Indo-European Mythology and Religion
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is emphasised by his frequent epithet of divine ‘Bul ’. The
Bull is also a typical epithet of Teshup of the Hittites, who
is a counterpart of Zeus Adados.493 Similarly, in Sumer, the
term “Bull of Heaven” is used of Girra (Agni), and it also
serves as an appel ation of the god of Wind, Enlil, (CT
24,5,41 and CT 24,41), as well as of Adad (CT XV, 3f.), that
is, of the stormy wind-like stages of solar evolution which,
final y, are of greater importance in the formation of the
sun than the purely luminous element represented by the
pure brother of Adad/Teshup/Ganesha.
492 See Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, Ch.12 (cf. H. te Velde, Seth, p.27).
493 See G. Wilhelm, Grundzüge der Geschichte und Kultur der Hurriter, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesel schaft, 1982, p.70.
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B: Zeus in the Underworld
The Tree of Life
Once the Light of Heaven has sunk into the ‘Underworld’,
or the Earthly part of the Cosmic Egg, it is the task of
Zeus—the force that attacked Chronos, the violator of
Heaven, and swallowed the divine phal us—to revive it
in our universe. We may remember that in the Egyptian
Book of Caverns, when Re passes over Osiris, the latter
becomes ithyphallic.494 This betokens the rise of the
universal life contained in the phal us of Heaven (Horus
the Elder-Osiris) into the Mid-Region between the heaven
and earth of our universe. The rising phal us is also often
represented as a “tree” of life which is indeed symbolic of
the entire universe.
In the Vedas, this tree is identified with Indra who
serves as the axis that holds the heaven and earth of our
universe together. In RV III,31, Indra develops into a
universal tree as a result of his consumption of ‘soma’, the
spiritual stimulant that causes that causes the phal us to
become erect. Under its inspiration Indra separates earth
and heaven and holds them together:
12. … With firm support [Indra] parted and stayed
the Parents [Heaven and Earth], and sitting, fixed him
there erected, mighty.
13. What time the ample chalice [of soma] had
impelled him, swift waxing, vast, to pierce the earth
and heaven.
and RV II,15:
494 See E. Hornung, Ancient Egyptian Book of the Afterlife, tr. D.
Lorton, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.
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High heaven unsupported in space he established: he
filled the two worlds [earth and heaven] and the air’s
Mid-region.
Earth he upheld, and gave it wide expansion. These
things did Indra in the Soma’s rapture.
Indra’s intoxication with soma is related to the wine-
rituals of his ‘brother’ Muruga/Dionysus.
It may also be noted that a majority of the Vedic
hymns are devoted to the god Indra in relation to the
Tree of Life and to his battle with the demon Vrtra. So it
is possible that the Indo-Āryans were mostly interested in
the phallic and heroic significance of this god, especial y
in the Underworld.
That the tree of life is a symbol also of the Sumerian
Enlil’s warrior son, Ninurta, is made clear in the epic
Lugal e (l.189), where Ninurta is called “the cedar which grows in the Abzu” (l.189)495 as well as “the great Meš tree”
(l.310).496 Ninurta is also called the "date-palm", dLugal.giš.
gišimmar (ŠA ), in the An=Anum god-list, Tablet I.497
6
The Divine Semen
The deity in the Underworld representing the divine
seed that will be ejected through the phal us is in India
called Skanda (Tamil: Muruga), whose name means ‘jet of
semen’. In the Mahābhārata, Āranyakaparva (IX,43,14ff),
we find an account of the birth of Shiva/Chronos’ son,
495 See J. Van Dijk, Lugal ud me-lam-bi Nir-gal, Leiden: E.J. Bril , 1983, p.75.
496 Ibid., p.90.
497 See R. Litke, A Reconstruction of the Assyro-Babylonian God-list An:dA-nu-um and An: anu šá amēli, New Haven, CT: Yale Babylonian Collection, 1998, p.46.
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Skanda. It states that the daughter of Daksha (Aditi/
Pārvathi) made love to Agni/Shiva six times (in spite of
Shiva’s famed asceticism), taking the guise of the wives
(who are identifiable with the Pleiades) of six of the Seven
Sages (who, as we have seen, represent the wisdom of the
previous cosmic ages), and then, taking his seed in her
hand, flew in the form of a Gārudī bird498 to a golden lake499
on the peak of the “white mountain”500 guarded by Shiva-
Rudra’s armies. The seed of Shiva turns into an embryo
[or egg] and the mountain itself turns into gold, while
Earth is infused with metals of diverse colours.501 From
this embryo is born Skanda, who, representing the jet of
divine semen, emerges from atop a mountain (Shiva being
typical y called Parvatha/Kur/Mountain).502
In the MBh account, the birth of Skanda is described
as being accompanied by terrific storms and blizzards.503
The gods are at first disturbed by the violence of his birth
and suspect the infant of being a potential usurper of their
role.504 The reason for the unusual violence accompanying
the birth of Skanda is that his father Shiva is a powerful
498 The Gārudī bird is the female of the Garuda, which,
iconographical y represented in fierce form, is an early manifestation of the sun.
499 In the Haracharitachintāmani of Jayaratha, the lake itself is formed when Agni vomits after swallowing the powerful seed of Shiva (see W.
O’Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva, London: Oxford University Press, 1973, p.274). The swallowing of Shiva’s seed by Agni is represented in the Brāhmanical rituals by the insertion of oblations into the sacred fire ( ibid., p.278).
500 In Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava, V, the mountain itself as well as the lake of the forest of reeds, Saravana, were formed of Agni’s entrance into the semen of Shiva when it was dropped onto Earth.
501 cf. Kālidāsa, Kumārasambhava V.
502 Vāyu, the god of Wind, is also called “Parvatha” (mountain), in RV
I,132, 6.
503 MBh IX, 44.
504 Ibid.
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ascetic and his child is imbued with an extraordinary
amount of “tejasic” or solar virtue.505 So Indra as the stormy
aspect of Shiva/Ganesha attempts to kill Skanda with the
aid of the ‘Mothers’, the seven cosmic streams, who act
as Skanda’s nurses. However, the latter refuses to follow
Indra’s instructions and instead protect the infant against
Indra’s attacks. Final y, Indra concedes his impotence
against the invincibility of Skanda and appoints him as
his general. We may detect here a resemblance of Skanda’s
birth to that of Dionysus (see below).
In the MBh account of the birth of Skanda we also
note that Indra first acts as the adversary of the solar force,
Skanda. But Skanda and Indra/Ganesha are two aspects of<
br />
the same deity (and considered as the ‘sons’ of Shiva in
India), just as Shamash (Suwalliyat) and Adad (Hanish),
are. As Skanda represents the solar virtue of the seed of
Brahman, so Indra and Ganesha bear the violent nature
of Shiva/Chronos. Indeed, in spite of Indra’s malevolence
against Skanda, Indra himself, like Zeus, helps in the
formation of the sun in the underworld, since, as we
shall see below, it is Indra who possesses the solar energy,
“kshatram”, especial y in his phallic ‘vajra’.506
Among the Dravidians, Skanda is called Muruga,
a name that is possibly related to the nominal variant
‘Marukka’ for the Babylonian Marduk in the An=Anum
god-list, Tablet II.507 Just as Marduk is four-headed,508 and
Ninurta is called Sagash (six-headed),509 Muruka too is
six-headed and therefore called Shanmukha (‘the Six-
505 MBh XIII,83,45;47-8 (cf. W. O’Flaherty, op.cit., p.268).
506 See p.234.
507 The name is spelled “Ma-ru-uk-ka” (see R. Litke, op.cit., p.91).
508 See
Enuma Elish I:95.
509 See K. Tallquist, Akkadische Götterepitheta (Studia Orientalia 7), Helsinki, 1938, p.422.
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faced’),510 since he is born of Pārvatī in the six-fold form of
the wives of six of the seven sages.
That this divine seed is the source of the sun is clear
in the earliest Tamil literature, such as the Tolkapiyam
and the Sangam texts, from the 4th c. B.C., where there are
numerous references to Muruga as ‘ceyon’, the ‘red’ god,
representing the rising sun.
In Sumer, Ninurta himself represents the seed of
Enlil, particularly as Ningirsu Lord of the Flood). In the
Sumerian myth “Lugal-e”, Ningirsu is represented as the
reddish floodwaters of the mountains and equated to
the mountain’s “semen”.511 It is interesting that the flood
of which Ningirsu is lord is both the semen of his father,
Enlil (who is often adored as Kur/Mountain) and the
cosmic flood from which the sun will arise.
In Babylon, Marduk is equated with Nergal (the
incipient sun of the Underworld) in KAR 142 rec.iii
28.512 In fact, the original form of Marduk’s name was
Amarutuk, sun-calf.513 And in VAT 8917 rev.5, where Nabû
represents the seed of the moon or “the one inside Sin
[the Moon]”, Marduk is called the “one inside Šamaš [the
Sun]”.514
In Greece, the deity most closely associated with the
Tree of Life as its sap or seed must have been Dionysus,
since his name itself may be construed as ‘Zeus of the Tree’.
The word ‘dios’ is the genitive of Zeus and, according to
510 Shiva Purāna V.1.34; I.1.27, etc.
511 See T. Jacobsen, Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976, p.131. We see that the attribute “mountain” regularly applied to Enlil is a phallic one and that Ninurta represents Enlil’s seed.
512 See A. Livingstone, op. cit. , p.235.
513 See W. Lambert, “Studies in Marduk”, BSOAS, 47, p.8.
514 See A. Livingstone, op. cit., p.83.
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Pherecydes of Syros, ‘nũsa’ was an archaic word for ‘tree’.515
This is also confirmed by another name that Dionysus
bears, as “Dionysus in the tree”.516
Dionysus is considered to be the Cretan Zeus,
Zagreus. In one version of the Dionysus story reported
by Diodorus Siculus, Dionysus is the son of Zeus and
Persephone.517 Zeus’ other wife Hera, filled with jealousy,
sends the Titans to destroy the child. These details of
the birth of Dionysus clearly resemble those of the birth
of Skanda and the attack on the latter by Indra. Unlike
Skanda, however, Dionysus is not quite protected and
is final y torn apart by the Titans. He is then revived by
Zeus himself, who takes Dionysus’ still-beating heart and
inserts it into his thigh. The references to Dionysus’ ‘heart’
and Zeus’ ‘thigh’ are to be understood in the context of
the seminal and phallic roles of these gods. We remember
the phal us of Phanes that Zeus had swallowed and the
representation of Ganesha with an elephantine head and
a phallic trunk.
The Birth of the Sun
In the Vedas, the tremendous power of the heroic god
Indra which allows the solar energy to emerge as the light
of the universe is contained in his phallic weapon, ‘vajra’.
515 K. Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Graecorum Historicorum 3, p. 178.
516 Plutarch,
Quaestiones Convivales, V,3.
517 Diodorus, Bibliotheca Historica III;63ff. However, Diodorus also refers to two other accounts of Dionysus, the first claiming that he was of Indian origin, and a third that posits Semele as Dionysus’
mother. This last version of Dionyus’ origin is presented in the
Theogony, l.940, as well as in Nonnus ( Dionysiaca VII.136ff), where Zeus is said to have consorted with Semele, daughter of Cadmus,
King of Thebes, to produce Dionysus. This must be a later variant of Dionysus’ parentage.
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The dragon of material resistance that Indra battles with
his weapon is called Vrtra.518
In RV IX,42,1, Indra/Soma is said to engender the
sun in “floods” along with the other stars.519 The flood
is the result of the separation of earth and heaven in
the Underworld as well as the condition of the creation
of the light of the mid-region of our universe. That this
process is similar to the ejaculation of seminal fluid is not
surprising considering the significance of the phal us in
the macrocosmic creation.
Indra is the counterpart of the Mesopotamian Marduk
and also of Enlil’s son, Ninurta, since they bear the same
phallic weapon.520 But since Marduk and Ninurta are
more properly identified with Skanda/Muruga, we see
that Marduk and Ninurta assume the roles of both the
sons of Shiva. In the Babylonian Enuma Elish, IV, Marduk
splits Tiamat, the consort of the Abyss from which Anu
(Heaven) emerged, into two halves and thus forms the
heaven and earth of our universe. The Assyrian ritual text
K 3476 rev. l.9 reveals the phallic role of Marduk in this
aggression: “Marduk, who with his penis … Tiamat”.521
The separation of heaven and earth resultant on the
destruction of the dragon facilitates the rise of the sun
to its position within the ‘mid-region’ of our universe
between them.
518 It is interesting that the epithet Verethraghna (destroyer of Vrtra) is applied in the Iranian Avesta to Mithra rather than to Indra (who is general y considered a demonic ‘deva’ in the Avesta). We may note here a deficiency of cosmogonical understanding in the Zoroastrian reform.
519 ‘Engendering the Sun in floods, engendering heaven's lights, green-hued,
Robed in the waters and the milk’
520 It is clear that the Germanic Thor who wields a ‘hammer’ is also a counterpart of Indra (see Ch.VII).
521 See A. Livingstone, op.cit., p.123.
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indo-european mythology and religion
The storm-force of the Sumerian Ninurta in his battle
against monstrous creations such as Asakku is called
Ramman (Adad). Adad is called the stormy aspect of
Marduk also in CT 24,50,10b,522 Marduk being identical
to Ninurta. That the exact storm that Adad represents is
identical to the flood which forms the sun is made clear in
several sacred Sumerian texts, including the epic Lugal e.
When Ninurta undertakes a mighty battle against
certain mountainous “regions of resistance”,523 Enki cal s
to Nin-ildu, “the great carpenter [or demiurgus] of Anu”,
to fashion the mighty mace of Ninurta. Ninurta’s “arm”,
or weapon, is itself represented as a separate deity called
Sarur. The stormy nature of this mace is revealed in
Gudea’s Cylinder B, where the mace of Ningirsu [Ninurta
as lord of the flood] is described as being the “fiery
stormwind”. This fiery stormwind is deified as the storm
god Ri-ha-mun or Adad.
That the stormwind is related to a cosmic flood is
suggested by the Sumerian term ‘amaru’ for a weapon,
which may be interpreted also as “flood”, as a hymn to
Nergal makes clear:
So strong was his Weapon, its upward rising was
unopposable,
In its aspect as a storm, it was the great Flood which
none could oppose;524
522 “ilAdad=ilMarduk ša zu-un-nu”.
523 Ninurta/Marduk is also described as fighting a ‘dragon’ and
facilitating the development of the sun.
524 See J.V. Kinnier Wilson, The Rebel Lands: An Investigation into the Origins of Early Mesopotamian Mythology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, p.53.
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From the reference to the floods which Soma engenders
in RV IX,42,1 when liberating the sun, also, we may
identify this flood as being the universal storm in which
the incipient sun is formed and borne aloft. Ramman is,
again, called “bel abubi”, lord of the deluge.525
In Greece, Zeus, rather than Dionysus, is properly
identified with Teshup’s Syrian counterpart, Adad, as Zeus
Adados.526 Zeus Dolichaios is also represented bearing the
same axe and lightning in his hands as Ramman does.527
The Mastery of the Manifest Universe
Although the erection of the Tree of Life as the divine