National god

☆ Save On Wikipedia ↗

A national god or tribal god is a guardian deity whose special concern is supposed to be the safety and well-being of an 'ethnic group' (nation).

In historic times

This perception of divinity was common in the ancient world. Deities were often geographically localized by association to their main cult centers, and in the Ancient Near East were often tutelary deities of their respective city-states. Many of the individual ethnic groups also considered itself the progeny of its national gods.[1]

West Asia

In Mesopotamian civilizations like Babylon and Assyria, the deities Marduk[2] and Assur served as principle guardian protectors and national gods of the Babylonians and Assyrians respectively.[3][4] For Persia, Ahura Mazda served that role as the principle and unifying empire god.[5]

Ephraim Stern identified the national gods of Caananite groups. For the Phoenicians it was Ba'al, for the Philistines the chief god was Dagon, but later Ba'al as well. Ammonites had Milkom as their patron, Moabites had Chemosh,[6] Edomites were assosiated with Qos, and Judahites with Yahweh.[7] The Sidonians, also had the goddess Astarte, and Tyrians had Melqart.[8]

Yahweh's role as god of the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel is a key reason for that figure's adoption as monotheist deity by the Yahweh-only movement of the 7th-century BC. Yahweh's subsequent exaltation as a supreme figure occurred not because national gods were necessarily heads of their pantheons (this was certainly not the case for the national gods of the peoples surrounding Israel),[9] but as a reaction to the changing political landscape, in which other national gods had previously become exalted in that fashion.[10] Because peoples were perceived to effectively worship the same gods, merely by different names (Smith (2008)[10] terms this "translatability"), Yahweh's function as a national god had previously automatically equated him with other national gods. Thus, with the rise of the multi-cultural Assyrian Empire in the 10th century BC, the concomitant rise of the Assyrian's nation god Assur to inter-cultural prominence influenced how national gods were generally perceived. Moreover, the political unification of the fractured nation-states under a single supreme head of state encouraged the idea of a multi-national "one-god" worldview as well.[10] By the 7th-century BC however, Assyria was in decline and the smaller nation-states began to reassert their independence. In this context, the development of a "one-god" worldview in 7th century BC Kingdom of Judah can be perceived as a response to the diminishing claims to cultural hegemony of the Assyrian "one-god" ideology of the time.[10] The process is evident in some parts of the Torah which predate the 6th century BC and thus preserve vestiges of the theology centered on a national god during the 10th-century BC monarchic period.[11] "The OT [=Old Testament] is still conscious of the fact that Yhwh, the national god of Israel, originally was one of the gods in the council of El." (Deut 32:8-9*)[9]

In the region of South Arabia in what is now Yemen, the Sabaeans, the Minaeans and the Himyar each perceived themselves to be the children of respectively Almaqah, Wadd and Shamash.[12] Balu is considred the god of Kingdom of Awsan, while others have said Wadd was too as an overseer.[13]

Central Asia

Jean-Paul Roux named Tengri as the national god of the Gokturk Khanate,[14] or of all Turkic peoples.[15]

South Asia

During the early Vedic period and amongst the Indo-Aryan peoples, Indra was honoured and elevated to the position of national god.[16] In Sri Lanka the god Kataragama is equated with Skanda, and developed into a national god.[17]

Europe

In the ancient Greek narrative of the Illiad, Apollo serves as national representative and divine protector for the people of Troy.[18] The transition of Greek society to city states had some with national deities, such as the Athenians who's patron was Athena.[19] Martti Haavio for the Finnish people, characterized Ukko as that nation's god.[20]

Americas

In the Mesoamerican civilization of the Mayans, Itzamna served as the national deity.[21] With the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli a god of war and sacrifice served that purpose for the Mexica. In another reworking of the myth, Huitzilopochtli was substituted for Maquizoatl, and they raised this national god to the same level of importance as Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl.[22] The Tlaxcallans who opposed the Aztecs, had Camaxtli who is equivalent to Huitzilopochtli.[23]

Africa

For the ancient Egyptians, Amun, Amun-Ra, and Horus during the New Kingdom became the nationally worshipped gods.[24]

Modern period

Philippine

In search of a national culture and identity away from the Catholic religion imposed by Spain during its colonisation of the Philippines, those who instigated the Philippine Revolution proposed to revive indigenous Philippine folk religions and make them the national religion of the entire country. The Katipunan opposed the religious teachings of the Spanish friars, saying that they "obscured rather than explained religious truths." After the revival of the Katipunan during the Spanish–American War, an idealized form of the folk religions was proposed by some, with the worship of God under the ancient name Bathala, which applies to all supreme deities under the many ethnic pantheons across the country. However, the re-vitalization process of the indigenous faiths of the Philippines did not progress further as the Filipino forces were defeated by the Americans in 1902, which led to the second Christian colonization of the archipelago.[25]

Germanic

Carl Jung in his essay Wotan (1936) identifies the Germanic god of the storm (leader of the Wild Hunt), Wotan, as the national god of the German people, and warns of the rise of German nationalism and ultimately the then-impending catastrophe of Nazism and World War II in terms of the re-awakening of this god:

"But what is more than curious — indeed, piquant to a degree — is that an ancient god of storm and frenzy, the long quiescent Wotan, should awake, like an extinct volcano, to new activity, in a civilized country that had long been supposed to have outgrown the Middle Ages. [...] I venture the heretical suggestion that the unfathomable depths of Wotan's character explain more of National Socialism than all three reasonable factors [viz. economic, political, and psychological] put together. [...] This is a tragic experience and no disgrace. It has always been terrible to fall into the hands of a living god. Yahweh was no exception to this rule, and the Philistines, Edomites, Amorites and the rest, who were outside the Yahweh experience, must certainly have found it exceedingly disagreeable. The Semitic experience of Allah was for a long time an extremely painful affair for the whole of Christendom. We who stand outside judge the Germans far too much, as if they were responsible agents, but perhaps it would be nearer the truth to regard them, also, as victims."[26]

Japanese

In Japan, the Yasukuni Shrine was seen as the highest honour a subject could receive, where they are honoured for their death in service to the nation, followed by an apotheosis as a national god.[27]

Christianity

Christian missionaries have repeatedly re-interpreted national gods in terms of the Christian God. This fact is reflected in the names of God in various languages of Christianized peoples, such as Shangdi or Shen among Chinese Christians, Ngai among a number of tribes of Kenya, etc.

In a modern context, the term of a "national god" addresses the emergence of national churches within Christianity. This tendency of "nationalizing" the Christian God, especially in the context of national churches sanctioning warfare against other Christian nations during World War I, was denounced as heretical by Karl Barth.[28]

Hindu-Buddhism

Indra is still one of the primary ancient Vedic deities in Hinduism. He is the king of Svarga (Heaven) and the Devas (gods). He is associated with lightning, thunder, storms, rains, river flows and war. Indra is the most frequently mentioned deity in the Rigveda.[29][30][31][32] Indra's mythology and powers are similar to other Indo-European deities such as Jupiter, Perun, Perkūnas, Zalmoxis, Taranis, Zeus, and Thor, suggesting a common origin in Proto-Indo-European mythology.[33][34][31]

Bharat Mata, starting in the late 19th century a divine personification of India (Bharat), came into existence after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British and is seen as the goddess of India and the Indian people by Hindus, Jains, and some Buddhists.[35][36]

See also

References

  1. Webster, Merriam (1999). Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions. Merriam-Webster. ISBN 978-0-87779-044-0.
  2. Cowen, Ron (2016-01-29). "Ancient Babylonians took first steps to calculus". Science. 351 (6272): 435–435. doi:10.1126/science.351.6272.435.
  3. Nguyen, Trung (2015). Is There a God?. EnCognitive.com. ISBN 978-1-927091-16-6.
  4. Novotny, Jamie (2025-11-13), Cammarosano, Michele (ed.), "191Ashurbanipal and Objects for Esagil and Ešarra: A Case Study of Erasing, Removing, and Replacing Texts at the Height of the Assyrian Empire" (PDF), Erasing and Rewriting in Manuscript Cultures, De Gruyter, pp. 191–216
  5. Abel S. Sitali, (2018) Monotheism and Angelology in Persian Period Yehud, University of Pretoria, p. 128
  6. Smelik, Klaas A. D. (2013-01-24), "Chemosh", The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah24051, ISBN 978-1-4443-3838-6, retrieved 2021-05-09
  7. Stern, Ephraim (2001). "Pagan Yahwism: The folk religion of ancient Israel". Biblical Archaeology Review. 27 (3rd ed.). Washington: 20–29. ISSN 0098-9444. ProQuest 214913086.
  8. "Sheger, Ashtoret and Ashtor – The Patron Gods of Transjordanian Shepherds - TheTorah.com". www.thetorah.com. Retrieved 2026-06-17.
  9. van der Toorn, K.; Becking, Bob; van der Horst, Pieter Willem, eds. (1999), "King", Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible, Brill, p. 485, ISBN 978-90-04-11119-6.
  10. Smith, Mark S. (2008), God in Translation: Deities in Cross-cultural Discourse in the Biblical World, Forschungen zum Alten Testament, vol. 57, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, p. 19, ISBN 978-3-16-149543-4.
  11. Smith, Mark S. (2003), The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts, Oxford University Press, pp. 155–163, ISBN 978-0-19-516768-9.
  12. Doniger, Wendy, ed. (1999), "Arabian religions", Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of World Religions, Merriam-Webster, ISBN 978-0-87779-044-0.
  13. Ryckmans, Jacques (1989). "Le panthéon de l'Arabie du sud préislamique : état des problèmes et brève synthèse". Revue de l'histoire des religions. 206 (2): 151–169. doi:10.3406/rhr.1989.1830.
  14. Abaev, Nikolai (2013-03-01). "Tengrianstvo As National And State And National Religion Of The Turko-Mongolian People Of Internal Asia". Karadeniz Uluslararası Bilimsel Dergi (in Turkish). 1 (19): 409–417. ISSN 1308-6200.
  15. Xenia Celnarova (1997) The Religious Ideas of the Early Turks from Point of View of Zi Ya Gokalp, Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences https://www.sav.sk/journals/aas/full/aas197g.pdf
  16. Dandekar, R. N. (1950). "Vrtrahā Indra". Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 31 (1/4): 1–55. ISSN 0378-1143. JSTOR 44028390.
  17. Lurker, Manfred (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons. Psychology Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-415-34018-2.
  18. Lagos, Constantine (2021-01-01). "Myths and cults of ancient Tenea" (PDF). Historia: Questoes & Debates. v. 69 (1): 47. doi:10.5380/HIS.V00I0.000000.
  19. "Athena (deity) | Social Sciences and Humanities | Research Starters | EBSCO Research". EBSCO. Retrieved 2026-06-17.
  20. Haavio, Martti (1967). Suomalainen mytologia (in Finnish). Porvoo Helsinki: WSOY.
  21. Lurker, Manfred (2004). The Routledge Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons. Psychology Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-415-34018-2.
  22. Nardo, Don; Currie, Stephen (2014). Aztec Mythology. Greenhaven Publishing LLC. ISBN 978-1-4205-0922-9.
  23. "Camaxtli". pueblosoriginarios.com. Archived from the original on 2025-12-09. Retrieved 2026-06-17.
  24. The Oxford essential guide to Egyptian mythology. Internet Archive. New York : Berkley Books. 2003. pp. 164–168. ISBN 978-0-425-19096-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
  25. L. W. V. Kennon (August 1901). "The Katipunan of the Philippines". The North American Review. 17 (537). University of Northern Iowa: 211, 214. JSTOR 25105201.
  26. First published in Neue Schweizer Rundschau (Zurich) (March, 1936), 657–69. Republished in Aufsätze zur Zeitgeschichte (Zurich, 1946), 1–23. English translation by Barbara Hannah, Essays on Contemporary Events (London, 1947).
  27. Hardacre, Helen (1989). Shintō and the state, 1868-1988. Internet Archive. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-691-07348-4.
  28. Barth, Ethnics, ed. Braun, transl. Bromiley, New York, 1981, p. 305.
  29. Gonda, Jan (1989). The Indra Hymns of the Ṛgveda. Brill Archive. p. 3. ISBN 90-04-09139-4.
  30. Bauer, Susan Wise (2007). The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (1st ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-393-05974-8.
  31. Berry, Thomas (1996). Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism. Columbia University Press. pp. 20–21. ISBN 978-0-231-10781-5.
  32. Griswold, Hervey de Witt (1971). The Religion of the Ṛigveda. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 177–180. ISBN 978-81-208-0745-7.
  33. Madan, T.N. (2003). The Hinduism Omnibus. Oxford University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-19-566411-9.
  34. Bhattacharji, Sukumari (2015). The Indian Theogony. Cambridge University Press. pp. 280–281.
  35. McGregor, R. S. (1993). "bhārat". Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
  36. "History lesson: How 'Bharat Mata' became the code word for a theocratic Hindu state". 17 March 2016.