Ishara

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ishara (išḫara) is the Hittite word for "treaty, binding promise", also personified as a goddess of the oath. The word is attested as a loanword in the Assyrian Kültepe texts from the 19th century BC, and is as such the earliest attestation of a word of any Indo-European language.

The name is from a PIE root *sh₂ei "to bind (also magically)", char in Bulgarian "magical charming", also in Greek himas "strap" and Old Norse / Old High German seil "rope". Possibly also cognate is soul, and Welsh Gwen-hwyfar (Irish Find-abair, from Proto-Celtic *windo-seibaro- "white ghost", from a meaning "enchanted" of the extended root *sh₂ei-bh-).

As a goddess, Ishara could inflict severe bodily penalties to oathbreakers, in particular ascites (see Hittite military oath). In this context, she came to be seen as a "goddess of medicine" whose pity was invoked in case of illness. There was even a verb, isharis- "to be afflicted by the illness of Ishara".

ishar (or eshar), oblique ishan-, the Hittite for "blood" is probably derived from the same root, maybe from a notion of "bond" between blood-relations (c.f. Sanskrit bandhu). The verb ishiya "to bind, fetter", "to oblige" is directly cognate to Sanskrit syati or Russian shyot with similar meanings.

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article. (Discuss)

Ishara was also a famous Babylonian mother goddess - Goddess of Love and Fertility. A goddess who seems to have been more closely connected with the Semitic tradition than the Sumerian. Her worship may have spread into southern Mesopotamia from the Middle Euphrates region. As a goddess of love, she is equated with Ishtar (Inana); in other guises she is associated with war and with extispicy (see divination), or else appears to be a mother goddess.

This Ishara's main Mesopotamian cult centre was the Babylonian town of Kisurra, but she is also thought to have been worshipped across a wide area amongst Syrians, Canaanites, and Hittites.

"Ishara first appears in the pre-Sargonic texts from Ebla and then as a goddess of love in Old Akkadian potency-incantations (Biggs). During the Ur III period she had a temple in Drehem and from the Old Babylonian time onwards, there were sanctuaries in Sippar, Larsa and Harbidum. In Mari she seems to have been very popular and many women were called after her, but she is well attested in personal names in Babylonia generally up to the late Kassite period. Her main epithet was belet rame, 'Lady of Love, which was also applied to Ishtar. In the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet II, col. v.28) it says: 'For Ishara the bed is made' and in Atra-hasis (see Flood-myths) (I 301-304) she is called upon to bless the couple on the honeymoon.

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article. (Discuss)

An important goddess of the same name was worshipped in south-east Anatolia and northern Syria, within the Hurrian pantheon. She was associated with the underworld.

Her astrological embodiment is the constellation Scorpio and she is called the mother of the Sebittu (the Seven Stars) (Seux, 343). Ishara was well known in Syria from the third millennium B.C. (Ebla). She became a great goddess of the Hurrian population. She was worshipped with Teshub and Simegi at Alakh, and also at Ugarit, Emar and Chagar Bazar. While she was considered to belong to the entourage of Ishtar, she was invoked to heal the sick (Lebrun)."

(pp. 94-95. "Ishara/Eshara." Gwendolyn Leick. A Dictionary of Ancient Eastern Mythology. London. Routledge. 1991)