The spread of different versions of Slavic neo-paganism in recent years has made quite popular such a character of Slavic mythology as a god named Rod. About who it is and what role the god Rod plays among the Slavs, we will talk in this article.
The Essence of the Genus
As you know, in pre-Christian times, the Slavs were polytheists, that is, they worshiped many gods. Together they make up a pantheon, which has a certain structure and hierarchy within itself. God Rod is the one who stands at the very top of this hierarchy. In a sense, he even surpasses her, standing behind her, since in itself a number of gods and goddesses are only manifestations of the Family. In other words, this is the progenitor god, the source of all things, the beginning.
On the supremacy of the Family
Sometimes they say that the god Rod is the supreme god of the Slavic peoples. This is not entirely true. Supreme among others is Perun. Sometimes this place is also assimilated to Svarog, the father of Perun. But whoever is superior among the rest, his supremacy emphasizes his difference from other gods. Therefore, Svarog is not Perun, and Perun is not Veles, and so on. Rod is the deity thatovercomes all differentiations. In other words, the Russian god Rod is a collective image, the personification of the fullness of everything. All other gods, as well as the whole world, are only private manifestations of the Family. Therefore, he is not the supreme god, but a god who is the source of divinity, the source of all things - he is above any hierarchy. It is conditionally possible to call him the supreme god, emphasizing his independence from the principle of hierarchy and superiority over it.
Description of the Genus in modern neo-paganism
Theological research of modern neo-pagans of the Slavic version usually boils down to the assertion that Rod is the most ancient god. The clan is the creator and creator of the world, which makes it related to the image of the Creator in orthodox Christianity. However, the pagans themselves, like the Christians, tend to vehemently deny this identity. The god of the genus among the Slavs was also considered the progenitor of the first generation of deities, called gods-fathers. He is the cause of all causes, the founder of the universe, the primary creative force, the first thought and the sources of everything. The genus is infinite and transcends the concepts of time and space. Pagans, speaking of Rod, also recall a certain world egg - a symbol of the primary world, common to many cultures.
It is believed that before the manifestation in the act of creation, the Rod was in a kind of world egg, surpassing the limits of the material world. This egg is a symbol of the emerging world, nurtured by divine power. When the egg cracks, the world emerges from it - heaven and earth. It is also believed that outside the Genus there is no existence,as well as non-existence. In other words, the god Rod is omnipresent and timeless. And everything that can be conceived abides in it. And there is nothing that surpasses or separates from it.
Light and darkness, good and evil
Since the god Rod is the god in which everything resides, he surpasses in his qualities such concepts as good and evil. Accordingly, one cannot speak about his moral qualities literally, since all ethical categories are only human concepts and are not subject to projection onto a deity. Thus, it cannot be said that Rod is good or evil. He is above both.
Corus and birth
Neo-pagans insist that the verb "to give birth" came from the name of the god Rod. That is, birth is an act of likening to a given God, participation in his creative act of creation. However, what was actually primary - the name of God or the word meaning the natural act of reproduction, is not known for certain. Therefore, the statement of the adherents of paganism can only be accepted on faith.
Kin in mythology
The image of Rod represents him as the one who directly created this world as we know it. Earth and sky, stars, sun and moon, mountains, plains, reservoirs, plants and animals - all this is the work of the Rod. And all this in its totality is the god Rod himself. He also divided the universe into three parts - rule, reality and nav - three fundamental categories of pagan Slavic cosmology. Reality in this system is called the world in which people live. That is, this is the world that wewe see outside the window, the world of matter. Rule, this is the highest world, the world in which the gods live - the children of the Family. This is the world of the triumph of truth and justice, the personification of all the best and kind. As for Navi, this is the lower world. The dead live in Navi. Some myths, or rather attempts at their modern interpretation, report that the kingdom of darkness is located in Navi - the so-called Pekelny kingdom.
The image of the god of kind in Slavic mythology is also closely connected with the image of the world tree, the role of which among the Slavs is played by an oak. Its crown goes back to the right, the roots - to the Navi, and the trunk, respectively, represents the middle world, that is, reality.
Myths describe how Lada, the goddess of harmony, beauty, love and wisdom, appeared from the breath of the god Rod. Lada in the embodiment of the owl played the role of the messenger of the Family and the herald of his will to people and all living things. In addition, according to one version of the myths, during the creation of the world by Rod, the deities Dol and Nedol were created. They are called prabogs and their role was to weave together with Makosh the threads of fate that determined the course of the history of people and gods. However, other myths say that these characters were born much later.
When the world was created, Rod saw that it was beautiful, but chaotic. There was no order in it, there was no one who could control it, cultivate it and store it. Therefore, the next step of the Family was the creation of Svarog. The latter represents the great god of the Slavs, the blacksmith god. Being a craftsman, Svarog forged the chains that connected all the partsuniverse. Thanks to this, order was put in place in space and the world became structured. Thus, Rod retired from business and plunged into rest, and Svarog continued his work of creation, and then management.
Often, along with Rod, the so-called women in labor are also mentioned - divine entities in a female hypostasis. Some believe that they mean the goddesses Lada and Lelya. Others insist that at least one of these women in labor is the goddess Zhiva.
