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The seven Sages Enki: mysterious beings mentioned in many ancient cultures

Lucifer Rising

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Alternative researchers have long written about the Gods-«civilizers». But in the shadow of the gods remain little-known and mysterious creatures, mentions of which were in many ancient cultures. These are the Seven Sages, whose memory has been greatly transformed by time and distance, and has come down to our days.

In the myths of many peoples, there is a story about how the gods transmit knowledge, technology and culture to people. Such Gods can be called «civilizers». But the role and essence of the mysterious beings who also had a «civilizing» function, the so-called «Seven Sages», is not so obvious.

The origins of the tradition should, as usual, be sought in ancient Sumer. It is there that the most ancient, and therefore the least distorted, information about the Seven Sages is found.

In Sumerian mythology, the seven wise assistants of the god of wisdom Enki were called Abgallu (or Apkallu in Akkadian). According to legend, these sages were created by Enki, and came to people from the world ocean of Abzu, which is reflected in their name (Ab – water, Gal – big, Lu – man). There are references to Abgallu in the Uruk List of Kings and Sages (165 BC), Berosus ' Babylonica, the Poem of Err, and the incantation tablets.

To the first Sumerian kings (who ruled before the great flood), the Abgallu sages served as advisors and ministers, and were also priests of the god Enki. But, apparently, they were not just disinterested helpers and benefactors, but were assigned by the gods to the kings for the purpose of performing a control and supervisory function. It is no accident that in the «Uruk List of Kings and Sages» next to the name of each reigning king, the name of the «curator»-the sage-is necessarily placed. And before the flood, the seven sages are called «abgallu», and after the flood, the word «ummanu» is used, meaning a human sage, which separates and distinguishes them from the semi-divine abgallu.

The names and brief descriptions of each Abgallu have come down to us, but that doesn't make them any clearer.:
– Uanna, «who finished plans for heaven and earth»;
– Uannedugga, «who was endowed with all-round intelligence»;
– Enmedugga, «who was given a good fate»;
– Enmegalamma, «who was born in the house»;
– Enmebulugga, «who grew up in a pasture»;
– En-Enlilda, «the magician of the city of Eridu»;
– Utuabzu, «who ascended to heaven».

The sages founded the first seven Sumerian cities, and were also the guardians of the divine «mes» (Akkadian paršu) or «tables of destinies». The Sumerian word «mes» or «me» means mysterious and powerful divine forces, knowledge, technologies, concepts. The Sumerians believed that some «mes» were transmitted to people by the gods through their intermediaries – the Seven Sages of Abgallu, who also taught people the crafts and arts received from Enki, who, in turn, received «mes» from the god Enlil.

In Assyrian and Babylonian art, the Abgallu were depicted as half-human, half-fish, people with bird heads and (or) wings.

Of course, the presence of some mythical creatures in the Sumerians alone does not prove anything. However, the traditions of the seven sages are also found in other peoples, for example, the Indians of the Vedic period. In Sanskrit, the «seven sages» were called Saptarishi. The Rig Veda already tells about the seven main «great» rishis. There they bear the epithet «divine», «fathers» and are mentioned together with the Gods. They don't have any specific names yet. In Shatapatha-brahman, they are already individualized and given names. The seven Rishis were identified with the seven stars of Ursa Major.

The seven spiritual sons of Brahma in Indian mythology are called Manasa-putra (in Sanskrit, «sons of the spirit»). They are considered the creators of the universe and the progenitors of all living beings.

These sages are so important that during the Great Flood, the gods tell us to save them first. The Mahabharata (Book of the Forest, Chapter 185) recounts the Matsiaka Purana, which tells how Brahma, in the form of a fish, instructs the Indian «Noah» Manu to take seven holy sages and plant seeds in a boat to save them from the Flood.

The Rig Veda also mentions the Adityas – the seven cosmic deities headed by Varuna. These lower deities lived in the sky and were considered the sons of Aditi («infinity») and the sage Kashyapa. There have been attempts to draw a parallel between them and the Zoroastrian ameshaspents.

In the mythology of the ancient Iranians, which has common roots with the Vedic Indian, the seven sages were transformed into «holy immortals», in the Avestan language – Amesha-Spenta. In Zoroastrianism, the ameshaspents are the six supreme spirits of the kingdom of light, the protectors of good: from them comes the creation of all visible, good things, and by their decision everything perfect and good is realized and preserved. And although there are six ameshaspents themselves, but together with the god Ahura-Mazda (in Avestan – «The Wise God»), whose closest assistants and confidants they are, the Amesh-Spenta make up the «holy week» (seven).

In the later Persian religion, each of the Amesha-Spenta was attributed the patronage of a certain area in the creative life. To explain the essence of ameshaspents, one usually uses the metaphor of six candles lit from a single candle. Perhaps this metaphor is the origin of the symbol of the menorah, or the seven candlesticks of the Jews, described in the Bible as «six branches coming out of the lamp» (Exodus 25:31-36). From the winged messengers of the Abgallu of Mesopotamia and the holy immortal spirits of the Ameshaspents of Persia, the legend of the seven supernatural beings migrated in a perverted form to the religion of the Jews, and later to the seven «Christian archangels». This is recognized even by the Rabbinic tradition: «The names of the angels were brought by the Jews from Babylon» (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah I, 2; Bereshit Rabbah, 48).

But the memory of the seven sages lived not only in the religious tradition. It is known that the culture and science of Ancient Greece were greatly enriched by borrowing from Mesopotamia. After getting acquainted with the Babylonian legends about the seven sages, the Hellenes began to call their outstanding people so. Since the seventh century BC, the list of the «seven sages» included especially revered thinkers, politicians, and public figures. And not only Hellas. It can be assumed that the title «seven sages» in Hellas was a «position» and not a title, since ancient sources give different combinations of names, and invariably only four are included. Some authors have mentioned in this list the mythical poet Orpheus, and even Zoroaster.

Echoes of the memory of the first teachers of humanity have reached the Far East.

India and China are among the oldest civilizations in the world and have co-existed side by side for thousands of years. Since ancient times, there has been a cultural exchange between India and China. The first records of contact between China and India appeared in the second century BC. With the beginning of the spread of Buddhism (which is no less corrupted by the enemy) from India to China in the first century AD, contacts between the two cultures became more intense. During the Han Dynasty (second century), a serious penetration of Indian goods and ideas into the empire began. And not only through the Great Silk Road, but also by sea. So from India to the Chinese tradition could get the legend of the seven Indian Rishis sailing on a boat. In the Middle Kingdom, they became the Eight Immortals of Taoism.

The Eight Immortals are a group of legendary sages in Chinese mythology. Each of them was a patron of a certain type of activity or social group, professional or age. The word «immortal» meant a saint, a celestial, a sage.

While cults dedicated to various Taoist immortals date back to the Han Dynasty, the popularity and prominence of the Eight Immortals as an established group first appeared during the Jin Dynasty (12th-13th centuries).

Why did the seven Indian sages in China become eight? There may be two explanations here.

First, Hindus like to exaggerate. If the Rig Veda describes 33 deities, then in later sources you can find references to 330 million deities. Similarly, if seven rishis are mentioned in the Rig Veda, then in the Puranas Vayu and Vishnu, one more rishis is added to the seven, and in the Gopatha-brahman (1.2.8), nine rishis are already mentioned. In such cases, you should trust more ancient sources.

Secondly, the time of the beginning of the penetration of the concept of the «seven sages» on the Chinese land (II century) and the time of fixing the first mention of the Eight Immortals (XII century) is separated by a thousand years. During this time, the Chinese civilization changed the Indian sages beyond recognition, changing the names, images, characters, roles, and even the number of rishis. As has always been the case in China, they have filled the alien form with their own content. Why did there become eight sages? The fact is that the eight, even for modern Chinese, is almost a sacred number. Eight is the number of wealth, prosperity, and fertility. It was no accident that there were eight trigrams. According to Feng Shui, the number 8 is used as a protective sign. I think that the Chinese could not resist the temptation to add one sage to the seven «canonical ones».

From India and China, the legend reached Japan, where the seven sages became the seven gods of happiness. They can still be seen in the form of netsuke figures on the shelves of souvenir shops. As representatives of three religions-Shinto, Buddhism and Taoism, they have become part of Japanese New Year's folklore. The seven gods of happiness sail on the mythical ship Takarabune, which means «treasure ship». Their educational function is expressed in the fact that they carry «treasures» – magic items, technologies and scrolls of books of wisdom and life. That is, knowledge. Curiously, all seven gods of happiness are of Indian or Chinese origin, except Ebisu. But his name also comes from the term «outlander» or «barbarian», so his Japanese origin is questionable.

The memory of the seven Sages spread from India and to the west. But in this direction, the story degenerated into a fairy tale, in which the essence, role and context of the «seven sages» were completely forgotten, only the concept itself was preserved. Overcoming borders, language barriers, and religious divisions, the book of the seven sages (Sinbad's Book, Sinbad-nam, Mishle Sindabar, the book of Sintipa, Dolopathos) traveled through countries and centuries. The story was written in India in Sanskrit, then translated into Avestan, from Avestan into Syriac and Arabic, and then into European languages. Hundreds of versions are known, including in Hebrew, Armenian, Georgian, Turkish, and Latin. Since neither the Indian original nor the Middle Persian intermediate have been preserved, it is difficult to judge the contents of the book.

Here, too, there is a tendency to increase the number of sages: in the early versions of the story, there are strictly seven, and in later versions it reaches ten. The book of the seven sages has come down to our times in the form of a fairy tale about a prince who was slandered by his stepmother and sentenced to death, which is postponed because of the instructive and symbolic stories of the seven wise advisers of the king. In medieval Europe, translations (reworkings, alterations) into all medieval European languages appeared in abundance. The Brockhaus and Ephron encyclopedic dictionary states that in terms of the number of translations, apart from the Bible, no book can compete with the history of the Seven Sages. In all these literary works, the seven sages act as a frame, that is, a means of mechanically combining disparate stories into one whole. The original Indian story may have originated in ancient folklore and may have originated in works that have a similar framing structure, such as the Indian Panchatantra, and may have served as a model for later works, from the tales of the Arabian Nights to Boccaccio's Decameron.

Who were these mysterious primordial seven sages? If we separate the bits of information from the later strata and the mythical husk, we can conclude that the Abgallu were demigods, perhaps the children of Enki, to whom the Gods transmitted knowledge in the first place,and through them to all people. After making sure that the state and temple management systems built by the gods functioned as they should, and making sure that people learned the knowledge and technologies passed on to them, the demigods left the historical scene, leaving only a shaky memory of themselves.
 

Al Jilwah: Chapter IV

"It is my desire that all my followers unite in a bond of unity, lest those who are without prevail against them." - Satan

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