<論文>｢魂」の異世界への転移 --ヒッタイトにおける冥界観について--

Abstract

This paper discusses the idea of the soul in Hittite texts to understand the concept of the afterlife in the Hittite Anatolia. From some mythological texts, we learn that the Hittites believed the soul left one's body at death to go to a dark and gloomy underworld similar to those present in other Mesopotamian literature. However, with an analysis of the expressions referring to the soul, this paper reveals that they indicate that there might have been multiple views of the netherworld as the place where one's soul was thought to be transported. Some religious texts described souls as a kind of liquid. In one prayer, the supplicant appeals to the gods saying that his soul would leave his body out of sorrow and seep out like water into another world. This image might have come from a local concept that pre-existed the Hittites. Souls were also conceived as something illuminated or glowing in later texts. The angry souls of gods were compared to flames while those of merciful gods were described as being like sunlight. These texts indicate that the Hittite netherworld might have been anywhere such souls --as either liquid or light-- reached.