by which the great universal female Deity of the ancients has
been transformed into a male god. We are assured that the
"redundant nomenclature of the deities of Babylon renders an
interpretation of them impossible. Each divinity has many
distinct names, by which he is indifferently designated." It is
observed that each
Deity has as many as forty or fifty titles, each of which
represents a certain attribute.
Since the invention of the cuneiform alphabet, by which pictures
have been reduced to phonetic signs, the attempt has been made to
arrange or classify these gods according to their proper order in
the Pantheon, but thus far much obscurity and doubt seem to
pervade their history.
In Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian mythologies are observed
much confusion and no small degree of mystery surrounding the
positions occupied by certain gods. "Children not unfrequently
change positions with parents," but more frequently, we are told,
"women change places with men," or, more properly speaking, the
titles, attributes, and qualities ascribed to the Great Universal
female God are now transferred to the reigning monarch. Thus not
unfrequently a deity is observed which is composed of a male
triad, the central figure of which is the king or military
chieftain, and to which is usually appended a straggling fourth
member, a female, who, shorn of her power, and with a doubtful
and mysterious title, appears as wife or mistress to his
greatness, while upon her is reflected, through him, a slight
hint of that dignity and honor which was originally recognized as
belonging exclusively to the recognized Deity.
The Goddess Vishnu, from whose navel as she slept on the bottom
of the sea sprang all creation, after her transformation into a
male God, is supplemented by a wife--Lacksmir. Lacksmir means
wisdom; but she has become only an appendage to her "lord," upon
whom is reflected all her former glory.
So greedy did rulers become for the splendid titles belonging to
the female divinities that we are told that "the name of the
Great Goddess Astarte not unfrequently appears as that of a man."
Although man had usurped the titles of the female God and had
denied her recognition as an active creative agency, still, as
nothing could be created without her, she was permitted, as we
have seen, to remain as wife or mistress to the reigning monarch,
in whom had come to reside infinite wisdom and power. Her symbol
