Alpan
Alpan is the Lezgin god of fire, lightning and justice, the thunder-wielder of the pantheon. His name is linked to the Lezgin word for lightning, tsIaIlapan, understood as 'the blaze or flash of fire.' From the sixth celestial sphere, and equally from the hearth of every house, he restores balance and right order in the world; the eagle and the fiery bolt are his emblems. Because the god was believed to lodge in the domestic fire, families kept an ember perpetually alight and treated the hearth as sacred, forbidding refuse, spitting or the pouring of water upon it. His name endures in the still-current imprecation 'May Alpan strike you!' In the pantheon he is paired with the goddess Yar in a sacred marriage whose visible sign is the spring rainbow, their daughter. Some scholars connect his name and cult to the ancient toponym Alpan/Albania of Caucasian Albania.
Children
Domains
- fire lightning
- justice
Powers
- hurls lightning and restores justice
- dwells in the domestic hearth-fire
Epithets
- Алпанди ягъурай! — May Alpan strike you! (a surviving curse invoking the god)Russian Wikipedia, 'Alpan (lezginskaya mifologiya)' (tertiary)
Relations
- spouse: YarThe union of Alpan and Yar was celebrated as a sacred marriage whose emblem is the spring rainbow.ALAM, 'Panteon bozhestv', alamjurnal.com/474 (secondary)
- child: Yaran rushALAM, 'Panteon bozhestv', alamjurnal.com/474 (secondary)
Sources
- Alpan is the Lezgin god of fire, lightning and justice; his name derives from tsIaIlapan 'lightning', and his emblems are the eagle and the fiery bolt with which he restores balance and justice.: R.I. Seferbekov, Verkhovnye bogi (gromoverzhtsy) narodov Dagestana (secondary); Russian Wikipedia, 'Alpan (lezginskaya mifologiya)' (tertiary)
- Alpan resides in the sixth celestial sphere and in the domestic hearth, so that the hearth-fire was kept holy and never extinguished; the curse 'May Alpan strike you!' survives in Lezgin speech.: ALAM, 'Kosmogonicheskie predstavleniya lezgin', alamjurnal.com/597 (secondary)