Night
deity figure · 7 works · 11 mentions · 15 anchored passages
Rātrī · Ghṛtācī · Lady Night · black Night · blackwinged Night · dark Night · evil Night
spoken of as
1 expressionRātrī“Night”3 mentions
Atharvaveda (Paippalāda) (Sanskrit) · Rigveda (Sanskrit)
Those watchmen of thine, O Night, who look upon men — ninety and nine they are;
in the texts
Rigveda
Goddess of night, paired with Dawn.
And those two blessed goddesses who behold each other in turn — Dawn and Night, quickeners of the moving world — may I, O Earth, with a fresh utterance praise you;
may the undeceiving Dawn and Night, both our days, be our protection.
Of beautiful appearance, growing in strength, the two great mothers of Ṛta — we summon Night and Dawn.
Atharvaveda (Paippalāda)
Personified Night, addressed as vast and dark, protector through numbered watchmen, asked to shelter the household and deliver it safely to Dawn; her secret name is said to be known by Bharadvāja.
Those watchmen of thine, O Night, who look upon men — ninety and nine they are;
Whatever flies here, whatever crawls here, whatever walks on feet or has a mouth — from that do thou, O Night, protect us.
I know thy name, O Night — Ghṛtācī is indeed thy name.
Birds
The primordial goddess of Night, who in the Chorus's cosmogony lays the egg from which Eros and the race of birds are born.
Firstly, blackwinged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite deeps of Erebus, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Eros with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest.
At the beginning there was only Chaos, Night, dark Erebus, and deep Tartarus.
Heracles
Primordial goddess of night, mother of Madness (Lyssa).
she, whom you see, is Madness, daughter of Night, and I am Iris, the handmaid of the gods.
Of noble parents was I born, the daughter of Night, sprung from the blood of Ouranos;
Orestes
Personified goddess of night invoked by Electra to bring sleep to her suffering brother.
O Lady Night, giver of sleep to hard-working mortals, come from Erebus, come, wing your way to the palace of Agamemnon.
Theogony
The primeval goddess of night, mother of Sleep and Death.
and the one holds all-seeing light for them on earth, but the other holds in her arms Sleep the brother of Death, even evil Night, wrapped in a vaporous cloud.