Tammuz in Tamil culture

The name of Tammuz was carried by Tammuzh, a Tamil Pandyan king in the Dravidian cultural realm of ancient South India, who held his capital at Kuadam. .The Pandyans had trading contacts with Ptolemaic Egypt and, through Egypt, with Rome by the first century CE.

A number of pastoral poems and songs relate the love affair of Inanna and Dumuzid the shepherd. A text recovered in 1963 recounts "The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi" in terms that are tender and frankly erotic

British actor Ben kingley ,features has similarities to the ancient sumaritans pictured right, Jewish mother and Indian farther from Gurat In the ancient Indus valley region

Dumuzi in Sumerian

In the Sumerian King List Dumuzi the Fisherman appears as "Dumuzi the Fisherman, whose city was Kua, reigned 100 years" the third king of the first dynasty of Uruk, reigning between Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh the son of Lugalbanda, a situation not explained in extant texts. Nor is it explained why in other texts Dumuzi is always a shepherd, not a fisherman. The king list does also lists a Dumuzid the Shepherd as the fifth of the kings who reigned in Eridu before the flood.

The Myth

According to the myth of Inanna's descent into the underworld, Inanna (Ishtar in the Akkadian texts) set off for the netherworld, or Kur, which was ruled by her sister Ereshkigal, perhaps to take it as her own. Inanna passed through seven gates and at each one was required to leave a garment or an ornament so that when Inanna had passed through the seventh gate she was entirely naked. Despite warnings about her presumption, Inanna did not turn back but dared to sit herself down on Ereshkigal's throne. Immediately the Anunnaki of the underworld judged her, gazed at her with the eyes of death, and Inanna became a corpse, hung up on a hook.

Inanna's faithful servant attempted to get help from the other gods ( a meeting place for gods was dilman or present day bahrain ) but only wise Ea responded. The details of Ea's plan differ slightly in the two surviving accounts, but in the end, Inanna was resurrected. However, a "conservation of souls" law required her to find a replacement for herself in Kur. She went from one god to another, but each one pleaded with her and she had not the heart to go through with it until she found Dumuzid on her throne, apparently quite pleased that she was gone. Inanna r immediately set the demons on Dumuzid At this point the Akkadian text fails as Dumuzid sister Belili, introduced for the first time, strips herself of her jewelry in mourning but claims that Dumuzid and the dead will come back.

There is some confusion here. The name Belili occurs in one of the Sumerian texts also, but it is not the name of Dumuzid's sister who is there named Geshtinana, but is the name of an old woman whom another text calls Bilulu.In any case, the Sumerian texts relate how Dumuzid fled to his sister Geshtinana who attempted to hide him but who could not in the end stand up to the demons. Dumuzid has one close call after another until the demons finally catch up with him under the supposed protection of this old woman called Bilulu or Belili and then they take him. However Inanna repents.

Inanna seeks vengeance on Bilulu, on Bilulu's murderous son G̃irg̃ire and on G̃irg̃ire's consort Shirru "of the haunted desert, no-one's child and no-one's friend". Inanna changes Bilulu into a waterskin and G̃irg̃ire into a protective god of the desert while Shirru is assigned to watch always that the proper rites are performed for protection against the hazards of the desert.Finally, Inanna relents and changes her decree thereby restoring her husband Dumuzi to life; an arrangement is made by which Geshtinana will take Dumuzid's place in Kur for 6 months of the year.Dumuzid being the god of the vegetation cycle, this corresponds to the changing of the seasons as the abundance of the earth diminishes in his absence. He is a life-death-rebirth deity.