Gender of "God"

[vijayjohn]

Oh, sorry, I forgot to respond to this!

Hmm interesting. When Buddhists write "God" do they mean Siddharta Gautama?

I have no idea. I think the last time I saw this use of "God" was in an article in English (but in a magazine that otherwise was all in Thai) about the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity. But I'm pretty sure they were referring to the Buddhist concept of God as "God," not just the Christian one.

I remember a pastor preaching once about how the word god just meant powerful one. I've been trying to find out the etymology of the word or even just a definition apart from deification, but can't. I presume though, that is god somehow came from a term meaning anyone who is powerful, this is why in feudal societies, the king or ruler or leader was called god/God. But can anyone confirm this? Was there a meaning to this word before its current association with deities and deified beings?

Nah, "god" in English comes from a PIE etymon meaning 'invoked one'.

[Meera]

No I ment just a god, general word. Tribes in Amazonia have a god too, Eskimos as well probably. And their god or gods also have a gender (?), that's what I'm interested in.

Of course the word itself is connected to religion and culture, probably my question is not really about languages. But that would be interesting to discover group of people who worship a woman.

I'm not sure if this what you are looking for but theres a word in Sanskrit/Hindi that denotes a female god. It is देवी (devi) and means female diety.

[il voltoro]

[flag=]it[/flag] Dio God male
[flag=]it[/flag] Dia Goddess female

[IpseDixit]

[flag=]it[/flag] Dio God male
[flag=]it[/flag] Dea Goddess female

But Lada, if you wanted to know the gender of the God of the Bible, than it's masculine.

[il voltoro]

[flag=]it[/flag] Dio God male
[flag=]it[/flag] Dea Goddess female

Wiktionary and other online dictionaries do all appear to agree with you, but take a look at this:


Perhaps I should not refer to Italian...

[Lada]

But that would be interesting to discover group of people who worship a woman.

Wait, really? You don't know of one? Lots of Hindus do this.

In fact, that's presumably why the Malayalam hymn I referred to calls God the "Golden Mother."

Is she a primal God? How do you call her?

I'm not sure if this what you are looking for but theres a word in Sanskrit/Hindi that denotes a female god. It is देवी (devi) and means female diety.

Thanks! Goddesses exist in many religions but in most cases they are not primal, they can be "goddess of beauty" for example, but not great-mother-who-created-everything. In latter example I'd expect the word "God" to be female and the word "goddess" would be extinct as when you say "God" you mean female creator.

But Lada, if you wanted to know the gender of the God of the Bible, than it's masculine.

Yes, that old gentleman with a beard appears on many pictures, so I was always sure that God from Bible is male

[vijayjohn]

Is she a primal God? How do you call her?

Thanks! Goddesses exist in many religions but in most cases they are not primal, they can be "goddess of beauty" for example, but not great-mother-who-created-everything. In latter example I'd expect the word "God" to be female and the word "goddess" would be extinct as when you say "God" you mean female creator.

Okay, so you're looking for a primal deity. Well, my understanding is as follows: The way it works in Hinduism is that there are a whole bunch of deities altogether, but specific communities tend to pray to one particular deity. So some Hindus pray to a god/male deity, some to a female deity, and some to a deity that is not fully human or not even human at all. There are various words for 'female deity' including devi as Meera said, but each deity has their own name as well. The deity responsible for creation in Hinduism is male, though, so maybe that's not quite what you're looking for.

Perhaps Shaktism would be closer to what you're looking for, though. It's one of the primary branches of Hinduism in which the primal deity does appear to be female, regarded as the source of all creation.

There is also Wicca as OldBoring mentioned, and there is a worship cult for the goddess Pachamama all over the Andes. There is a Native American tribe in Arizona called the Hopi, and in Hopi mythology, there is a lot of controversy over whether the primal deity/deity responsible for creation is male or female, and they refer to the Earth as 'Earth Mother'. There also seem to have been a lot of cultures that historically had a female primal deity as well.

You might also be interested in looking at the Goddess movement.

[Lada]

Thanks a lot for these links! However after reading some information I still have a question... is the word God female, male or neutral even in case when God is female (like in Shaktism)? In Hindi there'are many words for "god", at least I found "ishvar"/paramesvara/ and this link: http://www.shabdkosh.com/hi/translate?e=God&l=hi

According to this link "God" has 23 translations, some of them are labeled (m), that's male, right? Which word is used by shaktisians(?) Is it still "goddess" or something neutral or do they used special name?

[vijayjohn]

From the article, I get the impression that Shaktas (practitioners of Shaktism) generally refer to the Divine Mother as "Shakti" or "Devi." And yeah, there are lots of words for 'god' in Indian languages.

I think the Shabdkosh link is assuming that "god" implies 'male' whereas "goddess" implies 'female', so AFAIK all of the words it lists are masculine and referring to a male god (and some specifically to the Abrahamic one, namely रब rab, which is from Arabic, ख़ुदा khuda, which is from Persian, and of course अल्लाह Allah). There are female counterparts to some of these words: ishvari, parameshvari, bhagavati, and prabhvi as opposed to ishvar, parameshvar, bhagavaan, and prabhu which are all male. (I think prabhu and prabhvi simply mean 'lord/lady' and can also be used to refer to e.g. monarchs). Also हरि Hari AFAIK is simply another name for Vishnu, not really a generic term. I think all of these words occur in other Indian languages, too. Malayalam has all of them except khuda.

However, by default, I think of shakti as meaning 'strength', since this is what I usually see the word [ɕəkˈt̪i] being used for in Malayalam.

[Koko]

Lada, if you want a goddess who created everything, search for Chaos of Greek mythology

[Lada]

From the article, I get the impression that Shaktas (practitioners of Shaktism) generally refer to the Divine Mother as "Shakti" or "Devi."

Thanks a lot for the info!

Lada, if you want a goddess who created everything, search for Chaos of Greek mythology

Thanks! Is Chaos really a Goddess? It seems to be abstract thing according to my resources... But I want just to find a general female gender word meaning something that created everything that is used like the word "God" in everyday life. So far I haven't found such one.
It seems that all female gods have their own name or labeled by the word "goddess" that presumes existence of "gods".

[JasleenKaur]

According to me male and female separated by God and Goddess.