Indo-European Mythology and Religion

by Alexander Jacob

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.

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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.

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  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.

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  alexander jacob

  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.

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  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,