From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below. The Queen of Heaven and Earth, Inanna (Ee-nah,-nah) suddenly knows that she does not know. She opens her ear in puzzlement, listening, wondering, curious about her sister, Ereshkigal (Eh-resh-kee,-gahl), Queen of the Underworld. For as fertile and beautiful is the Queen of Heaven and Earth, so is the Queen of the Underworld, infertile and dark. The Descent of Inanna comes from ancient Sumer. It was recorded on clay tablets, dating back to 2000 BC; the fragments of these tables finding their way into museums all over the world. Only recently have these fragments been studied as a whole to give us a rich picture of the myths of Inanna.
The tales of Inanna can best be read in Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer's excellent book, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, her stories and hymns from Sumer. But Inanna is a complete Goddess. Her stories tell of her coming of age, claiming her destiny in the tale of the Huluppu-Tree, tricking the God of Wisdom, Enkil (Ehn,-kee) into giving her the holy me (may) of Sumer, the great gifts of civilization that the Gods have given to mankind. In tale of her meeting, courtship, and marriage to the Shepherd-King, Dumuzi (Doo,-moo-zee) we find all the richness and erotic poetry of romantic love and sexual awakening. But in the end, Inanna is still incomplete as she finds herself bored as her husband's attention moves to ruling and power, rather than making love to the Goddess of Love.
And so, with a sound the journey began. Inanna opens her ear to the Great Below, wanting to know of this place. She felt incomplete in her knowledge. She confides in her great advisor, Ninshubur (Neen-shoo,-boor) of her journey, instructing her that if she doesn't come back from the Great Below, to run to her Fathers, the Great Gods and ask their assistance in getting her out of the Underworld. Like the Queen that she is, Inanna prepares herself for the descent, wearing her Crown of the Steppes, her finest jewelry, her best gown. She goes to her sister, the Queen of the Underworld, not as a younger sister, but as an equal.
Inanna bangs on the outergates of the Underworld and commands that they be opened before her. The gatekeeper, Neti, questions who she is and why she wishes to enter. She tells the gatekeeper that she has come to see her sister, Ereshkigal and to witness the funeral rites of her sister's husband, Gugalanna. And she demands admittance to the Dark Realm. The gatekeeper runs to Ereshkigal for orders and Ereshkigal slaps her thigh and bites her lip, anxious to have her beautiful sister under her domain. Ereshkigal instructs the gatekeeper to let Inanna pass through the 7 gates, but only after Inanna removes her garments, one by one at each gate.
At the first she must remove her shugurra,
the Crown of the Steppes
At the second, the small lapis beads from
around her neck
At the third, the double strand of beads
from her breast
At the fourth, her breastplate
At the fifth, her gold ring
At the sixth, her lapis measuring rod and
line
At the seventh gate, the last, her royal
robe.
Naked, she is received in the Underworld by her sister Ereshkigal, sitting on her throne who calls the Judges to pass sentence on Inanna. Stripped of all that belongs to her, the Judges pronounce Inanna guilty. For she is guilty of ignorance of death. And so, with a cry of guilty, Ereshkigal fixes the eye of death on Inanna, turning her into a rotting corpse, left to hang on a hook in her sister's kingdom.
Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld rules over a kingdom of dust and darkness and decay, a kingdom that awaits all mankind. But the Sumerians believed that death was not the final answer and that the soul survived the decay of the body, moving onto a different realm. Yet all kings and princes face Ereshkigal and so does Inanna. After 3 days, Inanna's faithful advisor, Ninshubur raises the cry for the Death of Inanna. She runs to each of the Fathers, the great Gods, Enhil, Nanna, and finally Enki the God of Wisdom. Only Enki responses to the cry, distressed knowing that the earth cannot prosper without the Queen of the Earth and all of Fertility. He fashions creatures from the dirt of his fingernails and instructs them to go rescue Inanna from the clutches of Death.
The creatures journey to the Underworld and hear Ereshkigal moaning with birth pains. They moan with her in sympathy for her pain and as a reward, she grants them a gift and they request the rotten corpse of Inanna, revitalizing it with the food and water of life. Inanna is reborn and prepares to ascend from the Underworld. But no one has ever left the Underworld before and the demons insist that someone must take Inanna's place in the world of Death.
As Inanna journeys back home, the demons accompany her. As she sees her faithful advisor, Ninshubur and her own two sons, dressed in sackcloth overwhelmed with mourning, Inanna forbids the demons to take the faithful ones. Inanna arrives at her palace only to find her husband Dumuzi, dressed in his royal robes, seemingly unconcerned over the death of his wife. Inanna orders the demons to take Dumuzi in her place and he is taken. The Story of Dumuzi's own time in the Underworld is told in another tale.
In the telling of Inanna and her Descent to the Underworld, we find all the essential aspects of the Descent Mythos. Inanna is incomplete in her knowledge and wishes to know of all things, even Death. She gradually disrobes as she passes through the 7 gates. At each gate she gives up more and more of her ego and power, facing initiation after initiation as she is transformed from the Queen of Heaven and Earth, to a helpless supplicant at her dark sister's feet. She is touched by the eye of death and experiences the decay and darkness that is her opposite. But by doing so, she is reborn and returns to her kingdom a wiser and more complete Queen.