Before leaving the subject, a word needs to be said regarding the relation between the active Assyrian pantheon and the long lists of deities prepared by the schoolmen of Babylonia and Assyria. Reference has already been made to these lists.[323] They vary in character. Some of them furnish an index of the various names under which a god was known,[324] or the titles assigned to him. These names and titles are frequently indications that some great god has absorbed the attributes of smaller ones, whose independence was in this way destroyed. Other lists[325] are simple enumerations of local deities, and when to these names some indications are added, as to the locality to which the gods belong,[326] their importance is correspondingly increased. There can be no doubt that most of these lists were prepared on the basis of the occurrence of these gods in texts, and it seems most plausible to conclude that the texts in question were of a religious character. References to local cults are numerous in the incantations which form a considerable proportion of the religious literature, while in hymns and prayers, gods are often referred to by their titles instead of their names. In some respects, however, these lists of gods are still obscure. It is often difficult to determine whether we are dealing with gods or spirits, and the origin and meaning of many of the names and epithets assigned to gods are similarly involved in doubt. Use has been made of these lists in determining the character of the gods included in this survey of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, but it would be manifestly precarious to make additions to this pantheon on the basis of the lists alone. Despite the tendency towards centralization of divine power in a limited number of gods, local cults, no doubt, continued to enjoy some importance in Assyria as well as Babylonia; but, in the present stage of our knowledge, we have no means of determining either the number or the character of these local cults. While, therefore, a complete treatment of the pantheon of Babylonia and Assyria would include all the minor local cults, we may feel quite certain that these local cults furnish few, if any, additions to the concepts connected with these gods which we have discussed. I have therefore contented myself with some illustrations, in each of the three divisions under which the pantheon has been surveyed, of some of the minor deities chosen, such as actually occur in historical, commercial, or religious texts. For the Assyrian pantheon, we may place Nin-gal and most of the consorts of the gods among the minor gods, and also such deities as Ka-di, Khani, Gaga, Dibbarra, Sherua, and Azag-sir, who are merely incidentally referred to.[327] These illustrations suffice for placing clearly before us the distinction to be made in the pantheon between gods whose worship was actively carried on, and those who occupy more of a theoretical position in the system perfected by the schoolmen,