Anthropomorphism is a basic human trait by which we attribute human emotions, intentions and behaviour to non-human entities such as the wind, the Sun, the moon as well as to animals. All fables and myths are driven by this psychic force of anthropomorphism.
Thus the story of the rabbit and the tortoise attributes human qualities and aspirations to the tortoise and the rabbit who engage in a racing competition as humans do though we know that rabbits and tortoises cannot speak to each other or come to an agreement.
In the case of the fables such as that of the anthropomorphic story of the rabbit and the tortoise we know in our consciousness itself that the story is just fiction. But there are other stories which are as anthropomorphic as the story of the tortoise and the rabbit which we take for real. This is especially so in religion and myths. Thus our ideas of gods and divinities have evolved in tune with our way of life and anthropomorphism.
In our original savage way of life we lived in roving bands with simple social structures like that of animals. Accordingly the gods of savage communities took on the qualities of savage chiefs and elders. This must have probably come about from our dreams about our parents and elders which led us to believe that they still roamed about after death and loved to have food, meat and drinks as during their real lives. Gods such as Siva and Muruka probably belong to this primordial savage period of human civilization. What is more some of the gods took on the shape of animals found in the locality. Thus we have elephants in India and accordingly we have Ganesh the elephant headed god. In contrast Greece had no elephants; but they had horses and so they had centaurs – half man and half horse. Egyptians worshipped the sphinx which is half lion and half man. Australia had no elephants or horses or lions and so Aborigines worshipped alligators which dominated Australia.
Subsequently we developed agriculture and out societies evolved into villages, cities, kingdoms and empires. It was during this period of agricultural civilization that most of the great religions of the world arose. Accordingly anthropomorphism came into the picture and we see that the gods of this period having courts like that of emperors and kings with courtesans (apsaras in Hinduism and Houris in Islam) messengers (Gabriel, Jibreel, Narad, Hermes in Greek mythology, Mercury in Roman mythology .. etc) We are taught that gods are omnipresent and omnipotent and as such they do not need any messenger to deliver their messages. However our anthropomorphic compulsions stand in the way of our rationale and we swallow stories of gods acting like kings and engaging in human regal pastimes like hunting, gambling, warring, romancing, raping, fornicating etc. Vendettas were a way of life during this agrarian way of life and so we have the story of the Bible where god carries out vendetta on the children of Adam and Eve for their sin of disobeying god. The final judgment which forms a very crucial dogma of the Christian faith is nothing but an anthropomorphization of kings sitting in judgments over their subjects.
Posted by: Xavier William <varekatx@gmail.com>
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