Jupiter Mythology

Zeus is the youngest son of Cronus and Rhea. He overthrows his father and rules the sky with the thunderbolt. Homer calls him the father of gods and men, and he also protects oaths, hospitality and suppliants. His countless marriages and children are read as abundance in divine form. In the Works and Days Hesiod makes Dike, justice in person, the daughter of Zeus and says that she reports crooked judgements to her father. Zeus is therefore named not only as god of the sky but as the guardian of law and the measure of virtue. Zeus in the Greek family tree →

The name Iuppiter comes from Dyeus-pater, 'sky father'. On the Capitol he was worshipped in a triad with Juno and Minerva. Under the title Optimus Maximus, best and greatest, he is the god of the Roman state, of the oath and of victory. Thursday (Iovis dies) is his day, and his name survives in the word 'jovial'. The triad has an Etruscan precedent in Tinia, Uni and Menrva, and Rome took the arrangement of the temple from its Etruscan neighbours.

Marduk is the son of Enki. In Enuma Elish he defeats Tiamat, founds the world, becomes king of the gods and receives fifty names. The Babylonians called the planet Jupiter Neberu, 'the crossing', and counted it the star of Marduk. At Babylon's New Year festival it is Marduk who fixes the destiny of the year. Marduk in the Mesopotamian family tree →

The name Amun means 'the hidden one'. He is the king god of Thebes, and in the New Kingdom he merged with Ra as Amun-Ra, king of the gods. The Greeks identified him with Zeus. The oracle of Zeus-Ammon at Siwa grew out of that identification, and it was there that Alexander was proclaimed 'son of the god'. Amun in the Egyptian family tree →

Thor is the son of Odin and Jörd. He carries the thunder and the hammer Mjölnir. The Roman Thursday (Iovis dies) was given to Thor in the Germanic world, and English Thursday still carries his name. Thor protects farmers and ordinary people and is the terror of the giants. Thor in the Norse family tree →

In Vedic astrology Jupiter is called Brihaspati or Guru. He is the teacher of the gods and the lord of prayer and wisdom. As a graha he signifies knowledge, children, wealth and dharma. Thursday (Guruvara) is his day. His stone is yellow sapphire and his colour is yellow.

Zeus sits enthroned with his eagle, Marduk holds the tablets of destiny and Iuppiter guards the oath. These three images say the same thing: Jupiter is the legitimate form of authority and stands for order, justice and judgement. That is why astrology assigns judges, priests, counsellors and the king to Jupiter.

Zeus, Iuppiter, Thor, Marduk and Adad are all sky gods. The hand that hurls the lightning also sends the rain, so it punishes and feeds at the same time. This is also the root of Jupiter's title 'greater benefic', because the rain that feeds the earth comes from that hand. Light, storm and lightning are three appearances of one power in this branch. The storm darkens the sky and the lightning lights it up in an instant. Homer calls Zeus the cloud-gatherer and treats the storm as a sign coming straight from his hand.

Brihaspati is the teacher of the gods, Zeus' oak at Dodona gives oracles and Chiron trains the heroes. In each of them Jupiter appears as the planet that seeks meaning. That is why philosophy, religion, higher learning, long journeys and foreign cultures fall under Jupiter in astrology.

Whatever Jupiter touches, it enlarges. That holds for abundance, for the body and for the ego alike. Zeus' countless children, Rome's 'bread and circuses' and the immoderate pride the Greeks called hubris are different faces of the same planet. Jupiter is a benefic, but when it loses its measure it becomes wasteful, arrogant and exaggerated.

Zeus Xenios is the god who protects the guest, and he knocks on doors in disguise. In the story Ovid tells, the old couple Philemon and Baucis welcome two strangers into their hut while their neighbours shut their doors. The gods drown the village and turn the hut into a temple. Through this story Ovid shows that generosity is Jupiter's morality.

In the tarot the Wheel of Fortune turns with the four living creatures, the cherubim, at its corners, and it shows rise, fall and luck. The Golden Dawn tradition assigns this card to Jupiter. Its counterpart in the Kabbalah is Chesed, the fourth sphere, whose name means Mercy and which stands for plenty and grace. The Romans counted Fortuna a daughter of Jupiter.

Jupiter's metal is tin. Tin is soft and bright, and mixed with copper it produces bronze. In alchemy Jupiter stands for the stage of tin, the step between lead and iron. In the body the liver, blood, hips and thighs are assigned to Jupiter.

In fiery Sagittarius Jupiter appears as the centaur shooting his arrow, and it speaks of the distant target, philosophy and the journey. In watery Pisces, whose traditional ruler is Jupiter, it turns into mercy, faith and the dissolving of boundaries. Both signs search for meaning, but Sagittarius looks outward and Pisces looks inward.

The eagle flies highest in the sky, carries the thunderbolt and abducts Ganymede. It also stands on the standard of the Roman legions. The oak is Zeus' oracular tree at Dodona and is said to be the tree lightning strikes most. Jupiter's bird and tree speak of height and endurance.

Cronus swallows his children. Rhea hides Zeus on Crete and gives Cronus a stone in swaddling clothes. When Zeus grows up he makes his father drink an emetic, brings his siblings back up and, after ten years of war, shuts the Titans in Tartarus. In the story Hesiod tells, the new order is built on top of the old. In the astrological sequence too, Jupiter comes after Saturn. Cronus in the family tree →

Jupiter's knowledge is not reasoning built step by step. It arrives whole. Zeus' oak at Dodona speaks through the sound of its leaves, and the priests interpret that sound. Classical astrology gives seers, priests and readers of sacred texts to Jupiter, and prophecy belongs to the same branch. Mercury takes knowledge apart and carries the pieces, while Jupiter tries to see the whole at a glance.

The official title of Iuppiter was Optimus Maximus, best and greatest. In De Natura Deorum Cicero says he is called 'best' not for his power but for the good he does. In the Stoic reading the same god is identified with the reason that orders the universe, the logos. Jupiter signifies meaning, principle and belief in astrology because of this idea of a divine intellect.

Jupiter learns from experience rather than from books, which is why long journeys, foreign languages and foreign cultures fall to it. Jung called the movement towards one's own wholeness individuation and described it as the work of a lifetime. In that process Jupiter is the side that widens the horizon, enlarges experience and looks for meaning. Enlightenment here means a consciousness broadened by experience rather than a religious state.

Jung held that the exchange between consciousness and the unconscious is where the psyche is actually built. Dreams, images and myths carry the traffic between the two. Jupiter's work in this branch is to bind the material that comes from below into a meaning a person can hold. Myth does the same thing, because it translates what is personal into a shared language.

In many cultures Jupiter's place is held by a god of thunder. The Roman Iuppiter, the Etruscan Tinia, the Germanic Donar, the Anglo-Saxon Thunor and the Norse Thor belong to one family. Donar, Thunor and Thor are the same name in three languages. In Gaul there was a local cult of Iuppiter under the epithet Bussumarus, and the thunder god of the Celtic world is Taranis. In the Rigveda Indra kills the dragon Vritra with his thunderbolt, the vajra, and releases the waters it held back. Indra in the Hindu family tree →

Manjusri is the bodhisattva of wisdom in Buddhism and carries the sword that cuts through ignorance. Buddhist planetary schemes assign Jupiter to Manjusri, and the pairing rests on their shared ground of wisdom and teaching. It should be said plainly that this correspondence comes from Buddhist cosmology and not from classical astrology. The two traditions are best kept apart. Greek and Roman astrology matches Jupiter with Zeus, while the Manjusri pairing carries its meaning inside another cosmology.

Zeus' countless unions are not a moral question in the myth but abundance appearing in the shape of a bloodline. Each union gives an origin to a dynasty, a city or a cult. In Rome the oath that Iuppiter guards also holds marriage and inheritance in place. Astrology therefore assigns children, grandchildren and the continuation of the line to Jupiter, and in the Vedic tradition Brihaspati is directly the significator of children.

In the temple on the Capitoline hill Iuppiter stood in the middle with Juno and Minerva on either side. The triad has an Etruscan precedent in Tinia, Uni and Menrva, and the temple itself was built with three chambers on an Etruscan plan. Consuls swore their oath of office there, and the triumph climbed the hill to that same temple. Jupiter appears here not alone but as a centre held between sovereignty and wisdom.