Bathala

Bathala
The Supreme Being and Creator of the Universe.
Abode	Kaluwalhatian
Symbol	Tigmamanukin
Adherent	Pre-hispanic Tagalog
Equivalent	El

In ancient Tagalog theology, Bathala (or Batala) is a pantheon God of creation in the ancient Philippine civilization before the Spanish colonial period. He was the supreme being and the omnipotent creator of the universe. Antonio de Morga, among others, thought that Bathala meant an omen bird (Tigmamanukan), but the author of the Boxer Codex (1590 b, 379) was advised not to use it in this sense because they did not consider it God but only his messenger. It was after the arrival of the Spanish missionaries on the Philippines in the 16th century that Bathala came to be identified as the Christian God, thus its synonymy with Diyos (God) or Dibino (Divine, e.g. Mabathalang Awa), according to J.V. Panganiban (Diksyunaryo-Tesauro Pilipino-Ingles); in some Visayan languages Bathala also means God.

The spelling of the name "Bathala" given by Pedro Chirino in "Relaciön de las Islas Filipinas" (1595-1602) was perhaps a combination of two different spellings of the name from older documents such as "Badhala" in "Relacion de las Costumbres de Los Tagalos" (1589, Juan de Plasencia) and "Batala" in "Relacion de lasYslas Filipinas" (1582, Miguel de Loarca), the latter was supposedly the correct spelling in Tagalog since the letter "h" was silent in Spanish. Bathala or Batala was apparently derived from Sanskrit "bhattara" (noble lord) which appeared as the sixteenth-century title "batara" in the southern Philippines and Borneo. In Indonesian language "batara" means "god", its feminine counterpart was "batari". It may be worth noting that in Malay "betara" means holy, and was applied to the greater Hindu gods in Java, and was also assumed by the ruler of Majapahit.