Indo-European Mythology and Religion
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However, although vertical y the altar represents the
Purusha, horizontal y, it represents the solar force in the
form of a sun-bird with outstretched wings facing the east.
The fire-altar in the form of a sun-bird that may fly to the
heavens401 represents the phallic force of the Purusha that
generates the sun.
After the completion of the five layers, the altar is
sprinkled with gold-chips to confer a golden form to the
“body” of the Purusha ( SB X,1,4,9)402 as well immortality on Agni ( SB VIII,7,4,7). Layers of soil are then scattered in between the brick-layers to represent the Purusha's marrow,
bones, sinews, flesh, fat, blood, and skin ( SB X,1,4).
Then a hymn to propitiate the fierce form of Agni,
Rudra, is chanted ( SB IX). This is followed by the chanting of sāman hymns representing the immortal vital airs ( SB
IX,1,2,32). The chanting of these hymns is said to make
400 H.J. Tul , op. cit., p.93.
401 See A. Michaels, Hinduism Past and Present, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, p.249.
402 We see that although there is very little idolatry among the ancient Āryans, the geometric form of the Vedic altar nevertheless possesses a palpable anthropomorphic quality that is manifest more ful y in the worship of sacred idols among the Hamites - the Egyptians, Sumerians and later Indians (see A. Jacob, Brahman, Chs.XIII,XIV,XV).
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the priests who chant as well as the sacrificer “boneless
and immortal” ( SB IX,I,2,34). Then follows a chanting
of the Gāyatri hymn which makes the head immortal
( SB IX,1,2,35). The right wing of the sun-bird which
represents earth is then made immortal by the chanting
of the Rathanthara hymn (SB IX,I,2,36), the left wing
representing the sky is made immortal by the chanting of
the Brhat hymn ( SB IX,1,2,37), the breath of the sun-bird is made immortal by the chanting of the Vāmadevya hymn
( SB IX,1,2,38), the tail representing the moon is made
immortal by the chanting of the Yagnyayagnīya hymn,
and the heart representing the sun is made immortal
by chanting hymns about Prajāpati and progeny ( SB
IX,1,2,40-42).
After the generation of Agni as the sun-bird Āditya,
Agni is led to the fire-altar ( SB IX,2) and installed there ( SB IX,3). The aim of the Agnicayana ritual is the flight of Āditya, the sun, to the heavens.403 The sacrificer
too is thereby borne by the altar, or the sun-bird, to
heaven. However, the sacrificer does return to the earth
(represented by the gārhapatya hearth) after his journey
to the otherworld. As Tull points out, the purpose of the
construction of the fire-altar is “to reunify man’s material
being with the essential aspect of existence and thereby
regain the original state of wholeness”.404
Jewish Origins
The elaborate sacrificial ritual we have just studied gives
us an idea of the magico-symbolic nature of the religious
403 See H.W. Tul , op.cit., p.95f. In SB X,2,1 the contraction and expansion of the wings of the sun-bird are depicted as being
incorporated into the construction of the fire-altar.
404 See H.W. Tul , op.cit. p.101; cf. SB X,1,4,1.
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worship of the ancient Indo-Europeans. The prisca
theologia of the Indo-Europeans informing these Indo-
Āryan rituals was a polytheistic one in which the various
transformations of the divine Soul Ātman through its fiery
energy Agni are worshipped as individual deities. This is
in stark contrast to Hebrew monotheism, which should
more properly be designated as a mono-nationalism based
on the tribal cult of Yahve, the god of the Hebrews. The
Hebrews are a branch of the Semitic Arameans who are
recognisable in the nomadic “habiru” of the ancient Near
East who were considered as dangerous and subversive
mercenaries and brigands.405 The radical difference
between Hebraic monotheism and ancient henotheism
is that the latter is a genuinely universal religion based
on the scientific and philosophical understanding of the
cosmos, whereas the Abrahamic revolution represents
a repudiation of this religiosity for a obscurantist
anthropocentric ethics.
The Jewish aversion to cosmological religion is indeed
confirmed in the references to Abraham's career as a
religious leader in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities, I,157:406
[Abraham] began to have higher notions of virtue
than others had, and he determined to renew and to
change the opinion all men happened then to have
405 See J. Bottero, op.cit.; cf. S. Smith, op.cit., p.192. The equation of
“habiru” with “Hebrew” is confirmed by Philo the Jew’s explanation of the latter term as “migrant” ( De Migratione Abrahami, 20).
406 The Abrahamic Hebrews were probably forced to leave
Mesopotamia, as Josephus' further statement suggests: “For which
doctrines, when the Chaldeans, and other people of Mesopotamia,
raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country; and at the command and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God.” Cf. Philo the Jew’s De mutatione nominum, 72-6.
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indo-european mythology and religion
concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to
publish this notion, That there was but one God, the
Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods],
if they contributed anything to the happiness of men,
that each of them afforded it only according to his
appointment, and not by their own power.
However, as Renan pointed out in his Histoire Générale
et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitiques (1863),
monotheism, far from representing a higher stage of
religious consciousness, is
en realité, le fruit d’une race qui a peu de besoins
religieux. C’est comme minimum de religion, en fait
de dogmes et en fait de pratiques extérieures, que le
monothéisme est surtout accommodé aux besoins des
populations nomades”.407
The historical record of the Jews itself was completed as
the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) by around the third
century B.C., though it may have been begun shortly
after the Babylonian exile of the sixth century B.C. In its
monotheistic glorification of the history of the Jewish
tribes, the Hebrew Bible natural y ignores the spiritual
bases of the older polytheistic cosmogony.
The Kabbalah
However, some evidence of cosmological mysticism
appears even among the Jews in their Kabbalistic works
such as Sepher Yetzirah (The Book of the Creation) and the Zohar (The Book of the Light), which were composed in
407 E. Renan, Histoire Générale et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitiques, Paris: Levy, 1863, p.432. 196
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the first centuries A.D. In all probability these works too,
like the Gnostic ones and the early notions of a Christian
messiah, were derived from the Assyrians among whom
the Hebrews were exiled in the 6th century B.C.4
08 and
contain some insights into the original cosmological bases
of the first few sections of Genesis.
The Kabbalah begins with the ineffable Deity Ein
Sof (corresponding to Ātman) and posits two trinities
emanating from him, representing the Ideal Man (Adam
Kadmon) and the Cosmic Man. The first, ideal trinity is
constituted of
1. Being (Eheieh) also called Kether or the Crown,
conceived of as a point Arich Anpin,
2. the ideal light constituted of a Father, Chokmah (also
called Yahweh) and a Mother, Binah (also called
Elohim), and their progeny,
3. a male hypostasis called Chesed (also called El) and a
female one called Geburah (also called Eloh).
The last two together produce the second, cosmic trinity
ruled by
1. Tiphereth or the King (also called Eloha), who
corresponds to the brilliant divine Consciousness
of Brahman and also to the cosmic Christ. The King
rules over
2. a male hypostasis Netzah (also called Yahweh Sabaoth)
408 The
Sepher Yetzirah dates from around the 2nd century A.D. and contains Babylonian, Egyptian and Hellenic cosmogonic notions.
The Zohar was first published in 13th century Spain by Moses de Leon, who attributed the work to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of the 2nd c. A.D.
However, much of it may date back to the time of the Babylonian
Talmud.
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indo-european mythology and religion
and a female Hod (also called Elohim Sabaoth) who in
turn produce
3. Yesod (also called El Chai), corresponding to Re as
Osiris, and the female world of matter Malkuth (also
called Shekinah) corresponding to Isis.
The final effect of this cosmic evolution which is the
creation of the sun is not elaborated upon in the Kabbalah.
However, we note that the Kabbalistic conception of
Yahweh is indeed loftier than the biblical one where
Yahweh is considered as the creator of the earthly Adam
and god of only the Jewish tribes.
Unfortunately, Judaism has, by and large,
subordinated the Kabbalistic exegeses to the literal study
of the Torah and Talmud, which are mundane records
of early Jewish political and social life quite lacking in
spirituality. The lack of any strong development of the
Kabbalah as a mainstream Jewish cult indeed confirms
the foreign origins of the system and its quasi-polytheistic
cosmogonical model.
Christian Origins
As regards the Christian cult, the fact that it too was
derived from Indo-European cosmogonical notions,
and dates back, like the Kabbalah, to the time of the
Babylonian exile, is clear from the contemporary Gnostic
cosmological descriptions of the Christ as the cosmic
macro-anthropomorphic manifestation of the Idea of
God,409 as well as in the extraordinary story of the death
409 A philosophical explanation of the Gnostic Adamas, the First Man, and the Son of Man is provided by the second century document of the Gnostic Naassenes that is cited by Hippolytus of Rome (170-235) 198
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and resurrection of the Christ himself, since this can only
be a historicisation of the cosmic drama of the descent of
the solar force (Osiris) into the underworld and its later
emergence as the sun (Horus the Younger) of our solar
system. Another proof of the mythological basis of the
Christ story is the employment of a “carpenter” as the
father of Jesus, since this figure corresponds exactly to
the formative force Tvashtr (Tuisto among the Germans)
of the cosmic Man, Purusha, for the Indo-Iranian name
Tvoreshtar also signifies a carpenter. It is Tvashtr who
forms the seed of the light of the universe which appears
as Brahman, whereas the impregnation of the material
substrate of the cosmos is undertaken by the breath of the
Purusha, represented as the wind-deity Vāyu (Wotan),
who corresponds to the Christian Holy Spirit. As we know,
at the Council of Ephesus of 431 A.D., the Virgin Mary
too was confirmed as the mother not of a human son but,
rather, of God (that is, of the Cosmic Christ), while the
Lateran Council of 469 clarified that Mary conceived Jesus
through the Holy Spirit.
The translation of this cosmological myth of Jesus,
which is the same as that of Helios/Brahman, into a
historical tale set in Roman times in Judaea is perhaps the
work of a certain group of Jews called the Essenes who
later called themselves Evangelists and, more particularly,
of Paul, who wished to make the Christian cult an
international Jewish one by adding a final chapter to the
Jewish history of the Old Testament. The Essenes are
described by Josephus (1st c. A.D.) as being a philosophical
group that believed in the immortality of souls, a doctrine
not adhered to by Jews in general and who were ruled by
severe ideals of simple and righteous communal living.410
The Essenes, according to the bishop Epiphanius of
in his Philosophumena.
410 See Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Bk.II, Ch.8.
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Salamis (4th c. A.D.),411 included the Nazarenes whose
practices retained many of the old Jewish ones except that
they did not believe that the Laws that Moses received
were those followed by the Jews.412
The originators of the Christian religion were probably
also related to the authors of the Dead Sea Scrol s413 who
maintained a belief in a “Teacher of Righteousness” dated
to the second century B.C. who would guide the erring
Jews in “the hidden things in which Israel had gone
astray”.414 Evidence that the Dead Sea Scrol s may have
been the work of the Essenes is particularly provided in
the repeated references in these scrol s to the Jews as “the
breakers of the Covenant”.
As for the contribution of the Jew Saul of Tarsus,
who converted to Christianity and called himself Paul, it
must be noted that he was, contrary to common belief,
not more Judaic than his counterpart Peter but less. For,
whereas the latter insisted on obedience to the Mosaic
Law, Paul advocated a degree of freedom from it.415 This
is evident in the dispute regarding circumcision in Acts 15,
wherein Peter maintained the need for adherence to this
411 See Epiphanius, Panarion, I, 19.
412 Some of whom migrated to India along with St. Thomas to found the Syriac Orthodox Church of Malabar, whose members are to this
day called “Nasrani” or Nazarenes.
413 Pliny the Elder ( Historia Naturalis V, 17) refers to the Essenes as living a monastic life along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, close to where the Scrol s were discovered.
414 See the Cairo Damascus Document, 3, 12-15.
415 This view of the conflict between Peter and Paul was first presented by Ferdinand Baur (1792-1860) of the Tübingen School of theology
in his Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältniss zu einander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung (1847). For P
aul's rejection of the Jewish Law see James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study of the Origins of Antisemitism, N.Y.: Meridian, 1964, p.53ff.
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custom whereas Paul argued against it. The early Christian
thinker, Marcion of Sinope (2nd c. A.D.),416 too pointed out
that the reference to false apostles in Galatians was indeed
directed to Peter, James, and John, the so-called “Pil ars
of the Church”. Irenaeus and Tertullian, however, argued
against Marcionism's elevation of Paul and stated that
Peter and Paul were equals among the apostles.
Marcion himself manifested a deep-seated aversion
to the materialism and nationalism of Judaism. He was
revolted by the Hebraic conception of Yahwe as a tribal
god who sanctions all manner of crimes to his chosen
Israelites and so he, like the Gnostics, differentiated the
supreme deity (whom he identified with the Heavenly
Father of Christianity) from a demiurge identified with
Yahwe. The sins of the mankind created by Yahwe had to
be expiated by the sacrifice of the Incarnate God, Christ, in
order that all men may inherit eternal Life. Unfortunately,
Marcion was excommunicated by the Petrine Roman
Church, which reinforced its Judaic connections in
forming an orthodox “Catholic” (universal) Church.
Christian Ritual
Although the Jews rejected the cosmological religions of
Mesopotamia, there is continuing evidence of their regular
performance of sacrificial rituals (korban) using animal
victims, especial y in the Temple at Jerusalem. The sacrifice
of Christ celebrated in the Christian mass is indeed the
culmination of this long tradition since it restores to the
Jewish sacrifices the cosmological significance that they
had lacked. That the Christian eucharist (thanksgiving)
416 Most of Marcion’s doctrines are to be gleaned from Tertullian’s tract Adversus Marcionem, which.rejects the dualism of Marcion’s in favour of a strict monotheism. 201
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ceremony or 'mass'417 is actual y a sacrificial ritual is made
clear by the appel ation employed for it by the East Syriac
and West Syriac Churches. “qurbana” or “qurbono”, which
is the equivalent of the Jewish “korban”. The Christian
sacrifice is derived from the Paschal sacrifice of the
Hebrews which was first performed on the night of the