion. The God of Heaven had a grand place of worship in one of the most prominent cities, Erech. An was worshipped in all the societies of the Sumerian civilization across the centuries. However, recent findings have shed light on the fact that, in the latter days, An lost relevance among the Sumerians, and the God of Air, Enlil, had become the most important god.
Enlil
Enlil became the most dominant god according to the Sumerian religion. The importance of the air god is visible in almost all the rites, prayers, and myths of the Sumerians. Why Enlil became more important than An is not clear, but his name was associated with various other titles among the Sumerians: “the father of all the gods”; “the king of all the lands”; and many more names. Many poems from that period refer to him with these other names. In later periods, the kings and rulers of Sumerian society started ruling the common people by proclaiming that they had been chosen by Enlil as the rightful ruler of the land. Enlil was also associated with important natural occurrences, like the beginning of a new day, or seeds growing into a full plant from under the soil.
Enki
Enki was the god of the abyss. He was considered an apprentice of Enlil. According to Sumerian texts, Enlil made the plans, and Enki executed them. Enki was responsible for looking after the details of Enlil’s plans. Common Sumerians witnessing nature’s methods would usually attribute them to the work of Enki.
Ninhursag
Ninhursag was commonly referred to as the mother-goddess. She was considered the mother of all living beings. It is believed that, in earlier times, her name was Ki, which means “earth” or “mother.” Together, she and An were the parents of all the Sumerian gods. Her other names were Ninmah and Nintu.
Apart from these four, there were other prominent gods in the Sumerian religion. They were just the beginning of a belief system that would later mould the fate of human civilization. The religious practices in Sumer were humankind’s first quest to understand everything happening around them.
