Ghmerti the Creator

Kartvelian supreme creator-god (Morige Ghmerti, the Director-God) of the highland religion, named across the Amirani entries as both the hero godfather and the god who binds him. Classed deity. The kinship-adjacent godfather bond is captured here together with the binding (relation kind enemy, since the symmetric kinds list has no godparent term); see notes.

Domains

• creation and supreme sovereignty

Powers

• bind the defiant Amirani to a Caucasian peak

Epithets

• მორიგე ღმერთი Georgian · Morige Ghmerti · cultGod the Director / the Ruling GodK. Tuite, studies of NE Georgian highland religion; Georgian creation traditions (secondary)

Relations

• enemy: AmiraniGodfather turned punisher: Ghmerti stands godfather to the infant Amirani, but when the grown hero challenges him as an equal, Ghmerti binds him to a Caucasian peak. The creator-versus-defiant-hero opposition of the Amirani cycle (the Georgian Promethean motif).Svan oral tradition; multiple variants of the Amirani epic (primary)

Sources

• existence: Svan, Pshav, Khevsur oral traditions of the Amirani epic; Charachidze, La Religion des Georgiens de la Montagne (1968) (primary); Amirani, Georgian National Encyclopedia (georgianencyclopedia.ge); Amirani, en.wikipedia, accessed June 2026 (secondary)