Great Mother may refer to:
Goddesses
*
Mother goddess
A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...
es of various traditions, representing motherhood, fertility, creation, or the bounty of the Earth:
**
Nammu
Nammu ( dENGUR = dLAGAB×ḪAL; also read Namma) was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as a creator deity in the local theology of Eridu. It is assumed that she was associated with water. She is also well attested in connection with incantations ...
, Sumerian creation goddess.
**
Cybele
Cybele ( ; Phrygian: ''Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya'' "Kubeleya Mother", perhaps "Mountain Mother"; Lydian: ''Kuvava''; ''Kybélē'', ''Kybēbē'', ''Kybelis'') is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest ...
, Roman goddess with the title ''Magna Mater'' (Latin for "Great Mother")
**
Đạo Mẫu
Đạo Mẫu (, ) is the worship of mother goddesses which was established in Vietnam in the 16th century. This worship is a branch of Vietnamese folk religion but is more shamanic in nature. Đạo is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "religion," simila ...
, in Vietnamese tradition
**
Maia (mythology)
Maia (; Ancient Greek: Μαῖα; also spelled Maie, ; ), in ancient Greek religion and mythology, is one of the Pleiades and the mother of Hermes, one of the major Greek gods, by Zeus, the king of Olympus.
Family
Maia is the daughter of A ...
, Roman goddess
**
Prajñāpāramitā Devi
A Tibetan painting with a Prajñāpāramitā sūtra at the center of the mandala
Prajñāpāramitā means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Transcendental Knowledge" in Mahāyāna. Prajñāpāramitā refers to a perfected way of seeing the natu ...
in Mahayana Buddhism, known as the "mother of Buddhas" or "Great Mother" (Tibetan: Yun Chenmo)
**Great Mother, an archetypal image in
Analytical psychology
Analytical psychology (, sometimes translated as analytic psychology; also Jungian analysis) is a term referring to the psychological practices of Carl Jung. It was designed to distinguish it from Freud's psychoanalytic theories as their ...
Other uses
*''
The Great Mother'', a book by psychologist Erich Neumann
*
Great Mother (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a deity character in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game
*
Great Father and Great Mother, titles used in North America during the 19th century in interactions with indigenous peoples to refer to various heads of state
See also
*
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some faiths, a sacred female figure holds a central place in religious prayer and worship. For example, Shaktism (one of the three major Hinduism, Hindu sects), holds that the ultimate deity, the source of all re ...
, a female deity
*
Great Goddess
Great Goddess is the concept of an almighty goddess or mother goddess, or a matriarchal religion. Apart from various specific figures called this from various cultures, the Great Goddess hypothesis, is a postulated fertility goddess supposed ...
, the concept of an almighty goddess or mother goddess, or a matriarchal religion
*
Magna Mater (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation