Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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This page groups deities by the gender attributed to them in myth, since most pantheons assign their gods a specific gender the way they assign one to people. Wikipedia notes that "in polytheistic religions, gods often have genders which would enable them to sexually interact with each other, and even with humans." Browsing this way lets a visitor compare, for instance, every goddess in the atlas against every god, regardless of which tradition either comes from.

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Two Figures in One Relationship of Withdrawal and Delegation

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Yazidi Deities gathers two figures of Yazidi religion, standing in a single relationship of withdrawal and delegation: a creator who stepped back from the world, and the being entrusted to govern it.

Xwede is God in Yazidi theology, the ultimate creator understood as having withdrawn from direct governance of the world after entrusting it to Melek Taus and the Heptad, and therefore rarely the direct object of Yazidi petition or ritual address in ordinary practice. Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, is chief of the Heptad and the central figure of Yazidi religion, through whom God governs the world after entrusting creation to seven holy beings.

Melek Taus is not a devil figure in Yazidi belief. The atlas records the tradition's own correction on this point directly: the association with Satan is a libel with a documented history, not a description Yazidis themselves hold, a distinction that matters given how often Yazidi religion has been mischaracterised.

Between them, Xwede and Melek Taus describe the whole of Yazidi cosmology as this atlas records it, a distant creator and the delegated power actually addressed in devotion. Nothing beyond what each figure's own published record already discloses is added here, in keeping with the closed status of Yazidism's own restricted tradition.

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1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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