Hutsau ( Osset. Huitsau ) - in Ossetian mythology, the one, great God is the creator of the universe.
The word "Hutsau" is not a proper name, but only an Ossetian word for "God", which is a cognate of the Iranian term Hood . However, some researchers believe that this is a word of Caucasian origin, close to Lezgi “hutsar” (god) and Georgian “hutsuri” (sacred), which, however, can in turn be of Iranian origin from the same token of Hud .
Content
Mythology
All the deities of the Nart epic and Ossetian mythology - the Zuars - obey Hutsau, who carefully monitors everything that happens on earth. Living in heaven, Hutsau knows everything that happens on earth. He is informed of all the troubles and problems of people by special supernatural beings - zedas , daouagis , as well as Uastirdzhi , who is an intermediary between heaven and earth, and whom Hutsau loves the most among all celestials. In the Ossetian Nart epic in disputes and battles between the Narts and celestials, Hutsau often takes the side of celestials. Hutsau is one of the Batratz sled killers. Once celestials complained about Batrads. Hutsau sent Khura Batraza ("sun") and he died. The name of Hutsau is associated with the appearance of three Ossetian shrines - Recom , Mykalgabyrta and Taranzheloz , which arose at the place where the three tears of Hutsau that he shed about Batradz killed by him fell.
Once, on the advice of Syrdon, the sledges rebuilt the doors in their houses, making them taller so as not to bend down when entering the house, and thus not give reason to think Hutsau that they worship him. The Narts also urged Hutsau to descend from heaven and measure their strength with them. Hutsau saw that the Narts imagined themselves equal to him and cursed the Narts for their pride. In the end, Hutsau destroyed the Narts, putting them before the only choice to choose eternal life or eternal glory. Having abandoned eternal life for the sake of eternal glory, the Narts doomed themselves to disappear from the face of the earth. After the curse of Hutsau, the sledges, no matter how they threshed the grains, could not collect more than one bag. Having lived a year, the sleds starved to death.
Ossetian customs
Performing the sole function of the supreme God, Hutsau did not have other functions peculiar to him, so there was no special cult dedicated to Hutsau and there were no personal sacrifices to him.
“The Nart epic is immersed in the world of semi-religious-semi-folk beliefs in which Ossetians lived at the beginning of the 20th century. The Muslims of some and the Orthodoxy of others recognize the oldest survivals of paganism, traces of Byzantine Christianity brought by medieval Georgia and soon lost both as a church and as a teaching, as well as a kind of secondary paganism that formed between the collapse of Byzantium and the relatively recent offensive of the two great religions. God, Hutsau, is both Allah and the Christian God, the one God, who also bears the remarkable name of Huytsutty Huytsau " [1]
Hutsau's special veneration is that during the Ossetian custom of three pies, the first toast always rises in his honor.
(The name of Hutsau is associated with the appearance of three Ossetian sanctuaries - Recom , Mykalgabyrta and Taranzheloz , which arose at the place where the three tears of Hutsau that he shed about Batradz killed by him fell.).
Notes
- ↑ J. Dumezil, Ossetian epic and mythology, p. 20
Source
- Dzadziev A. B., Ethnography and mythology of Ossetians, Vladikavkaz, 1994, p. 149, ISBN 5-7534-0537-1
- J. Dumézil, Ossetian epic and mythology, Vladikavkaz, ed. Science, 2001.