altar and the thermal energies within the body so closely
as the Tantric homa rituals do. The sexual connotations
of the fire-ritual also point to the fact that the latter was
an externalisation of the yogic understanding of the forces
within the chakras of the human body rather than vice-
versa. Besides, the Tantric homa as practiced by certain
359 See G. Flood, op.cit., p.38.
174
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Tibetan Buddhists display a greater understanding of the
internal sexual transformations that are meant to take
place in the sacrificer during a fire-ritual. The divinisation
process detailed in Tantric pūjas also demonstrates a
stricter adherence to the yogic mode of transcendence
through the chakras than the temporary elevation of the
sacrificer with the help of the officiating priests in the
Vedic ritual does. Final y, the utilisation of mantras in the
Vedic rituals is less forceful than in the Tantric, where the
chanting effectively reproduces the primal sonic aspect of
the divine creation.
Given the complexity of the rituals whereby the
Tantric priest and worshipper transform their human
forms as well as those of idols into divine ones, employing
the fires within themselves as well as without, it would
appear that the Tantric rituals of India—as well as those of
the other idol-worshipping cultures of Mesopotamia and
Egypt360—are indeed closer to the original yogic wisdom
of the proto-Dravidian/Hurrian family of Manu/Noah
than the Vedic or Zoroastrian fire-rituals are.
360 Cf. A. Jacob, Brahman, Chs.XIII-XV.
175
V. Reviving Adam
The sacrificial rituals of the
Indo-Āryans &the Early Christians
From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
historicity of the Christian story has been questioned
by several scholars who have preferred to consider it
as the historicisation of a primordial myth. This is hardly
surprising given the scientifical y impossible details of the
Christ story. Though it must be added that it is precisely
its value as myth that endows this story with a numinous
power that is lacking in the more sociological y oriented
cults of the Jahvist and Arab tribes who formulated and
follow the related Semitic religions of Judaism and Islam.
I have myself recently361 argued for an understanding of
this story as a transformation of an Indo-European myth
by certain groups of Jews who must have been exposed
to the Indo-European cosmological views during their
exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C. The similarity
of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ to those
361 See A. Jacob Ātman, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Velag, 2005, and Brahman , Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2012.
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indo-european mythology and religion
of Dionysus, Marduk, Osiris is too obvious to need
emphasis.362 It may be somewhat more instructive now
to observe the similarities between the original religious
rituals that were employed by groups following the Āryan
and the Semitic traditions.
In my study of Indo-European ritual, Brahman, I have
suggested that the Āryan cosmological religion is indeed
older than those of the Hamites (Egyptians/Sumerian),363
since, although the earliest attested religions are those
of the Hamites, Ham is, in the early Jahvist version of
Genesis, considered to be the “youngest son of Noah”.364
However, it is possible that both the Āryan and Hamitic
religions may have derived from a proto-Dravidic/Druidic
source,365 since Manu, the first man in the Sanskritic
Purānas, is considered to be a King of Drāvida.366 The
proto-Dravidians themselves may have been part of an
antique proto-Hurrian branch of the Indo-Europeans.367
It is likely also that the cosmological and philosophical
insights that inform all the ancient Indo-European
religions (Japhetic, Semitic and Hamitic) were developed
original y through yogic meditation, as the Brahmānda
Purāna I,i,3,8, for instance, declares. It is significant in this context that, in the Mahabhārata, Shalyaparva, 44,
Skanda or Muruga, the Dionysiac god of the Dravidians,
362 For a quick survey of scholars who have pointed this out see the Wikipedia article, ‘Christ myth theory’.
363 I use Indo-European to designate the Noachidian race that
includes Āryans, Semites and Hamites and not just the first of these.
364 See
The Interpreter’s Bible, I:560.
365 For the identification of Dravidic with Druidic see A. Jacob, Brahman, pp.134ff.
366 See
Bhāgavata Purāna VIII,24.
367 For the Hurrians, see E. Speiser, Mesopotamian Origins (1930), A.
Ungnad, Subartu (1936), I. Gelb, Hurrians and Subarians (1944), G.
Wilhelm, The Hurrians (1989). 178
alexander jacob
is described as being endowed with yogic powers while
his father Shiva is in Mbh, Anushāsanaparva, 14, is
addressed as the “soul of yoga” and the object of all yogic
meditation. Since it is most likely that the original Indo-
European Noachidian race was indeed a proto-Dravidian/
proto-Hurrian one, it is probable that this profound yogic
knowledge of the universe is characteristic of it.
Āryan Origins and Fire-Worship
The Japhetic Āryans, however, are distinguished by
their adherence to the worship of sacred fire. The chief
branches of the eastern Āryans are the Iranians, Indians,
and Scythians.368 Of these, the Indians and Iranians seem
to have preserved best, in their oral hieratic linguistic
tradition, the philosophical import of the ancient
cosmology of the proto-Dravidians/Hurrians. So it would
be helpful to consider here the conduct and significance of
their particular sacred rituals.
A brief account of the beginnings of fire-worship
among the Indians and Iranians may be in order. We
may recall Herodotus’ statement that the Iranians did not
worship fire original y.369 In the Purānas, too, 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.370
Purūravas is stated in the Puranas to be an Aila king of
368 The Scythians form an integral part of the Indo-Iranian group, but their spiritual tradition seems to have been less developed (see A.
Jacob, Ātman, p.41f).
369 See Herodotus, Histories, I,132.
370 See F.E. Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, London: Milford, 1922, p.309. In the Mbh I, 75, Purūravas is said to have brought the three kinds of sacrificial fire from the Gandharvas.
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indo-european mythology and religion
Pratishthana and the Ailas themselves are designated as
Karddameyas which relates them to the river Karddama
in Iran, particularly in the region of Balkh.371
The fact that the Purūravas are said to have learnt
the fire-rituals from the Gandharva
s suggests that the
early Hurrians of Elam and the earliest Iranians did not
worship fire and learnt it from a more northerly wave
of Āryans who must have, at a very early date, moved
eastwards from their Armenian homeland. However, even
the Gandhāras are included among the Aila [=Elamite?]
dynasties in the Purānas, which suggests that these Āryans
too were a northern and eastern branch of proto-Hurrians
identifiable with the Japhetites. The Japhetic tribes that
moved northwards to the Pontic-Caspian steppes created
the Yamnaya culture there372 which is considered the
major source of the Āryan tribes.373
The Gandaridae are also mentioned by Herodotus
(III,91) as one of the Indian tribes of the seventh satrapy
of Darius I (550-486 B.C.) and can be located near the
Bactrians of the 12th satrapy. The archaeological evidence of
the early Gandharvas may be that found in the Gandhara
Grave culture of the Swat settled from 1700-1400 B.C.,
which followed the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological
Complex (BMAC). The occupants of the BMAC may have
been related to the same family as the later Gandhara.
Since the Gandhara culture also bears the first evidence of
371 See
Rāmāyana VII,103,21ff.
372 W. Bernard suggested that the human remains from Period I of Gandhara bore resemblances to those of Bronze Age and early Iron
Age crania of 2500 B.C.–A.D. 500 from the Caucasus and Volga region as well as from Tepe Hissar in Iran (see K.A.R. Kennedy, “Have Aryans been identified in the preshistoric skeletal record from South Asia?” in G. Erdosy, (ed.) The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995, p.49).
373 See A. Parpola, “The Problem of the Aryans and the Soma” in G.
Erdosy , op.cit., p.356.
180
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cremation rituals in South Asia, we may consider them to
have indeed consolidated the Vedic customs of the Indo-
Āryans. Cremation is evidenced also in the Andronovo
culture.374 At the same time, the neighbouring Bishkent
culture, which is contemporaneous with the Gandhara
and is related to the northern BMAC type, exhibits also
a curious quasi-Scythian custom of inhumation involving
the removal of the entrails and their replacement with
clarified butter which may have persisted among the
Vedic Indians, as is suggested by Shatapatha Brāhmana
XII,v,2,5.375
Elaborate fire-altars are evident in the ruins of the
BMAC complex which correspond to the Āryan fire-
sacrifices. The temples also contain rooms with “all the
necessary apparatus for the preparation of drinks extracted
from poppy, hemp and ephedra” that may have been used
for the soma-rituals.376 The BMAC may have thus been the
centre of cultural contact between the proto-Dravidian/
Hurrian peoples of Mundigak and the later Indo-Āryans.
It is interesting to note too, in this context, that the Avesta
(which is geographical y centred in eastern Iran) mentions
the Māzanian daevas as worshippers of the Indian gods.
According to Burrow, Māzana is known in Iranian sources
as the territory between the southern shore of the Caspian
Sea and the Alburz mountains.377 It may be related also to
Margiana and the Indo-Āryan culture noted there.
The Purūravas who adopted fire-worship from the
Gandhāras may thus represent an Elamite branch of the
proto-Āryan family, while the Gandaridae, who may
have arrived from the south-east Caspian region (since
374 Ibid., p.366.
375 Ibid., p.365.
376 Ibid., p.262.
377 See E.Bryant, The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate, Oxford: OUP, 2001, p.130.
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indo-european mythology and religion
the BMAC culture is apparently derived from the latter)378
may be a typical y Indo-Āryan, north-eastern branch of
the same family.
It is clear that fire-worship was maintained
particularly by the Japhetic branch of the Indo-Europeans.
For, fire-worship is observed also among the Prussian-
Lithuanian cult of szwenta (holy fire), and the Scythians
too worshipped a goddess called Tabit whose name may
be related to the Sanskrit 'tapti' denoting heat. The Greeks
and Romans also maintained a cult of hestia or vesta.
Plutarch ( Numa, II) informs us that “Numa is said to have built the temple of Vesta in circular form as protection for
the inextinguishable fire, copying not the fire of the earth
as being Vesta, but of the whole universe, as centre of
which the Pythagoreans believe fire to be established, and
this they call Hestia and the monad”.
That the Indic Vedic culture itself may have been
developed after an original formulation at a proto-Indo-
Iranian stage is suggested by the greater elaboration of
the name of the god Tvoreshtar amongst the Iranians—
representing the older religion of the proto-Āryans—
compared to the Vedic Tvashtr. Indeed many of the
characteristic traits of the rituals of ancient India derive
from an Indo-Iranian period as is attested by the similarity
of the terms, yajna/yaja, soma/haoma, mantra/manθra,
nama/nəmô. Even the term atharvan has only an Iranian
etymology âθravâ.379
In the literary record of the Vedic scriptures, the Indo-
Āryans are ful y identified with fire-worship. Indeed, the
378 See J.P. Mallory and V.H. Mair, The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West, London: Thames and Hudson, 2008 , p.262.
379 See P. Kretschmer, Kuhns Zeitschrift 55, p.80; cf. J. Gonda, Religionen Indiens I: Veda und älterer Hinduismus, Stuttgart, 1960, p.107.
182
alexander jacob
Āryans designated the Dasyus or non-Āryans as Anagni,
the fireless. The reference in Manusmrithi X:43-45 to “the Dravidas, the Kāmbojas, the Yavanas [Ionians], the Sakas
[Scythians], etc.” as Kshatriya races which have sunk to
the level of Shūdras on account of their neglect of the
sacred rites and the authority of the Brāhmans suggests
that Brāhmanism, though based on the spiritual insights
of the proto-Dravidians, was formulated by the Indo-
Āryans as an exclusively fire-worshipping cult.
However, it should also be noted that this Āryan fire-
worship is employed in a religion which formed the basis
of the solar religions of the Sumerians or Egyptians as
wel . In the Sumerian religion too, the chief solar god An
is equated to Girra, the fire-god (in an Assyrian exegetical
text)380 and Re in Egypt is the same as the solar force, Agni.
So that it is possible that the adoration of the solar force as
divine fire may have been an integral part of the original
proto-Dravidian religion that was shared by Semites,
Japhetites, and Hamites.
Pargiter suggested that the Dravidian “brāhmanical”
institution was perhaps considerably transformed by
the Āryans. However, Pargiter did not consider the
possibility that both Āryan and late
r Dravidian may have
been derived from a proto-Dravidian/Hurrian spiritual
culture.. While the original [proto-] Dravidian priesthood
was characterised by the practice of yogic austerities
(tapas) which gave them magical powers, the Āryan was
preoccupied with the performance of sacrifices, especial y
revolving around the worship of fire.381 The Indo-Āryan
religion thus seems to have combined the ancient
proto-Dravidian wisdom of the Elamite/Mesopotamian
380 RA 62-52,17-8 (see A. Livingstone, Mystical and Mythological Explanatory Texts of Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986, p.74).
381 See F.E. Pargiter, op.cit. , p.308f.
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indo-european mythology and religion
Hurrians with more northerly fire—and soma—rituals
and horse-sacrifices. And the original proto-Dravidian or
Noachidian wisdom382 is also mostly preserved in Sanskrit,
the cultivated [sanskrit=refined] and inflected language
of the upper castes of the Indo-Āryans which however
retains several proto-Dravidian elements in it.383
The Prisca Theologia
The original religion of the ancients was based on a
spiritual vision of the formation of the cosmos. According
to this cosmogonic scheme—which I reconstructed
in my work Ātman 384—after the cosmic deluge which
marks the end of the first cosmic age (kalpa), the Divine
Soul, Ātman, within the cosmic ocean (the Abyss)
gradual y recreates the cosmos assuming the form of an
Ideal Macroanthropos, or Cosmic Man. The breath or
life-force (Vāyu/Wotan) of the cosmic Man first unites
with matter (Earth) to form a closely united complex of
Heaven (the substance of the Purusha) and Earth. But the
temporal aspect (Kāla, Chronos) of the rapidly moving
breath or wind also separates the two elements, an event
382 That the biblical Noah, a descendant of Adam’s son, Seth,
represents the wisdom of Seth is evident from Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, I, 70-71, which makes clear the association of the line of Seth with cosmological learning.
383 Aurobindho Ghose pointed out that some of the obsolete or “high”
Sanskrit words were indeed common Dravidian ones such as “sodara”
for brother (instead of the typical Sanskritic “bratha”) and “akka” for sister (see A. Ghose, “The Origins of Aryan Speech”, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, vol.10, p.560). Interestingly, the common Germanic word for son, “sohn”, is similarly cognate with a high Sanskrit word,
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