The following notes taken from sections 1, 2, and 5 of:
Fighting the Mountain: Some Observations on the Sumerian Myths of Inanna and Ninurta
By Fumi Karahashi, University of Pennsylvania JNES 63 no. 2 2004
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Two Sumerian mythological compositions share the motif of a god fighting a mountain. One, Inanna and Ebih, tell how Inanna fights and conquers Mount Ebih; the other, Lugal-e, tells how Ninurta, Inanna’s male counterpart, campaigns against Asag, which may symbolize a stone or a mountain.
Inanna and Ebih begins with an introductory hymn in praise of Inanna. Inanna goes around heaven and earth and then resolves to attack Mount Ebih because she feels that it does not show her proper respect. Inanna describes how she is going to attach the mountain, then puts on her attire, makes offerings to the god An, and tells him about her plan of conquering Ebih. An does not approve of her plan and refuses to give his consent to it, but the furious Inanna goes off to fight anyway. She defeats Ebih and then tells the mountain why she attacked it.
Lugal-e starts with an introductory hymn in praise of Ninurta. At a banquet with the gods An and Enlil, Ninurta’s personified weapon Sharur informs him of the creation of a mysteriously strong opponent, Asag, who, together with an allied army of stones, threatens Ninurta’s authority. Ninurta prepares for battle, and when he is about to attack the enemy forces, Sharur goes to spy on them and comes back. Ninurta engages in the battle, and when he is losing, Sharur goes to Nippur to ask help from Ninurta’s father, Enlil. Ninurta launches his second attack and finally defeats Asag and its allie. In the following section, Ninurta is portrayed as the inventor of irrigation. He piles up the defeated stones to construct a dam and thereby brings the mountain waters down to the Mesopotamian plain for agriculture. Ninurta then dedicates the stone-pile (hur-sag) to his mother, the goddess Ninmah, thereafter known as Ninhursag. The story ends with Ninurta blessing and cursing the different stones and establishing their properties.
Inanna’s battle with Ebih and Ninurta’s with Asag are similar at the most basic level. Both stories involve a god fighting a mountain or a mountain-symbolizing stone, and both show close similarities in the phraseology used to describe the protagonists, the antagonists, and some of their actions. Yet the stories employ these same basic elements in such a way that they create opposite effects, effects that illustrate and, at the same time, reinforce the different nature of Inanna and Ninurta. Inanna’s aggression has no legitimate cause, therefore giving the impression that she acts to satisfy her own desire, which is to me taken as one of her many capricious acts. Ninurta, on the other hand, is pictured as a serious and responsible figure who defends the proper order of the divine world and engages the noble task of controlling the flood waters. Ninurta transforms the defeated Asag and stones into a fertile mountain, while Inanna simply destroys for the sake of destruction.
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I see most of the goddess oriented myths to be older than the god oriented ones. For instance, with the above myths I see Inanna’s capricious nature as, actually, Nature. I think this myth was meant to represent a bad storm on a local mountain and the people wondering which god was having an argument with the mountain.
With Ninurta’s story, I see this as a more reasoned society taking place and trying to be logical about a natural event. During a time when men were taking over the ruling of society, instead of the previous, more equal council rulerships, this was a male god declaring order upon Nature. Inanna, Nature personified, was no longer allowed to rule.
Part of me is indignant and pissed off, but I understand what these myths are trying to say. If I look at Inanna in these myths as the personification of Nature, it stands to reason that as society (Ninurta) matured, they would begin to make an attempt at controlling Nature and using it to their advantage, rather than being controlled by it.