Enki's Seven Sages (Adapa/Oannes and the Apkallu): Humanity's Cosmic Guardians (original) (raw)
In contrast to the cruel and militant gods, who treated humans as pawns in their power struggle, Enki is remembered not just as a benevolent god who saved the human race from extermination, but who also imparted knowledge. Especially scholarly disciplines like divination, astrology, astronomy, lamentation and exorcism were considered a revelation by Enki. The Catalogue of Texts and Authors attests that a handbook of medical symptoms comes "of the mouth of Ea", "Adapa wrote them down at his dictation." Enki was helped by his Seven Sages-the apkallu (Adapa being the main one)-the cosmic guardians who disseminated his knowledge, and were remembered as teachers of humankind and laying the foundation of civilization. According to Berossus, "from that time nothing further has been discovered." Sometime around the Flood they disappeared, descending to the abode of Enki. This transition is reflected in the change from semi-divine sages or culture-heroes (apkallu) to scholars (ummanu).
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The current master's thesis is a continuation of a bachelor's thesis defended in June 2004 at the Faculty of Theology of Tartu University under the title "Diachronical Analysis of the Theological Concept of Enki and Ea." I would like to express my deep gratitude to Thomas Richard Kämmerer, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies of the Faculty of Theology at Tartu University, for supervising the thesis and providing me with several critical comments during the preparation of the study. I am especially thankful to Professor Walther Sallaberger, whose suggestions and critical remarks during my six-month stay at the Institut für
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Crowley uses his personal engagement with Buddhism and a review and analysis of ancient texts as a basis to address evidence for entheogenic substances in Tibetan Buddhism. Crowley provides a wide-ranging analysis of an idea that has gained increasing popularity-and controversy-that ancient Buddhist practices involved the use of entheogens. Crowley provides analyses of myth and ritual practices that reveal information regarding the identities of entheogenic sacraments of Buddhism and Hinduism. Crowley places his considerations of entheogen use in the context of the development of the Aryan peoples (Indo-European speakers) and the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). In contrast to a longstanding view that the entheogenic soma traditions of the Vedas originated in the Indo-Aryan civilization, Crowley contends the Indo-Aryans obtained it from IVC. Depictions of ceramic strainers associated with soma ritual resemble much earlier artifacts of the Harappan civilization, indicating that the prototype Iranian haoma and Indic soma traditions derived from cultural transfer from the IVC sacramental practices. This interpretation is consistent with the lack of central psychoactive sacramental rituals among other ancient Indo-European cultures, the exceptions being the related soma of India and haoma in Iran. Further evidence of IVC origins of Vedic/Brahman deities comes from the Aryan deity Rudra, also identified with Agni ("fire") and Soma. Rudra appears to have been derived from a Dravidian deity that entered the Aryan belief system after they arrived in the Indus Valley since the characteristic features (an archer with horns and a tail) are represented on IVC seals. This background and arguments are, however, largely incidental to Crowley's main arguments. Crowley's analyses focus on a central myths of a more recent phase (since 500 BCE), the period that gave rise to new gods and heroes expressed in the epics Mah abh arata and the R am ayan _ a and myths known as pur an _ as ("ancient tales") that conveyed the beliefs of the non-Aryan Indian populations and supported the emergence of Vajray ana Buddhism. The meanings behind these Vajray ana deities nonetheless came from Hindu myth and ritual, and it is the tracing of these similarities between the deities of Hindu and Vajray ana in their characteristics that provides the basis of Crowley's arguments that Buddhist amr _ ita is the Vedic soma. Crowley's analysis focuses on the Vedic myth called The Churning of the Ocean, a later account of the origins of soma sacrament. Here we learn of how the Vedic gods stole soma from the asuras, a group outside of the castes that represented the shamanic practitioners of the IVC. Crowley analyzes and compares the Vedic account with the Tibetan Buddhist Vajray ana text Immaculate Crystal Garland which recounts the principal events of the Churning of the Ocean myth, showing its origins in the earlier Sanskrit version. The parallels between Tibetan Buddhist accounts of the origin of amr _ ita as described in The Immaculate Crystal Garland and the origins of soma as related in The Churning of the Ocean reveals the origins of the Buddhist amr _ ita in the Vedic soma. While soma and amr _ ita are used interchangeably in Hinduism, the entheogen is only referred to as amr _ ita in Vajray ana Buddhism. Crowley links the features of various Vajray ana deities to the red cap or other features of the fly agaric mushroom or the purple-necked Psilocybe cubensis. Another significant entheogenic feature involves one of the fourteen "treasures" Kamadhenu (meaning, "desire
Journal for The Study of The Pseudepigrapha, 2010
In the article, it is argued that the origin of Watchers derives from the Mesopotamian mythology of the antediluvian sages (apkallus). More precisely, it is proposed that the mythology of Watchers and their sons the giants derived from inverted versions of various Mesopotamian myths and beliefs about apkallus. On some layers of Mesopotamian mythology and ritual practices, the sages were already regarded as dangerous and potentially malicious creatures, upon which the Jewish authors could build their parody. Among other associations, the apkallus had strong ties to Mesopotamian demonology, and they were occasionally counted as evil beings, capable of witchcraft. This shows that the wickedness of antediluvian teachers of humankind in Jewish sources was not wholly an inversion of the Mesopotamian traditions by Jewish scholars, but was partly taken from already existing trends in Mesopotamian demonology.
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The extant texts of Enochic Judaism present accounts about the early history of humankind, which use the motifs familiar from the ancient Mesopotamian historiography. The different versions of the Jewish story of the Watchers originate as counter narratives about the antediluvian sages, or apkallus, which are known from the cuneiform literature. The myth of Adapa in Akkadian offers a version of the narrative in which the sage was promoted in heaven to a god-like status, which concept is corroborated with an entry in the cuneiform compendium Tintir and the Chronicle of the Esagila. This tradition also associated Adapa with the immortalized flood survivor. In the form of a counter narrative, the Enochic texts of Judaism attributed the heavenly assumption to Enoch and presented the Watchers as the demonic entities subordinated to him. The fall of the Watchers, the promotion of Enoch, and the primordial battle against evil forces are depicted in the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch 85–90. A very similar scenario is found in the Chronicle of Esagila, which describes the early history of humankind from the Babylonian perspective. It can be demonstrated that the Animal Apocalypse uses this or a similar cuneiform historiographic source as the basis of its counter narrative.
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