Guarding Waters from Source to Sink: From Ancient Gods to the Clean Water Rule

摘要

IN MANY ANCIENT FAITHS, significant aspects of nature down to specific locations/sites were within the domain and usually under the active protection of deities/spirits/supernatural beings. In Chinese traditional religions, each of the major rivers had a patron deity or deities: Ehuang, Longmu and Nuying are the goddesses of the Xiang River and Hebo the god of the Yellow River. Each of the Four Seas was protected by a Dragon King and the Shuixian Zunwang (the Honorable Kings of the Water Immortals) oversaw aspects of the great floods. In the Egyptian myth, no less than 10 deities had aspects of rulership of water with aspects of the Nile under the province of one or more deities. In Koshinto or the oldest version of Shinto, the Kami or nature deities indwell in in many places in nature especially bodies of water. The ancient Greeks and Romans may have surpassed all faiths ancient and modern in their development of a hierarchy of gods and goddesses including those whose domains subsumed aspects of the hydrologic world. The Nymphs had had localities covered with the Naiades indwelling and protecting fresh water bodies, the Nereides were Nymphs of the Sea and the Oceanides being the protectors of freshwater sources. Regions/rivers/watersheds had their own deities and Acheolous was the god of all rivers. At the top was Oceanus the Titan and the source of all fresh water and Poseidon god of the Sea. Needless to say, there were deity/protectors of all aspects of water.