Ishtar Totally Explained

Everything about Ishtar totally explained

Ishtar (^DIŠTAR 𒀭𒌋𒁯) is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte. Anunit, Atarsamain and Esther are alternative names for Ishtar.

Characteristics

Ishtar is a goddess of fertility, love, and war. In the Babylonian pantheon, she "was the divine personification of the planet Venus".
Ishtar was above all associated with sexuality: her cult involved sacred prostitution; her holy city Erech was called the "town of the sacred courtesans"; and she herself was the "courtesan of the gods". about Ishtar describes her descent to the underworld. In this myth, Ishtar approaches the gates of the underworld and demands that the gatekeeper open them:

If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,

I will break the door, I'll wrench the lock,

I will smash the door-posts, I'll force the doors.

I will bring up the dead to eat the living.

And the dead will outnumber the living.

The gatekeeper hurried to tell Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld. Ereshkigal told the gatekeeper to let Ishtar enter, but "according to the ancient decree".
   The gatekeeper lets Ishtar into the underworld, opening one gate at a time. At each gate, Ishtar has to shed one article of clothing. When she finally passes the seventh gate, she's naked. In rage, Ishtar throws herself at Ereshkigal, but Ereshkigal orders her servant Namtar to imprison Ishtar and unleash sixty diseases against her.
   After Ishtar descends to the underworld, all sexual activity ceases on earth. The god Papsukal reports the situation to Ea, the king of the gods. Ea creates a eunuch called Asu-shu-namir and sends him to Ereshkigal, telling him to invoke "the name of the great gods" against her and to ask for the bag containing the waters of life. Ereshkigal is enraged when she hears Asu-shu-namir's demand, but she's to give him the water of life. Asu-shu-namir sprinkles Ishtar with this water, reviving her. Then Ishtar passes back through the seven gates, getting one article of clothing back at each gate, and is fully clothed as she exits the last gate. This is thought to be the mythical/historical precedent for the Dance of the Seven Veils.
   Here there's a break in the text of the myth. The text resumes with the following lines:

If she (Ishtar) won't grant thee her release,

To Tammuz, the lover of her youth,

Pour out pure waters, pour out fine oil;

With a festival garment deck him that he may play on the flute of lapis lazuli,

That the votaries may cheer his liver. [hisspirit]

Belili [sisterof Tammuz] had gathered the treasure,

With precious stones filled her bosom.

When Belili heard the lament of her brother, she dropped her treasure,

She scattered the precious stones before her,

"Oh, my only brother, don't let me perish!

On the day when Tammuz plays for me on the flute of lapis lazuli, playing it for me with the porphyry ring.

Together with him, play ye for me, ye weepers and lamenting women!

That the dead may rise up and inhale the incense.

Formerly, scholars believed that the myth of Ishtar's descent took place after the death of Ishtar's lover, Tammuz: they thought Ishtar had gone to the underworld to rescue Tammuz. However, the discovery of a corresponding myth about Inanna, the Sumerian counterpart of Ishtar, has thrown some light on the myth of Ishtar's descent, including its somewhat enigmatic ending lines. According to the Inanna myth, Inanna can only return from the underworld if she sends someone back in her place. Demons go with her to make sure she sends someone back. However, each time Inanna runs into someone, she finds him to be a friend and lets him go free. When she finally reaches her home, she finds her husband Dumuzi (Babylonian Tammuz) seated on his throne, not mourning her at all. In anger, Inanna has the demons take Dumuzi back to the underworld as her replacement. Dumuzi's sister Geshtinanna is grief-stricken and volunteers to spend half the year in the underworld, during which time Dumuzi can go free. The Ishtar myth presumably has a comparable ending, Belili being the Bablyonian equivalent of Geshtinanna.

Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh contains an episode involving Ishtar. She asks the hero Gilgamesh to marry her, but he refuses, citing the fate that has befallen all her many lovers:

Listen to me while I tell the tale of your lovers. There was Tammuz, the lover of your youth, for him you decreed wailing, year after year. You loved the many-coloured roller, but still you struck and broke his wing [...] You have loved the lion tremendous in strength: seven pits you dug for him, and seven. You have loved the stallion magnificent in battle, and for him you decreed the whip and spur and a thong [...] You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf; now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks."

Angered by Gilgamesh's refusal, Ishtar goes up to heaven and complains to the high god Anu. She demands that Anu give her the Bull of Heaven. If he refuses, she warns, she'll do exactly what she told the gatekeeper of the underworld she'd do if he didn't let her in:

If you refuse to give me the Bull of Heaven [then] I'll break in the doors of hell and smash the bolts; there will be confusion [for example,mixing] of people, those above with those from the lower depths. I'll bring up the dead to eat food like the living; and the hosts of the dead will outnumber the living."

Anu gives Ishtar the Bull of Heaven, and Ishtar sends it to attack Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull and offer its heart to the sun-god Shamash.
While Gilgamesh and Enkidu are resting, Ishtar stands upon the walls of the city (which is Uruk) and curses Gilgamesh. Enkidu tears off the Bull's right thigh and throws it in Ishtar's face, saying, "If I could lay my hands on you, it's this I should do to you, and lash your entrails to your side." Then Ishtar called together "her people, the dancing and singing girls, the prostitutes of the temple, the courtesans," Donald A. Mackenzie, an early popularizer of mythology, draws a parallel between the love goddess Aphrodite and her "dying god" lover Adonis on one hand, and the love goddess Ishtar and her "dying god" lover Tammuz on the other.}}
Joseph Campbell, a more recent popularizer of mythology, equates Ishtar, Inanna, and Aphrodite, and he draws a parallel between the violent yet loving Hindu goddess Kali, the Egyptian goddess Isis who nurses Horus, and the Babylonian goddess Ishtar who nurses the god Tammuz.

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