Here's a pretty awesome example of just how much Time has taken on a central role in the structuring of existence in the Postmodern period, and this in turn speaks to the religious image of Kali yuga in the Hindu imagination.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Saturday, October 18, 2014
The Wheel of Becoming: Bhava-Chakra as Astral Calendar (Updated March 15, 2015)
Bhaktapūr, City of the Devotees
This last year, I stayed for a month at the Ecotel in Bhaktapur, Nepal. The Nepalese I encountered were a very kind people, and I enjoyed my stay immensely. The city itself is an antique treasure to behold; everywhere one looks, antiquity discloses itself in the minute details of the architecture, in the erosion of bricks, in the "killing them softly" style of pūjā in which the Nepalese are accustomed to worshiping their deities. Slowly, slowly, by the applications of tens of thousands of kuṁkum powder anointments and water abhiśekhas, the stones images have worn away, so that the once immaculate details of these intricate carvings erode, leaving only muted shapes behind.
 |
| This small maṇḍira rests atop a small hill surrounded on all sides by buildings. I stayed in the hotel embedded in the hillside. As you can see, the deity's face, stained with a deep hue of red, attest to the daily life of worship that embodies Nepali custom. |
The religious life of Bhaktapur appears as something of a melange of Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Viṣṇu, Śiva, Lakṣmī, Durgā, Kālī, and Varahī are among the most prominent images of deities I have so far come across in the local temples, yet the numerous Thaṅka schools and shops that pepper this small former capital city sport primarily Buddhist icons alongside the popular Hindu varieties.
Many of the Thaṅka shop workers and artists say that the Kāla-chakra-maṇḍala is the most popular image purchased by the many tourists who visit. And there are indeed very many tourists visiting these shops. One can surmise without too much ado that it is these tourists who provide a critical bulk of the income for this city. Indeed, one must purchase a $15.00 US visitor's pass to gain access to the central region of the city, where the architecture reaches its aesthetic height.
Darmur Square is perhaps the most lovely site in the whole area, sporting an old palace where the former rāja and rānī resided in times past, before Nepal was unified. Nowadays, it is littered with local students who frolic about the decaying architecture. Nepal reflects Hindu culture to such an extent that one might easily confuse the town for an Indian location. But again, there are many Buddhist influences that demarcate the city as Nepalese. Some of these, of course, are borrowed from Tibet, which lay just to the north of Nepal, now in Chinese territory.
Kāla-Cakra
One of my purposes for staying in Bhaktapūra was to learn the famous art of painting Thaṅkas. For six or seven days a week, I sat for some seven or eight hours, painting the intricate image of the Kāla-cakra-maṇḍala, the "Wheel of Time"; I had been planning to do this for some time now, and my need to renew my Indian tourist visa presented me with an ideal opportunity. As such, I decided to stay there for a month, spending my days painting, and my evenings reading, writing, assimilating the form of my studies.
The Kāla-Cakra, according to David Germano, while a Buddhist teaching tool, is derived in part from Vedic materials. The image is detailed but repetitious, consisting in iterations of similar forms, built one upon the other, leading to the center. Black, Red, Yellow, Blue, White form the bulk of the inner region, while Maroon, Orange, Green, and Dark Blue circumambulate the form. This comes in (at least) four varieties, each distinguished as the glow emanating from chakra, again: Yellow, Blue Red, Orange.
The pigments are traditionally derived from mineral-rich stones, the greatest merit of which, that the colors do not fade quickly, but last for many years. But buyer beware: these days, such a claim may be made out of purely economic considerations. Sometimes the paints are comprised of modern, synthetic pigments.
Initially, I painted on a paper photocopy of the maṇḍala's outline, but even before I could complete that, my teacher decided that I should work on the Thaṅka, the cotton canvas. I began that work after only a couple days. This single piece was about 80% complete after the month's end, including all the detailed ornamentation that will be layered atop the basic design.
 |
| My Thangkha Project (in process) |
Bhava-Cakra/Saṁsāra-Cakra/Wheel of Life
While I have always known one particular design by the name, Bhava-cakra, locals did not describe it as such. They called it either "The Wheel of Life" or else saṃsāra-cakra. As there were so very many Thangka schools in town, I did some wandering in order to locate a good Master of this image. After a short time, I met with one Tyen Jzin, a former Buddhist monk who studied with the Liṅg-Pas in Bangalore, India. We sat for a short while to discuss the nature of my work, and I presented to him my desire to learn bhava-cakra-maṇḍala from him. After explaining why I desired to do so, he derided my interpretation of the image, dissociating it from the cosmological impressions that I had related.
"No, so many people will say that this image is related to the seasons. They will say that the twelve images reflect the months, January, February, March. . . like that. Because you have studied this image in a particular way, so you interpret it that way; but the image is actually a teaching of the Buddha."
And like this, he took me through a teaching of the six realms: Human, God, Demigod, Hungry Ghosts, Hell and Animal life. Each he related to specific bhāvas, or emotional states: Anger, Greed, Pride, Envy, Desire, and Ignorance. And these he taught were to be overcome by the teachings of the Buddha, who pervades the six realms.
I don't entirely disagree with him; certainly, the role of the Buddha's teachings in motivating the construction of the image would be foolish to miss. And indeed, for many who revere and preserve these arts, the teachings remain a significant motive for producing the images. Still, I found it necessary to point out that his own view was somewhat if not entirely specific to the Liṅg-Pa Buddhists, while my own studies are rooted in other traditions that have also contributed to the overall significance of the image. After some time, we came to a putative agreement that he would teach me the art of painting the bhava-cakra.
It should be noted that even among those traditions which regard the bhava-cakra to belong to their heuristic "canon" of sacred maṇḍala teachings, there is considerable variation. And likewise, the image is depicted with some variance. But if one compares many of these images, some general patterns do emerge, providing evidence for the reconstruction of an earlier, perhaps extinct version of the image. Locating even one such antique image which conformed to the majority—or even better, totality—of these reconstructed symbols, would amply bolster our case, and might even provide us a hallmark of authenticity. That I am so little familiar with the variant traditions only amplifies the need to locate such an image.
Yāma, Lord of Death
Yāma, Lord of Death
Yāma frames the wheel of life, an important feature of our interpretation. For the very figure closely reflects dominant features of the form of the constellation, Boötes. Several features are notable in this regard:
1) Yāma is three-eyed, while the "head" of Boötes consists of three bright stars arranged in an identical fashion, if disproportionate to the rest of his "body". This suggests that the proportions might be "doubled", as we do see Jewels on his wrist which reflect the form of Boötes, in a similar alignment from the central ājñā-cakra to the wrists.
2) The realm of the bhūtas and pretas frequently usually depicted to Yāma's left side, reflecting the star rho Boö.
3) Archturus, or alpha Boö, is situated near the region where a copulating couple is often depicted in the image; this reflects the fact that Arcturus is considered Boötes' genitals.
4) Boötes' legs are also depicted in a sitting posture, again, much like Yāma's.
Other elements are similarly suggestive, and improve the overall case. There are numerous symbols depicted in the inner region of the image, many of which correspond to differing traditions of constellations. A few notable points on this:
5) Cetus (cf., Rāhu-Ketu) or some form of serpent is almost always depicted in the waters of the Animal realm.
6) Bulls and Cows are also popular, corresponding to Taurus.
7) Orion is usually depicted as a hunter, perhaps hunting Taurus, given where his bow is aiming. But other than that, I have recently come to suspect that he is identified with Gaṇeśa, for the following reasons:
a) The region of Orion from the belt down does appear to reflect the image of an elephant's head, looking straight on.
b) Just South of Orion is another constellation, related by the Greek tradition as a rabbit. Gaṇeśa is almost always associated with a rodent, and, if one looks closely, one can make out the profile image of a mouse, granting that one takes the star, Syrius as the tail. In this way, one can see the Elephant's head, riding atop the rodent.
Of course, we may ask what the "noose" is, if Yāma is Boötes. The noose may well be none other than Ursa Major, given the polysemy of that constellation in any tradition. This would indeed typify the American image of a Cowboy, lassoing animals, and indeed, we do know of a star, in Boötes, called the cowherd. In other traditions it is a Plough (cf., the old Irish flag commemorating the revolt of 1912???), while in others, it is the Grim Reaper's scythe. And again, in the Vedic tradition, at least according to Michael Witzel, it is the Seven Sages (saptārṣayaḥ). In various ways, then "Death" has been depicted with the instruments by which he brings life to an end. But in this case, we may note that Balrāma, with his plough, makes life possible, by tilling the fields, and thus making possible the crop. Here, the images of life and death are superimposed, merged even, in keeping with the earliest Upaniṣadic image of the "two deaths," (perhaps semiotic compliments to the "two births", dvi-jā?) one the elder, another the younger (saṁ-vatsara: the yearling calf). It is a testimony to the popularity of this ancient notion that a still common word for the year in South Asia dialects is "vatsar" (bacchar in Bengali).
8) Other animals populate that region of the sky:
a) fish (pisces, dolphinus, etc.)
b) birds (aquillus, cygnus, etc.)
c) Cancer (the crab)
d) Leo (the Lion).
e) Leo Minor (the Lion Cub)
f) Cameleopardalis (the Camel)
g) Ursa Major (the Large Bear)
h) Ursa Minor (the Bear Cub)
i) the Lynx
j) and the Goat-herd, Cephius
All of these bolster our case, as they can all be seen in variations of the Bhava-cakra.
9) The realm of humans is reflected of a region of the sky next to that of the realm I have related to the animals. Hercules, Boötes, Virgo, and Ophiuchus. Here, we have four humans, three males and a female. As Boötes is one of these, and, as he represents Death, perhaps these others also represent portions of life. We do recognize from the Greeks that Ophiuchus, at least, represent the return from death, perhaps owing to his own proximity to the celestial river of milk.
10) While the realm discussed in (9) is depicted as that of humans, it is perhaps also not to be disregarded in thinking of the gods represented in the maṇḍala. Ophiuchus, for example, does represent a mountain at times. This particular symbolic version can be seen in relation to a number of classical narratives, these to be addressed in a future blog, pending more research. Meru is the most important signification for the present moment, as the Bhava-chakra represents it at the peak of the wheel.
11) Nearby, Indra fights upon the elephant, Airāvata, whom I associate with Scorpio, which looks like an elephant's head looking in the direction of Saggitarius.
12) Saggitarius and Capricorn both represent "mixed" creatures, like Kinnāras or Kimpuruṣas. In this respect, they are counted among Śiva's gaṇa, and, from a Vaiṣṇava perspective, are regarded as "demons" (asura).
13) Scorpio is certainly a venomous creature, and is thus malevolent in some respect, representing the "darker" guṇa, tamas (cf., drops of the halahala poison from Śiva's nila-kaṇṭha episode in the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa). And nearby we also find the Hydra constellation (cf., Ahir-Budhnya, the "serpent at the bottom" [of the world]). Thus we see various poisonous creatures in this region of the sky, in addition to "mixed" categories.
14) The humans/divinities also lay at the opposite ends of Ophiuchus, when regarded as a mountain, or else Ophiuchus is counted among the gods, just as Śiva is counted among the devas (cf., Brahma-Saṁhitā). In this way, they stand, looking toward each other (for the most part) as if in combat.
15) And between these divinities and demonic forces lay the Milky Way itself, sometimes represented as a cloud, sometimes as the path of Nirvana that leads out of the wheel of birth and death.
16) Often, in the realm we associate with "heaven" here, there is a Buddha playing the stringed Vina. We have elsewhere suggested that this is also Narada-muni's Vina, being symbolic of the Lyra constellation. The Lyra constellation is important insofar as Vega, or alpha Lyr, is the brightest star seen in the sky during the Summer months (cf., dyumādga-dyuti), or the "Summit" of the Year.
17) The Hells:
These are less clear to this paradigm. It may be that they are something of an afterthought, a fragment that doesn't find a clear place in the image, and thus is "forced" into the heuristic of Buddhist teachings. However, there are "Southern" Constellations, or Constellations that are more visible toward the Southern hemisphere.
In any case, we note that Buddhism did catch on in Śrī Laṅkā quite early on in its history (some of the most conservative forms of Buddhism are found there today), suggesting that some of the tropes for the "hellish" realm may derive in part from astrological lore to be found in that area of the world. One matter which is suggestive of this can be seen in the fact that both the Vaiṣṇava Itihāsa, Valmiki's Rāmāyaṇa and the Buddhist narrative of conversion, depict Śrī Laṅka as a realm full of cannibals. Thus, to the Northern imagination, far removed from the realities of the South, such narratives may have fed into a "hellish" image of the Island's indigenous culture. Such a speculative hypothesis ought to be taken as putative and subject to revision following appropriate critical response. I pose it, not to enhance prejudices against Śrī Laṅkans, but to pose the fact a known history of this sort of depiction. I quite simply do not pose it as an ethically normative depiction. But I do separate that portion of history which is concerned with rescuing discernible facts from the one which attempts to construe the past in terms of politically "convenient" opinions. Let us not confuse these two issues.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Calendars and Other Symbols of Time
It might help the reader to appreciate the larger scope of my project if they are able to recognize the general relationships I'm attempting to outline.
For one, I'm very interested in the kinds of conclusions we can draw concerning the historical development of calendars in the context of Vedic and Hindu culture. Calendars are very important for organizing or structuring yearly events, such as seasonal festivals, or for coordinating human congregations, perhaps most recognizeably for weddings. Indeed, Hindu weddings are still powerfully influenced by astrological considerations, which often comes under the temporal jargon of "muhūrtas". Astrologers are often consulted, particularly among the higher castes, in the determination of the exact hour of a wedding event. Of course, we may wonder if such a trend will last forever.
And for another, this draws our attention toward the crucial role that calendars play in astrological thinking. Hindu metaphysics would lose much of its original meaning, were we to sweep under the rug the popular significance of astrology. Astrology is not merely some antique which accidentally inhabits the Hindu imagination alongside other metaphysical understandings. Rather, I argue that it deeply saturates the mythical structure of Hindu cosmology. This blog is dedicated to a good extent to drawing this understanding to light. By framing Hindu cosmology within an astrological frame of reference, we aim to clarify how many of the so-called "exoticisms" of Hindu religious culture trace to observable phenomena.
But if we can trace the sources of Hindu semiotics to Cosmological or Astrological phenomena, what does this tell us about the History of Hinduism? Can we find data embedded in the symbology of such semiotics which might decypher calendrical dates that are intentionally being signaled by the authors of the Vedic hymns? Such a result is the greatest promise of the method and theme that we have chosen.
But in order to find a date, one must first securely clarify all of the calendrical symbology in a way that settles the matter decisively. We have to work out the history of history itself! And we do this by working out the history of the calendar.
As such, we might ask about when the Muhūrta system first came into use, what textual evidence there is for it, and what sorts of calendrical data it signals. Or else, we might ask about the symbology of Yugas, and how they too signal calendrical data which can be used in turn to decide about their historical origins.
All of these questions disclose complex patterns of semiotic activity that can be detected within the Sanskrit canon. But they also invite debate regarding the extent of the use of such calendars. That is, since these systems were so complicated, how can we be sure when and where they were used? In this regard, it may make sense to speak of a Vaiṣṇava calendar, a Śaiva calendar, or a Śākta calendar, moreso than a "Hindu" calendar. Vaiṣṇavas, after all, adhere to a discrete set of narratives about history, in comparison to Śaivas or Śāktas. Often, these narratives are in deep ideological conflict, so that they may disagree about a great many details. Yet even these conflicts may point us to important data regarding the gradual development of the baroque calendrical patterns we see today in Hindu festivals.
It is thus our task, to attend closely to the development of the materials which comprise the Vedic-Hindu calendrical complex, for this may provide us one of the most concrete bases for determining an original history of South Asia, and in such a way that directly responds to the Hindu-emic objection to Western concepts of Time and History. Such objections must be regarded seriously and surmounted by all those seeking to appreciate Hindu history understandingly, and not merely as one, so to speak, looking in from the outside.
For one, I'm very interested in the kinds of conclusions we can draw concerning the historical development of calendars in the context of Vedic and Hindu culture. Calendars are very important for organizing or structuring yearly events, such as seasonal festivals, or for coordinating human congregations, perhaps most recognizeably for weddings. Indeed, Hindu weddings are still powerfully influenced by astrological considerations, which often comes under the temporal jargon of "muhūrtas". Astrologers are often consulted, particularly among the higher castes, in the determination of the exact hour of a wedding event. Of course, we may wonder if such a trend will last forever.
And for another, this draws our attention toward the crucial role that calendars play in astrological thinking. Hindu metaphysics would lose much of its original meaning, were we to sweep under the rug the popular significance of astrology. Astrology is not merely some antique which accidentally inhabits the Hindu imagination alongside other metaphysical understandings. Rather, I argue that it deeply saturates the mythical structure of Hindu cosmology. This blog is dedicated to a good extent to drawing this understanding to light. By framing Hindu cosmology within an astrological frame of reference, we aim to clarify how many of the so-called "exoticisms" of Hindu religious culture trace to observable phenomena.
But if we can trace the sources of Hindu semiotics to Cosmological or Astrological phenomena, what does this tell us about the History of Hinduism? Can we find data embedded in the symbology of such semiotics which might decypher calendrical dates that are intentionally being signaled by the authors of the Vedic hymns? Such a result is the greatest promise of the method and theme that we have chosen.
But in order to find a date, one must first securely clarify all of the calendrical symbology in a way that settles the matter decisively. We have to work out the history of history itself! And we do this by working out the history of the calendar.
As such, we might ask about when the Muhūrta system first came into use, what textual evidence there is for it, and what sorts of calendrical data it signals. Or else, we might ask about the symbology of Yugas, and how they too signal calendrical data which can be used in turn to decide about their historical origins.
All of these questions disclose complex patterns of semiotic activity that can be detected within the Sanskrit canon. But they also invite debate regarding the extent of the use of such calendars. That is, since these systems were so complicated, how can we be sure when and where they were used? In this regard, it may make sense to speak of a Vaiṣṇava calendar, a Śaiva calendar, or a Śākta calendar, moreso than a "Hindu" calendar. Vaiṣṇavas, after all, adhere to a discrete set of narratives about history, in comparison to Śaivas or Śāktas. Often, these narratives are in deep ideological conflict, so that they may disagree about a great many details. Yet even these conflicts may point us to important data regarding the gradual development of the baroque calendrical patterns we see today in Hindu festivals.
It is thus our task, to attend closely to the development of the materials which comprise the Vedic-Hindu calendrical complex, for this may provide us one of the most concrete bases for determining an original history of South Asia, and in such a way that directly responds to the Hindu-emic objection to Western concepts of Time and History. Such objections must be regarded seriously and surmounted by all those seeking to appreciate Hindu history understandingly, and not merely as one, so to speak, looking in from the outside.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Hercules, Jagannātha, Vaiṣṇava Tilaka
Jagannātha, just in terms of his esoteric aniconism, remains one of the most striking forms in South Asian deity worship. The culture surrounding his worship, the narratives of his origin, the reconstructive history behind his Mauryan heritage, and the unique form he and his siblings manifest—all these in aggregate signal the unusual origins of this dharu-brahman, this "Wooden Spirit".
Pramā/Pratimā
The image of Jagannātha seen in temples is a pratimā, or "reflection" of the "original" Jagannātha. The proportions which belong to the original are the pramā, a term signifying the act of measuring a form (pra [forth] + √mā [measure] = "mete out"), while Pratimā (prati [counter-] + mā [measure] = reflection) indicates the reproduction of the original, in the sense of a reflection. In an earlier blog, we discussed how this enables us to draw a direct link between Mount Kailāśa and the form of Ophiuchus-Serpens. This is also seen in the side-by-side placement of Jagannātha, Subhadrā, and Baladeva.
 |
| These constellations also happen to be visible directly overhead in the evening on Kṛṣṇa Janmāṣṭhami |
In particular, we note the commonly Trapezoidal shape of Jagannātha's head, the characteristic Jawlines of all three deities, or in particular, of Subhadrā, as well as the crown shape of Baladeva. the Constellation of Baladeva here is Boötes. Each of these constellations contains a number of features which recommends these specific identifications.
But first, not that the images have been reversed, in keeping with the Pramå/Pratimå thesis, that the temple mūrtis are based upon the shapes of the constellations, like a reflected, as if the Lord of the Universe, Jagannātha, were only looking at Himself in a mirror. It really does suggest something along the lines of Genesis, even: "I have made man in My Image".
Indeed, when Thomas Colebrooke, back in the 1800's posited that Hercules was originally derived form India, he may have well had ample reason to believe this. He postulated that the name "Hercules" originated from the phrase, "Hari-kula-iśa" or "Lord of the Dynasty of Hari-Viṣṇu", meaning, Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa. It seems possible to me, though I am as yet uncertain, and more data on this postulate ought to be gathered and related. Still, the reflection of the deities as seen here is quite striking.
There is another important place that we find this trapezoidal form:
Śrīvaiṣṇava Tīlaka
"Tīlaka" derives from the term, tīla, or sesame seed. Tīlaka, it seems, used to be made with sesame seed paste. This paste was applied as an ornament to various parts of the body, and designates, by its specific shape, the sectarian affiliations of various individuals. The Tenkalai Sect of Śrīvaiṣṇavism bears Tīlaka that is more or less Trapezoidal, and thus, plausibly signifies this same constellation: Hercules.
.jpg) |
| Old Sadhu in Kathmandu, Nepal. Note the slight variation in the shape of the tīlaka. Variations are common, but almost always play on a common theme. |
 |
| While searching online for images of tīlaka, I found this old drawing of mine from 1995. Ah, the good old days. |
Moreover, as many of these variants represent distinctive sects, one can appreciate that the form signals the many schisms which have arisen over the centuries between this and that sect which felt the need to use such symbolism to distinguish itself from other versions with which it might otherwise become easily confused. When the geometric options are limited by tradition, the tensions bring about inventive modifications, which can both preserve and alter the original dimensions!
 |
| this chart shows just a few of the many Vaiṣṇava tilakas around today. |
You may suspect that all of this has little apparent relation to the concept of Time in South Asian literature. If so, I can't blame you. But this is all part of building an evidentiary case for the identification of Viṣṇu with Hercules. You see, if it is true, that Hercules really just is Viṣṇu, then this gives a very important interpretation to the ancient Ṛg-Veda verse, Oṃ tad Viṣṇoḥ paramam padam sadā paśyanti sūrayaḥ ("Om! That farthest foot of Viṣṇu, is ever gazed upon by the gods!"). This verse appears to be talking about Tao Hercules as a pole star. If that is true, then the narrative tradition from which this verse takes its basic form is arguably more than 9000 years old!
------
Update: the Ophiuchus-Kailāśa blog has been temporarily removed. More work needs to be done to clean it up and solidify the arguments.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Biblical Astrotheology [Part I]: Adam's Rib: Man-made, in the Image of God
Introduction
In this series, I explore the dynamic of comparative Astrotheology which arises from the intersection of the Hebrew Bible and Indo-European culture. Note that I come at this simply from an historian's perspective, i.e., from the angle of view that presumes that the narrative developments of these ancient works were not created in a cultural vacuum, as by Hebrews who knew nothing of Indo-European culture; quite the opposite, I aim to show how their materials were inherited from the ancient IE cosmological and astrological ways of speaking, but that they frequently put an iconoclastic spin on these narratives. The recognition of how these narratives were assimilated to Hebrew values exposes tensions and contensions with popular language in its attempts to account for the world, fate, and history.
I anticipate that this study will also give us further reason to take comparative studies more seriously, as the study discloses elements which have been overlooked by Colonialist and Reconstructionist schools of Indology.
Abraham's World
If we take note of the fact that Abraham was a pagan before he was a Jew—or at least, if we acknowledge that, prior to concluding that his own God was some how different from the gods of those in whose culture he first came to ask the question of who his God was—we are left with the question of how Abraham's language came to signal something different than the wide-spread idea of gods and demons. Was, for example, Adam (of Adam and Eve fame) Abraham's Adam? Or was the image of Adam already a matter of wide-spread cultural narrative? Another way to ask this question: did Abraham, being the first Jew, make Adam up, or did he receive this image from "Pagan" sources?
And what of the Flood narrative? If we do not promote any bias toward a particularly Biblical telling of history, how do we account for these narratives? Are they to be taken as semiotic artifacts whose world has long eroded away? A past irrecuperable?
And what of the tower of Babel? Is that too just one more uniquely Jewish image, accountable only by virtue of its relation to the Old Testament?
Or do we have with us today some domain which suggests a common, intelligible origin for all of these narratives? Well, let us discuss the major elements of the narrative, and consider how they might fit together...
Let us go through these elements in the order which Genesis introduces them:
Also, check out this link. It argues that the "Creation Week" is actually reflected in the Zodiac!
Here then, I forward an important theory, that the narratives of Adam and Eve (in addition to other narratives found in the Bible) can be plausibly traced to the same cultural practices which produced Paganism. By examining these elements carefully, we can develop a concept of whence these elements were composed, and thereby, how they bind the fates of European theistic cosmogony to that of South Asia's.
Seven Days of Creation: accounting for the constellations: the kinds of regions (waters = Tropic of Capricorn, mountain/Eden = Tropic of Cancer), creatures in the sky (cf., Prajåpati's many forms, male and female, and cf., Noah's Ark, Southern Boat, Waters);
Day 1: The Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars and the Night Sky
Day 2: The Summer and the Winter (the Earth and the Year)
Day 3: The Dry Land (repetition of Day 2)? But Ophiuchus and the Banyan
Day 4: The visible "Planets" (including Sun and Moon for total of seven)
Day 5: Which Aquatic and Aqualine creatures survive?
Day 6: Which animals and humans? (Note that if we suggest only Adam and Eve, then God as Bootes is absent?
Day 7: Rest/Death Boötes/Ursa Major
While Creationists get caught up in the imagery of seven literal days, the allegorical character of this description really ought to be obvious to anyone with even a basic astronomical familiarity with the ancient constellations and the basic ideas behind astrotheology.
It helps if we reflect on the conditions of pre-Historic man. "pre-Historic" here does not simply designate the human for whom no historical description is recorded in antiquity, i.e., illiterate man, but rather, designates primarily the human who did not think of the world in Historical terms; i.e., the human who was not yet certain of the ubiquity of Time, and who thus was prone to think of the world in terms of spontaneous generation, or genesis ex nihilo, creation from "Nothing". This idea remains part of contemporary theological discourse, and forms an important counterpart to the saecular (from the Greek saecularus, "pertaining to ages") image of ubiquitous temporality. Those who claim that there survives a self-identical soul, one that can ascend to the "heavens," where it attains to the pure Eternal, freed from the stain of temporality, are prone to fall back to this metaphysical "Nothingness', this "Emptiness" upon which no stain can be ascribed. One can stain a cloth, perhaps, but what can stain empty space, i.e., that which, as a pure passivity, does not cling, does not interfere, does not interact with any force whatsoever? Is Eternity thus the deepest form of passivity, the primary form of the transcendental Nothing? And if so, is not temporality but pure force? Pure activity? Is not Being Pure Activity in the face of impending doom, death (Non-being)? These primary concepts occupied an important place in the discourse of the 20th centuries most prominent hermeneuts of history, i.e., "philosophers".
Many of the extant Astrological forces are accounted for, even if some of them are still unknown: (the Mountain as Ophiuchus [alternatively, the Summit of the Year]
Also, doesn't God actually create the world in six days? On the Seventh Day, he rested, signaling "Death"? Is not the "six day" trope significant of the base-numerical practices found in Calendrical measurements? As such, the Seventh day is a kind of "base-seven", fitting into neither the 24 hour day, nor the 30 day month, nor the 360 day year. It is, as such, a kind of schism in Time, a "different" Time than the "Pagan" schedule invokes. If we take this to reflect "Death" (i.e., Bootes/Yama), does not God walk at every moment with Adam and Eve? Does not he enter into death even prior to Adam or Eve? Or if, in a double role, God is Hercules, as well as Bootes, then He is both the original form of Man and the Grim Reaper (Bone/Conch-Shell), both Life and Death. [Hades and Haladhara?]
Made in the Image of God: Adam's Rib is Corona Borealis, by inference then, Adam is Hercules, and mankind is made in the image of Hercules.
Eve: the "woman" who is both "rib" and "breast": Corona Borealis
The multiple names for Corona Borealis
"Semi-circle": Ardhacandra ("Half-moon"), and the name of a Constellation, acc to Varāha Mihira's Bṛhat-Saṁhitā.
Woman's Breast
Fig Leaf
Rib
The fruits of Eden "eat from all the fruits of this garden, but for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of "good" and "evil"; this 'fruit' is an abstraction, regarding the worship of signs, idolatry, astrological thinking; good and evil here are to be understood as the auspicious and inauspicious, as the conjunction of planets and constellations which portend of fortune and misfortune.
Remnants of The "Fig Tree": Branch, Leaf, Root?
The serpent can be one of many: Hydra, Serpens, Draconus: all of these are "Devilish"; cf., Kāliya, Age of Kali, Draco's foot, and simultaneous the fall of Adam
But why does the Serpent Approach Eve and not Adam? Why does Eve Eat the fruit before offering it to Adam? Does not she fall first as Corona Borealis?
The whirling Fire-brands: stars circling about the Northern Celestial axis:
The Fig Leaf: Chapter 15 of the Gītā, and the Ancient Banyan Tree which stems from the roof of the World
In Future Entries to this Series:
In Future Entries, we will cover a number of other provocative and suggestive astrotheological narratives from the Old Testament/Toraḥ:
* Abraham's Son and the Ram: (Agni-cum-Ares) or the sacrifice of the Spring Calendar.
* The Tower of Babel: or How the Indo-Europeans Couldn't agree on the Auspice of the Constellations and Planets
* Noah's Ark: Or how Prajāpati's Culture survived a flood by floating in the sky
In this series, I explore the dynamic of comparative Astrotheology which arises from the intersection of the Hebrew Bible and Indo-European culture. Note that I come at this simply from an historian's perspective, i.e., from the angle of view that presumes that the narrative developments of these ancient works were not created in a cultural vacuum, as by Hebrews who knew nothing of Indo-European culture; quite the opposite, I aim to show how their materials were inherited from the ancient IE cosmological and astrological ways of speaking, but that they frequently put an iconoclastic spin on these narratives. The recognition of how these narratives were assimilated to Hebrew values exposes tensions and contensions with popular language in its attempts to account for the world, fate, and history.
I anticipate that this study will also give us further reason to take comparative studies more seriously, as the study discloses elements which have been overlooked by Colonialist and Reconstructionist schools of Indology.
Abraham's World
If we take note of the fact that Abraham was a pagan before he was a Jew—or at least, if we acknowledge that, prior to concluding that his own God was some how different from the gods of those in whose culture he first came to ask the question of who his God was—we are left with the question of how Abraham's language came to signal something different than the wide-spread idea of gods and demons. Was, for example, Adam (of Adam and Eve fame) Abraham's Adam? Or was the image of Adam already a matter of wide-spread cultural narrative? Another way to ask this question: did Abraham, being the first Jew, make Adam up, or did he receive this image from "Pagan" sources?
And what of the Flood narrative? If we do not promote any bias toward a particularly Biblical telling of history, how do we account for these narratives? Are they to be taken as semiotic artifacts whose world has long eroded away? A past irrecuperable?
And what of the tower of Babel? Is that too just one more uniquely Jewish image, accountable only by virtue of its relation to the Old Testament?
Or do we have with us today some domain which suggests a common, intelligible origin for all of these narratives? Well, let us discuss the major elements of the narrative, and consider how they might fit together...
Let us go through these elements in the order which Genesis introduces them:
 |
| If these seven days are reduced to Astrological terms, what would each signify? |
Here then, I forward an important theory, that the narratives of Adam and Eve (in addition to other narratives found in the Bible) can be plausibly traced to the same cultural practices which produced Paganism. By examining these elements carefully, we can develop a concept of whence these elements were composed, and thereby, how they bind the fates of European theistic cosmogony to that of South Asia's.
Seven Days of Creation: accounting for the constellations: the kinds of regions (waters = Tropic of Capricorn, mountain/Eden = Tropic of Cancer), creatures in the sky (cf., Prajåpati's many forms, male and female, and cf., Noah's Ark, Southern Boat, Waters);
Day 1: The Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars and the Night Sky
Day 2: The Summer and the Winter (the Earth and the Year)
Day 3: The Dry Land (repetition of Day 2)? But Ophiuchus and the Banyan
Day 4: The visible "Planets" (including Sun and Moon for total of seven)
Day 5: Which Aquatic and Aqualine creatures survive?
Day 6: Which animals and humans? (Note that if we suggest only Adam and Eve, then God as Bootes is absent?
Day 7: Rest/Death Boötes/Ursa Major
While Creationists get caught up in the imagery of seven literal days, the allegorical character of this description really ought to be obvious to anyone with even a basic astronomical familiarity with the ancient constellations and the basic ideas behind astrotheology.
It helps if we reflect on the conditions of pre-Historic man. "pre-Historic" here does not simply designate the human for whom no historical description is recorded in antiquity, i.e., illiterate man, but rather, designates primarily the human who did not think of the world in Historical terms; i.e., the human who was not yet certain of the ubiquity of Time, and who thus was prone to think of the world in terms of spontaneous generation, or genesis ex nihilo, creation from "Nothing". This idea remains part of contemporary theological discourse, and forms an important counterpart to the saecular (from the Greek saecularus, "pertaining to ages") image of ubiquitous temporality. Those who claim that there survives a self-identical soul, one that can ascend to the "heavens," where it attains to the pure Eternal, freed from the stain of temporality, are prone to fall back to this metaphysical "Nothingness', this "Emptiness" upon which no stain can be ascribed. One can stain a cloth, perhaps, but what can stain empty space, i.e., that which, as a pure passivity, does not cling, does not interfere, does not interact with any force whatsoever? Is Eternity thus the deepest form of passivity, the primary form of the transcendental Nothing? And if so, is not temporality but pure force? Pure activity? Is not Being Pure Activity in the face of impending doom, death (Non-being)? These primary concepts occupied an important place in the discourse of the 20th centuries most prominent hermeneuts of history, i.e., "philosophers".
Many of the extant Astrological forces are accounted for, even if some of them are still unknown: (the Mountain as Ophiuchus [alternatively, the Summit of the Year]
Also, doesn't God actually create the world in six days? On the Seventh Day, he rested, signaling "Death"? Is not the "six day" trope significant of the base-numerical practices found in Calendrical measurements? As such, the Seventh day is a kind of "base-seven", fitting into neither the 24 hour day, nor the 30 day month, nor the 360 day year. It is, as such, a kind of schism in Time, a "different" Time than the "Pagan" schedule invokes. If we take this to reflect "Death" (i.e., Bootes/Yama), does not God walk at every moment with Adam and Eve? Does not he enter into death even prior to Adam or Eve? Or if, in a double role, God is Hercules, as well as Bootes, then He is both the original form of Man and the Grim Reaper (Bone/Conch-Shell), both Life and Death. [Hades and Haladhara?]
Made in the Image of God: Adam's Rib is Corona Borealis, by inference then, Adam is Hercules, and mankind is made in the image of Hercules.
Eve: the "woman" who is both "rib" and "breast": Corona Borealis
The multiple names for Corona Borealis
"Semi-circle": Ardhacandra ("Half-moon"), and the name of a Constellation, acc to Varāha Mihira's Bṛhat-Saṁhitā.
Woman's Breast
Fig Leaf
Rib
The fruits of Eden "eat from all the fruits of this garden, but for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of "good" and "evil"; this 'fruit' is an abstraction, regarding the worship of signs, idolatry, astrological thinking; good and evil here are to be understood as the auspicious and inauspicious, as the conjunction of planets and constellations which portend of fortune and misfortune.
Remnants of The "Fig Tree": Branch, Leaf, Root?
The serpent can be one of many: Hydra, Serpens, Draconus: all of these are "Devilish"; cf., Kāliya, Age of Kali, Draco's foot, and simultaneous the fall of Adam
But why does the Serpent Approach Eve and not Adam? Why does Eve Eat the fruit before offering it to Adam? Does not she fall first as Corona Borealis?
The whirling Fire-brands: stars circling about the Northern Celestial axis:
The Fig Leaf: Chapter 15 of the Gītā, and the Ancient Banyan Tree which stems from the roof of the World
In Future Entries to this Series:
In Future Entries, we will cover a number of other provocative and suggestive astrotheological narratives from the Old Testament/Toraḥ:
* Abraham's Son and the Ram: (Agni-cum-Ares) or the sacrifice of the Spring Calendar.
* The Tower of Babel: or How the Indo-Europeans Couldn't agree on the Auspice of the Constellations and Planets
* Noah's Ark: Or how Prajāpati's Culture survived a flood by floating in the sky
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The "Lunar Controversy": How far away is the Moon, anyway? (And how old is that idea?)
Long ago, when I was still a wee lad and of meager literacy, I heard a few stories that profoundly seized my artistic imagination. One of these was the image of an older Kṛṣṇa, revealing his "universal form" to Arjuna in the midst of two vast armies; another, of a younger Kṛṣṇa lifting a small mountain with naught but his pinky finger, holding it aloft for seven full days; and yet another, when Śiva drank an ocean of poison, retaining it within his throat. In each of these narratives, the everyday feeling of the possible is mocked and symbols come into play whose obscure meanings challenge the listener to understand by rethinking the very nature of possibility. So taken up was I by this fantastic narrative imagery that I soon turned to the traditional forms of study in Hinduism: I accepted ordination into the practices of a brahmācārin sādhaka in the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition.
It wasn't long before my Western education was being assaulted by traditional Vaiṣṇava authorities. After only a few weeks of practice, a devotee revealed to me that he believed that the Moon (candra) was further from the Earth than the Sun (sūrya). I found this view shocking and not just a little hard to swallow. Now, I had already been exposed to the fathomless horror of contemplating the limits of my own knowledge, and found my self-certainty about a wide range of matters deeply unsatisfying. I had always intuited that Darwin was right, before ever having been told that he was wrong, and I had assumed that NASA really had sent astronauts to the moon and back. But this seemed to fly in the face of Vaiṣṇava cosmology, since, to Vaiṣṇavas, the Moon is a heavenly realm, candra-loka, inhabited by higher entities, all of whom have vast lifespans, and superior bodies in every respect. Thus, on the authority of Prabhupada, I was to eject my confidence in the technological achievements of the West. Let us recall his teaching:
"They have gone to the moon planet? Then our whole propaganda, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, becomes bogus. Therefore I always protest."
It is clear that the threat to Vaiṣṇava cosmology was not just meager in Prabhupada's eyes. Thus he declared war on the very idea of the technological excellence embodied in Western science.
One wonders then, how thousands upon thousands of scientists, all of whom apparently actually believe that they have successfully launched and completed several missions to both the Moon and Mars have managed to keep the wool so thoroughly pulled over their own eyes, particularly given their well-established reputations as being difficult to convince of anything without proof! But apparently, Prabhupada was more or less unflappable on this issue. At one point, he poses a radical hypothesis, that there was another planet in the way!
Elsewhere, Prabhupada further specifies the nature of the issue of distance:
So, in various ways, Prabhupada protested (and this is somewhat important to focus on) the authenticity of the technological achievements of the West, rooted as they are in advanced mathematics. For anyone interested in further exploring Śrīla Prabhupada's views, I recommend taking a look at this link.
Indeed, when we reflect on the Purāṇic cosmology, we see that this sort of mapping does give us a suggestion about how the ancients saw the Heavenly realms. The "uttama" or "North-most" realm was just the Polestar, or "Druva-loka, the "fixed world". In fact, the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa treats Druva-loka as a Vaikuṇṭha planet, a realm not subject to "birth and death." However, this celestial immortality needs to be understood in the context of Indo-European astrotheology and myth. The Greeks, for example, often related narratives in which a constellation's setting below the Western horizon was tantamount to its death (and for which reason, the afterlife is frequently referred to as the "below"). And consequently, a star's rising above the Eastern horizon was tantamount to its birth, or rebirth. As such, the devatas, i.e., the "heavenly divinities" were related as subject to birth and death by the end of the late Vedic period, much the same as the Greek gods (who in a number of cases even retain the same names!).
It is important to understand this in a cosmological relief, where "appearance" (vyakti) and "disappearance" (avyakta) are among the primary characteristics of birth and death. What results from this interpretation is a more coherent understanding of the Epic-Purāṇic cosmos. We are closing in on a view of the world which conflates the "higher" with the "Northern". This is to be contrasted against an interpretation which regards the Earth as flat, and which takes the sole direction of "height" to be the local zenith.
An Admittedly Unsolicited Word of Advice for Devotees
When Prabhupada originally published the Fifth Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, many devotees fled the movement, their faith in Prabhupada's teachings irreparably blemished. It may be that Prabhupada simply failed to understand the historical complexities underlying the development of this many-layered cosmological model, and so posed an intellectual's opinion, rather than one equivalent to śāstra. By acknowledging that the Vedic cosmos is constituted by an historical manner of development, one affirms Kṛṣṇa's ubiquity as Eternal Time, as the cause of all causes. Thus, we can begin to peel back the historical layers of cosmological discourse, and can clarify and secure a critical, coherent, causal history of that development. Such development depends upon our willingness to regard all cosmological discourse as subordinated to the higher metaphysical revelation that Kṛṣṇa is Time itself (kālo 'smi, loka-kṣāya-kṛt). This is a harrowing task, no doubt, and might best be left to trained scholars. Yet without the best Vaiṣṇava intellects taking this issue up with all due seriousness, I worry that the future of Vaiṣṇavism will only increase in dogma, and will result in the gradual erosion of God-given reason, rather than its further advancement.
Further Implications
The particular way of looking at the Vaiṣṇava cosmos outlined above also gives us crucial insights into the constellar locations of the 14 heavenly realms, and discloses a provisional, critical method for determining the ages of the various elements that gradually accrued of this cosmological paradigm. If the Heavenly realms (listed below) are actually visible segments of the night sky, we may be able to piece together a "who's who" that identifies the regions by relating them to who resides in them (i.e., Brahmā living in Satya-loka, taken together with our knowledge of Brahmā's vehicle as a swan, the identification of Cygnus as a swan constellation, the antiquity of the Northern zenith's connection with the Cygnus realm of the celestial dome, and so on, and so forth). Mapping out the sky in this way will become a self-evident and secure process if it is done the right way, by giving all due care to the strengths and weaknesses of the postulates under consideration. Moreover, it may give us that ever-so-rare-and-precious calendrical data we've long been after, helping us to finally securely date the Vedic texts with a higher degree of precision than was previously possible.
In future blogs, we will inquire into who resides in each realm and what this reveals about the locations of specific constellations, and when possible, how old these elements appear to be.
Update (Jan 22, 2015): this blog entry has undergone numerous minor revisions for precision of language, and the like. I also added details to help visualize the issue in layman's terms.
It wasn't long before my Western education was being assaulted by traditional Vaiṣṇava authorities. After only a few weeks of practice, a devotee revealed to me that he believed that the Moon (candra) was further from the Earth than the Sun (sūrya). I found this view shocking and not just a little hard to swallow. Now, I had already been exposed to the fathomless horror of contemplating the limits of my own knowledge, and found my self-certainty about a wide range of matters deeply unsatisfying. I had always intuited that Darwin was right, before ever having been told that he was wrong, and I had assumed that NASA really had sent astronauts to the moon and back. But this seemed to fly in the face of Vaiṣṇava cosmology, since, to Vaiṣṇavas, the Moon is a heavenly realm, candra-loka, inhabited by higher entities, all of whom have vast lifespans, and superior bodies in every respect. Thus, on the authority of Prabhupada, I was to eject my confidence in the technological achievements of the West. Let us recall his teaching:
"They have gone to the moon planet? Then our whole propaganda, Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, becomes bogus. Therefore I always protest."
Conversation in Sydney, Australia, April 1, 1972.
It is clear that the threat to Vaiṣṇava cosmology was not just meager in Prabhupada's eyes. Thus he declared war on the very idea of the technological excellence embodied in Western science.
"It is my firm conviction that they did not go to the moon. Neither they'll be able to go to the Mars as they have planned it."
Room Conversation, July 6th, 1976, Washington D.C.
One wonders then, how thousands upon thousands of scientists, all of whom apparently actually believe that they have successfully launched and completed several missions to both the Moon and Mars have managed to keep the wool so thoroughly pulled over their own eyes, particularly given their well-established reputations as being difficult to convince of anything without proof! But apparently, Prabhupada was more or less unflappable on this issue. At one point, he poses a radical hypothesis, that there was another planet in the way!
"They have not gone to the moon planet. . . It is far, far away. Their calculation is wrong. They are going to a wrong planet."
Morning walk, June 4th, 1976, Los Angeles.
Elsewhere, Prabhupada further specifies the nature of the issue of distance:
"It is above the sun planet."
So, in various ways, Prabhupada protested (and this is somewhat important to focus on) the authenticity of the technological achievements of the West, rooted as they are in advanced mathematics. For anyone interested in further exploring Śrīla Prabhupada's views, I recommend taking a look at this link.
 |
| Prabhupada wasn't the only person who denied the Moon Landing. An abridged version of Bill Kaysing's hoax theory can be found here. |
Personally, I have long since stopped entertaining the view that the Moon Landing was a hoax. But what is more significant for Vaiṣṇavas, neither do I find it necessary for others to do so in order to maintain the core of Śrī Kṛṣṇa's teachings. It's not actually necessary to go to all the trouble of arguing that the Moon is "further away", when what really matters to Vaiṣṇava cosmology is that it is uttara. This significant Sanskrit term has two pertinent meanings: the first is "higher"; the second meaning is "further North", relative to the uttama, the North Pole.
This is easy to imagine if we regard "up" and "down" in a bodily way while lying on the ground. Imagine yourself then, if you will, lying upon your back, in a wide, flat field somewhere in the Northern hemisphere, with your feet to the South, and your head to the North, staring up at the sky, watching with unbroken attention. Suppose that you were able to lay like this for many days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, even eons, undistracted, attending only to the relative passing of the various visible celestial bodies. It is important to take note of what you will see from this perspective. For one, you will see that the Sun and the Moon are either lower or higher than each other. Sometimes, when the Moon is in the ascending half of its cycle, it passes into a region of the sky "uttara" or "higher" than the Sun (i.e., further North). Or, on those rare occasions, when the moon happens to be directly on either of the "nodes" while passing in front of the Sun or behind the Earth, a Solar or Lunar eclipse occurs, respectively (most of the time, it is either "above" or "below" the Sun, which is why eclipses of either kind are a little bit rare). And it doesn't require for us to talk about the distances of planets in an absolute spatial sense. "Higher" here simply means higher degree of celestial latitude.
 |
| Here, I have illustrated the ascending and descending Lunar nodes (Rāhu and Ketu) intersecting Solar plane of the Ecliptic at the Eastern and Western Horizons, while the Sun travels over the terrestrial zenith, somewhere in the Northern hemisphere. The Moon here is in its New moon phase, taken together indicating the maximal latitudinal "distance" between the Moon and Sun. In this instance, though not constantly, the Moon has a "superior", or uttara, celestial latitude with respect to the North Pole. The black arc expresses the South to North in degrees of latitude. |
Indeed, when we reflect on the Purāṇic cosmology, we see that this sort of mapping does give us a suggestion about how the ancients saw the Heavenly realms. The "uttama" or "North-most" realm was just the Polestar, or "Druva-loka, the "fixed world". In fact, the Bhāgavata-Purāṇa treats Druva-loka as a Vaikuṇṭha planet, a realm not subject to "birth and death." However, this celestial immortality needs to be understood in the context of Indo-European astrotheology and myth. The Greeks, for example, often related narratives in which a constellation's setting below the Western horizon was tantamount to its death (and for which reason, the afterlife is frequently referred to as the "below"). And consequently, a star's rising above the Eastern horizon was tantamount to its birth, or rebirth. As such, the devatas, i.e., the "heavenly divinities" were related as subject to birth and death by the end of the late Vedic period, much the same as the Greek gods (who in a number of cases even retain the same names!).
It is important to understand this in a cosmological relief, where "appearance" (vyakti) and "disappearance" (avyakta) are among the primary characteristics of birth and death. What results from this interpretation is a more coherent understanding of the Epic-Purāṇic cosmos. We are closing in on a view of the world which conflates the "higher" with the "Northern". This is to be contrasted against an interpretation which regards the Earth as flat, and which takes the sole direction of "height" to be the local zenith.
An Admittedly Unsolicited Word of Advice for Devotees
When Prabhupada originally published the Fifth Canto of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, many devotees fled the movement, their faith in Prabhupada's teachings irreparably blemished. It may be that Prabhupada simply failed to understand the historical complexities underlying the development of this many-layered cosmological model, and so posed an intellectual's opinion, rather than one equivalent to śāstra. By acknowledging that the Vedic cosmos is constituted by an historical manner of development, one affirms Kṛṣṇa's ubiquity as Eternal Time, as the cause of all causes. Thus, we can begin to peel back the historical layers of cosmological discourse, and can clarify and secure a critical, coherent, causal history of that development. Such development depends upon our willingness to regard all cosmological discourse as subordinated to the higher metaphysical revelation that Kṛṣṇa is Time itself (kālo 'smi, loka-kṣāya-kṛt). This is a harrowing task, no doubt, and might best be left to trained scholars. Yet without the best Vaiṣṇava intellects taking this issue up with all due seriousness, I worry that the future of Vaiṣṇavism will only increase in dogma, and will result in the gradual erosion of God-given reason, rather than its further advancement.
Further Implications
The particular way of looking at the Vaiṣṇava cosmos outlined above also gives us crucial insights into the constellar locations of the 14 heavenly realms, and discloses a provisional, critical method for determining the ages of the various elements that gradually accrued of this cosmological paradigm. If the Heavenly realms (listed below) are actually visible segments of the night sky, we may be able to piece together a "who's who" that identifies the regions by relating them to who resides in them (i.e., Brahmā living in Satya-loka, taken together with our knowledge of Brahmā's vehicle as a swan, the identification of Cygnus as a swan constellation, the antiquity of the Northern zenith's connection with the Cygnus realm of the celestial dome, and so on, and so forth). Mapping out the sky in this way will become a self-evident and secure process if it is done the right way, by giving all due care to the strengths and weaknesses of the postulates under consideration. Moreover, it may give us that ever-so-rare-and-precious calendrical data we've long been after, helping us to finally securely date the Vedic texts with a higher degree of precision than was previously possible.
In future blogs, we will inquire into who resides in each realm and what this reveals about the locations of specific constellations, and when possible, how old these elements appear to be.
 |
| borrowed from Wikipedia:[Loka]. Also, the Earth is not flat. |
Update (Jan 22, 2015): this blog entry has undergone numerous minor revisions for precision of language, and the like. I also added details to help visualize the issue in layman's terms.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Rudra, Śiva, Ophiuchus (Updated Feb 17, 2014)
Update: I cleaned up some of the arguments, dropped some of the weaker materials, and added a link to the Mount Kailāśa comparison! (Feb 17, 2014)
For a while now, I have suspected that the original eleven Rudras mentioned in the Vedic Saṁhitās were originally associated with and, to some extent, even derived from, different constellations. Indeed, these eleven are mentioned as among the original 33 god pantheon, all of whom I strongly suspect to populate the sky as seen from the Northern hemisphere.
For a while now, I have suspected that the original eleven Rudras mentioned in the Vedic Saṁhitās were originally associated with and, to some extent, even derived from, different constellations. Indeed, these eleven are mentioned as among the original 33 god pantheon, all of whom I strongly suspect to populate the sky as seen from the Northern hemisphere.
These three and thirty divinities, related as a single group, are mentioned at least as early as the Śatapatha Brāhamaṇa, a text that I'm presently analyzing in order to draw out whatever calendrical data is embedded in the text. I have already discerned that at least one of the calendrical components of this text dates to circa 2800 BCE, given that it uses the term, muhūrta, that taken together with the most plausible cosmological significations of the traditional names of the 30 muhūrtas. This would make the eleven Rudras very old figures indeed (but that is a discussion for another time).
While I have some tentative opinions on the matter, I hesitate to postulate here the identities of all eleven Rudras with specific constellations as yet. Yet there is a "coupled" constellation which already shows great promise, and indeed may well be the "primary" Rudra, given what we can already say about it: Ophiuchus-Serpens.
While I have some tentative opinions on the matter, I hesitate to postulate here the identities of all eleven Rudras with specific constellations as yet. Yet there is a "coupled" constellation which already shows great promise, and indeed may well be the "primary" Rudra, given what we can already say about it: Ophiuchus-Serpens.
Below, then, I present a number of points which are suggestive of this association:
a) the form is reflective of Śiva sitting in meditation:
The inner core of the constellation is shaped like a slightly irregular trapezoid, i.e., a capstone, or else a hexagon. This central form places Śiva's śikhara (the "peak" of his head) in close proximity to the "eye" of Hercules (whom I have elsewhere identified with Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa). The image above shows the right "shoulder" elevated, so that the trapezoidal figure is somewhat irregular. Yet, circa 2800 BCE, the trapezoidal form was much more regular/symmetrical.
b) Ophiuchus is in contact with Serpens, while the image of shiva is always draped in serpents:
Note that the above image shows the serpent head carved into the sculpture as on the same side as the "head" of the constellation, Serpens.
c) Opheuchus is associated with the power to raise the dead, while Śiva is the source of mṛtyu-sañjīvani:
Sañjīvani is described in Valmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, and elsewhere, as an herb that can raise the dead. Hanuman, Rāma's faithful servant, is commanded to fetch a whole mountain containing the herb from the Himālayas. Hanuman fulfills this commandment by bringing the whole mountain through the air, all the way to South India. This constellation is very probably that mountain (my reasons for suggesting this involve a few dozen points which I won't go into here; suffice it to say that the identification is highly plausible).
In other narratives, usually involving the resurrection of demons (asuras), Śiva teaches Śukrācarya the secret art of raising the dead in a complex purāṇic narrative. A part of this narrative involves Śukra actually passing through the body of Śiva, which itself is suggestive of a constellar involvement, given Śukra's identification with the planet, Venus.
In Greek iconography, Ophiuchus is signaled as a Pillar or a Staff, often encircled by one or two serpents. In some ancient works, this image has been associated with an ancient healer, named Ascelepius; a similar symbol is also associated with Hermes, messenger of the gods, for reasons which are not yet apparent.
Ascelepius is often coupled together with his daughter, Hygeia (cognate with the term, hygiene).
Here we have superimposed an ancient bas relief over the constellation. There is a remarkable degree of symmetry between the stone-cut image and the constellation. The red lines show just how closely one can draw the image from the visible stars in that region. The artist who carved this stone was clearly careful to replicate the dimensions of Ophiuchus/Hygeia as closely as possible. Yet he seems not to have cared so much for the constellation Serpens.
d) Rasalhague, a blue star at the "head" of Ophiuchus resonates with Śiva's fame as holding poison in his throat:
The color and location of the star provide a provocative lead for considering the origins of Śiva's nomenclature as nīla-kaṇṭha, the "Blue-necked" one. Note again in the picture immediately above that Rasalhague is in the position of Ophiuchus' throat, just as another major star is in the throat of Hygeia. Rasalhague is not alone in its semiotic role, however. The hala-hala poison generated during the churning of the milk ocean is said to be the material cause of Śiva's fame as the blue-throated one. If we can continue then along the same line of cosmological imagery for our causal explanation, then it would make sense to suppose that this halahala is none other than the dark dust clouds which obscure portions of the Milky Way galaxy in the region of Ophiuchus.
e) Ophiuchus is sometimes represented as a female:
Umā, or Parvatī, is described as the daughter of the king of the mountains in Kālīdāsa's famous Kumara-Sambhavam. This imagery resonates again with the double role of Ophiuchus as both human and mountain. It plays the role of mountain in at least two, and possibly three different narratives. for one, it is the "herbal" mountain fetched by Hanumān; for another, it is the mountain used to churn the ocean for ambrosia; further, it may well be one of those "flying mountains" whose wings were cloven by Indra's thunderbolt (but that is a matter for another blog). The double-gendered character of the constellation carries associations with ardha-naranari, the half-male, half-female image of Śiva-Śakti.
Note also that there are two animals, a cow to the right, and a lion to the left. This carries into associations with Ophiuchus and the Bull, Nandi, as well as Virgo/Leo (Who sometimes signifies Durga!); it seems that the associations are rather unfixed, so that the female is incorporated in a distinctive manner in the Greek image from that used in the Hindu version. Which brings us to our next point:
f) Ophiuchus is often depicted in Uranography as staring to his left, casting his gaze on Virgo:
This imagery correlates strongly with the Mohini-Mūrti myth, itself interwoven with the Ocean-churning episode in the Purāṇas. In the Vaiṣṇava myths, Śiva is said to have become bewildered by the beautiful form of Viṣṇu, become female. For reasons that will be discussed in my future blog on the Churning of the Milk Ocean, I have taken Mohini-Mūrti to be Virgo.
g) The constellation is also similar in shape to Mount Kailāśa:
Note that the mountain is usually viewed from this face in particular, in the midst of this valley. The image reminds one of both Ophiuchus and of Serpens, so that one might be led to believe Mt. Kailāśa were the terrestrial incarnation of the Constellation. For more on that, take a look here.
h) Ophiuchus is depicted with a cow on his shoulder in older Uranographic depictions:
The bull/cow has fallen out of popular depiction in contemporary images, but he/she did evidently exist once upon a time (cf., above illustration). In one puranic myth, Rudra is said to have been born from the coitus of Brahmā and Kāma-denu, the wish-fulfilling cow. Kāma-dhenu may well be the cow who sits on the shoulder of Opheuchus in these older Uranographies. It is also significant then, that she is said to have been born from the ocean of milk during the churning, given that the bovine constellation sits directly over the Milky Way galaxy.
While it is not perfectly clear which stars originally belonged to the "cow" constellation, we suspect it to be a play on the Taurus constellation, so that the prominent stars in that region produce an image something like this:
The stars forming this pattern are in the region of Ophiuchus' right shoulder (if he is depicted as facing us).
i) Ophiuchus intersects with the Milky Way Galaxy:
The narrative of Śiva capturing the celestial Gaṅgā in his dreadlocks resonates strongly with the image of the galaxy swirling amidst the dark clouds of dust.
j) Opheuchus resembles an erect penis:
I will let the reader contemplate that as suits them, but basically, this is just intended to draw a parallel between the popular use of a liṅgam as the aniconic form of Śiva. This is not the only place we see such abstract correlations, as I will go into in my future blog on Jagannatha, Subhadrā, and Baladeva.
I will let the reader contemplate that as suits them, but basically, this is just intended to draw a parallel between the popular use of a liṅgam as the aniconic form of Śiva. This is not the only place we see such abstract correlations, as I will go into in my future blog on Jagannatha, Subhadrā, and Baladeva.
k) if the image is regarded upside down, we get another Icon of Śiva as Natha-rāja:
I have identified Hercules as Trivikrama, elsewhere. This resonates with the famous icon of Natha-rāja, dancing on a dwarf, reflecting symbolic tensions between Vaiṣṇavas and Śaivas.
Of course, while we want the evidence to be as strong as possible, not all evidence should be taken as equally impressive. And still, there is merit to this association. We see that, using the prominent stars in the region of Ophiluchus, we are able to construct a series of allignments, which reflect the general geometries in the sculpture. This can be regarded as somewhat speculative, and so shouldn't be taken alone. One additional element that does recommend the matter as evidence: The star belonging to the eye of the dwarf (Vāmana) is in the same locus as the eye of Hercules, for whom I have extensive evidence in association with Trivikrama, the avatāra of Viṣṇu who ascends to the highest position in the universe on his third step. Moreover, many of the lines do match well with the shapes of the dance. We also note that the hand holding a flame contains a very prominent star. In general, the lines form strong parallels with the organic geometry of the icon without having to introduce many of the dimmer stars. Indeed, this image may be a commentary on Vaiṣṇavism, suggesting theological tensions between Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas that came to be expressed in their respective aesthetics. The image of the dwarf is treated here as 'false ego', perhaps informing us of some remembered hubris on the part of ancient Vaiṣṇavas.
l) Śiva's Drum (ḍamaru) and Trident (triśūla) resemble two local Constellations:
The ḍamaru resembles the "torso" of Hercules in its shape, While Ophiuchus, drawn with different lines, does indeed resemble a triśūla.
I have identified Hercules as Trivikrama, elsewhere. This resonates with the famous icon of Natha-rāja, dancing on a dwarf, reflecting symbolic tensions between Vaiṣṇavas and Śaivas.
 |
| Admittedly, this is less compelling than other elements we have related. |
Of course, while we want the evidence to be as strong as possible, not all evidence should be taken as equally impressive. And still, there is merit to this association. We see that, using the prominent stars in the region of Ophiluchus, we are able to construct a series of allignments, which reflect the general geometries in the sculpture. This can be regarded as somewhat speculative, and so shouldn't be taken alone. One additional element that does recommend the matter as evidence: The star belonging to the eye of the dwarf (Vāmana) is in the same locus as the eye of Hercules, for whom I have extensive evidence in association with Trivikrama, the avatāra of Viṣṇu who ascends to the highest position in the universe on his third step. Moreover, many of the lines do match well with the shapes of the dance. We also note that the hand holding a flame contains a very prominent star. In general, the lines form strong parallels with the organic geometry of the icon without having to introduce many of the dimmer stars. Indeed, this image may be a commentary on Vaiṣṇavism, suggesting theological tensions between Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas that came to be expressed in their respective aesthetics. The image of the dwarf is treated here as 'false ego', perhaps informing us of some remembered hubris on the part of ancient Vaiṣṇavas.
l) Śiva's Drum (ḍamaru) and Trident (triśūla) resemble two local Constellations:
The ḍamaru resembles the "torso" of Hercules in its shape, While Ophiuchus, drawn with different lines, does indeed resemble a triśūla.
 |
| Note that one can make these shapes using only prominent stars. |
m) We are actually not the first to publish this sort of comparison:
The more I dig into these issues of representation, the more I find evidence that these sorts of comparisons are variously covered in previous Indological scholarship. I came across the following in the Wikipedia article on Askelepius (Asklépios), who is something like an avatāra of Ophiuchus. At least if we are to judge from the title alone, it is evident that Rudra has already been compared to Asklepios:
"H. Grégoire (with R. Goossens and M. Mathieu) in Asklépios, Apollon Smintheus et Rudra 1949 (Mém. Acad. Roy. de Belgique. Cl. d. lettres. 2. sér. 45), explains the name as 'the mole-hero', connecting σκάλοψ, ἀσπάλαξ 'mole' and refers to the resemblance of the Tholos in Epidauros and the building of a mole. (Thus Puhvel, Comp. Mythol. 1987, 135.) But the variants of Asklepios and those of the word for 'mole' do not agree."
n) The Harrapan "Paśupati" seal:
This image is one of the oldest icons to be associated with Śiva. It was discovered in the Indus Valley, and has been associated with the Harrapan civilization, widely considered to be pre-Aryan. Beyond the basic associations of form, we not also that there is, again, a cow to the right, a feline to the left. Is this not a depiction of the very same constellation?
Other Stellar Associations
We mention here briefly just a couple more of the most provocative identifications between Rudras and ancient constellations. The constellation, Boötes, bears variegated associations, but one of these appears to be an ancient Rudra, evident from the fact that, in the Arabic system, there is a star, ρ Boö, known also as "the Howler" (Al-'awwa/Al hava). The Sanskrit term, Rudra, means approximately the same.
I have considered only a few of the hypothetical Rudras, consisting only of those which have the strongest evidence I have yet to come across. Truly, much of the other speculative materials I am working with are not as yet publication worthy. The other Rudras are in general not so clearly designated. But at least we can admit that we have a few other research leads, though we don't wish to let the cat out of the bag before we have compiled stronger evidence. At the moment, we will also keep in mind other possibilities.
Another matter that might be worth exploring: the 49 Maruts might correlate to a windy season that coincides with the appearance of one or more specific constellations.
Additionally, the Rudras are in some places regarded as sons of Āditi and Kaśyapa. As such, we might also look at the locations of these two in order to better fix the locus of Rudras. And let us not fail to consider that it could turn out that a different interpretation of the 11 takes these to be 11 stars which constitute one single constellation.
Reflections
The imagery we have been considering here is part of a wider attempt to map out the sky in terms of Vedic and Puranic deities. This is only a partial attempt, but is it already suggestive of how a number of iconic symbols may have come into being. The associations developed by way of astrotheological hermeneutics are an important component of the history of thinking about the ontology of the heavenly divinities venerated in Hinduism today. These deities survive by way of an astrological sensibility that persists in South Asian culture, one that locates the constellations by way of narrative relationships based upon each one's proximity, or angle of incidence with respect to other constellations. The concealing or divorcing of these iconic representations from their celestial sources does concretize the images in a way that creates a new, terrestrial platform for discussion, so that theological contemplations are no longer formed by way of a direct connection to the stars; yet this also interrupts the historical character of their formation, leading to an pratimā without a pramā, a mirror reflection whose origins is lost in the shadows. Here, history is threatened by concealment, by the illusive discourse which imposes a fate dictated to each individual by the stars. Nothing is certain—not identity, not history, nor fate. This illusive character shows us how Time remains enigmatic within the Hindu context. Its form, like the form of the universe, is imaginative, tentative, elliptical. The few poets and hermeneuts that were able to penetrate into these obscure connections did manage to evolve the collective understanding of these cosmic divinities, and today, one hardly sees anymore a fundamental reliance upon the constellar sources, which have taken on a concrete, terrestrial "life" in the mūrtis, the arca-vigrahās. But does not the divorcing of Earth and Sky also signal a divorcing of man from the historical? Is deity worship today a kind of amnesia?
Reflections
The imagery we have been considering here is part of a wider attempt to map out the sky in terms of Vedic and Puranic deities. This is only a partial attempt, but is it already suggestive of how a number of iconic symbols may have come into being. The associations developed by way of astrotheological hermeneutics are an important component of the history of thinking about the ontology of the heavenly divinities venerated in Hinduism today. These deities survive by way of an astrological sensibility that persists in South Asian culture, one that locates the constellations by way of narrative relationships based upon each one's proximity, or angle of incidence with respect to other constellations. The concealing or divorcing of these iconic representations from their celestial sources does concretize the images in a way that creates a new, terrestrial platform for discussion, so that theological contemplations are no longer formed by way of a direct connection to the stars; yet this also interrupts the historical character of their formation, leading to an pratimā without a pramā, a mirror reflection whose origins is lost in the shadows. Here, history is threatened by concealment, by the illusive discourse which imposes a fate dictated to each individual by the stars. Nothing is certain—not identity, not history, nor fate. This illusive character shows us how Time remains enigmatic within the Hindu context. Its form, like the form of the universe, is imaginative, tentative, elliptical. The few poets and hermeneuts that were able to penetrate into these obscure connections did manage to evolve the collective understanding of these cosmic divinities, and today, one hardly sees anymore a fundamental reliance upon the constellar sources, which have taken on a concrete, terrestrial "life" in the mūrtis, the arca-vigrahās. But does not the divorcing of Earth and Sky also signal a divorcing of man from the historical? Is deity worship today a kind of amnesia?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)