Mesopotamia Geography And Religion Essay

Geography not only plays a part in the spread of a religion but also can be inspiration or reflection for the religion itself. Many societies have numerous deities inspired by the landscape in and around their civilization. However, I believe not all religions drew inspiration from the land they lived in. Mesopotamian societies had multiple gods. Most deities represented cosmic forces of nature such as the sun, moon, water, and storms who were responsible for the creation of the earth (World Societies p. 36). There were also gods of lesser things such as love and scribal arts. Looking at Mesopotamia’s geography, you can see how it might have served as inspiration for deities. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers surrounding Babylon could’ve been inspirations for the many water gods like Apsu, Enki, and Tiamat, as could the Persian Gulf located nearby. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods are depicted as harsh and wrathful because they decide to wipe out the human race with a flood just because they make too much noise (Ward p.20). The gods’ destructive nature is likely based off the chaos caused by flooding from the Tigris and Euphrates. Storm gods like Marduk could’ve been connected to the Zagros mountain range nearby where lighting and

If you look at the pantheon of gods from the Hindu period, you’ll see most of them are based off of concepts rather than natural forces. In Hinduism, there are three main gods: Brahma, the creator; Shiva, the cosmic destroyer; and Vishnu, the preserver and sustainer of creation (World Societies p.77). None of these gods seem to reflect any sort of geographical influence in them, rather being a reflection of metaphysical concepts like unity, creation, death, and reincarnation. Other ancient Indian religions such as Jainism and Buddhism don’t even have gods, rather they have central figures like Siddhartha Guatma whose teachings are the basis of