Apam Napat
{{Short description|Deity in the Indo-Iranian pantheon}}
{{Infobox deity
| type = Zoroastrian
| deity_of = God of Water
Son of the Waters
| other_names = Burz
| script_name = Avestan
| script = Apam Napat 𐬀𐬞𐬄𐬨 𐬥𐬀𐬞𐬁𐬙
| gender = Male
| symbol = Water
| affiliation = The Thirty-Three Deities, Four Elements
| mount = Swift Horse
| abode = Vourukasha Ocean
| festivals = Maidyoshahem
| equivalent1_type = Sumerian
| equivalent1 = Abzu
| equivalent2_type = Indian
| equivalent2 = Varuna
| greek_equivalent = Poseidon
| roman_equivalent = Neptune
}}
{{Zoroastrianism sidebar}}
Apam Napat is a deity in the Indo-Iranian pantheon associated with water. His names in the Vedas, Apām Napāt, and in Zoroastrianism, Apąm Napāt, mean "child of the waters" in Sanskrit and Avestan respectively. Napāt ("grandson", "progeny") is cognate with Latin nepos and English nephew.{{efn|name=a|Georges Dumézil and others have suggested an alternative origin for the name, which ties it etymologically to other Indo-European deities such as Etruscan Nethuns, Celtic Nechtan and Roman Neptune (see etymology of Neptune).{{cite book |last=Philibert |first=Myriam |year=1997 |title=Les Mythes préceltiques |place=Monaco |publisher=Éditions du Rocher |pages=244–247}}{{cite book |last=Dumézil |first=Georges |author-link=Georges Dumézil |year=1995 |title=Mythe et Epopée |volume=III |publisher=Quarto Gallimard, pub. Éditions Gallimard |isbn=2-07-073656-3 |page=40}}}} In the Rig Veda, he is described as the creator of all things. It is considered to originate from the Proto-Indo-European Hepom Nepōts.{{sfn|Mallory|Adams|2006|page=410}}
In the Vedas it is often apparent that Apām Napāt is being used as a title, not a proper name. This is most commonly applied to Agni, god of fire, and occasionally to Savitr, god of the sun. A correspondence has also been posited by Boyce between both the Vedic and Avestic traditions of Apam Napat, and Varuna, who is also addressed as "Child of the Waters", and is considered a god of the sea.{{Cite web |title= Apąm Napāt |url=https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/apam-napat |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240716182341/https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/apam-napat |archive-date=2024-07-16 |website=Encyclopædia Iranica}}{{cite book |last=Boyce |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Boyce |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42 |title=A History of Zoroastrianism: The Early Period |publisher=BRILL |year=1989 |isbn=90-04-08847-4 |pages=42–43, 45, 47–48 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301015630/https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2023-03-01 |url-status=live}}{{rp|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47 47–48]}} In the Iranian tradition, he is also called Burz ("high one," {{langx|fa|برز|}}) and is a yazad.{{rp|pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA42 42–43]}}
Role
As a member of the Iranian ahuric triad, along with Ahura Mazda and Mithra, Apąm Napāt – also named Ahura Berezaiti – is an exalted figure.
In Yasht 19 of the Zoroastrian Avesta Apąm Napāt appears as the creator of mankind. However, since in Zoroastrianism Ahura Mazdā is venerated as supreme creator, this function of Apąm Napāt has become reduced. This is one reason Apąm Napāt is no longer widely worshipped, though he is still honoured daily through the Zoroastrian liturgies. The creator-god status is also seen in a hymn in honour of the Vedic Apām Napāt.{{cite book |title=Rig Veda |year=1896 |isbn=151711439X |edition=1896 |at=2.35.2 |translator=Griffith, Ralph T.H. |chapter=Son of Waters |chapter-url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv02035.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301015630/https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv02035.htm |archive-date=2023-03-01 |url-status=live |via=sacred-texts.com|author1= Anonymous|publisher= CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform}}
Alongside Mithra, Apąm Napāt maintains order in society, as well as Khvarenah, by which legitimate rule is maintained among the Iranian peoples. It is his duty to distribute water from the sea to all regions.{{cite book |title=Sacred Books of the East |year=1898 |edition=American |translator=Darmesteter, James |chapter=Yasht 8.34 |chapter-url=http://www.avesta.org/ka/yt8sbe.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240326232813/http://avesta.org/ka/yt8sbe.htm |archive-date=2024-03-26 |url-status=live}}
Fire and water
In one Vedic hymn Apām Napāt is described as emerging from the water, golden, and "clothed in lightning", which has been conjectured to be a reference to fire. His regular identification with Agni, who is described a number of times as hiding or residing in water,{{cite book |title=Satapatha Brahmana |edition=1882 |translator=Eggeling, Julius |chapter=Part 1 (SBE12) 1:2:3:1 |chapter-url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/sbe12/sbe1209.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301185312/https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/sbe12/sbe1209.htm |archive-date=2024-03-01 |url-status=live |via=sacred-texts.com}}{{Cite web |others=Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith |title=The Rig Veda/Mandala 7/Hymn 49 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_7/Hymn_49 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512130530/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_7/Hymn_49 |archive-date=2023-05-12 |website=Wikisource}}{{Cite web |others=Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith |title=The Rig Veda/Mandala 3/Hymn 1 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The%20Rig%20Veda/Mandala%203/Hymn%201 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230509212713/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_3/Hymn_1 |archive-date=2023-05-09 |website=Wikisource}} and comparison with other Indo-European texts, have led some to speculate about the existence of a Proto-Indo-European myth featuring a fire deity born from water.{{cite book |author=West, M.L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA270 |title=Indo-European Poetry and Myth |date=24 May 2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-928075-9 |edition=Reprint |pages=270–272 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240802055946/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA270P#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2024-08-02 |url-status=live}}
Other such mentions include the ninth-century Skaldic poem Ynglingatal, which uses the kenning sævar niðr 'kinsman of the sea' to refer to fire,{{Cite journal |last=Marold |first=Edith |date=2012 |title=Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal 4 |url=http://skaldic.org/m.php?p=verse&i=4399 |journal=Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages |language=en |volume=1 |pages=14}} and an old Armenian poem in which a reed in the middle of the sea spontaneously catches fire, from which springs the hero Vahagn, with fiery hair and eyes that blaze like sun.
=Conjectured original fireless myth=
Whether fire was an original part of Apam Napat's nature remains a matter of debate, especially since this connection is absent from the Iranian version. Hermann Oldenberg believed Apam Napat was originally an independent water deity who later came to be associated with Agni, in part because of an ancient Indian belief that water contained fire within itself, fire appearing to "enter into" water when quenched by it.{{Cite book |last=Oldenberg |first=Hermann |url=https://archive.org/details/diereligiondesv00oldegoog |title=Die Religion des Veda |year=1894 |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=100–119 |language=de |trans-title=The Religion of the Veda}}{{rp|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA45 45]}}
Associations with Savitr could be understood as similarly deriving from an image of the setting sun sinking into the ocean. Another theory explains the connection between fire and water through lightning, "the flash of fire born from the rainbearing clouds".{{cite journal |last=Findly |first=Ellison Banks |year=1979 |title=The 'Child of the Waters': A Revaluation of Vedic Apāṃ Napāt |journal=Numen |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=164–184 |doi=10.2307/3269717 |jstor=3269717 }}
='Swamp gas' conjecture=
Based on the idea that this fire-from-water image was inspired by flaming seepage natural gas,{{cite book |last1=Tyrrell |first1=Maliheh S. |date=2000 |title=Aesopian Literary Dimensions of Azerbaijani Literature of the Soviet Period, 1920-1990 |page=34 |publisher=Lexington Books}} attempts have been made to connect the name "Apam Napat" to the word "naphtha", which passed into Greek – and thence English – from an Iranian language.
However, there is only a modest amount of evidence for a link between the sacred fires of Iranian religion and petroleum or natural gas – although the account of the blowing of the 3 sacred fires out to sea from the back of the ox Srishok where, unquenched, they continue to burn on the water{{cite book |title=Bundahishn |chapter=chapter 18 verses 8–9 |chapter-url=}} is suggestive – particularly in relation to hydrocarbon deposits in the Southwestern part of the Caspian Sea, exploited currently by the Absheron gas field near Baku in Azerbaijan.
The etymology of the word "naphtha" has been claimed likely to relate to the Akkadian napṭu, "petroleum".{{cite book |author=Forbes |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nc4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13 |title=Studies in Ancient Technology |publisher=Brill Archive |year=1966 |page=13 |id=GGKEY:YDBU5XT36QD |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200202094805/https://books.google.com/books?id=nc4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2020-02-02 |url-status=live}}
See also
Notes
{{notelist}}
References
{{reflist|25em}}
=Works cited=
- {{Cite book |last1=Mallory |first1=James P. |title=The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World |date=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tF5wAAAAIAAJ |location=Oxford, England |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-929668-2 |last2=Adams |first2=Douglas Q.}}
Further reading
- {{cite journal |last=Af Edholm |first=Kristoffer |year=2017 |title=Royal splendour in the waters: Vedic Śri-̄́ and Avestan Xvarənah- |journal=Indo-Iranian Journal |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=17–73 |doi=10.1163/15728536-06001002 |jstor=26546262 |access-date=9 May 2021 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26546262|url-access=subscription }}
- {{cite journal |last=Magoun |first=Herbert W. |year=1898 |title=Apāṁ Napāt in the Rig-Veda |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=19 |pages=137–144 |doi=10.2307/592476|jstor=592476 }}
External links
- {{cite encyclopedia |title=Apąm Napāt |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Iranica |url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/apam-napat}}
- {{cite web |url=https://www.academia.edu/4277610 |title=Apāṁ Napāt, Dīrghatamas, and construction of the brick altar. Analysis of RV 1.143 |first=Laszlo |last=Forizs|work=Vedic Investigations, orig. eds. Asko Parpola, Masato Fujii and Stanley Insler. Papers of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference: 97–126 (Helsinki, Finland, 13–18 July, 2003), eds. Asko Parpola and Petteri Koskikallio. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2016 }} ({{cite web |title=Laszlo Forizs personal site|url=https://tkbf.academia.edu/LaszloForizs}})
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