Mayan Religion
Mayan religion is the religion of a people living in Mesoamerica until European conquest in the 16th century CE. The Mays believed that the universe ahd been, and would continue to be created and destroyed multiple times with each cycle lasting five thousand years. They believe that the universe began in 3114 BCE and would come to an end in 2012 CE. They believed that the cycle of creation and destruction of the universe would last forever. The calendar was an important part of Mayan religious culture. Mayans believed in a 365 day solar year, a 260 day ritual year, and a 584 day year based on the movement of the planet Venus. They believed that the Earth was a back of a giant alligator-like reptile floating in a pool with an exposed position that was flat and had four corners. The corners lay at four cardinal points of compass and were associated with a color. White was the color of the north, red the color of the east, yellow the color of the south, and black the color of the west, with green being the color of the core of the earth. Above earth was a heaven with 13 levels. 7 were going up to a peak and 6 were coming down like the rising and setting of the sun. Below earth was an underworld with 9 levels(five descending and four ascending.)
Universe was believed to have been linked by a green ceiba tree that stood at the center of the world. Its branches extended into the heavens, and its roots into the underworld. Rulers of Maya city-states,and temples built in honor of deceased rulers were seen as embodiments of the tree and as physical links between the earth and the supernatural world. The Maya pantheon included a host of gods and goddesses, with each one having four color-direction aspects. Every deity of the heavens had a counterpart in the underworld. Many deities had coutnerparts of the opposite gender. The many gods and goddesses were believed to be different manifestations of relatively few divine powers. Religious leadership was the responsibility of the kings and nobles. Ritual communication with the dead, ritual self-mutilation to bring hallucinations, and prophecies to givern scheduling of rituals were very important to the Mayas practices. The Most solemn ceremonies were reenactments of death and rebirth of the gods. After death, souls were bel;ieved to descend into the underworld called the place of fright. It was believed to be a cold, damp, foul-smelling region ruled by fearsome deities. There was no escape for most souls. However, deceased Maya rulers copuld flee the underworld amd be reborm into an astronomical body that descends below the horizon and rises again. In being reborn this way, rulers reenacted the deeds of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbelamque, who defeated the rulers in the underworld in an athletic contest. Then rose victorious to the sky where they were deified as sun and moon.
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