Pantheon

[Arpa]

Thank you Groong, thank you Eddie A.

I searched on google but I could not find any mention of the book.

Has anyone seen it? Does anyone have it? It would be highly interesting to expand on what Eddie has already said.

 

With this post I will create a new subject topic of PANTHEON/DITSARAN/AMENADITS.

The Greek Pantheon-pan=ll and theon=gods in fact literally translates amen=all-a-dits=gods

 

We have at various times posted writings and or photos of tombs of our luminaries, I would like it very much if we could repost them here. We can beging with MosJan's photo of Kent/Vardan of couple of days ago.

In the meantime I will also post an article that I found in one of the AGBU News magazine of Havlabar in Tiflis ehere the likes of Sayat Nova, Raffi, Sundukian and Toumanian are entombed.

We can post any of our "deities" be they mythical gods or human ones such as literary, musical or military.

 

Why we should read...

 

'The Armenian Pantheon' by Professor Levon Katcheryan

284pp, USA, 2001

 

A History of Armenian Pagan Deities

May 29, 2004

 

By Eddie Arnavoudian

 

 

Professor Levon Khatcheryan's 'The Armenian National Pantheon', a

comprehensive history of the major pre-Christian Armenian pagan

deities, fills a gap. Examining the religious institutions,

organisations, temples, ceremonial traditions and rituals that

developed around Armenian pagan gods, he shows them forming a broad

and complex cultural, ideological and political foundation for

Armenian society. That the Armenian pantheon set deep and perhaps

indelible roots in Armenian life is testified to by the stubbornness

with which paganism survived well into the second century of Armenian

Christianity and subsequently as it continued to influence Armenian

literature, popular mythology and culture well into the 19th century.

 

To produce this highly readable and instructive work Khatcheryan had

to overcome a terrible scarcity of original sources, most of these

being destroyed by the victorious Christian Church in the 4th century

and thereafter. He leaps the abyss of historical ignorance through a

meticulous scrutiny of the hostile and possibly falsified references

to pagan gods that are recorded in classical Armenian Christian

literature and compliments this by intelligent and imaginative insight

and supposition suggested by studies of non-Armenian pagan gods, by

C. M. Bowra in particular.

 

While Armenians, like many other peoples, adopted Assyrian, Greek,

Persian and other gods either voluntarily or under duress through the

centuries, they were refined, pruned, adjusted and Armenianized so

much so that they sometimes have little resemblance to their

original. Thus appropriated and remoulded, these naturalised deities

went on to play a crucial role in the ideological and intellectual

definition of the Armenian state as against their Persian, Greek,

Assyrian and other neighbours.

 

Like its Christian successors, the pagan church commanded a leading

social, intellectual and cultural position in society, a position

founded on its vast economic wealth and landholding that included

slaves and serfs. Spread across the land, its temples in honour of the

nine main gods were also centres of learning harbouring both the

existing stock of knowledge as well as the wise men of the day. They

were in addition social centres and gathering points for travellers,

traders and soldiers.

 

The highly structured and elaborate Armenian pantheon had at its

centre nine deities, each serving a particular sphere of social life.

Armenian gods, like those of the Greeks, had human form, suggesting a

level of social and intellectual development in which human

consciousness, having mastered some of the secrets of nature, had

ceased to attribute magical or godly powers to inanimate elements of

nature. The Father of all Armenian Gods was Aramazd but perhaps the

most famous and popular was his daughter Anahit. Both were foreign

importations, but centuries of history refashioned and enhanced them

to suit local need and so they acquired a very specific, particular

Armenian character.

 

Unfortunately the lack of sources leaves us only a dry and formal

picture for Aramazd, who possesses all the attributes of a supreme

deity. He is the creator of heaven and earth, the god of hope and

success and the supreme legislator and distributor of justice. He was

not just the first among equals but an almost omnipotent power so

unlike the Persian pantheon, where two antagonistic supreme gods, one

evil and one virtuous, exist in perpetual conflict. Alas there is in

the records left of Aramazd none of the adventure, heroism, romance

and poetry that lend the Greek or Roman gods their magical

magnificence.

 

Aramazd may have been supreme but his popularity was dimmed by that of

his daughter the Goddess Anahit, a popularity attested to by Roman

historians as well as Armenians and by the record of at least ten

temples containing her statues. Her popularity was such that the

leaders of Armenian Christianity in a gesture of compromise to entice

a doubting population built their Christian Churches on the destroyed

foundations of Anahit's temples and named these after a similar female

god like figure, the Virgin Mary.

 

Besides possessing many of her father's attributes, Anahit was also

the guardian of Armenia's state security, worshiped for her powers to

endow military strength and courage. She was also the guarantor of

happiness and a bountiful life for the state and the people. Elements

of her status as a Goddess of Fertility survived in popular rituals

right up to the 19th century, being adopted even by Turkish women

hoping for pregnancy. Besides Anahit, Aramazd had a son, Vahagn the

god of storms, wind and rain who, deploying lighting and storms, came

to symbolise struggle, war and victory. One of his functions was to

battle against demons that attempted to divert the fertilising flow of

heavenly water away from the needy earth.

 

A particularly fascinating and indeed exciting element of

Khatcheryan's account is the survival of pagan traditions, stories and

influences through the early Christian period right up to the 19th

century. Mihr, the Armenian God of Truth and Light, for example,

appears as late as the 8th century when the epic of David of Sassoon

was first fashioned in the Armenian resistance to Arab imperial rule.

Dir the pagan Armenian God of Wisdom, Education and Knowledge survives

in the Armenian term Diratzoo to denote a schoolmaster. A scribe, Dir

had as one of his tasks the cataloguing of all those condemned to the

afterlife. This role has given rise to the Armenian curse 'groghe

dani' (let the scribe dispense with him).

 

In the case of Asdghig, goddess of love, of passion and eroticism

numerous sites, hills, mountains and villages retained her name for

centuries beyond the pagan era. Her enduring popularity also forced

the Church to adopt, albeit suitably adjusted, a water festival in her

honour. Vanadoor, the god of hospitality, is another whose traditions

have endured into Christianity and beyond with the celebration and

feasting known as 'baregentan'. Attempting a relatively comprehensive

picture, Khatcheryan ends his book with a glance at deities that have

little or no record in the 5th century Armenian classics. Among them

are Kissane and Temedre two gods of Indian origin and one Santached

the god of the underworld.

 

Despite a limitation in its focus on the ideological and cultural

level with insufficient consideration of the political, social or

economic factors that contributed to the evolution and development of

Armenian paganism, this volume is a wonderful read. It is also well

produced, with good quality paper, though its cover is a touch gaudy

with its glossy gold.

[Arpa]

Just in case the URL is lost I have also pasted the text below.

 

http://www.agbu.org/agbunews/display.asp?A_ID=120

 

Sept. 1992

AGBU NEWS

 

The Armenian quarter of Havlabar in Tbilisi

The Armenian Pantheon at Havlabar, where novelist Raffi, actor-director Gabriel Sountougian, writer Hovhannes Toumanian and composer Magar Yegmalian are buried

The tomb of Sayat Nova, located at the main entrance of the historical St. Gregory Armenian Cathedral, erected by Prince Umek in 1251

 

Havlabar: A Little Armenia on the Hill

Georgia

 

David Zenian

 

Tbilisi, Georgia ? The tombs of literary and musical giants Gomidas, Raffi, Gabriel Sountougian, Hovhannes Toumanian and Magar Yegmalian are only some of the reminders of an Armenian heritage dating back to when Yerevan was nothing but a small dusty city.

 

The 136-year-old Bedros Atamian theater and the ornate cliffside balconies stand witness to what was once the most prominent center of Armenian business and culture in the Caucasus.

 

Most of these ?monuments? are in Havlabar, the picturesque hilltop Tbilisi neighborhood overlooking the Gour River ? home of the majority of the city?s more than 150,000 Armenians.

 

It was also in Havlabar where the Mantachev and Aramiantz families began their journeys to fame and fortune. Buildings constructed by the two families, or dynasties as same prefer to call them, still stand. One such structure is the city?s First Hospital which is still known by many as the Aramiantz Medical Center.

 

?Many ordinary Georgians do not know the origins of these buildings, let alone who the Aramiantzs were. In the early l900?s, especially before the communist revolution, the Armenians of Tbilisi, or Tiflis, were a source of strength and pride.? said a local elder.

 

The Aramiantz hospital, in the heart of Havlabar, is a sprawling complex. Originally built in 1895 and expanded many times over since, the medical facility now has 1650 hospital beds. It employs 600 doctors and 800 nurses and is considered the best in the country.

 

Assistant Director Zurab Baratashvili, the Tbilisi educated and Leningrad trained surgeon, is too young to remember the founding fathers of the facility. ?We are getting no assistance from Moscow, and unlike Armenia, we do not have a Diaspora to help us. The Armenians are better off in that aspect,? he says with an air that disguises envy.

 

?We used to have an annual budget of 6 million rubles, which was more than 6 million dollars in the old days, now, we need 25 to 30 million rubles, or 200-240,000 dollars, but there is no way we could get our hands on that kind of money,? he says. ?Our highest paid doctor makes 2000 rubles, or 16 dollars,? he said.

 

Compared with medical facilities in Armenia, the Aramiantz Hospital is not better equipped or maintained. There are no visiting foreign medical personnel and there is no outside help. The hospital is also a target of frequent attacks by gunmen searching for drugs. We have been forced to maintain an armed guard around the pharmacy,? Baratashvili says.

 

A few miles away, and scattered around the Armenian-populated Havlabar neighborhood, are dozens of buildings once owned by the Mantachev family of oilmen. One such building, now standing on the site of a house once owned by the Mantachevs, is the Bedros Atamian Theater ? the Georgian government-subsidized Armenian theater. Except for a month during summer, Armenian actors perform six nights a week, attracting several hundred people who often use the theater more as a meeting place than a home of Armenian culture.

 

?Community problems are solved here, and sometimes the committee in charge of the theater acts like an Armenian mini-parliament. People come here for help to solve their real life dramas,? says newspaper editor Van Baybourtian.

 

Havlabar is also home to most of the ?cottage industry? for which the Armenians are most renowned. One such mini-industrialist is Levon Parseghian. Before the advent of a market economy, Parseghian was the manager of a small government-owned shoe factory. ?I now pay rent to the government, and the entire production is mine. I pay the 40 workers and other expenses. I cannot say I own the factory, but neither does the government,? he says.

 

His long-time friend Albert Khatchadourian runs a similar enterprise. ?Some Armenian factory foremen are taking advantage of the new conditions and taking the first steps toward private ownership. But typical of all Armenians here, most are careful. They are keeping their cards close to their chests,? Khatchadourian says.

 

The Armenians of Tbilisi have always found security in Havlabar ? like fellow Armenians in parts of Los Angeles and the Bourj Hamoud neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon. ?There is a subconscious attraction towards Havlabar, more so today than any other time.We just feel safer together,? says a local shopkeeper.

[Arpa]

More about Havlabar;

 

ArmeniaNow Nov. 2002

 

http://www.armenianow.com/2002/november22/...edrestingplace/