[Compiled
by: Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]
Because of agriculture,the human population rouse hugely.Because
people stopped moving around in bands of hunter-gatherers and settled down to
look after crops and animals.Also the arrival of farming meant the emergence of
the Home & home land.Hence initially,they developed villages,then
towns,then civilizations.Without farming-no class divisions,no surplus to
elevate kings & priests ,no armies,no french revolution,no moon landing.But
it also produced an immense political changes,as hierarchies grew from the
sweat and success of farmers,same farmers also become slaves to full time
leaders such as king & priests on the name of god & religion . Being
slaves of the gods was not easy.The sumerians had to work hard to keep their
gods happy.How could they know what would please the gods?Only the priests
could tell them .The priests interpreted the will or Message of the gods.They
tried to learn what had pleased the gods in the past and what had made them angry.Because of this
special knowledge the priests became very powerful and important people in
society.The sumerians did what priests told them,because they believed that by
obeying them they were obeying the gods.So the priests were able to make the
sumerians work long and hard.It is a hard life.Early sumerian farmers had to
cut down trees, irrigating fields,hand-ploughing with branches & harvesting
with slate and stone. sickles . These with compound of fear of the crop being
eaten by animals,shows that these early
sumerian farmers had in general worse health and lived shorter lives than their
hunter-gatherer predecessors.For example,the height of the agricultural
revolution,five thousand years ago,men lived on average to thirty three
years.The priests told them when to plant and when to harvest.They told them
when to dig canals and when to build earth walls.They also decided when the
people should make war and when to make peace.Sumerian priests had once worked
the fields alongside others, but now they were separated from commoners. A
corporation run by
priests became the greatest landowners among the Sumerians.
The priests hired the poor to work their land and claimed that land was really
owned by the gods. Priests had become skilled as scribes, and in some cities
they sat with the city's council of elders.However Priests also played a very
important role in building the first civilization.
For Sumerians, religion wasn’t just a matter of church on Sunday or
temple on Friday. They worshipped every day, all day. Their gods controlled
every move they made, Sumerians believed that their role in the universe was to
serve the gods who were neither good nor evil. They were simply powerful and
required constant appeasement. To this end the ancient Sumerians devoted much
of their time to ensuring their favor with the gods with worship, prayer, and
sacrifice . Sacrificial offerings of food and animals were routine.The gifts
were taken to the temple (called a ziggurat) and given to the priests. It was
believed that the priests could speak to the gods and offer them the gifts from
the people. Idols, amulets and charms were also important. The high gods,
however, were believed to have more important things to do than to attend to
the common man's every day prayers, and so personal gods were devised as
intermediaries between man and the high gods. The personal gods listened to the
prayers and relayed them to the high gods.
Due to the emergence of the Home & home land, each sumerian
city also
had its own special gods,other than the prime or chief gods of
nature.They believed that this one special god owned the city,the land and the
people.The priests of the city ruled in place of this god. To honour this god
the priests made the people build a temple.It was the largest and most
important building in a sumerian city.It rose above the city like a hill.This
temple was known as a Ziggarat. Because the mesopotamian world was a
muddy,watery,sun-backed flat land,It is not surprising that its most
characteristic major buildings would be Ziggarat,raised pyramid-platforms where
god could be worshipped .All around the world people have associated gods with
height and in this land of no mountains the only way to reach up was to build.
Other than their patron god,also had
small shrines dedicated to other gods. The ziggurats housed workshops for
craftsmen as well as temples for worship.There were artisans who sculpted, cut
gems, fullers who stomped on woven wools to soften cloth, and metal workers who
crafted weapons as well as artistic creations..Some ziggurats were as high as
70 feet.The sumerians believed that the god lived on the top of the Ziggarat..
Daily sacrifices were made consisting of animals and foods, such as wine, beer,
milk, and meats. Additionally special occasions called for spectacular
festivities that would sometimes last for days. Special feasts took place on
the day of the new moon, on the 7th, 15th, and last day of the month. However,
the most important day by far was the New Year.Three times a day the priests
brought food & drink to the god.Only the priests were allowed to enter the
room where the god lived.The head of the temple was called the
"sanga". The "sanga" was responsible for ensuring the
temple's finances, buildings, and day-to-day activities were all in good order.
The "en" was the spiritual leader of the temple. The "en"
could be a man or woman depending upon the deity. Under the "en" were
various priest classes, such as the guda, mah, gala, nindingir, and ishib. The
roles of all of these classes is not known, though the "ishib" was in
charge of libations, and the "gala" was a poet or singer.
Ordinary Sumerians believed that the gods controlled the past and
the future, that the gods had revealed to them the skills that they possessed,
including writing, and that the gods had provided them with all they needed to
know. They had no vision of their civilization having developed by their own
efforts. They had no vision of technological or social progress.Sumerian
priests altered the stories that they told, creating a new twist to old tales –
without acknowledging this as a human induced change or wondering why they had
failed to get it right the first time. New ideas were simply revelations from
the gods.
We also learned from sangam literature that the popular god of
Tamil living in mountain & people worshipped him with offerings to cure
their distresses.Two such poem-
Ainkurunuru 243 & Akananuru 22- are given below:
“If you make offerings
to the god of the mountains
where pepper vines grow,
she will be cured of her affliction,”
the ignorant diviner says to you.
Mother, you trust everything he says.
Her eyes that look like fresh flowers
are drenched in distress."[Ainkurunuru 243]
"He’s from the country where gods live
in tall mountains and forests abound
with huge waterfalls...............................
A pavilion is well erected,
a spear is garlanded, and
our big house reverberates with loud
music. Offerings with
beautiful red millet
mixed with [goat’s]blood are given to invite
Murukan ......................................."[Akananuru
22]
Note:Also we find from Akananuru 242 that the blood which is mixed
with red millet is goat’s blood:Akananuru 242;"...before a young goat’s
life is offered, I must go and see my lover...."
PART:41 WILL FOLLow NEXT WEEK..