The Metafictional Origin of Aka: A Brief Analysis

First thread. I hope this is on-topic enough. I find comparative mythology absolutely fascinating. I could compare Túrin Turambar and Kullervo; Baldr and Osiris; Mehrunes Dagon and Morgoth; Shiva and Padomay all day. Thus, finding Zurvan was quite fun for me.

Here, I examine a possible inspiration for "Aka." Given that the Dream of the Aurbis is written in this world, it stands to reason that the deities and myths of the Elder Scrolls have inspiration in this world. Maybe it's pointless, but I think if we can find the roots, we can claw our way up the rest of the tree.

Before Islam in Iran, there was Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism generated its fair share of heresies. After Zoroastrianism lost its dominance, a heretical cult emerged — a heretical cult whose thinking may have partially inspired Gnosticism.

Zoroastrianism was dualistic; Zurvanism was monistic, and taught that both Ohrmazd and Ahriman – the equal but opposite twins of good and evil (sound familiar?), respectively — had been created by the Godhead Zurvan Akarana, “Limitless Time.” Also known as Aion, or Aeon – you know, the word that "kalpa" translates to? – he was the God of Infinite Time and Space. According to Wikipedia (and I have no way to verify this without purchasing the articles it cites), Zurvan was aka … meaning “alone.” Which is rather ironic, given that Aurbis’s Aka is now in shards.

That said, aka has also been translated to “evil,” in the case of Aka Manah, who was a daeva — literally meaning “false god” or “god that is to be rejected.” Things become really very interesting here, because daeva is etymologically linked to Vedic “deva,” which itself is linked to “deus,” “Zeus,” “deity,” “divine,” “Tyr,” “Tuesday,” “Dyeus” (the proto-Indo-European god of the sky, probably before the mythologies diverged) and “div-”, the last of which means “to shine”. At the same time, Zoroastrianism’s good “ahuras” have also been linked to Vedism’s demonic “asuras.”

Given that TES heavily draws from Vedic thinking, it seems likely that the Dunmer have the view of daevas/devas/Divines as “gods to be rejected,” while the majority of Tamriel believes that the daevas/devas/Divines are to be worshipped.

Perhaps all of this makes Aka good, or perhaps it makes him above good and evil, as his primary namesake, Zurvana Akarana, God of Infinite Time and Space, was in Zurvanism.

Supposedly Zurvanite thinking inspired the Gnostics, or perhaps it was the other way around. That is, in both religions there is a remote Godhead figure with a more immediate demiurge controlling everything (in some versions of Zurvanism, the current demiurge is evil, but eventually Zurvan will replace Ahriman with Ohrmazd and Light will reign forever). This would not be the first example of Aka’s connections to Gnosticism: the name of an Aka-shard, “Auri-El,” appears to be an homage to the archangel “Arael”/“Ari’el” (Lion of God) of Hebrew mythology, which may or may not be the name of the demiurge in some apocryphal texts —indeed, the name "Ari’el" may come from “Ahriman” (again, from Wikipedia — get out your salt grains).

Given that during Michael Kirbride’s AMA he identified as a Gnostic, Zurvan Akarana seems a likely inspiration for both Aka and (to an extent) the Godhead (though that honor mostly belongs to the Ultimate Reality of Hinduism). For me, this raises questions about Aka’s potential connections to the Godhead. He may, indeed, be a demiurge for the Godhead — or perhaps his various shards are demiurges for him. This idea is strengthened by, in the Loveletter, Akatosh being referred to as “subcreating” –– this is a term used by Tolkien to describe the process of mythopoeia, a fancy word for what those folks over at /r/worldbuilding do, and by Gnostics to describe the “subcreator,” or demiurge.