Imra the Creator
Nuristani · deity · creation time / perennial (pre Islamic Kafiristan) · Recorded classification
Nuristani/Kafir creator; name from Indo-Aryan *Yama-raja(n) ('King Yama'). The religion was largely suppressed when Kafiristan was conquered and Islamized (renamed Nuristan, 'land of light') in 1895-96. Counterpart of Kalash Dezau.
Children
Domains
- creation
- sky and heavens
Powers
- creates the other great gods from his breath
Epithets
- Imra The great creator-god of the Kafirs of Nuristan, maker of the other godsGeorge Scott Robertson, The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush (secondary)
Relations
- equated with: YamaImra/Imro continues *Yama-rāja(n) 'King Yama' in name, but the Nuristani figure inverted function: from first mortal and lord of the dead to supreme creator. Cognate name, radically re-assigned office.G.S. Robertson, The Káfirs of the Hindu-Kush (1896); Michael Witzel, 'The Ṛgvedic Religious System and its Central Asian and Hindukush Antecedents' (2004) on Imra < *Yama-rāja (secondary)
Sources
- Imra (Imro/Mara, etymologically Yama-raja) is the supreme creator and sky god of the pre-Islamic Nuristani (Kafir) pantheon, who created the other great gods from his breath and was worshipped in Kafiristan's chief carved-wooden temple.: Robertson, G.S. (1896). The Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush. London: Lawrence & Bullen. (scholarship); Buddruss, G. (1960). Zur Mythologie der Prasun-Kafiren. Paideuma 7: 200-209. (scholarship); Allen, N.J. (1998). Imra, Pentads and Catastrophes. Ethnos 63(3): 405-420. (scholarship)