Indo-European Mythology and Religion
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Earth out of Water. Then he produces “the Tree” (which
corresponds to the Tree of Life representing our universe),
followed by “the Beneficent Animal” (the Cow) and
“the Holy Man” (Gayomaretan/the First Man). The Fire
derived from the Endless Light is called Khvarag (4).
In the Greater Bundahishn Ch.XVIII and the Lesser
Bundahishn Ch.XVII, mention is made of five fires, the
Berezi-savang, Vohufryan, Urvazisht, Vazisht (one of the
sages in the Indian tradition), and Spenisht. The Berezi-
savang is “the fire which glitters before Ohrmazd the
Lord”. The fire Spenisht is that which is lit in the material
world. The Vohufryan is “that which is in the bodies of
men and animals”, the Urvazisht is that which is in plants,
and Vazisht that which is in clouds. Of Spenisht, the
three principal fires are Farnbag, Gushnasp and Burzin
Mihr. Descriptions of the various fires worshipped by the
Zoroastrians are given also in the Greater Bundahishn,
Ch. VIG, where the fire Vasisht is said to facilitate the
production of rain, and the fires Farnbag, Gushpasp
and Burzin Mihr the protection of the world and the
preservation of the creatures. Other fires such as those
within the plants, men and beneficent animals maintain
and increase the life of these species.
The Greater Bundahishn Ch.XVIII also provides an
account of the fires Burzen Mihr, Adar Gushnasp, and
Farnbag. Of these, the fire Farnbag is considered to be
the “athravan” (priest) of the fires, the fire Gushnasp the
warrior, and the fire Birzin Mihr the husbandman. “They
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are the protectors of the world until the renovation of the
universe” (17). Thus Farnbag has the ritualistic eminence
of Agni as the brāhmanical god among the Indo-Āryans.
He is assisted by the two other fires, representing the
warrior and the peasant, in his protection of the world.
Regarding the kinds of fire-rituals practiced by the
Zoroastrians, the Avesta mentions three consecrated fires,
a household fire, a communal fire and a national. The
ritual employing the domestic hearth fire, called Ātash
Dādgāh, is the lowest, for this fire is turned into a more
significant cult fire by putting it in an appropriate place,
i.e. a fire-temple. The fire room in the temple was itself
constructed in the form of a dome recalling the dome of
heaven.325 The Avesta (Yasna 62,5) values most of all the
national fire, the Ātash Bahram, the fire of victory. This
was the cult fire of the royal house of the Sassanians. The
king himself is believed to be endowed with khvarena, the
sacred victory-giving glory that is dispensed by Mithra.326
The consecration of the Atash Bahram is conducted with a
collection of the sixteen fires mentioned in the Vendidad, Ch.8. The hymns used for its consecration are mostly
directed to Srosh, the assistant of Mithra327 and the
guardian of all that is pure and sacred in the world. The
sacred fire of the second grade is called Ātash Adarān,
meaning fire of [different] fires, i.e. taken from the embers
of the hearth fires of the various castes, priests, warriors,
farmers, and artisans.
We see that the primary focus in Zoroastrian fire-
worship is on the external and macrocosmic forms of
fire. There is little yogic understanding of the internal
325 See J. Darmsteter, Zend Avesta, I, 152f; 169.
326 Sol Invictus takes the place of the Avestan khvarena in the later Mithraic religion. All the Roman emperors after Commodus (161-192
A.D.) assumed this title.
327 Cf. Mihir Yasht XXV.
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thermal energies that inform the human microcosm.
However, Grether, who has attempted to demonstrate the
close resemblances between the Tantric homa and the
Zoroastrian fire-rituals, points out that, at least in the case
of the Zoroastrian chief priest, there is a clear correlation
between the deity and the fire.328 The Lord of Wisdom is
believed to be present in the form of fire as well as in the
body of the priest. Thus the Zoroastrian priest’s role is
that of a representative of the Lord of Wisdom, of Ahura
Mazda, who has become visible to the worshippers in the
form of the ritual fire.
***
When we turn to the fire-rituals that were conducted
within the Tantric tradition we find that they reflect a
more pristine system of ritual practice than even the Indo-
Āryan Vedic fire-rituals. As Grether has pointed out,
None of the elements common to homa are exclusively
Vedic. However, all of the quintessential portions—
structure and efficacy—do have parallels in the
Iranian cultural paradigm. Therefore, tantric homa
rites are more properly characterized as Indo-Iranian
in origin.329
As she suggests, ‘the ritual efficacy common to all homa
rites can be found in the Central Asian culture dating
back to the pre-Vedic period but re-articulated in the
tantric period.’ Further, Biardeau too has pointed out that
“le ‘sacrifiant’ du culte agamique—qui est toujours, par la
force des choses, un notable, au moins local—se rapproche
ainsi beaucoup plus au roi que du maître de maison
328 See Hol y Grether, “Tantric Homa Rites in the Indo-Iranian Ritual Paradigm,” Journal of Ritual Studies 21.1 (2007), pp.16-32.
329 Ibid. , p.28.
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indo-european mythology and religion
ordinaire”.330 This suggests that the Tantric sacrifices retain
the public significance of the early sacred rituals of the
Indo-Iranians rather more than the rituals of the later
Vedic Āryans, which tended to be more domestic, and
exclusive, affairs.
However, it is not likely that the original sacrificial
rituals of the Tantric or the Vedic Indians were derived
directly from those of the Iranians. The Iranians are
represented in Herodotus as worshipping the “circle of
heaven” (Ahura, from Ashur/Anshar=circle of heaven) as
well as the heavenly bodies. The incantation that the priest
utters during the animal sacrifice is supposed to evoke the
creation of the heavenly bodies. The Iranians discussed
by Herodotus, however, did not build temples or worship
statuary representations of their deities (I,131), and this
emphasises their ancient affiliation with the Scythians,
while the Mitanni – and the Hittite-Hurrians, however,
were certainly not averse to such representations.
Besides, the Iranian rituals are described by Herodotus
as not involving fire, even though the later Zoroastrian
religion—like the Indic—is indeed typified by its worship
of fire, Atar. More recently Mary Boyce has pointed out
that “no actual ruins of a fire temple have been identified
from before the Parthian period [i.e. before the 3rd c.
B.C.]”.331 This suggests once again that the Iranians, like
their Mitanni kinsmen, must have come into contact in
the south with the Purūruva Ailas [Elamites/Hurrians],
who, as we shall see, derived their worship of fire from the
Gandharvas, or the inhabitants of the Gandhara Grave
culture (ca. 1700-1400 B.C.), which followed the Bactro-
Margiana Archaeological Complex (ca. 2200-1700 B.C.).332
330 See M. Biardeau, op.cit., p.139.
331 See Mary Boyce, “On the Zoroastrian temple-cult of fire”, JOAS, 95/3, p.454.
332 See A. Parpola, “The Problem of the Aryans”, in G. Erdosy,
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Indeed the Iranians seem original y to have been nomadic
peoples, as is attested by the imagery of the Old Avesta,
wherein the cosmos is viewed as an enormous tent.333
The relatives of the Iranians, the ancient Scythians,
also do not exhibit any developed form of religious
worship that may be ascribed to yogic understanding. The
royal hearth was the most sacred place in the Scythian
domain and solemn oaths were sworn there (Herodotus
IV,68). This may be related to the veneration of the Royal
Fire, the Ātash Bahram, among the Iranians. When the
king died, the royal funeral cortege travelled throughout
the Scythian kingdom for forty days in order to receive
the homage of the people, some of whom even mutilated
themselves in partial self-sacrifice.
Other practices that link the Scythians to the Indo-
Iranians is their custom of soma-drinking which accounts
for their ancient designation as “hoamavarga”, or “soma-
drinking”, Scythians. However, Eliade’s researches in
Central Asian shamanism, which may be a vestige of
ancient Scythian religious practice, point to a rather
rudimentary practical application of the spiritual basis
of the cosmological religion of the ancients in the
shamanistic rituals.334 The use of intoxicants for the
acquisition of transcendental states is, according to Eliade,
a relatively inferior path in comparison to the inner
spiritual discipline advocated by yoga,335 and the reduction
(ed.) The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p.366.
333 See P.O. Skjaervo, “The Avesta as source for the early history of the Iranians”, in G. Erdosy (ed.), The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p.168.
334 Cf. M. Eliade’s discussion of shamanism among the
Scythians, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, N.Y.: Pantheon Books, 1964, pp.394ff.
335 See M. Eliade, op.cit., p.401. 161
indo-european mythology and religion
of yogic knowledge to ecstatic flights among the shamans
is an indication of a certain degeneration of the wisdom
of the ancient Near East in its transmission to the north.
As Eliade pointed out, let us emphasize once again the
structural difference that distinguishes classic Yoga from
shamanism. Although the latter is not without certain
techniques of concentration … its final goal is always
ecstasy and the soul’s ecstatic journey through the various
cosmic regions, whereas Yoga pursues entasis, final
concentration on the spirit and “escape” from the cosmos.336
To discern the original tradition of the Indo-
Iranians from whom the Tantric, Vedic, and Zoroastrian
rituals were all derived, we may turn once again to
the Indic Purānas, where we find that Purūravas, the
early Aila [=Elamite?] king, is said to have obtained
sacrificial fire from the “Gandharvas”, who also taught
him the constitution of the three sacred fires of the
Āryans.337 Purūravas is stated in the Puranas to be an Aila
king of Pratishthana, Aila itself designating a descendant
of Ila, the offspring of Manu and originator of the Lunar
dynasty of kshatriyas, while Manu’s son, Ikshvāku is the
author of the Solar dynasty. The Ailas are designated as
Karddameyas, which relates them to the river Karddama
in Iran, particularly in the region of Balkh.338 The kshatriya
ruler of the lunar dynasty, Purūravas, is, according to
the Bhavishya Purāna, Pratisarga 3, the son of Budh, the
son of the Moon, Chandra,339 who himself was the son of
the sage Atri born of Brahma. The rise of both Chandra
and Purūravas is dated to the Treta Yuga. Fire-worship
336 Ibid., p.417.
337 See F.E. Pargiter, op.cit., p.309. In the Mbh I, 75, too Purūravas is said to have brought the three kinds of sacrificial fire from the Gandharvas.
338 See
Rāmāyana VII,103,21ff.
339 Budh was married to Ila, the daughter of Manu Vaivaswat.
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was thus perhaps not universal among the earliest Āryan
tribes.
The fact that the Purūravas are said to have learnt
the fire-rituals from the Gandharvas suggests that the
early Hurrians of Elam and the earliest Iranians did not
worship fire and learnt it from another group of Āryans
who must have, at a very early date, moved eastwards from
their Anatolian/Armenian homeland. However, even
the Gandhāras are included among the Aila [=Elamite?]
dynasties in the Purānas, which suggests that these Āryans
too were a branch of the original Noachidian family that
we have called proto-Dravidian/Hurrian.
***
Given the intimate relationship between Yoga, Upanishadic
Brāhmanism and Tantra and the reference in Manusmriti,
I,86, to the fact that austerities marked by tapas preceded
the development of fire-rituals, it is important to descry
the relations between the Vedic and Tantric rituals. That
Tantra is closely related to Brāhmanism is clear from
the many similarities in their respective ritual practices.
In fact, even the apparently unorthodox practices of the
Shaiva Tantric Kaula [non-dualistic but liberal] sect are
a practical application of Advaita Vedic knowledge, as
Woodroffe pointed out:
The Kularnava (III.113 ) says that there is no knowledge higher than that of Veda and no doctrine equal to
Kaula . Here a distinction is drawn between Veda
which is Vidya and the Kaula teaching which he cal s
Darshana [school of philosophy].340
340 See John Woodroffe (“Arthur Avalon”), Shakti and Shâkta: Essays and Addresses on the Shâkta Tantrashâstra, London: Luzac and Co.
1918.
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indo-european mythology and religion
Ch.29 of Abhinavagupta’s Tantraloka details the ‘kula
prakriya’ rite as involving the unorthodox consumption
of meat, alcohol, fish and the performance of ritual
sex.341 However, as Flood points out, the Brihadāranyaka
Upanishad (IV,3,21) also describes the realisation of the self as the Absolute in sexual terms, while the Chāndogya
Upanishad (II,13,1-2) identifies Vedic recitation itself with the sexual act.342 Yael Bentor has also recently noted that
The brahmanas and upanisads contain various
passages linking the fire offering to sexual intercourse
and conception. The milk offered into the fire has
been related to semen and the b
oiling of the milk
to orgasm … Also, the kindling of the fire from the
friction of the two fire sticks (arani) is correlated to
sexual intercourse.343
Those who have studied Vedic sacrificial rituals will
also remember the dramatic performance of copulation
between the king’s wife and the dead horse in the
Ashvamedha sacrifice and may reasonably suppose this to
have been a part of the original Purushamedha (human
sacrifice) as wel . As Brajalal Mukherji also explained,
All Vedic yajnas are based on the idea that
Maithunikarana (coitus) leads to spiritual happiness.
Sexual intercourse is Agnihotra ( SB XI, 6,2,10).
Maithunakarana is consecration ( SB III, 2,1,2, etc.)
… [Yajnas] direct the observance and performance
of Maithuna as a religious rite or part of a religious
341 Ibid. , p.154ff.
342 See G. Flood, The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion, London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.
343 Yael Bentor, “Interiorized Fire Rituals in India and in
Tibet.” JAOS 120.4 (2000), p.600. 164
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rite … and they direct that Mantras are to be uttered
during the observance of this rite.344
What is interesting is that many of the other aspects
of Tantric ritual also have counterparts in Vedic ritual.
Mukherji highlighted similarities between the divinisation
rituals of the Āgamic tradition and some of the Vedic
rituals:
The worship in both Vaidik and Tantrik rites begins
with Acamana, which is a form of ablution in which
certain parts of the body are touched with water ….
They purify themselves by uttering some Mantras
as Bijas while contemplating the Deities of certain
parts of their bodies and touching such parts with
their fingers … They make use of certain sounds for
removing unclean spirits, e.g., Khat, Phat, Hum …
They attribute a Deity to each letter in a Mantra …
They make gestures with their fingers as part of their
religious rites … and locate the Devatas of particular
sounds in particular parts of their bodies … 345
However, a closer study of the Vedic and Tantric rituals
will reveal certain significant differences between them.
We may for the purpose of such a comparison consider
the Tantric fire rituals or ‘homa’ sacrifices performed by
both the Indians and the Asiatic Buddhists who adopted