od forth against the rebellious monsters of darkness, who
would wrest the dominion of the world from the gods who held their
conclave on the mountain. The gods offer him the Tablets of Fate; the
right to utter decrees is given unto him." This development is "of
extreme importance for studying the growth of the idea of father and
son, as creative and active principles of the world".[186] In Indian
mythology Indra similarly takes the place of his bolt-throwing father
Dyaus, the sky god, who so closely resembles Zeus. Andrew Lang has
shown that this myth is of widespread character.[187] Were the
Babylonian theorists guided by the folk-lore clue?

Now Merodach, as the son of Ea whom he consulted and received spells
from, was a brother of "Tammuz of the Abyss". It seems that in the
great god of Babylon we should recognize one of the many forms of the
primeval corn spirit and patriarch--the shepherd youth who was beloved
by Ishtar. As the deity of the spring sun, Tammuz slew the winter
demons of rain and tempest, so that he was an appropriate spouse for
the goddess of harvest and war. Merodach may have been a development
of Tammuz in his character as a demon slayer. When he was raised to
the position of Bel, "the Lord" by the Babylonian conquerors, Merodach
supplanted the older Bel--Enlil of Nippur. Now Enlil, who had absorbed
all the attributes of rival deities, and become a world god, was the

Lord of the harvest lands ... lord of the grain fields,

being "lord of the anunnaki", or "earth spirits". As agriculturists in
early times went to war so as to secure prisoners who could be
sacrificed to feed the corn spirit, Enlil was a god of war and was
adored as such:

The haughty, the hostile land thou dost humiliate ...
With thee who ventureth to make war?

He was also "the bull of goring horns ... Enlil the bull", the god of
fertility as well as of battle.[188]

Asari, one of Merodach's names, links him with Osiris, the Egyptian
Tammuz, who was supplanted by his son Horus. As the dragon slayer, he
recalls, among others, Perseus, the Grecian hero, of whom it was
prophesied that he would slay his grandfather. Perseus, like Tammuz
and Osiris, was enclosed in a chest which was cast into the sea, to be
rescued, however, by a fisherman on the island of Seriphos. This hero
afterwards slew Medusa, one of the three terrible sisters, the
Gorgons--a demon group which links with Tiamat. In time, Perseus
returned home, a