Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present and in control of the world. About 1,500 deities are known. Rituals such as prayer and offerings were provided to the gods to gain their favor. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaohs, the rulers of Egypt, believed to possess divine powers by virtue of their positions. They acted as intermediaries between their people and the gods, and were obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain Ma'at, the order of the cosmos, and repel Isfet, which was chaos. The state dedicated enormous resources to religious rituals and to the construction of temples.
Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her slain brother and husband, the divine king Osiris, and produces and protects his heir, Horus. She was believed to help the dead enter the afterlife as she had helped Osiris, and she was considered the divine mother of the pharaoh, who was likened to Horus. Her maternal aid was invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people. Originally, she played a limited role in royal rituals and temple rites, although she was more prominent in funerary practices and magical texts. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom, as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis was portrayed wearing Hathor's headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow.
Horus, also known as Heru, Har, Her, or Hor in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as the god of kingship, healing, protection, the sun, and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Roman Egypt. Different forms of Horus are recorded in history, and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. These various forms may be different manifestations of the same multi-layered deity in which certain attributes or syncretic relationships are emphasized, not necessarily in opposition but complementary to one another, consistent with how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the multiple facets of reality. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner falcon or peregrine falcon, or as a man with a falcon head.
Shangdi (Chinese: 上帝; pinyin: Shàngdì; Wade–Giles: Shang4 Ti4), also called simply Di (Chinese: 帝; pinyin: Dì; lit. 'God'), is the name of the Chinese Highest Deity or "Lord Above" in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology and finding an equivalent in the later Tiān ("Heaven" or "Great Whole") of Zhou theology.
Hadad, Haddad, Adad, or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎dIM—the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Rimon/Rimmon, Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt and wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, as well as the Babylonian Bel.
In Japanese religion, Yahata formerly in Shinto and later commonly known as Hachiman is the syncretic divinity of archery and war, incorporating elements from both Shinto and Buddhism.
In many historical societies, the position of kingship carried a sacral meaning and was identical with that of a high priest and judge. Divine kingship is related to the concept of theocracy, although a sacred king need not necessarily rule through his religious authority; rather, the temporal position itself has a religious significance behind it. The monarch may be divine, become divine, or represent divinity to a greater or lesser extent.
Apotheosis, also called divinization or deification, is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity.
Animal worship is an umbrella term designating religious or ritual practices involving animals. This includes the worship of animal deities or animal sacrifice. An animal 'cult' is formed when a species is taken to represent a religious figure. Animal cults can be classified according to their formal features or by their symbolic content.
The Roman imperial cult identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority (auctoritas) of the Roman State. Its framework was based on Roman and Greek precedents, and was formulated during the early Principate of Augustus. It was rapidly established throughout the Empire and its provinces, with marked local variations in its reception and expression.
God-Emperor or God Emperor may refer to:
Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistory. Deities represented natural forces and phenomena, and the Egyptians supported and appeased them through offerings and rituals so that these forces would continue to function according to maat, or divine order. After the founding of the Egyptian state around 3100 BC, the authority to perform these tasks was controlled by the pharaoh, who claimed to be the gods' representative and managed the temples where the rituals were carried out.
God king, or God-King, is a term for a deified ruler or a pagan deity that is venerated in the guise of a king. In particular, it is used to refer to:
Ra or Re was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon-day sun. Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky, the Earth, and the underworld. He was believed to have ruled as the first pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky.
A universal monarchy is a concept and political situation where one monarchy is deemed to have either sole rule over everywhere or to have a special supremacy over all other states.
The worship of heavenly bodies is the veneration of stars, the planets, or other astronomical objects as deities, or the association of deities with heavenly bodies. In anthropological literature these systems of practice may be referred to as astral cults.
Kataragama deviyo is a guardian deity of Sri Lanka. A popular deity who is considered to be very powerful, shrines dedicated to Kataragama deviyo are found in many places of the country. Sinhalese Buddhists believe him also as a divine patron of the Buddha Sasana in Sri Lanka. An ancient temple dedicated to God Kataragama, known as Ruhunu Maha Kataragama Devalaya is situated in the South-Eastern town of Kataragama in Monaragala District of Uva Province.
Devaraja was a religious order of the "god-king," or deified monarch in medieval Southeast Asia. The devarāja order grew out of both Hinduism and separate local traditions depending on the area. It taught that the king was a divine universal ruler, a manifestation of Bhagavan. The concept viewed the monarch to possess transcendental quality, the king as the living god on earth. The concept is closely related to the Indian concept of Chakravarti. In politics, it is viewed as the divine justification of a king's rule. The concept was institutionalized and gained its elaborate manifestations in ancient Java and Cambodia, where monuments such as Prambanan and Angkor Wat were erected to celebrate the king's divine rule on earth.
The Wǔfāng Shàngdì, or simply Wǔdì or Wǔshén are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven. This theology dates back at least to the Shang dynasty. Described as the "five changeable faces of Heaven", they represent Heaven's cosmic activity which shapes worlds as tán 壇, "altars", imitating its order which is visible in the starry vault, the north celestial pole and its spinning constellations. The Five Deities themselves represent these constellations. In accordance with the Three Powers they have a celestial, a terrestrial and a chthonic form. The Han Chinese identify themselves as the descendants of the Red and Yellow Deities.
