TYPE: Creator God
ORIGIN: Kafir [Southern Afghanistan, Hindukush]
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP: unknown origins and continuing locally today.
SYNONYMS: Mara (Prasun Region)
CENTER(S) OF CULT: Chiefly at Kushteki
ART REFERENCES: Large wooden sculptures
LITERARY SOURCES: Robertson G.S. The Kafirs of the Hindukush (1896); Morgenstierne G. Some Kati Myths and Hymns (1951)
INFORMATION: Supreme Kafir creator god who generated all other deities by churning his breath to life inside a golden goatskin. Other legendary sources have him taking his paramount position through guile from among an existing pantheon and possibly superseding an earlier creator god, Munjem Malik. His mother was said to be a giantess with four tusks. Imra is a sky god who lives among cloud and mist and who is responsible, at least in part, for cosmic creation. He positioned the sun and moon in the heavens. He is the ancestor of all Prasun tribal chiefs. His sacred animal is the ram which was sacrificed regularly, as was the cow and, less frequently, the horse. Figures of the god are crudely anthropomorphic. The main sanctuary to Imra, at a small town called Kushteki, was destroyed in the early 1900's, but was an imposing and ornately carved wooden structure. Other smaller shrines survive, scattered throughout the region.
Imra is generally perceived as a beneficent teacher who has endowed mankind with various gifts including cattle, dogs, wheat, the wheel and the element Iron. He also has a destructive side to his nature, causing floods and other havoc.