Growth & Evolution : Polycephaly in Mythology

POLYCEPHALY IN MYTHOLOGY

After looking at cases of polycephaly in the previous post, we must now consider the mythological cases of polycephaly of which are depicted in art more than polycephalic animals of the real world...

GREEK MYTHOLOGY
Multi-headedness and mixed up creatures and animals are abundant in greek mythology so I figured it would be a great place to start. 

CERBERUS is a 3 headed dog/ hellhound with a serpents tail and a mane of snakes, who's feet hold lion's claws. Cerberus guards the entrance to the underworld to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering. 











LADON is a serpent-like dragon who can, depending on the myth, have up to 100 heads.

CHIMERA, a fire breathing creature with a lion's head, a goat's head rising from it's back, and a tail ending with a snake's head.















LERNEAN HYDRA is a serpent-like water monster with many heads, each of which if the get cut off, two more will grow in it's place. 


ORTHRUS is the brother of Cerberus, but instead of sharing the trait of 3 heads, Orthrus has oonly 2 heads.















THE HECATONCHEIRES are three giants, each with 100 hands and 50 heads, who guard the gates of Tartarus, who also helped overthrow the Titans.















JANUS is the two headed god of beginnings and transitions, gates, passages, endings and time. His two heads symbolize one looking to the future and the other looking to the past. 



HINDU MYTHOLOGY

Rather a lot of Hindu gods and deities have multiple heads, or even limbs, so these may not all come under the term of polycephalic beings but they are all mythological forms of teratologically categorised beings.















AGNI is the Vedic god of fire. He has two heads (one marks immortality and the  other marks an unknown symbol of life) and can be depicted with 7 hands and 3 legs.













DATTATREYA is the 3 headed, 6 handed lord of yoga, displaying tantric traits.














BRAHMA is the god of creation, he has 4 heads continually reciting one of the 4 vedas, he also has 4 arms.


GAYATRI is feminine form of a sanskrit word for a song. She is usually portrayed as having 5 heads and 10 arms.

KARTIKEYA is the god of wisdom, love, war and victory. His 6 heads are to represent the 6 'Siddhis' bestowed upon yogis over the course/ evolution of their spiritual development.



Other religions depict multi-headed and multi-limbed creatures/beings such as...

TAOISM:

NEZHA is sometimes shown with 3 heads and 6 arms.

OCCULTISM:

BUNE is an occult demon depicted as a 3 headed dragon, the heads being those of a man, a dog and a griffin.

EGYPTIAN:

NEHEBKAU is a 2 headed snake that guards the gates to the underworld.


(One idea for developing ideas in the future could be placing the creatures from the myths into modern day scenarios.)