Cernunnos and Vidasus - heavenly beings or one god?

The cult of Vidasus stems from shamanism to which our ancestors were prone to, to which after all testifies their religious concept which was until Greco-Roman influence animalistic. Namely, Illyrian deity, like the Roman, in the beginning didn't have their human forms instead they were embodied in various natural forms such as sources, trees, snakes, birds, etc.
Horns which adorn the head of Vidasus is classically the mark of the cult of fertility but also a symbol of astral deity, whose influence is at the same time earthly and heavenly, and as such it has ownership on the sky and on earth.
Vidasus is a symbol of unreclaimed energy of nature, embodiment of sexuality, fertility and raw strength. Especially interesting is the connection of the Celtic lord Cernunnos, Illyrian Vidasus and Greco-Roman Pan. Namely, it is evident that all these people have the same view on the creative force of nature embodied through deity whose body represents half man half animal. With such a display it is clearly shown that Vidasus is the god of the human and animal world, he connects and unites them, his power and influence are manifold. The horns of god Vidasus, besides representing lunar symbol, reveal his primeval connection with Than, goddess of moon and nature, which in an unbroken cycle connects with Vidasus and gives life to everything that exists. Out of love passion of these deities does fertility and life spread.


Heavenly twins


Representation of god Vidasus is found also on the gravestone (stećci), which shouldn't be surprising to anyone since this information solidifies the thesis that these gravestones were built during the Illyrian age.



That tradition was continued until the middle ages in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Similarly, we shouldn't ignore data that the Bosnian people in the previous ages, especially the eighteenth and nineteenth, and probably earlier, called gravestones "Roman cemetery" or "Greek cemetery", which is another valid example how the genesis of the gravestones in the collective mind of the people was always tied to the ancient age of Bosnia.
A very interesting thing to analyse is the cultural-historical connection of the Celts and our forefathers which is evident in the located archaeological artefacts, especially weapons and jewellery. But, for this text it is much more important that Cernunnos is the heavenly twin Vidasus. Namely, as already mentioned, among the Celts Cernunnos is depicted identically as Vidasus among the Illyrians, except that because of the better kept tradition of those peoples there are much more monuments and relief depictions of that deity, than those of god Vidasus. This all resulted that the Illyrian Vidasus stayed relatively unknown or even discriminated in relation to his Celtic twin. As a researcher of Bosnian past, I often like to talk with my friends and say sarcastically, how we, Bosnians, don't care about our cultural and historical heritage from the Illyrians, for which we are famous for, which absolutely irrefutable proof who are our forefathers!
But, as the Illyrian and Celtic tribes, and culture itself, in one part of the history has intertwined, we shouldn't wonder that the depiction of Cernunnos which holds a asnake in his hand - the most important Illyrian totem. There is a large possibility that the snake in the hand of god Cernunnos is the merit of the Illyrian worship of the snake whose cult was partially accepted by Celts themselves adding it to their grand deity. Either way, everything written is more than a great start for some future research of the turbulent and mysterious history of ancient Bosnia.