Burmese nat devotion predates the conversion to Theravada Buddhism in Burma and was politically formalized under King Anawrahta, who endorsed an official pantheon (commonly enumerated as the 37 Great Nats) and allowed nats to be housed in Buddhist temples so adherents could continue their older cults while adopting Buddhism. Many of the canonical Great Nats are said to have been human beings who met violent deaths and were subsequently deified; other nats are resident spirits of natural features (trees, waters, mountains).
There is no single canonical physical form for nats as a class in the supplied sources; they are represented and experienced through ritual embodiment, statues, costumes, and mediumship at shrines and festivals. The 37 Great Nats are often represented at pilgrimage sites and village shrines, and during nat pwè festivals nat kadaws enact nats through dance and costume, producing variable anthropomorphic portrayals rather than a standardized iconography.
Nats are social spiritual agents with human-like wants and flaws who demand propitiation and offerings. Many are tutelary or territorial spirits tied to villages, households, lineages, trees, forests, mountains, and waters. They can possess or embody mediums (nat kadaws) during nat pwè, allowing communicative exchange; they respond to offerings and ritual negotiation and may punish transgressions (for example, wrath is believed to follow desecration of a tree or sacred site).
Weaknesses
- conditionRequires propitiation and offerings
- conditionSocial obligation and lineage ties (failure to observe hereditary obligations may anger a nat)
Wards
- ritualMaintenance of nat kun / nat sin (village shrine) and household shrine with coconut and perfume
- ritualNat pwè (spirit festival) with nat kadaw mediumship and hsaing waing orchestra
- ritualNat kannah pwè (urban/communal supplication ritual for migrants)
- conditionRespect for sacred natural sites (avoidance of indiscriminate felling or desecration of trees/forests/mountains)
Naraka Yaksha (hellish Yaksha)
The term 'Naraka Yaksha' is not attested in the provided source; it would, hypothetically, denote a yaksha-like being associated with an infernal loka. The supplied material only discusses the general loka concept and does not document any specific entity called Naraka Yaksha.
Narantaka and Devantaka
Narantaka (narāntaka, 'destroyer of men') and Devantaka (devāntaka, 'destroyer of gods') are named asuras, sons of the rakshasa-king Rāvaṇa, who fight on Rāvaṇa's side in the Yuddha Kanda of the Valmiki Rāmāyaṇa. Their roles in the surviving sources are martial: Narantaka is slain by Aṅgada and Devantaka is killed by Hanuṃan’s mace in the epic war.
Nariphon
In Thai Buddhist mythology, the Nariphon is a tree that bears fruit in the shape of young female creatures. (Note: - Power tier: Lower than Primordial (consider Greater or Ancient) - Abilities: The draft implies interaction between Nariphon and Gandharvas, but this is only a suggestion, not a concrete ability. - S)
Nasnas
A half-human djinn creature of Arab folklore — possessing only half a face, one arm, one leg, and half a torso — descended from the union of a shaitan and a human, moving by leaping and highly dangerous to encounter.
Nastes
No folkloric or mythological evidence for an entity called 'Nastes' is present in the supplied sources; the token appears only as the title of contemporary electronic/industrial music tracks by the artist Subjected.
Nasu (Zoroastrianism)
In Zoroastrian cosmology, Nasu is a daeva associated with corpse matter and decay at a cosmic level. (Note: 1. Power tier should be Primordial (supported) but description needs clarification. 2. Clarify which abilities are described in the sources to ensure consistency. 3. Sensory cues and wards seem consis)
Nathiya
Ghost of a young bride who died before her first Diwali as a wife — still wearing her wedding nose ring (nath), she haunts the marital home she never truly inhabited, causing illness in subsequent brides and making the household unwelcoming to new marriages.
Naubolus
Naubolus is a proper name attested in two distinct domains in the supplied sources: a modern zoological genus of South American jumping spiders and a mythographic personal name appearing in Greek genealogical lists (not portrayed as a supernatural being). The sources do not present Naubolus as a spirit, deity, or monster and provide no ritual or cultic material.
Naunet
Naunet is the feminine personification of the primordial watery abyss in ancient Egyptian cosmogony (often paired conceptually with Nu/Nun). She represents the pre-creation watery substrate from which the creator sun god Ra is said to have arisen.
Nauplius
Nauplius is a figure (or set of eponymous figures) in Greek mythic genealogies and heroic-cycle traditions, attested as a son of Poseidon and Amymone, cited as the father of Palamedes, and also recorded as the name of an Argonaut. The name also appears as a toponym (Nauplia), reflecting the common Greek practice of linking personal names and place‑names.
Nausidame
Nausidame (Ancient Greek: Ναυσιδάμη) is a named mortal woman in Greek mythological genealogies, recorded as daughter of Amphidamas and, in one tradition, as consort of the sun god Helios and mother of Augeas, king of Elis. Surviving notices are brief and present her only in this parental/genealogical role; alternative traditions give Augeas different parentage.
Nav (Slavic folklore)
In Slavic mythology, Nav represents the souls of the dead and an underworld associated with Veles. (Note: 1. Remove "Primordial" power tier; source doesn't mention Nav having cosmic-level powers. 2. Add that specific abilities are not mentioned in the source material to the Abilities section. 3. Add senso)
Community Record
- [1]Nat (deity) — Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 'Nat (deity)'wiki
- [2]Nat (deity) — duplicate reference. Wikipedia, 'Nat (deity)' (research notes)wiki