Ishtar, it will be observed, is here called the daughter of the moon-god, whereas in the Gilgamesh epic she appears as the daughter of Anu, the god of heaven. Both designations reflect the views developed in the schools, and prove that the story has been produced under scholastic influences. The goddess has her place in the heavens, in the planet bearing her name, and the designation of this planet as the daughter of Sin can only be understood in connection with the astronomical system, in which the moon plays so prominent a rôle[1158] and becomes the father of all the great gods (except Shamash) who constitute the lesser luminaries of the night.
Irkalla is one of the names[1159] for a god of the nether world, who is regarded as the associate of Allatu. The dwelling is elsewhere spoken of as a 'great palace' in which Allatu and her consort Nergal have their thrones. A gloomier place than the one described in these opening lines of the story cannot well be imagined. The picture reflects the popular views, and up to this point, the doctrines of the school are in agreement with the early beliefs. The description of the lower world is evidently suggested by the grave or the cave in which the dead were laid. The reference to dust and clay as the food of the dead shows that the doctrine taught in the Gilgamesh epic,[1160] of man's being formed of clay and returning to clay, was the common one. This view helps us to understand how the words for grave came to be used as synonyms for the nether world. The dead being placed below the earth, they were actually conveyed within the realm of which Aralû was a part, and since it became customary for the Babylonians to bury their dead together, the cities of the dead that thus arose could easily be imagined to constitute the kingdom presided over by Allatu and Nergal. At this point, however, the speculations of the schools begin to diverge from the popular notions. We may well question whether the Babylonian populace ever attempted to make clear to itself in what form the dead continued their existence. It may be that the argument from dreams, as the basis for the primitive belief in the continuation of life, in some form, after death has been too hard pressed,[1161] but certainly the appearance of the dead in the dreams of the living must have produced a profound impression, and since the dead appeared in the same form that they had while alive, the conclusion was natural that, even though the body decayed, a vague outline remained that bore the same relation to the corpus as the shadow to the figure casting it. Two remarkable chapters in the Old Testament[1162] illustrate this popular view prevailing in Babylonia, as to the condition of the dead in the nether world. The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel both portray the dead as having the same form that they possessed while alive. The kings have their crowns on their heads; the warriors lie with their swords girded about them. The dead Eabani, it will be recalled, appears to Gilgamesh and is at once recognized by the latter. What distinguishes the dead from the living is their inactivity. They lie in Aralû without doing anything. Everything there is in a state of neglect and decay. The dead can speak, but the Babylonians probably believed, like the Hebrews, that the dead talk in whispers, or chirp like birds.[1163] The dead are weak,[1164] and, therefore, unless others attend to their needs, they suffer pangs of hunger, or must content themselves with 'dust and clay' as their food. Tender care during the last moments of life was essential to comparative well-being in Aralû.[1165] The person who goes to Aralû in sorrow and neglect will continue sorrowful and neglected.
The theologians, while accepting these views in general, passed beyond them in an important particular. They could not reconcile the evident dissolution of the body with a continuation of even a shadowy outline. When a man died, the 'spirit,' which, according to the animistic theory, lodged somewhere within the body and produced the manifestations of life, sought for refuge in some other substance. The ease with which birds moved from one place to another suggested these beings as the ones in which the dislodged spirit found a home. The Babylonian thinkers were not alone in developing the view that the dead assumed the form of birds. Parallels to the pictures of the dead in the story of Ishtar's descent may be found in Egypt and elsewhere.[1166] But what is important for our purposes is the consideration that, in Babylonia at least, the view in question is not the popular one, but the result of speculations about a problem that appeals only to those who make the attempt, at least, to clarify their ideas regarding the mystery of death. The next section of the story affords us a picture of the entrance to Aralû:
When Ishtar arrived at the gate of the land without return,
She spoke to the watchman of the gate:
Open thy gate that I may enter.
If thou dost not open the gate, if thou refusest me admission,
I will smash the door, break the bolt.
I will smash the threshold, force open the portals.