men. This ordeal is a self-sacrifice of Odin to himself that
repeats in the Mid-Region the original killing of Ymir, the
First Man, by Odin:596
139. I ween that I hung on the windy tree, 597
Hung there for nights full nine;
With the spear I was wounded, and offered I was
To Othin, myself to myself,
On the tree that none may ever know
What root beneath it runs.
140. ... I took up the runes, shrieking I took them,
And forthwith back I fel .
142. Then began I to thrive, and wisdom to get,
I grew and well I was;
Each word led me on to another word,
Each deed to another deed.598
with the birth of the solar Skanda/Muruga as well (see p.103).
596 See p.261.
597 The reference to the “windy” tree reminds us of Wotan’s own
nature as Wind-god.
598 The Poetic Edda, tr. H.A. Bellows.
274
alexander jacob
The baneful aspect of the material manifestation of the
universe (which is the central focus of the Zoroastrian
reform of the Vedic religion) is to be found in the
Dravidian version of the Skanda Purāna, Kantapurānam.
Here, the mango tree situated in the midst of the
ocean is the second form taken by the demonic Asura,
Sūrapadman, who is concealed in a mountain (exactly as
Asakku is in Lugal-e, or Vrtra in the Vedas).599 The first form assumed by Sūrapadman is a monstrous multiform
mockery of the Purusha characterised by a thousand arms
and legs.
The son of Shiva born especial y for the martial
purpose of defeating the Asura Sūrapadman is Ganesha/
Indra’s ‘brother’, Muruga (Skanda). Like Ninurta and
Marduk in Mesopotamia, and Indra in the Vedas, Muruga
is the god in the Underworld who has to combat the asura
that represents the forces blocking the emergence of the
sun into our universe. Muruga destroys Sūrapadman’s first
form by revealing his own true, and eternal, form as the
Purusha.
Sūrapadman’s second form, however, is that of a mango
‘tree’, which is also cloven into two by Muruga when he
casts his Māya-destroying lance (“vel”) against it. The tree
is then transformed into a cock and peacock, which are
symbols of death and the Underworld. This episode is
also similar to Shiva’s burning of his erotic aspect Kāma in
the form of a tree in the Skanda Purāna, I,1,21,82-99 and maybe a representation of Yogic discipline.
It is true that the Germanic mythology does not
exhibit any clear understanding of the Yogic bases of the
cosmic events it describes and represents these events
rather in a fabulous, ‘fairy tale’ form. However, we may
599 See D. Handelman, “Myths of Murugan: Asymmetry and
Hierarchy in a South Indian Puranic Cosmology”, History of Religions, 27, no.2, p.143.
275
indo-european mythology and religion
assume that, as a result of his penance on the Tree in our
nascent universe, Odin also recovers the full divine force
that he original y bore in the Elder Asgard and that is
reflected in the twelve names he possessed there:
He is called in our speech Allfather, but in the Elder
Ásgard he had twelve names: one is Allfather; the
second is Lord, or Lord of Hosts; the third is Nikarr, or
Spear-Lord; the fourth is Nikudr, or Striker; the fifth is
Knower of Many Things; the sixth, Fulfiller of Wishes;
the seventh, Far-Speaking One; the eighth, The Shaker,
or He that Putteth the Armies to Flight; the ninth, The
Burner; the tenth, The Destroyer; the eleventh, The
Protector; the twelfth, Gelding"600 (‘Gylfaginning’,
ch.3).
In conclusion, we may return to Jung’s descriptions of
Wotan in his article as a ‘god of storm and frenzy, the
unleasher of passions and the lust of battle … a superlative
magician and artist in il usion’.601 We see from our study
that Jung did not consider that the storms and battles
and il usions recounted in the Eddas were enacted on a
cosmic level and that Wotan is indeed a far more complex
mythological phenomenon than merely a ‘storm-god’.
Furthermore, rather than representing ‘a wind that blows
into Europe from Asia’s vastness, sweeping in on a wide
front from Thrace to the Baltic, scattering the nations
before it like dry leaves’,602 the original followers of Wotan
seem, from Sturluson’s account, to have been forces of
civilisation that introduced architecture and poetry, as
well as laws, into the northern lands.
600 A gelding is a castrated horse, which should be understood within the context of the solar cosmology outlined above.
601 C.G. Jung, ibid.
602 Ibid.
276
Indo-European Mythology and Religion Page 31