Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

Mayajalakrama-Kurukulla 193MatsyaIncarnation of the god VIŠNU. Hindu (Epic andPuranic). In this first avatara Višnu appears as afish which, according to one legend, tows a shipcarrying the law-giver MANU to safety after theprimal flood. Matsya engages in an epic battlewith the demon HAYAGRIVA who stole the Vedasfrom a sleeping BRAHMA. Usually depicted with ahuman torso carrying symbols, e.g. wheel andconch, on a fish’s body.Mawu1. Moon goddess. Fon [Benin, West Africa). Thesister of the sun god LISA. She is also consideredto bestow fertility and motherhood and is generallybenevolent in nature.2. Sky god. Ewe [Togo, West Africa]. Among thetribe neighboring the Fon. Mawu is perceived asmale and a creator deity. He favors the colorwhite and is also benevolent and generous innature.MaturaiviranLocally worshiped god. Hindu. Of fearsomecharacter, he is the deification of a seventeenthcentury policeman who eloped with a princessand was slain. Known from southern India, wherehe is also a god of wine. Attributes: shield andsword.Maya(devi)Mother goddess. Buddhist. The mother of theBUDDHA perceived as the world lotus or PADMAfrom which the Buddha was born. She equateswith the Hindu goddess LAKSMI. The term isalso applied to the personification of the visibleuniverse and, in Hinduism, as an epithet of thegoddess DURGA.MauiTutelary god. Polynesian (Maori) [NewZealand]. Not a creator god but one who assistsmankind in various supernatural ways. Accordingto tradition he was aborted at birth and castinto the sea by his mother, who thought he wasdead. He was rescued entangled in seaweed. Heis the deity who drew the islands of NewZealand from the floor of the ocean in a net.Maui caught the sun and beat it into submission,making it travel more slowly across the skyso that the days became longer. He also broughtfire from the underworld for mankind and tried,unsuccessfully, to harness immortality for himby entering the vulva of the underworld goddessHINE-NUI-TE-PO while she was asleep.She awoke and crushed him to death. Though adeity, he had been made vulnerable to deathby a mistake during his rites of birth (see alsoBALDER). Also Mawi.MayahuelMinor fertility goddess. Aztec (classicalMesoamerican) [Mexico). One of the groupclassed as the Ometochtli complex associatedwith the maguey plant from which pulque isbrewed. She may be depicted seated upona tortoise beside an agave plant in bloom.According to legend she was abducted byQUETZALCOATL and subsequently dismemberedby wild animals. From the fragments grew thefirst agave plants.Mayajalakrama-Kurukulla (one who proceedsin the net of illusion)Goddess. Buddhist (Mahayana). The personificationof all DHYANIBUDDHAS. Color: red. Attributes:arrow, bow, hook, images of the fiveDhyanibuddhas, lotus (red), pitcher, rosary andwaterjar.