Ragh
Lezgin · deity · Lezgin traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Ragh is the supreme god of the Lezgin pantheon and the personification of the sun, his name being simply the Lezgin word for the sun itself. He dwells in the seventh and highest of the celestial spheres, from which he governs the ordered world; the lesser gods are ranked in the spheres below him. His pre-eminence is inferred from the density of solar imagery in the region's petroglyphs and grave-goods and from funerary customs oriented toward the sun. Scholars align the triad Ragh, Alpan and Varz with the Helios, Zeus and Selene whom Strabo reports as the principal deities of Caucasian Albania, the ancient polity that embraced the ancestral Lezgic tribes.
Domains
- sun
- supreme sky
Powers
- gives light and orders the world from the seventh sphere
Epithets
- виринви Рагъ — supreme Ragh / Ragh on highRussian Wikipedia, 'Rag'' (Ragh), ru.wikipedia.org (tertiary)
Sources
- Ragh, whose name is the ordinary Lezgin word for the sun, was the most venerated god of the Lezgins, a supreme solar deity whose cult is traced in petroglyphs, grave-goods and funerary orientation.: R.I. Seferbekov, Panteon yazycheskikh bozhestv narodov Dagestana. Makhachkala, 2009 (secondary); Z.R. Rizvanov, R.Z. Rizvanov, Istoriya lezgin. Makhachkala, 1990 (secondary)
- In the tiered Lezgin cosmos Ragh occupies the seventh (uppermost) sphere; Ragh, Alpan and Varz correspond to the Helios, Zeus and Selene whom Strabo names as the chief gods of Caucasian Albania, of which the Lezgic tribes were part.: Strabo, Geographica XI.4.7 (cult of Helios, Zeus and Selene among the Albanians) (primary); ALAM, 'Panteon bozhestv', alamjurnal.com/474 (secondary)