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Similarities between greece and india religion
How has zeus influenced the greeks
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Greek mythology is composed of a vast collection of myths and teachings that belong to the ancient Greeks such as stories of their gods and heroes and explanations given to unexplainable phenomenons. The gods were called Olympians and ruled from high above on Mount Olympus. Originally, six gods ruled on Mount Olympus, but with time, more gods were born and power was divided between them. Three brothers: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades took possession of the elements of the earth. Together they ruled the sky, weather, water, metals and the underworld. These three gods were influential and played a major role in the Greek’s everyday life. Because they were so influential, the brother’s stories are known to most.
Zeus was the ultimate ruler of the Olympian gods as well as the lord of the sky and weather. Zeus was characterized by the Greeks as a regal man, mature with a sturdy figure and a long beard. He is usually depicted with a lightning bolt, royal scepter or with an eagle. He married Hera, his sister, but was infamous for his numerous affairs. He took a great interest in the well-being and the actions of mortals. He made it his job to
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watch over them and rewarded the truthful, charitable and fair while punishing those who were cruel and deceitful. Rhea, Zeus’ mother, had six children and Zeus was the youngest. Cronus, Zeus’ father, learned of a prophecy that foresaw the day he would be overthrown by one of his children, so Cronus swallowed his children. When Zeus was born, Rhea devised a plan to feed her husband a rock as her supposed child, and hide him away on the island of Crete isolated from the rest of the world until the time came for him to defeat his father. Guarded by seven good-tempered giants called Curetes, Zeus spent his younger years being raised in the Diktaean Cave. The Greeks said that every time Zeus would cry, the giants would mask the crying by banging noisily on their enormous shields with their swords so Cronus would not hear Zeus. Year passed and Zeus was now mature enough to battle his father and claim the Kingdom of the World. He declared war on Cronus and the Titans. His first action was to liberate his brothers and sisters from his father's stomach by tricking Cronus into taking a potion that would make him throw them up. With the help of his siblings, Zeus was ready to annihilate Cronus. For ten years, the six Olympians fought giants, monsters and Titans. The gods won battle after battle and Zeus overthrow the Titans. They were imprisoned in the depths of the underworld known as Tartarus where they could never escape. Finally, the Kingdom of the World was in his grasp. To be fair, Zeus drew lots with his brother Poseidon and Hades to see who would ultimately rule. Zeus won the draw and became lord of the Earth and the Sky and the ruler of Mount Olympus. Poseidon was the brother of Zeus and lord of the sea, rivers, flood and drought, earthquakes, and horses. He is second to Zeus in power among the Gods in Olympus. Poseidon is characterized as a middle- aged man with a muscular build and a long dark beard, holding a trident. He is married to Amphitrite, a granddaughter of the Titan Oceanus. Poseidon is worshiped by seamen but known to have a quarrelsome personality. Poseidon was the second child of Rhea and was swallowed whole by his father, Cronus, at birth. After decades of being trapped in the stomach of his father, Zeus released Poseidon and his four other siblings by making Cronus throw them up. Poseidon then helped Zeus by fighting a ten year war alongside of him against the Titans. When they had succeeded in destroying the Titans, the power was divided and Poseidon became lord of the water and king of horses. Being the ruler of the seas, Poseidon built an underwater palace near Aegea in Euboea. Occasionally he would visit Mount Olympus but isolated himself in his palace deep in the sea. Hades was the god of the Underworld, the lord of death and the dead.
He presided over funeral rituals and protected the right of the dead. Hades was also the lord of the hidden wealth of the earth from the gold, silver and other metals to the to the healthy seed-grain. Hades is characterized by the Greeks as a dark-beard, regal god. He always shown holding a bird-tipped sceptre. Hades desired a bride and Zeus offered him Persephone, daughter of Demeter. Knowing that the goddess would refuse marriage, he abducted her. Hades struck a deal Demeter and allowed Persephone to visit her mother half of the year. Because Persephone ate the fruit from Hades house, she was forced to stay in the Underworld the other half of the year. The common symbols of Hades are his helmet, that was used to keep him invisible and his three-headed dog,
Cerberus. Like his five other siblings, Hades was swallowed by his father at birth and was eventually rescued by Zeus. He became one of the six original Olympians. Hades then fought beside his brother Zeus and Poseidon to defeat the Titans, and imprison them into the depths of Tartus. The war lasted ten years and when it was over and the Olympians had won, the three brothers divided power. When he drew lots with his brothers, he became lord of the dead and king of all metals that come from the earth. His role was to maintain balance in the underworld.
The character Hades from the Disney movie Hercules is an allusion to Hades from Greek Mythology. The movie takes the traditional character of Hades as the god of the underworld from Greek mythology and makes it palatable for children.
There is no doubt in mythology that the king of gods, Zeus, is the most supreme and powerful, ruling the sky. He controls the thunderbolt, a symbol of power feared by both gods and mortals. The Greeks and Romans honored Zeus above all other gods. He is without mistake, the god of all gods. Their stories of Zeus are plenty; his designs have molded mythology from his birth. Zeus' victory in outwitting his intelligent wife, Metis, by swallowing her pregnant, was the gateway used by the Greeks and Romans to show Zeus as the greatest god to come since his father and grandfather. However, as the stories of the gods and goddesses unfold, the Greeks and Roman's interpretation of Zeus' characteristics are different. Zeus is always upheld as the king of gods, but his other personal attributes to his godly rein are conflicting. Zeus' characteristics of fearfulness of female deities, cunningness and use of trickery, and lust in Ovid's Metamorphoses compared to the Theogony are opposed due to Hesiod's true respect of Zeus versus Ovid's lack of respect of Jupiter in Roman mythology.
People idolized these beings and built stunning life-like sculptures of them. Zeus was the most important of all the Greek gods and also king of Mount Olympus. He became a king after overthrowing his father, who was a titan and feared that his children would become more powerful than him. He is very well known for being deceiving, and a trickster.
In the beginning, it all started with the gods and goddesses Cronus (God of the Sky) and Rhea (Goddess of the Earth). They met and got married. While they were married they produced six offspring. These offspring would turn out to be some of the most famous in mythology. The offspring consisted of Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera, and of course, the famous Zeus. Poseidon was the oldest son to be born from these two. Unfortunately when the offspring were born Cronus devoured most, even though Rhea tried many times to keep that from happening. Finally when Zeus was born she tricked Cronus into thinking it was his own son, when handed to him, and he eat him like all the others. But after doing so, Rhea told Cronus that she had given him a stone wrapped up in a blanket. Zeus later overthrew his father and released all of his other kin. After overthrowing Cronus, Zeus took over the ruler of the kingdom. With him taking the thrown on Mt. Olympus, he chose Hades to rule the underworld and Poseidon to look after the sea and land. Poseidon was a very powerful god and ruled with fury. He was made the god of waters in general and of the sea in particular (1). He is an equal in dignity to Zeus but not in power. This is important because it does not allow Poseidon to question his br...
When we look at Greek Mythology we often run into the gods of that era. Sometimes they are merely backdrops to the human element of the story but in stories such as The Odyssey the gods play a prominent if not vital role to the central themes of the story.
Parallelisms between Greek and Roman Mythology have many similarities between them. Each type has there own set of Gods and Goddesses, although they were worshiped for similar reasons. The following will explain each God or Goddess and explain how they compare to each other. The King of Gods in Greek Mythology is known as Zeus. Zeus was the ruler of the sky, and had the power to create thunderstorms and lightning as well as earthquakes. He was the child of Cronus and Rhea.
The primary ruling god of the underworld is Hades whose brother is Zeus, king of the gods, and whose parents are Cronus and Rhea. Hades is a greedy god with his greatest concern being to increase the number of his subjects. He is very stubborn about letting people out of the underworld. Hades himself, rarely leaves the underworld. In one myth, however, we know of a time when he did leave his soulful domain. Hades became very lonely in the underworld, and went above and kidnapped Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, for his wife.Persephone, nonetheless, was not Hades’ only significant other. Hades had a mistress called Minthe whom Persephone later transformed into a plant. Hades is also known as the god of wealth due to the precious metals mined from the earth. He has been said to possess a helmet that was given to him by the Cyclops. This helmet has been said to make him invisible. Hades lent it to gods and mortal men. Perseus used the helmet on his quest for Medusa’s head and Athena, goddess of battle skills, put to use the helmet so the god of war, Ares, could not notice her.
The gods and goddesses were thought to control different parts of the universe. For example, Zeus is the king of the gods, controlled weather. Or like Athena who was the goddess of wisdom. You learn about different gods and goddesses in myths. A myth is a story about a god or goddess. Homer, a blind poet, is famous for telling myths. He told myths because no one could read or write.
Zeus does not appear to be portrayed as a dual natured god in any of his myths. The fact that Zeus is not a dual natured god means that he is a divine being with flaws. Instead of Zeus being portrayed as someone who is supreme and flawless, he is portrayed as a sky god who is king among other gods but has many flaws to his character. Xenophanes, a poet of the pre-Socratic period wrote “Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all that is shameful and reproachable among mortals.” (ML 140) One of the most important flaws to Zeus’ character is the fact that he had countless numbers of extramarital affairs while still being married to his wife Hera.
“Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon took dominion over parts of the earth Hades got unlucky” (Hades). His domain as the god of the underworld makes you think that is all he was, but most people do not know he was also the god of wealth and precious metals. All gods have a unique form of transportation, and Hades’ was a chariot drawn by 4 black horses. In Ancient Greek, Hades means “invisible” which refers to his hat or cap and that anyone who wears it becomes invisible. Hades can also refer to the underworld itself or to the actual
They are widely known for their gods and goddesses. The Olympian gods were the main gods of Ancient Greece. After overthrowing their ancestors, the Titans, the Olympian gods became the rulers of the World (Cosmos), representing the civilization of the world. To the common Greeks, they envisioned their gods as a family of immortals who intervened in the lives of human beings. Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greece made their gods out to be more human like than animal like. These gods were immortal, but took on many characteristics of the humans who worshipped them. The gods lived atop a mountain in Northern Greece called Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus was home to many of the gods, each had there own palace atop the mountain. Zeus sat upon the summit of the mountain while the other gods were surrounding him in their own palaces. Gods would take sides in human combat, seduce mortal woman, and meddle in the lives of those they felt were worthy of their attention. One of the most known gods, Zeus, was the supreme god in Ancient Greece, the father of the Olympian gods and the ruler of all mankind. He and his wife Hera were exalted by the Greek Pantheon as the ruling deities of Greece. In a epic poem called Theogony or The Birth of the Gods, it recounts the history, genealogy of the god, how they came to be and how they established permanent control over the Cosmos. In the poem it says that, “Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within
Hades and Persephone. Hades appears in very few myths. The best known concerns his kidnapping of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, the goddess of fertility and the earth. Hades saw the beautiful Persephone while he was riding in a chariot on earth and fell in love with her. When Hades asked Zeus for permission to marry Persephone, Zeus told him that Demeter would never agree. However, Zeus did agree to help Hades seize her.
Zeus, the God of all Gods, has full reign over mankind, yet his supreme power is only a single trait to his complex character. In The Iliad, Homer depicts Zeus as a humanlike authority figure, who is just and fair, but ultimately detached from reality because of his divinity.
According to “Persephone, Demeter, and Hades” It starts off with “Persephone who is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of agriculture (farming). Hades who is her uncle, abducts Persephone while she was picking flowers with her companions in a meadow.” According to “Classical Mythology” it states “Hades had other plans for Persephone: he would steal her innocence and virginity and turn her into the dreaded goddess of the Underworld.” It also states how “Persephone was gathering flowers one day on a plain in Sicily. Hades appeared, thundering across the plain in his four-horse chariot. The god then jumped down upon Persephone, and scooped her up with one arm. After abducting her, he carries her off to the Underworld. Demeter who is Persephone’s mother soon came to retrieve her daughter, but was unable to find a trace of Persephone. She traveled to the corners of the earth, searching for nine full days and nights without ever stopping to eat, drink, bathe, or rest. Demeter was in a fury so in retaliation she destroyed lands, crops, and livestock as she complained to the loss of her daughter. She threatened to make the earth unproductive forever and thus destroy all of humankind if she did not find her
Zeus is the god of law, justice, morals, thunder, lightning, and rain. It was his job to oversee and make sure laws were being kept. He was worshipped originally as a weather god. He was depicted as a middle-aged man with a youthful appearance; he was regale and was almost always shown ready to throw a lightning bolt (pantheon/zeus).