Great Gish

Gish or Great Gish (Kamkata-vari: Giṣ/Gaviṣ) was the most popular god of Nuristani mythology and received the greatest amount of attention among the Siah-Posh Nuristani of Bashgul. Every village of Bashgul had one or more shrines dedicated to him.[1] In the Nuristani pantheon, Gish ranked next to Moni who was said to be the chief prophet of Imra. Both Moni and Gish were created by Imra by his breath.

Gish was the war-god. His earthly name was Yazid, and he is stated to have killed Ali, Hasan and Husain and nearly every famous Muslim known to the Nuristani. Countless bulls and billy goats were sacrificed each year to him and the drums were beaten in his honor for fifteen continuous days, every spring, by the Nuristani slaves.[1]

Etymology

According to Richard Strand, in his Nuristâni Etymological Lexicon, it is related to the Sanskrit word gavíṣ/gaviṣá "desire for cows; eager", an epithet of Indra (with which he is functionally equivalent), in turn from Proto-Indo-Iranian *gawHíšHs, with a later shift in meaning to "war".

Cognates of Kamkata-vari giṣ/gaviṣ include Ashkun gavīṣ and Waigali geṣ. The presence of a retroflex ṣ indicates that the name was borrowed from Sanskrit.[2]

In John Updike's 1965 short story "God Speaks" (collected in "Museums and Women") Gish Imra is the name of one of the protagonists, the son of the assassinated leader of a Central Asian state called Nuristan.

See also

References
  1. Sir Denzil Ibbetson; Maclagan (1990). Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier Province. Asian Educational Services. pp. 429–430. ISBN 978-81-206-0505-3.
  2. Halfmann, Jakob. "Nuristani Theonyms in Light of Historical Phonology". In: 6th Indo-European Research Colloquium, 2022. [DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31805.54244]; www.researchgate.net/publication/359109254_Nuristani_Theonyms_in_Light_of_Historical_Phonology


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