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List of thunder deities

Wikipedia contributorsAdapted for Fathomly · View authors
3 min read
Source updated September 1, 2026
Image credit is listed at the end of this article.

Polytheistic peoples from many cultures have postulated a thunder deity, the creator or personification of the forces of thunder and lightning; a lightning god does not have a typical depiction and will vary based on the culture.

In Indo-European cultures, the thunder god is frequently depicted as male and known as the chief or King of the Gods, e.g.: Indra in Hinduism, Zeus in Greek mythology, Zojz in Albanian mythology, Perkūnas in Baltic mythology and Perun in Slavic mythology.

01Mediterranean

Greco-Roman

02Northwestern Eurasia

03Africa

04Asia

South Asia

East Asia

Chinese

Japanese

Southeast Asia

Filipino

  • Kidul (Kalinga mythology)
  • Ovug (Ifugao mythology)
  • Aninitud angachar (Ifugao mythology)
  • Child of Kabunian (Ibaloi mythology)
  • Kidu (Bugkalot mythology)
  • Revenador (Ilocano mythology)
  • Bathala (Tagalog mythology)
  • Kidlat (Tagalog mythology)
  • Gugurang (Bicolano mythology)
  • Linti (Bicolano mythology)
  • Dalodog (Bicolano mythology)
  • Kaptan (Bisaya mythology)
  • Linting Habughabug (Capiznon mythology)
  • Ribung Linti (Suludnon mythology)
  • Upu Kuyaw (Pala'wan mythology)
  • God of Animals (Surigaonon mythology)
  • Diwata Magbabaya/Bathala (Subanon mythology)
  • Anit/Anitan (Manobo mythology)
  • Spirit of Lightning and Thunder (Teduray mythology)

05Oceania

Australia

New Zealand

06Americas

07In literature

The Hindu God Indra was the chief deity and at his prime during the Vedic period, where he was considered to be the supreme God. Indra was initially recorded in the Rigveda, the first of the religious scriptures that comprise the Vedas. Indra continued to play a prominent role throughout the evolution of Hinduism and played a pivotal role in the two Sanskrit epics that comprise the Itihasas, appearing in both the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Although the importance of Indra has since been subsided in favor of other Gods in contemporary Hinduism, he is still venerated and worshipped.

In Greek mythology, the Elysian Fields, or the Elysian Plains, was the final resting places of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous, evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios. This could be a reference to Zeus, the god of lightning, so "lightning-struck" could be saying that the person was blessed (struck) by Zeus (/lightning/fortune). Egyptologist Jan Assmann has also suggested that Greek Elysion may have instead been derived from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.

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Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “List of thunder deities”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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