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SEP 20 19: 



The Night of the Gods 

AN INQUIRY INTO 

COSMIC AND COSMOGONIC MYTHOLOGY 
AND SYMBOLISM 



By JOHN ^O'NEILL 



NY^ Mxxx MXKfH xeec<f)XTOC 



Volume II 



London 
Printed by Harrison & Sons Saint-Martin's Lane 

and 

Published by David Nutt 270 & 271 Strand 
1897 



On demandoit a Solon sil avoit estably les mcilleures 
loix quit avoit peu aux Athcniens. " Ouy bien" 7'e~ 
spondit-il, ^^ de cclles qii'ils eusseitt receues" (Plutarch, 
Solon, cap. ix). Varro s' excuse de pareil air, que s'il 
avoit tout de nouveau d escrire de la religion il diroit 
ce quil en croid ; in lis {la religion) estant desia rcceue 
et forink, il en dira selon r usage, plus que selon nature 
(Dans S. Augustin, De Civ. Dei, v, 4.) 

— Essais de Montaigne, III, ix. 



PREFACE TO VOLUME II. 

I CANNOT let this book go forth without endeavouring to 
express my deeply-felt and warmest thanks to all the friends 
who have so kindly helped to bring out this second volume 
which concludes my dear lost husband's work, The NiGHT OF 
THE Gods, although, as will be seen by Mr. Hewitt's note at the 
head of p. 790, and throughout the text, much of the second 
volume is simply a collection of rough notes which have been 
printed as they stood, but which would undoubtedly have been 
worked out, applied, and summarized, had the Author lived to 
complete his work. The system of index also, which he con- 
templated, and on which he had made considerable progress, was 
most elaborate and exhaustive. This it has been found abso- 
lutely necessary to curtail very considerably. When all my dear 
husband's friends have been so kind and helpful in the bringing 
out of this .second volume of The Night OF THE GODS, it seems 
almost invidious to make distinctions. But I must record my 
sense of gratitude to Mr. Hewitt, not only for his great kindness 
in going over the MSS., but also for the consoling words of help 
and encouragement he gave when I was almost despairing. I 
must thank sincerely and warmly Mr. Nutt for undertaking the 
publication, and for the great personal interest he has shown in the 
book. To the old friends who have known my dear husband 
longer even than I have, it has been, I am sure, a labour of love to 
do what they can to help, but I am none the less deeply indebted 
to them, and thank them from my heart. To take the Committee 
in the order in which their names stand, after assuring them all 
of my profound and undying gratitude, I must mention especially 
Dr. Budge for his kindness in revising the proofs, Mr. Morris Colles 
for his invaluable help and advice, Prof Douglas for his assistance 
in the revision of the proofs, and here again Mr. Hewitt must be 
assured that his help in that labour has the best thanks I can give. 



iv Pjxface to Volume II. 



Dr. Warren originated the hope that in spite of many discourage- 
ments the book might be given to the pubhc in its complete form. 
Mr. Hewitt gave me the first practical suggestion as to how the 
book should be brought out. Mr. Rowe carried out that suggestion 
promptly and efficiently, and prepared the way for the realization 
of the desire I had scarcely dared to hope to see fulfilled. To my 
dear husband's brother-in-law, Mr. Grattan Geary, I am indebted 
for invaluable literary advice and assistance, and to him and to my 
husband's old friend, Mr. Justice Pigot, for the generous donations 
which made the task of publishing by subscription comparatively 
easy. 

With these iQ\<i poor words of thanks I will leave these pages to 
speak for themselves. My husband's aim will be realized if they 
prove an aid to students in their endeavour to illumine the " Night 
of the Gods." 



HENRIETTA O'NEILL. 



Selling, 

NEAR FaVERSHAM, 

November, 1896. 



MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR. 

IT may be interesting to briefly indicate the various steps which 
led an official in one of the great public departments, whose 
active life was spent in the discharge of duties of a very different, 
if not less arduous kind, to devote years of labour to the study 
of the origin of cosmopolitan religious myths and symbols, and 
embody the results in a work of so profound and varied a character. 

Gifted with intellectual powers of no mean order, Mr. O'Neill 
combined an exceptional capacity for grasping general principles 
with a marvellous patience in mastering details. This faculty was 
full}- recognised by his departmental superiors, and marked him 
out for employment from time to time on special missions requiring 
special aptitudes. Thus he was sent by the War Office to Paris in 
1868 to investigate the working of the Intendance Militaire, and in 
1878 his services were lent to the Foreign Office for employm.ent in 
their newly acquired possession of Cyprus. He was appointed 
Auditor and Accountant-General, and it fell to him to evolve order 
out of the monetary chaos prevailing in that island, where coins of 
eleven different currencies, having no recognised relation to each 
other, were in circulation to the great profit of the money-changers, 
who fixed a rate of exchange almost daily to the bewilderment and 
impoverishment of the ordinary trader. Mr. O'Neill succeeded in 
establishing a regular currency of three factors — the pound ster- 
ling, the Turkish beshalik, and the Egyptian piastre — which were 
accepted thenceforward by the tax-gatherer, the merchant, and the 
general public as the equivalent of the pounds, shillings, and pence 
of Great Britain. While engaged in this and other administrative 
work of considerable difficulty, he found time to observe and note 
the many remains of the ancient religious beliefs of the island 
which were continually cropping up. 

For such observations in an island which was for centuries a 
debateable land between East and West, between Egypt, Phoenicia, 

a 2 



VI 



Memoir of the Author. 



and Assyria on the one hand, and Greece and the Hellenic 
civilisation on the other, in the remoter past, and Venice and 
the Turks in after ages, the Author was in some measure pre- 
pared b>' the trend of inquiries which he had already pursued with 
remarkable zest and indefatigable application. 

In 1869 he became a contributor to the Pall JMall Gazette, then 
under the able editorship of Mr. Frederick Greenwood. While so 
engaged, in what might be called his leisure hours, he had sent to 
him for review, M. Aime Humbert's /^r/^w Illustye,^ work which so 
interested him that he at once resolved to study Japanese in order 
to explore the field of inquiry thus opened to his view. His first 
studies in that difficult language were made under the competent 
guidance of Professor Summers, by whom he was introduced to 
Mr. W. G. Aston, the accomplished Japanese scholar, then attached 
to the British Embassy in Japan. The friendship then begun 
lasted for his life. Mr. Aston greatly facilitated Mr. O'Neill's 
Japanese studies, and with this view obtained for him through the 
Foreign Office introductions to several Japanese gentlemen of good 
family who were then in London for the purpose of becoming 
acquainted with the mechanism of Western administration. In 
return for instruction in Political Economy and the principles of 
scientific taxation, these gentlemen imparted to him a singularly 
thorough knowledge of the Japanese language, literature, history 
and religious beliefs. It may be mentioned, that as a special token 
of personal regard, one of the most distinguished of the.se Oriental 
students presented Mr. O'Neill with the beautiful weapon with 
which his father, a Daimio of high rank, had committed the Happy 
Dispatch during the troubles which preceded the establishment of 
the new order of things in the Empire of the Rising Sun. 

Mr. O'Neill published A First Japanese Book, which has been of 
great use to students. It is a translation of one of the Buddhist 
discourses of Kiu-o {Kiu-6-Dow-a) with notes, and the original 
rendered into Roman characters. This field of Oriental research 
led naturally in after years to a study of Chinese and some slight 
acquaintance with the thousands of ideagraphs which enable that 
ingenious people to dispense with an alphabet. In this branch 
of study Mr. O'Neill was greatly indebted to Professor Gustav 



Ulcnioir of the Author. vii 



Schlegel, of the Leyden University, for help and instruction. 
That great authority on the learning of the Far East kindly 
corrected the proofs of the first volume of the present work. 

The conception of embod\ing in TiiE NiGHT OF THE GODS 
the result of years of patient labour in so many and various fields 
of inquiry, occurred in this wise. After leaving Cyprus, Mr. O'Neill 
resided in France for some years, writing for many of the Reviews, 
English and French, on a variety of subjects. He gave special 
attention to medieval French literature, and to the curious and long 
since obsolete patois of the Free Companies of the France of the 
Middle Ages. He embodied some of the fruit of these researches 
in a disquisition in French on Li Roys des Ribands. It was while 
engaged in these researches and on literary work, reviewing books 
on religious symbols for one of the Quarterlies, that it occurred to 
him that the common origin of the religious myths and symbols 
is to be found in the impression made on the mind of every race 
in c\-cry clime, by the phenomena of the revolution of the earth, and 
its relation, real or apparent, to the sun, the moon and the stars. 
The phenomena being universally observed by primitive man in the 
same stage of development, and under very similar conditions, gave 
rise to similar, if not to identical, interpretations. This general 
principle, applied to the sym.bols and myths of races and climes so 
diverse as those of the Aryan races of Europe and India, the yellow 
races of Eastern Asia, the red races of America, the black races of 
Africa and Australia, yields some striking and unexpected results. 

It was from the midst of these promising labours, of which these 
pages are the first-fruits, that Mr. John O'Neill was removed, almost 
without warning, by death. 

GRATTAN GEARY. 

Bombay. 



Contents of Volume II. 



CHAPTER I. 
HEAVEN'S MYTHS. 

The Wheel 



The Wheel 


... 583 


The Wheel of Fortune . . . 


... 605 


The Praying Wheel 


... 589 


The Glyph Ra 


... 610 


The Fire-Wheel 


... 591 


The Wreath 


... 613 


The Heavens-Wheel 


••• 597 


The Romaunt of the Rose 


... 614 


The Wheel-God 


. . . 600 







CHAPTER II. 
Buddha's Footprint. 



The Shoes of Swiftness.. 


... 620 


The Labyrinth 


662 


Buddha's Footprint 


. ... 624 


The Doric Fret ... 


670 


The Three Steps 


. ... 633 


The Conch-Shell 


677 


The Legs 0' Man 


. ... 635 


The Chakra as Weapon 


678 


The Chakra as Wheel 


of the 


Stone Weapons of the Gods ... 


682 


Law 


. . . 640 


The Flaming Sword 


687 


The Suastika 


... 649 


Ceraunia, Brontia, and Ombria 


689 




CHAPTER III. 






Dancing. 




Circular Worship 


... 692 


The Salii 


714 


Right and Left 


. . . 700 


Numa Pompilius 


719 


Religious Dancing 


... 703 


The Dance of the Stars 


723 


Leaping 


... 712 


The "Dancing" Dervishes 


725 




CHAPTER IV. 






The Sphere. 




The Winged Sphere 


... 731 


Feathers 


761 


The Man-Bird-God 


... 741 


The Egg 


765 


The Wings of Kronos .. 


... 748 


The Winged Scarab 


769 


Divine Birds 


... 751 







Contents. 



CHAPTER V. 
SOME HEAVEN'S GODS. 



Kronos and Ptah. 



Kronos 

The Symbols O and Q and 

Fallen Gods 

Polar versus Solar Worship 



774 


The White Wall 


• • 803 


780 


Argos, Argo, and the Argei 


.. 807 


784 


Danae 


.. 809 


790 


Seb- Kronos 


.. 811 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Kabeiroi, or Khabirim. 



The Seven Kabeiroi 


... 812 


The Cor>'bantes 


... 841 


The Kabeiroi Goierally.. 


... 822 


The Curetes 


... 843 


The Three Kabeiroi 


... 828 


The Dactyles 


- 845 


The Two Kabeiroi 


... 836 


The Telchines 


... 847 


The Dioscures 


... 839 


The Arvalian Brothers ... 


... 848 



CHAPTER Vn. 

HEAVEN'S MYTHS [resumed). 

The Heavens-River. 



The Milky-Way 

The Bees ... 

The Milky-Way (continued) 

The Glyph ^^ 



851 Holy Water 

855 j Nebulae and Meteors 

859 1 Weaving the Veil 

863 1 



CHAPTER VHI. 
HEAVEN'S (AND AXIS) MYTHS. 

The Mountain. 



866 
871 
872 



The Mountain 


.. 883 


The Marvellous Mountain 


907 


Atlas 


.. 884 


The Mountain as the Heavens- 




Meru 


.. 887 


Vault 


911 


The Dual Mountain 


.. 891 


The Enchanted Island ... 


915 


Holy Mountains generally 


.. 895 


Le Pays de Cocagne 


918 


Mountain-Climbing 


.. 902 


The Cone 


922 


Pars! Dakhmas 


■• 905 







Contents. 



XI 



CHAPTER IX. 
POLAR MYTHS. 
The Number Seven. 



Astrology 

The Seven of Ursa Major 

Thebes 

The Number Seven 

The Seven Sleepers 



931 
937 
950 

955 
963 



The Seven Churches ... ... 963 

The Week 966 

The Maini, Manus, and Rishis 971 

The Week (resumed) 974 



The South 

Sisyphus and Tantalus 



The Axis as a Bridge 



CHAPTER X. 
The South. 

977 I The Tomoye 

... 983 I 

CHAPTER XI. 
Universe-Axis Myths. 

992 I The Heaven's-Boat 



The Dogs at the Chinvadh Bridge 999 | The Ladder 

CHAPTER XII. 

Whorls 



APPENDIX. 



Rags 



... 1019 



1029 



985 



1009 
1015 



ERRATA. 

Page 598, line 10, dele §§ 17, 20. 

599, heading, The Heavens-Wheel instead of Wheel-God. 

„ line 3, dele ij 14. 
605, „ 10, dele ^5 16. 

612, „ 13 from top, LakshmJ instead of Lakshnu, 
774, » II, dele §37. 
776, „ 12, Ab. Aud instead of Ab. And. 
866, „ 12 from top, generator instead of generation. 



INDEX TO REFERENCES. 



Page 592. 
601. 
602. 

)> 

607. 
610. 
618. 
635- 
637- 
646. 
654. 

)) 
656. 

>) 
664. 



706. 
711. 

714. 



750. 
755- 
758. 
805. 
808. 
8i8. 



heraldry (2 lines from bottom) ... 
brothers (3 lines from bottom) ... 
dealt with at (4 lines from bottom) 
Summanus (5 lines from top) 
Ixion (4 lines from bottom) 
Universe-Egg (10 lines from top) 
Maccabees (8 lines from top) 
Tomoye (bottom line) 
Tomoye (14 lines from bottom) .. 
Serpents-egg (bottom line) 
Ku-Meru (12 lines from top) 
Kronos (16 lines from top) 
bees (14 lines from bottom) 
10,000 (14 lines from bottom) 
dogs (19 hnes from bottom) 
mountain (4 lines from bottom) .. 

At (top line) 

At (2 lines from top) 

At (3 lines from top) 

on p. (12 lines from top) ... 
Yamato (4 lines from bottom) .. 
see pp. (2 lines from bottom) 
at pp. (11 lines from top)... 
Helicon (19 lines from top) 
Hwang Ti (14 lines from bottom) 
at p. (2 lines from bottom) 
at pp. (bottom line) 
advanced (4 lines from bottom) .. 
see p. (4 lines from top) ... 
at p. (3 lines from bottom) 
on p. (13 lines from top) ... 
at p. (18 lines from top) ... 
Vayu-Purana (10 lines from top) 



658 
848 
780 
785 
643 
768 
709 
986 

985 
691 

977 
778 

855 

657 

1004 

912,979 

891,914 

... 704 

... 891 

891 

891 

704, 705 

815, 8i6 

... 938 

178, 942 

... 924 

833, 834 
... 820 
... 765 
... 956 
807 
... 1032 
- 973 



The Night of the Gods. 



VOLUME II 



CHAPTER I. 
The Wheel. 



The Wheel 

The " Praying "-Wheel 

The Fire-Wheel 

The Heavens-Wheel... 

The Wheel-God 

The Wheel of Fortune 

The Glyph Ra 

The Wreath 

The Romaunt of the Rose 



Page. 

583 
589 
591 
597 
600 
605 
610 

613 
614 



The Wheel. 

THE whirling of the Heavens must obviously have been 
observed before the wheel was invented. No one will 
deny that. But did this heavens-whirling suggest the 
wheel early, or did the wheel suggest itself much later as a symbol 
of the heavens-whirling ? 

The Norse symbol for the revolving of the Universe is a mill. 
And this is, of course, because the mill-stone turns. The very 
same question that has been stated for the wheel here arises as to 
the mill-stone also. 

And I think it may be conceded that the application of wheels 
to carts was a later idea than the invention of the wheel itself. 
Indeed, the cart-wheel might have been a wholly independent 
VOL. II. B 



584 The Night of the Gods. [The 



invention, the origin of which would have been the accidental 
discovery of the roller. 

The theory I have felt induced to support here is that an 
adoration-wheel was suggested by the heavens-motion ; and that 
the fire-wheel, the quern, and the churn, were possibly deductions 
from the adoration-wheel, or accidental discoveries in its use ; the 
fire-wheel coming first in point of time. 

The use of the potter's-wheel by the Egyptian fashioning-god 
Khnemu, for shaping men and women, would seem to suggest 
the classing of that wheel also with the conceptions to which the 
heavens-motion, the Universe-motion, gave birth. Of all the 
wheels — worship, fire, quern, churn, and potter's — the potter's is 
the one farthest removed, in the initial conception of its idea and 
its function, from the cart-wheel or developed roller. 

The humble place of the grindstone in this catalogue must not 
be forgotten. Nor will the place be too humble if we ask the 
question : Why should not heavenly bodies at length fly to pieces, 
even to " cosmic dust," as overworked grindstones do ? 

The late Lazarus Geiger in 1870 made some profound observa- 
tions upon the Buddhistic and other symbolisms of the Wheel. 
He cites from the Vedic hymns a passage pregnant with meaning 
for my present purpose : " Powerfully separating two Wheels with 
the Axle, as it were, Indra fasteneth Heaven and Earth." Then 
he suggests that when, full of expectation, the wise men of that 
period, at the dawn of the morning, directing their glances towards 
the East where the shining god was to appear to them, prefigured 
by twirling two pieces of wood (that most primitive type of the 
great progenitors of the two worlds revolving like a wheel) the 
revolution of the heavens which was preparing the advent of the 
beneficent appearance of the new-born day, — when, in their naive 
faith, they imagined they might assist or even further that revolu- 
tion by this incessantly repeated holy work ; and when, in the 
centre of the small type of the world which they were turning 
between their hands, the spark suddenly flashed up, as did up 
yonder in the great celestial world the wonderful majestic flame of 
the morning sun, what joy and awe must have thrilled their hearts, 
on seeing that the great god of heaven, Agni himself, had des- 
cended into their sanctuaries. . . . If by circumambulation, by 
circular processions or races, by turning objects of various kinds 
the movement of the heavens is imitated, these are outbursts of a 



WkeeL] The Wheel. 585 

once powerful instinct, of an imitative impulse which must once 
have swayed mankind with irresistible might at a certain stage of 
their existence.^ 

Geiger here obviously leans to the sun, but I go farther than he 
did, and say that the turning of a wheel must have been resorted 
to as an imitation of the revolution of the heavens, as a representa- 
tion of the supreme motions of the Highest. It would have been 
an act of homage, of reverence, of abnegation, of impetration. The 
practice would have tended to become ritualistic, to conciliate the 
regards of the deity, and would subsequently have been meritorious 
in his worshippers. 

One of Numa's famous precepts, of which Plutarch gave the 
priority to the Pythagoreans, was " Turn round to pay adoration 
to the gods; sit after you have worshipped." And hereon Plutarch 
observed that as to the turning which worshippers were to use in 
divine adoration, it was said in his time to represent the rotatory 
motion of the Universe.^ For us, this must nakedly mean that 
God (numen) prescribed the reverent imitation of his own works, 
that is labours. 

The Universe-wheel appears in Irish myth as the Roth Fail, 
Wheel of Fal, otherwise the Roth Ramach, where " paddles " is 
not, I venture to assert, the proper rendering of ramach. The 
French rame, which meant a braitch before it became an oar, is 
a straight illustration of my objection ; and ramus and radix are of 
the same family, which brings us near to the radius of a circle, and 
the spoke of a wheel. This wheel was made by Simon Drui,^ 
assisted by Mog Ruith, a celebrated Irish Druid from the island of 
Valencia,"* The wheel enabled Simon Drui to fly in the air — 
clearly a legend of a winged heavens-wheel god — but it broke — an 
Icarus incident — and parts of it were (see p, 2'J2)) brought to 
Ireland by Mog Ruith's daughter. A St. Columba legend turns 
the wheel into a vast ship (an Argo Navis in fact) filled with a 
fabulous number of warriors, sailing over land and sea with equal 
ease (a kind of devinaille), but eventually to be wrecked on the 

^ Contributions to the History of the Dcvelop)nent of the Hunia7i Race. By Lazarus 
Geiger. Translated by D. Asher, Ph.D. London, Triibner, iSSo, pp. loi to 112. 

2 Clough's Plutarch's Nuina, 147, 148. 

^ I cannot here avoid a reminder that in Simon Drui [i.e. Magus) and Simon Peter, 
we have the Tree and the Stone. 

* Sanskrit, val, to turn ; vala, circle ; valana, turning. See what is said of Rhodes 
itifra. 

B 2 



586 The Night of the Gods. [The 

pillar-stone of the wheel at Cleghile (see p. 273), that is on the 
Universe-Axis — an obvious End-of-the-world myth.^ 

Mog Ruith means slave of the wheel, which is just like the 
slave of the Ring in the Thousand and One. 

The Welsh Gvvydion's consort was the ocean-nymph Bright- 
wheel, Arianrhod^ Woden (as Gylfe) had a leman called Gefjon 
also an ocean-nymph, and she had a " diup rodhul," a deep or lofty 
wheel.^ Prof Rhys connects these wheels with the Gygean Ring of 
Lunet (Elunet, Lynette). According to the traditions in the Isle 
of Man and in the Eastern Counties of Leinster, the First-man 
of the Island " rolled on three legs like a wheel through the mist."* 

On the I ith of June, at Riom in Auvergne, a wheel of flowers 
(formerly of wax), several feet wide, is still (1883) carried in 
procession by the clergy, and " from time to time piously turned 
on its axle for the edification of the faithful." It is eventually 
deposited on two great ancient stones, formerly considered holy 
and preserved to this day.''^ 

When Easter falls as late as it can, that is on 25th April, 
the French God-feast (fete-Dieu), our Corpus Christi (body of 
Christ), and the German Frohnleichnamsfest or Frohn-corpse 
festival, falls on St. John's day (24th of June). The name of this 
Corpse-feast has nothing Christian in it either in French or 
German, and our own name, like the Italian (corpus domini) and 
the Spanish, is merely the church-Latin one. It was probably a 
"pagan" midsummer feast; and the very ancient compromise 
between moon and sun worship which still guides the annual 
fixation of the " Christian movable feasts " is, of course, answerable 
for the present fluctuation of its date. 

M. Henri Gaidoz, in his Dieu Gaulois die soldi (1886), has 

' Rhys's Hil). Lects. 210, 214 to 216. See also Melushie, ii, 134, 159 ; Gaidoz, 
Etudes, 99, 100. 

- Is not the true signification of the Aryans, the bright, shining ones, the star-gods of 
the heavens? Manu's Aryavarta or " path of the Arya," then becomes radically the 
" turn of the heavens " (root wart or war, to turn ; Sanskrit, vartis, a house) ; and that 
great Sanskrit astrological work the Arya Siddhdnta, and the (probably fabulous) name 
of its author Arya-Bhata (root bha, to shine or speak), take their natural and proper 
places. Arya thus would come, like Arjuna, from root arg, to shine. The dark 
Dasyus whom Indra cast into unfettered captivity (Wilson's Rig Veda, ii, 241) would 
thus be the fallen ones, from root divas, to fall, to perish. The English verb to dash 
means to ruin. (See further on this under " The White Wall.") 

^ Rhys's Hil>. Lects. 284, 379. 

•• Cormac's Glossary [Sidkcs — O'Donovan) 114. 

^ Gaidoz : Le Symbolisvie de la Roue, 1886, p. 29. 



Wheel.'] The Wheel. , 587 

advanced numerous proofs of the connection of the wheel-sym- 
bolism with St. John's day, that is with the summer-solstice heavens- 
worship sacred festival. But M. Gaidoz refers almost all his 
instances of the wheel to the sun. The view here upheld through- 
out is, on the other hand, that the wheel-symbolism is to be 
referred in its supreme significance to the grand aggregate of the 
(apparently) revolving heaven itself, and not to any one member 
of it, not even to the (to us) great Sun. To refer the wheel- 
conception ab origine to the sun seems to me to be taking a part 
for the whole, a single function for the entire visible macrocosm ; 
and to be also a magnification of Sun-worship at the expense of 
Heavens-worship ; a too rapid and too broad generalisation of 
the taking and facile theory of Sun-worship. We have, in fact, 
allowed the Sun-worship theories, even when insufficient, as they 
often are, to dazzle our eyesight ; we have committed the sin 
which was deadly and inexpiable to the Incas, we have gazed at 
the sun until it has blinded us to the more all-embracing theory. 

As has been said before some of M. Gaidoz's facts have here 
been diverted to the heavens-worship theory, and there is one 
class of these which M. Gaidoz, with his usual clear candour, 
declines to explain from Sun-worship. I shall here add another 
very curious fact, one of the most significant survivals that has 
turned up in the course of the present enquiry. M. Jules 
Lemaitre, the spirited writer of the " Billets du Matin " in Le 
Temps, has described a custom of the plains of the Loire. On the 
Fete-Dieu one year he saw the men of Tavers near Beaugency, 
although they were far (the old pagans) from being devout, lay a 
large cart-wheel flat on a pivot, and on this wheel they fixed the 
altar or reposoir from which the priest was to give the benediction. 
When he uplifted the ostensory or remonstrance containing the 
corpus domini, with which to make the blessing cross-sign over the 
people, the altar was made to revolve, and so the blessing of the 
rite was sent nrbi et orbi round the compass. This very telling 
superstitio seems so important that M. Lemaitre's own words are 
subjoined,^ showing that there was also a St. John at the reposoir, 

' "Tout de suite j'ai pense aux Fetes-Dieu d'autrefois. Vous rappelez-vous les 
reposoirs qu'on faisait chez nous, et comme c'etait amusant ? Une annee, les hommes du 
bourg, qui n'etaient pourtant guere devots, voulurent se signaler. lis s'aviserent de 
placer horizontalement, sur un pivot, une enorme roue de charrette, sur laquelle on 
construisit I'autel. Au moment done oil le cure eleva I'ostensoir, I'autel se mit k tourner 



588 The Night of the Gods. [The 

as the temporary altar or altars put up for resting the Corpus 
Christi during the Fete-Dieu processions are called in French. 
This would indicate that the feast, in the particular year referred 
to, fell at or near the summer solstice, as it sometimes does, and as 
it perhaps always did until it was disturbed by Moon-worship, or 
by a vague lunar calendar. M. Jules Lemaitre has been good 
enough to inform me that he does not think this wheel-altar was 
traditional on the spot. 

The Japanese Buddhist priest Kiu-6 of the Shingaku sect, in 
one of his familiar sermons, speaks slily of a number of fish 
arranged in the centre of a dish, as being '' seated wheel fashion,^ 
and lost in the meditation " peculiar to a rival Buddhist sect, the 
Zen Shiu, or Contemplation School. According to this Zen Shiu, 
the significant act of the close of Buddha's life was his slowly 
twirling a lotus-flower with finger and thumb, in perfect silence.^ 
No one understood his meaning but Kashyapa, who spoke not, 
but merely smiled, and was at once appointed by Buddha to be his 
successor. It is obvious that the twiddling of the wheel-flower 
and the meditation in a " wheel-seat " are references to the 
revolution of the heavens. 

et envoya sa benediction aux quatre points cardinaux, c'est a savoir vers Orleans, vers 
Blois, vers la Beaiice et vers la Sologne. Cette annee- la, ma cousine, vous etiez une des 
deux petites fiUes qui faisaient les deux anges en priere sur le reposoir tournant ; et moi 
je representais le petit saint Jean-Baptiste et je conduisais devant le dais un petit mouton 
vivant ! "—{Le Temps, 25 June, 1889.) [Compare this with the application of the term 
nave or navel to the Vedic altar and sacrifice, p. 360.] 

1 Kuruma-za ni, zazen shite iru. Literally: " in a wheel-seat they remain performing 
seated-meditation." (Kuruma = wheel, and see what is said of Oki-Kurumi at p. 604.) 
Nishi-Higashi Kotoba no yenishi : A First Japanese Book for English Students. By 
John O'Neill. London, Harrison and Sons, 1874. 

2 Satow and Hawes's Handbook, p. [88] 2nd ed. 



W/ieeL'\ 



The ' ' Praying "- Wheel. 



589 



The " Praying "-Wheel. 

THE transition from a revolving adoration-wheel to a praying- 
wheel is easy, and the mere turning of a wheel would have 
preceded the added prayers ; and thus the ultima ratio of what we 
call the " praying-wheel " of Buddhism seems to be the worship 
of the revolving heavens. As a matter of fact, however, our term 
Praying-^]\Q€i is a misnomer; for, as Mr. Alabaster points out,^ 
prayer is not a Buddhist practice, the Buddhist having no divine 
entity to pray to. What are called prayers are not prayers at all, 
but sentences, dharanis, mantras, verses, formulae for repetition, to 
assist meditation on the vanity and misery of existence or the 
excellence of Buddha, and so forth. So that in fact, so far as 
my arguments here go, the Buddhist machine is still strictly 
an adoration or meditation-wheel, and not a praying-wheel ; 
although that term is convenient, having been long given it by 
us Westerns, subjectively. 

The mani or hand-cylinders of the Thibetan Buddhists are 
twirled clock-hands fashion on their handles by the help of an 
external small chain and weight which 
gives the momentum. The holy formula 
Om Mani padme hum is embossed outside, 
and is also written innumerable times on 
a long roll of paper closely wound round 
the internal spindle. Close watch is kept 
over these praise-mills, lest a careless or 
malicious hand should grind them the 
reverse way, and so not alone undo the 
merit of past twirlings, but convert them 
into positive (that is, negative) sins.^ 

There are also great egg-shaped barrels 
(tchutchor), choke full of formulae, in all 
the public places of Thibet, with a rope and 

crank to be turned by the passers. They are fixed at house-doors 
so that the inmates and visitors may turn them " for the good of 

• Wheel of the Law, xlv, xlvii, 168. 

2 C. F. Gordon-Cumming : Himalayas and Indian Plains, 426, 430 (where ihe 
above illustration is given). 




590 The Night of the Gods. [The 

the house," as they go in or out. In some Lama monasteries, 
whole rows of cyhnders a foot high are so poised that a mere 
touch sets them all going.^ The cylinders, generally, vary from 
the size of a policeman's rattle up to huge vats 15 feet high and 
10 feet through, with a heavy iron crank, to benefit a whole 
district. In some Lamaseries in Ladakh they are worked by 
clockwork and heavy weights, wound up at sunrise and sunset. 
Upright cylinders — all these machines, it must not be forgotten, 
are upright, with the axis pointing heavenwards — are fixed in 
sheds over running streams which work them by means of skew- 
cog turbine-wheels. They are also worked by wind-power.^ 
Priests go along the roads near Rarung, in the English Himalayas, 
twirling their little hand-mills^ just as Turks and Christians finger 
their circular strings of beads, or rosaries, which must have a like 
origin. 

Huc,^ who also gives an account of the prayer-barrels in the 
Tartar Lamaseries and in the running brooks, dammed for the 
purpose at Kunfum, mentions similar machines which are sus- 
pended over the fire in the Tartar tents, and turned like smoke- 
jacks by the draught which rushes up through the central smoke- 
hole. 

Prof. Rhys Davids^ speaks of " the well-known praying-wheels : 
those curious machines, which, filled with prayers or charms or 
passages from holy books, stand in the towns in every open place, 
are placed beside the foot-paths and the roads, revolve in every 
stream, and even, by the help of sails like those of wind-mills, are 
turned by every breeze which blows o'er the thrice-sacred valleys 
of Tibet." [And then he refers to Hue and Gabet's Voj/ages, i, 324 ; 
Cunningham's Ladak, 374 ; Tra?is. R. As. Soc. (Davis) ii, 494 ; 
Klaproth's Reise in den Kaukasjis i, 181, and Fergusson's Tree 
and Serpent Worship, plate 42.] 

[The careful reader is requested also to compare with these 
evidences the remarks on the subject of " circular worship," p. 134 ; 
for it is not possible to separate the consideration of the turning of 
the praise-wheel from the ritualistic practice of walking round and 
round shrines and sacred trees.] 

' C. r. Goidon-Cumming : Himalayas and Indian Plains, 432, 43J, 435, 437. 
* Travels, i, 202; li, 73. ■' Buddhism, iJ;8o, p. 210. 



Wheel.] The Fire-Wheel. 59 1 



The Fire-Wheel. 

GEIGER pointed out, too, how the holy butter, indispensable 
at the morning sacrifice, was obtained " by a quite analogous 
process " of rotation ; and that the corn-mill was, in its simplest 
shape, two round flat stones and a twirling-rod. ["Let the 
creaking stones, for whose rotation the priests hasten, supply the 
altar," Rig V. iii, 283. The same hymn, seven verses previously, 
says, "the exulting stones delight"; and the commentators add 
that they delight to bruise the Soma. The mill here referred to 
appears therefore to be one for crushing the juice out of the soma 
stalks.] And then comes in Geiger's act of insight. He seems to 
have boldly theorised that the artificial production of fire was acci- 
dental in the apparatus of the adoration-wheel ; being " decidedly 
of opinion that that religious toying consisted essentially only in 
the rotatory motion, without regard to what might come of it." 
This would account for the sacredness and the primitive worship of 
fire which we know to have been universal. He further pointed 
out how Agni (fire) is called in the Vedic hymns, now the child of 
Heaven and Earth, and now the child of two pieces of wood ; and 
also how in Brandenburg the needfire was obtained by drilling in 
the nave of a wheel, and in England, Scotland, Sweden, and 
Germany, by turning (by means of a rope wound round it) a 
wooden windlass bored into a stake. 

In some villages of the Masurian Poles who inhabit Prussia, it 
is the custom on St. John's Eve, after putting out all the fires, to 
plant in the ground an oaken post and mount on its point a wheel, 
which the young folk turn with rapidity until the post takes fire by 
the friction.! ^ ^^^\^ of ^ood with a hole in the middle, like the 
Indian arani, was employed in Germanic countries, according to 
Mannhardt^ to obtain the nothfeuer— our needfire— as a remedy 
in cattle epidemics. Friedreich mentions^ an old cart-wheel 
instead of a disk ; which disk I take to be merely a primitive 
solid wheel. 

As to the Northern central Cosmic fire, it is clear that, of 
the four sacrificial Vedic fires— to the North, South, East, and 

' Toeppen : Aberglauben atis Masuren (cited by Gaidoz). 
2 BaumkultHS, p. 518. ^ Symbolik, p. 63. 



592 The Night of the Gods. [The 



West — only one is connected by name with Agni the fire-god, 
and that is the Northern one of the four, called Agnidhriya.^ 

Hoai-Nan-tsze relates the tradition that the fabulous Sui-Jin, 
a sort of Chinese Prometheus, contemplating [the revolution of?] 
the stars and the constellations, rubbed wood, and produced fire.^ 

In the Odyssey (ix, 384, 388), a propos of the blinding of the 
Cyclops, the perforation of a beam of timber by the carpenter's 
drill is described as effected by two gangs of workmen who pull 
the rope of the tool alternately in opposite directions. 

To separate the amrita (ambrosia) from the other elements in 
the Ocean — always viewed in the Indian myths as another Chaos, 
potential of all treasures— the gods and their rival genii the Asuras, 
who seem on a par with them at the start of the legend, resolve to 
churn it. They pluck up Mount Mandara by the roots, and trans- 
port it into the midst of the waters. It is thus enlaced by the coils 
of the great serpent Sesha or Vasuki, whose head is seized by the 
Asuras, while the gods grasp the tail ; and by their alternate and 
contrary pulls the holy mountain, which is the axis of the world, is 
twirled like a block of wood under the hand of the turner, and so 
the churning is accomplished ; the mountain catching fire in the 
course of the process.^ 

The great mill of Norse mythology, which revolves as the 
starry heavens, was also the mighty friction machine from which 
the sacred fire proceeded. 

In a Norse legend King Frodi has a hand-quern called Grotti, 
which grinds peace (harmony.?) and gold. Two maidens of the 
old giant race, Fenja and Menja, grind it continually, one singing 
while the other rests. They rebel, and grind (? the reverse way) 
fire and war instead.* An Iceland quern grinds, in the name of 
the Lord, everything it is ordered.^ 

The word mondull, for the handle of the mill, is the ancient 
Teutonic manthula, a swing-tree (Fick, iii, 232), Skt. root, manth, to 
bore, twist, swing.*' This also gives us some clue to the etymology 
of the mountain Mandara and the fire-stick pramantha. As to 
mill-symbols in heraldry, see p. f. 

Aufrecht has given the etymology of Mentula as a diminutive 

1 Wilson's Rig Veda, i, 3. - G. Schlegel : Uranog. Chi., p. 139. 

3 F. Lenormant : Orig. de I' hist, i, 483 ; Guigniaut's Creuzer, i, 184. 

4 Dasent's Tales. ^ Powell and Magnusson's Legends (2nd series), p. 16. 
6 Rydberg's Tent. Myth. 399. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



Wheel^ The Fire- Wheel. 593 

of the Sanskrit pra-mantha, the agitator, the stick which is turned 
in the hollow piece of wood to obtain fire. This stick is constantly- 
compared in the Vedas to a phallus, and Aufrecht brought it from 
the root inanth, to shake.^ The theory which identifies pramantha 
with Prometheus would have also to account for ''K-mfii^devq, who, 
according to Hesiod, was brother to Tlpo/jUT]d6u<i. 

The following passages, which are added from Wilson's Rt'g 
Veda, remove all doubt as to the holiest mode of producing Agni, 
or fire: "Agni, the two-fold generated" (ii, 6^), 85). "Both his 
associated mothers, blackened, are in movement, and give birth to 
an infant " (ii, 64). " Strong priests extract this Agni from his 
primitive seat by force" [that is, by violent friction] (ii, 68). 
" Agni, offspring of two mothers, devimata " ; " offspring of two 
parents " ; " son of strength," said to refer to the force required for 
the friction by which, " Agni, thou wast born from the dry wood " 
(i, 79, 160, 68, 182). 

" Whom the two sticks have engendered like a new-born 
babe";^ "thou art manifested in the timber, Agni, by the act 
of attrition." Agni " on every occasion descends pure of origin 
from heaven, and present (in the wood) as the embryo, imme- 
diately consumes the offering." " The priests churn thee, Agni," 

" Agni, the brilliant purifier, who is dormant " (in fuel). {Rig 
V. iii, 7), 

" the churned, imperishable Agni." " The two sons of Bharata,^ 
Devasravas and Devavata, have churned the very powerful and 
wealth-bestowing Agni." 

"the ten fingers have generated this Ancient" (Agni). (iii, 

25), 

" the apparatus of attrition \j3,d\\\mantkdLn?L ; the stick, cord, 
piece of wood, &c.] is ready ; the (process of) generation is ready ; 
take up this (stick) the protectress of mankind, and let us churn 
the fire as has been done of old. Jatavedas (a name of Agni) has 

' Littre, au mot Mentule Marine. ^ Rig V. iii, 253, 385, 403, 406. 

^ I shall just note here that the French baratte, a churn, see Littre, is a very 
difficult word, in regard to which he merely quotes Diez, who is unsatisfying. The 
classical Sanskritic name for India is Bharata ; the Mahd Bhdrata is its great epic, and 
Bharata is said to have been "a king who appears to have ruled over a large territory in 
ancient times." Clearly he must have been a divine chakravartin. It is eminently 
worthy of note, too, that the root brahm means to whirl. Recollect, too, that Bharata 
is the eldest of the hundred sons of Rishabha, who is again son of Nabhi (the Omphalos) 
and Mem (the Universe-mountain). 



594 The Night of the Gods. [The 



been deposited in the two sticks as the embryo is deposited in 
pregnant women. . . . Let the intelHgent priest place the 
lower of the sticks with the face upward, the upper downward, so 
that quickly impregnated it may generate the showerer Agni : 
then the bright blazing son of Ila . . . is born of the wood of 
attrition." (iii, 34.) 

"Matariswan brought for the gods from afar Agni, hiding of 
himself and generated by attrition, as a fugitive." " When Agni 
has displayed in the material firmament he is called Matariswan," 
which name Wilson explained as " who breathes (swasiti) in the 
maternal atmosphere (matari) " ;^ but this is unsatisfying. 

The Hindu pictures of Agni represent him dual with two 
faces — it may be to express his two-fold birth ; he also has three 
legs, which may refer to the three fires on the altar, which again 
may refer to the supernal triad. The fires may also be the hearth, 
the sacrifice, and the cremation fires. The number seven, too, 
dominates, as we should have expected from his central Northern 
origin, in all his attributes. He rides on a red-horned blue ram — 
where the blue may be celestial, and the red that of fire.^ Blue is 
the colour of the ram of the Egyptian Ammon, also of Vishnu. 
Krishna, whose name is black, is painted dark blue ; and Sri- 
Rama, whose skin is green, is called blue.^ 

I shall add several other strange passages from the Rig Veda : 
"By thee Agni, Varuha observant of his duties" [of revolving] 
"and Mitra and Aryaman, bountiful divinities, are animated; so 
that thou hast been born comprehending them all universally in 
all their functions, and encompassing them all as the rim does 
the spokes of a wheel." (ii, 70.)* " Whatever offerings the priest 
presents, whatever prayers he recites, Agni knows them all ; he 
comprehends all priestly acts, like the rim of a wheel " {ibid. 
222), 

"Agni, thou encompassest the gods as the rim the spokes." 
(iii, 260). 

This all-encompassing Agni must, it is presumed, be Star- 
Fire. 

We may also look on another probable invention of fire- 
production — that is, from flints — as an accident of the manufacture 

' Rig. Veda, iii, 6, 36. - Creuzer and Guigniaut, i, 247. 

^ Creuzer and Guigniaut, ii, 201, 210, 248. 

* Compare this with the passage from Cicero on p, 36. 



Wheel.] The Fire-Wheel. 595 

of stone weapons and utensils, as suggested by De Mortillet and 
others. This discovery would thus be later than the wood age, 
when the drill-fire was stumbled upon, and may perhaps be 
regarded as a scientific as opposed to the earlier sacred event. 
Though the drill (and the mirror) have all over the world been, 
and still are, employed in religious ritual for the production of fire, 
it does not appear, I believe, that the profaner flint was adopted by 
the ancient priesthoods. Here is a further support to the views 
here taken : the drill would have had its origin in Polar-star 
worship, the mirror in Sun-worship ; while the flint would have 
remained irreligious. 

But I may not pass unmentioned here a very divergent theory 
which, so far as I know, belongs, as a modern argument, to Prof 
Sven Nilsson, who, in his Stone Age^ says that men learnt how to 
light a fire from observation of the self-ignition of the branches of 
trees by friction one against the other under stress of the wind. 
The supposition appears the more ingenious if we refer it — Prof. 
Nilsson does not — to a time when man was still a climbing animal, 
and when this particular production of fire might perhaps have 
come under his immediate notice in his own tree-huts, where the 
timbers of his perched-up nest would be more subject to rubbing 
against the branches, and would also be more directly under his 
eye. But it does not seem probable that a rapidity and force of 
friction sufficient actually to produce fire could thus often be 
developed, and the instances observed must, if any, have been of 
extreme rarity. This theory sounds much more like a late deduc- 
tion, to account for forest-fires, from the well established practice 
itself of obtaining fire by wood-friction. Perhaps the earliest 
mention of this idea is to be found in the fragments of Sanconia- 
thon preserved for us at second hand by Eusebius— " the trees 
which grew at Tyre, rubbed together by violent winds, ignited." ^ 

Before quitting the subject of Fire, I should like to put on 
record the speculation that we may perhaps dimly discern the 
invention of explosives (which came at a very late period to be 
used as destructives in human warfare) as being evolved with 
slowest graduation out of the earliest fireworks used in the archaic, 
and still in the modern, Chinese rites, especially those of tlie 
spring-tide New-year. These barbarous fireworks would have 

^ French edition, iS68, p. 9. * F. Lenormant : C/7>. dc CHist. i, 539. 



596 The Night of the Gods. \_The 

been primitively preceded and led up to by burning pieces of 
dry bamboo, which, as ancient Chinese records prove, by their 
loud crackling frighted away evil spirits. It is by no means 
necessary to confine the religious or ritualistic origin of explosives 
within Chinese limits, witness the indiscriminate discharge of fire- 
arms among Eastern Christians at Easter, and by the Moslems at 
the Beiram. 

Abel Remusat maintained that gunpowder had been known to 
the Hindus from remotest antiquity, and also to the Chinese, who 
had in the Tenth Century "thunder-carriages" which seemed to him 
to have been cannon ; and he found it difficult in any other way 
to account for the fire-stone throwers, so often mentioned in the 
history of the Mongols. But these may have been catapults for 
hurling hot stone-shot. When Hulagu in 1253 set out for Persia, 
added Remusat, he had in his army a body of Chinese artillery- 
men. But then the term "artillery" was used by ourselves for 
weapons and machines of war before our use of powder in guns. 
The Abbe Hue's statement^ that " in China, Tartary, and Thibet, 
everybody can (1845) make gunpowder" is, however, of consider- 
able importance. 

From this point of view, the Catherine-wheel would represent 
the fire-wheel of the Universe, and would have been a symbol in 
the worship of Agni. The French name for this firework nowadays 
is " soleil " ; and soleil, Sirius, and Surya are all said to come from 
the same root. There is good reason, too, for asserting that Surya 
was not originally the Sun-god (see pp. 597, 598). 

1 Travels (W. Hazlitt's translation) ii, 95. 



Wheel.'] The Heavens-Wheel. 597 



The Heavens- Wheel. 

THE conception of the encompassing Wheel-god is by no 
means confined to the Fire-god, Agni. We also find it 
applied to the Wind-gods, the Maruts ; and to Mitra, Varuna, 
Surya, Krishna. 

" Adorable Maruts . . . like the spokes of a wheel, none " 
[of you] " are inferior " [to the rest], " but equal as days." (iii, 340). 

" Exceeding is your greatness, Mitra and Varuna, whereby the 
ever-moving Surya has through the days milked forth the 
stationary waters ; you augment all the rays of the self-revolving ; 
the One Wheel of you two goes round (vam ekah pavir a 
vavartha)." Rig V. iii, 347, Sayana, and Wilson, urmecessarily 
remark that pavi, the circumference of a wheel, is here put by 
metonymy for a chariot. My view is that wheel is not alone 
expressed but clearly meant. Indeed the commentator, and 
Wilson, in another passage (279) freely add the words in brackets 
that follow : " heaven and earth [have been caused] by the Maruts 
[to revolve like a wheel]." This cannot be correct either, for the 
earth was fixed, for the Vedas. (Note here the idea of the winds 
helping round the wheel ?) 

" The two adorable Krishnas (ubhe Krishne, which the scholiast 
affirms means 'day and night') upholding by the might of Sur}-a 
(Suryasya Mahana) successively revolve." Rig- V. iii, 46, where 
the commentator, no doubt correctly, identifies Surya with Indra 
the impeller (preraka) of the universe. Another test serves as a 
good gloss to this : " the dark day and the light day revolve 
alternate " (p. 395), and would almost lead one to consider the 
" two blacks " or darks, the two Krishnas as two successive nights, 
remembering that the night is the first half of each day. 

" The Seven yoke the chariot to the only wheel ; an only 
courser with a sevenfold name moves the triple-naved everlasting 
Wheel, that nothing can arrest, on which repose all beings." This 
translation is given by Senart^ ; the following is Wilson's : " They 
yoke the Seven to the one-wheeled chariot ; one horse, seven- 
named, bears it along ; the three-axled wheel in undecaying, never 
loosened, and in it all these regions of the universe abide. The 

' Lcgcr.de du BondJha, p. 363. 



598 The Night of the Gods. [The 

Seven preside over this seven-wheeled chariot ; the seven horses 
draw it ; seven sisters ride in it together ; and in it are deposited 
the seven forms."^ The " forms " are explained by the commen- 
tators as the seven divine rivers or the seven notes of music, but 
the gloss seems superfluous, or at all events to give us the develop- 
ments in place of the origin. 

In this last passage, we have three distinct poetico-theological 
figures for the Seven Rishis, the seven stars of Charles's Wain, 
the Waggon and Horses, the Chinese Ti Cheh or Ruler's chariot 
(§§ 17, 20). The triple nave is clearly an allusion to the central, 
supernal triad (§§ 5, 35) ; and the whole passage seems to be a 
rhapsody on the primum mobile, the volubilis et rotundus Deus,- 
the revolution of the universe about the Pole. Once the Universe- 
wheel idea is mastered, it is difficult to conceive how anyone could 
ever have applied that last passage of the Rig Veda to the Sun. 

The Hindu celestial chart or *' zodiac " (here a misleading 
term for us) is called the Rasi Chakra, see Moor's Hindi'L Pmttheoii, 
plates 2 and 88. 

There is in Gustav Schlegel's UranograpJnc Chinoise a passage 
which he quotes from the T'ien Kivan Shu, and which describes 
this great constellation of Ursa Major as pivoting round the Pole 
like a chariot in its course. 

[When a Draco'nis was the pole-star, the star | of Ursa Major 
was but 12° distant from it ; but the most northern star of Ursa 
Major, a, is now about 28° away from the present pole.] 

Here we must " quote Shakespeare " too, while wondering 
where, on earth, he got the idea from : 

" It [majesty] is a massy Wheel 
Fixed on the summit of the highest Mount, 
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things 
Are mortis'd and adjoin'd." — {Hainlct ill, 3, 17.) 

I have come across a curious employment of this metaphor of 
the wheel in the Religio Medici (7th ed. 1678, p. 11). " In divinity 
I love to keep the rood, and tho' not in an implicit yet an humble 
faith follow the great Wheel of the Church ; by which 1 move, not 
reserving any proper Poles or motion from the epicycle of my own 
brain." The word " wheel " appears as " primum mobile " in the 
Latin {Argentorati, 1652, p. 37.) 

It is worth noting that the state-coach or chair of a Korean 

' Wilson's Rig Veda, ii, 126, 127. ^ Cicero: De Nat. Dear. II, xvii, 46. 



Wkee/.'] The Wheel-God. 599 

official has but one wheel, and has consequently a number of 
supporters as well as of pushers.^ 

§ 14. As regards the Polar and Solar theories, it may here 
be remarked that the winter decline of the Sun suggested at an 
early time an adverse, overpowering, and superior force. This 
decline becomes absolute defeat, flight, and disappearance in high 
Northern latitudes. And even the daily setting of the Sun in more 
oblique positions leaves conspicuous the central pivoting functions 
of the Polar Star, which the Turkomans still call temir-kazik, the 
iron pivot, which is the " nail," the motionless centre of \\\q. priinuni 
mobile, of the supreme sphere of the old astronomers ; the " point 
quiescent " of Bacon and Aristotle. " The sailors and shepherds of 
the Teutons knew very well that the revolving of the star-lit sky 
was round a fixed point, the polar star, and it is probable that 
veraldar nagli, the world-nail, the world-spike, an expression 
preserved in the Eddubrott ii, designates the north star."- With 
this we must connect, too. the sword nagelring, and the god 
Nagelfar. In order to make this clearer, the facts must be dwelt 
upon that the stars never set at and near the Pole, but seem to go 
ever round and from left to right Such would have been man's 
earliest experience had human life begun at the Pole. The 
epitaph of Anaxagoras declared that he had unveiled the mysteries 
of things and discovered the secrets of the Pole, and to him. is 
given, by Diogenes Laertius, the assertion that in the beginning the 
stars revolved in a tholiform manner, that is like the doKo'^ or dome 
of an observatory ; he also said it was a motion not utto, under, 
but Trep), around, the earth ; while at first the pole star always 
appeared in the zenith, but afterwards acquired a certain declination. 
Anaximenes, although the passage is disputed, used the illustration 
of a hat rotating on a man's head. In the late Mr. R. A. Proctor's 
New Theory of Achilles' Shield, I believe he argued that when the 
constellations were arranged, the celestial equator must have been 
on, or taken as on, the horizon."* 

1 Allen's A'o-can Tales, 1889, p. 26. - Rydberg's Tent. Myth., 396. 

3 Commentary on the Memoirs on the Seasons of the King Tsu, cited by G. Schlegel, 
p. 107. 



VOL. II. 



6oo The Night of the Gods. [ The 




The Wheel-God. 

§ 15. The Wheel-God. — A well-known Assyrian personage, 
sometimes depicted upright against a wheel, and sometimes with 
the trunk of his body as it were engaged in or issuing from a 
wheel,^ seems to be Dayan-Same, the Judge of Heaven, the Polar 

deity, Assur, who is without 
^^"^ companion, a real monarch of 
v^^^ the Empyrean. He holds a 
bow with which he impels a 
triple-pointed dart, which dart 
has been accepted as a symbol of 
the thunderbolt. The rock in- 
scriptions of Behistun and Per- 
sepolis are said to show Ahura Mazda thus represented. But the 
presentation will, perhaps, prove to have also belonged to the 
earlier self-subsisting Zervan Akarana, the first principle of all 
things ; which produced the dual co-principles Ahura and Ahriman,'"^ 
and with whom, as Boundless Time, the Greek Kronos must be 
bracketed. This was long ago indicated by Eudemos {apud 
Damascius^ ed. Kopp, p. 384) ; and Zervan Akarana was already, 
according to Berosus, a mere legendary personage in the third 
century before our era. 

Such too seems to me to be the primary signification of the 
Pahlavi sorvan (which Mr. West renders "unlimited time") as 
contrasted with daman in the Dindi Mainogi ctiiradJi. " Unlimited 
Time {porvdii) is undecaying, immortal, and undisturbed ; painless, 
hungerless, and thirstless."^ " The affairs of the world of every 
kind proceed through destiny and time and the supreme decree of 
the self-existent eternity {sorvdii), the King and long-continuing 
Lord."" After these, the similar passage in the Shikand Gihiuhiik 
Vijdr (vi, i) is not quite comprehensible as it stands in its context 
(p. 146). 

In the Assyrian cylinders this Wheel-god is, so far as I can 
test it, always placed in the upper portion — the sky — of the com- 

' Layaid's Momunenls, plates 14 and 21. 

" Zend Avesta, i, Ixxxii. G. Dumoutier : Le Swastika; ct(.., 1SS5, p. 24. 

' Pahlavi Tcxls, iii, 32, 57. 



\J' F\U SouJs -^^ -SPcUCh ■^(W K^'S A^a^/ ^aiM>^3 C-OV)U/iCUi K/i" nom^ •frffm S/ian- 
^F//ev/.] T/ie Wheel- God. 60 1 of Jtu^s 



o^n euLrJ' 

positions ; and the wheel, without the god, but with worshippers, ^0.0,1 f. I 
is found detached, or on a pedestal, an altar, or a tripod.^ C<xUi^ Sh 

Hanuman, the ape-man-god, is clearly shown as the wheel-god ^^ ^ 
in plates 01 and Q2 of Moor's Hindu Pantheon,\.o \\\\\c\\ I rnust,^. . v 
refer the reader. He also seems to be runnmg m the wheel like a ^^ ^ ^^ 
turnspit-dog. 

In the Malidbharata (i, 8196) Agni equips Vishnu with a wheel 
which has a nave of thunder — a wheel which when turned launches 
forth thunderbolts. So long as the wheel is identified with the 
Sun alone, the combination of the thunderbolt and the wheel 
remains inexplicable ; but the hypothesis that the Wheel-god is 
the Polar deity makes plain even the cryptic passage in St. 
Augustine,^ where he says of Varro's Sabine god Summanus that 
night thunder was attributed to him, while the thunder of the day- 
time was Jove's. As the Roman sceptic put it, Coelo tonantem 
credidimus Tovem ; while the believers said, as Varro has it^ : . ^ 

Tunc repente coelitum altum tonitribus templum tonescit. Festus, 
as if to settle the matter, informs us (pp. 348, 349) that the cakes 
offered in sacrifices to Summanus were called Summanalia, and 
were made in the shape of a Wheel. 

Guigniaut thinks Summanus was of Etruscan origin. He is 

often mentioned by the ancient Latin writers (Cicero, Ovid, Pliny), 

and St. Augustine* assures us that the early Romans rendered him 

greater honours than Jupiter himself The Arvalian brothers sacri- 

je^a ficed a black ram to the Etruscan Summanus, whose temple was in 

* the Circus Maximus. His statue of clay (? baked) was before the 

j^ Capitoline temple. The Romans had forgotten — if they ever knew 

L — all about him (A. Maury).' Creuzer speaks thus on the subject : 

\- Some saw in him the Polar Star, which was of such great 

^. importance to the Augurs. In the Canticles of the Arvalian 

■i brothers (v. p. t) he is called the Fathe r, and this title has justly 

recalled the Dis Pate r of Cicero , the subterranean power. It 

might be then that, like the most ancient Zeus of the Greeks, 

Summanus was on one hand the Master of the Celestial Pole, and 

on the other hand the sovereign of the abyss, (ii, 494.) 

This unlooked for confirmation of my views is not carried far 
enough ; expression is not given to the theory of the fallen god, 

1 PeiTOt and Chipiez : Hist, dc PArt, ii, 686. - De Civ. Dei, 23. 

' Apitd Nonius, 180, 15. * De Civ. Dei, iv, 23. 

^ Creuzer and Guigniaut, ii, 119S. t See Index to References before Index. 

C 2 



6o2 



The Night of the Gods. 



[The 



the Kronos, the Osiris, the Summanus (see p. f). Ops, the 
goddess of abundance, that is the Earth, it seems from Varro^ may 
have been the consort of Summanus. She also probably gave us 
such words as op\x\cni and c<?/ious. 

We seem to see the wheel-symbol becoming the 
sun in the accompanying sketch from Mr. Evetts's 
very useful work.- It is in bas-relief on the B.C. 850 
tablet of the god Samas (Brit. Mus.) Two ropes pass 
behind the wheel (implying the suspension of the 
Sun ?), are attached to the throne on which the divine 
symbol reposes on a cushion (.'), and are held above 
by a pair of gods. 

The so called Sun-god tablet in the British 
Museum is of great importance. By the kindness of 
the author, I am enabled to give a plate of this fine tablet from 
Mr. Wallis Budge's excellent Babylonia^i Life and History? 





+ See Index to References before Index. 

^ Principes (dei) in Latio Saitiriitis et Ops. Dc Ling. Lat. v, 10, 17. 
^ Babelon's Manuel of Oriental Antiquities (enlarged by B. T. A. Evetts, M.A.), 
p. 42. ■' Rcl. Traet Soe., 1884. 



WheeL] The Wheel-God. 60 



o 



The god who is here called the Sun-god is Samas, the son of 
father Ea and Mother Damkina. " His worship was ver y old ," iJ^t Surv 
writes Mr. Budge, " and goes back to a time when the great powers 
of Nature were worshipped." Samas of Sippara was a well-known 
deity B.C. 3800, in the time of King Sargon, was probably the then 
supreme deity, for Sargon mentions no other god. " One of his 
truest and best votaries was Nebobaladan, King of Babylon about 
B.C. 900. By his order was this fine tablet made." 

Doubtless at that date Sarnas may have been worshipped as 
the Sun-god ; but I draw attention to the following leading points. 

1. The long-bearded god seated upon the throne of heaven 
seems to be the supreme heavens-god of Time. The Q which he 
holds is dealt with at p. t The figures under his throne are 
marvellously identical with the figures of the pataikoi of the 
Phoenicians. This is a direct and important connection with the 
Phoenician and Eg}'ptian gods !l and Ptah. The canopy over his 
head is the vault of the heavens, and the pillar is the Pillar so often 
treated of here, throughout. In that case the seated old god would 
be Ea (?) and not Samas ; or if Samas, then Samas as having suc- 
ceeded to his father Ea. But in any case, and decidedly, not the Sun. 

2. The square altar and the round image upon it are in exact 
agreement with the Chinese round temple of the heavens and 
square temple of Earth. 

3. The round image is now said glibly by everyone to be " the 
disk of the Sun " ; but that does not seem unquestionable. Suppose 
it, for example, to be the circumference of the heavens. We have 
in the centre the nave or omphalos ; then we have the four 
cardinal divisions and points indicated with precision ; and finally 
we have the four rivers of heaven. What can these have to do on 
the " disk " of the Sun ? 

4. The unmistakeable ropes by which the circular object is 
hung from the top of the heavens-pillar, may be symbols of the 
suspension of the Sun, but they also with strange appropriateness 
illustrate the chain of Zeus and the fine passage in Job (xxvi, 7) 
" He has spread out the North over the Void, and hung the Earth 
upon nothing." 

5. I suggest then that the original significance of this round 
idol was the Wheel of the Universe ; at the same time admitting 

t See Index to References before Index, 



6o4 TJie Night of the Gods. [ The 



(in accord with the theory running through this Inquiry') that it 
may have later become the Sun-symbol. 

[The supreme sanctity even of the altar is seen in the fact that 
none dare touch it but the priest, who passes on it (one is tempted 
to say magnetic) virtue to the worshippers by forming a " chain of 
hands." In fact, not to be frivolous, the whole apparatus looks 
very like one of our earliest electrifying machines !] 

I would also refer the reader (not for the first time) to Miss 
C. F. Gordon-Cumming's exceedingly able articles on "Pagodas, 
Auricles, and Umbrellas" in the EnglisJi Illustrated Magazine for 
June and July, 1888. There will be seen (p. 607) immediately 
under the throne of Buddha, the Wheel revolvable on its axle, 
flanked by the two supernatural Dogs, surmounted by the three 
heavens (as stick-less umbrellas), as sculptured in the caves of 
Ellora ; and also (p. 608) the sacred wheel, overshadowed by the 
umbrella, and adored by men and women, as well as by winged 
and hat-feathered deities. 

St. Augustin says^ the pontiffs sacrificed to R usor. which must 
be for Rursor, a personification of the re-turn, of the eternal 
re-volution and renewal of the Universe ; quod rursus cuncta 
eodem revolvuntur, said Varro,' and it is as well not to forget 
that the word Universe itself means " the One that turns " or " the 
turning of the One." 

I here insert a curious little Ainu legend from Mr. B. H. 
Chamberlain's translation,- which may disclose to us the Moun- 
tain-Palace, the heavens-deities and their head the wheel- (and 
fire) god. 

"Suddenly there was a Large House on the top of a hill 
[Mountain-palace of heaven?] wherein were Six persons beauti- 
fully arrayed, but constantly quarrelling [the 'war in heaven' of 
all mythologiesj. Thereupon Okikurumi [which is as near as 
may be to the Japanese for Big- Wheel] came and said: 'Oh! 
you bad hares! you wicked hares! Who should know your 
origin? The children in the sky [?sons of the gods] were 
pelting each other with snowballs; and the snowballs fell into 
this world of men. As it would have been a pity to waste 
heaven's snow, the snowballs were turned into hares; and those 
hares are you. You who live in this world of mine, this world of 

' <^"'- ^^"'' vii, 23. 2 Memoirs of Tokyo University, 18S7, p. 32. 



Wheel.'] The Wheel of Fortune. 605 

human beings, must be quiet. What is it that you are brawHng 
about?' With these words Okikurumi seized a fire-brand [which 
makes a fire-god as well as a wheel-god of him ?] and beat each of 
the Six with it in turn. Thereupon all the hares ran away." This 
is the origin of the Hare-god ; and for this reason the body of 
the hare is white, because made of snow ; while its ears, which are 
the part where it was charred by the fire-brand, are black. 



The Wheel of Fortune. 

" Turn, turn thy Wheel above the staring crowd, 
Thy Wheel and Thou are shadows in the cloud." 

{Enid.) 

LET us now endeavour to interpret the wheels spoken of 
by Greek authors as having been suspended in Egyptian 
temples ; in taking which for symbols of the mutability of human 
affairs, Plutarch was perchance well advised. More closely, these 
wheels would have shown forth the incessant unrolling of events 
in Time, the continual and continuous revolution and evolution of 
the Universe ; 

the restless course 
That Time doth run with calm and silent foot. 

(Marlowe's Faustus, iv, 2, 2.) 

§ 16. If it be that the turning of a mimic Universe-Wheel 
became an act of adoration of the heavenly sublimity (as I have 
endeavoured to show) one easily expounds the occult circle or 
turbo which Horace {Epodes, xvii, 7) implores the sorceress 
Canidia to twirl the reverse way in order to undo her spells ; 
it may also be the p6/ui^u<; spun round as a love-charm in 
the second Idyll of Theocritus. Fortunae pila, the play-ball of 
Fortune, is a term used by Aurelius Victor {Epit. 18). And 
another gloss might be put upon the reversal of the magic toy, 
which m^ust have been a forerunner of our teetotum, by con- 
sidering that reversal as an invocation of the nether, the infernal 
powers ; for the wheel is also found associated with the god Hades 



6o6 The Night of the Gods. [The 

or Pluto ; and it must not be forgotten that the southern celestial 
hemisphere seems to southern mundane man to revolve in the 
opposite direction to the northern. The reversal of the turbo 
would thus be an early type of that diabolical incantation " saying 
the Lord's Prayer backwards." 

Burchard bishop of Worms, who wrote on ecclesiastical punish- 
ments in the I2th century, mentions a wife's sortilege.^ The naked 
body was smeared with honey ; she then rolled herself in wheat 
spread upon a cloth on the ground ; carefully picked off every 
grain that adhered to the honey ; ground this wheat in the mill, 
turning the reverse way ; and made cakes of it to weaken and kill 
her husband. The church's penance for this was 40 days on bread 
and water. 

Mr. Andrew Lang seems to identify the p6[x^o^ of the 
Dionysiac Mysteries with the Ka)vo<;, and both with the turndun, 
the bull-roarer of English country lads, the Gaelic srannam 
(strantham) and the bribbun of Australia. The bribbun is a 
fish-shaped flat board of wood tied to a string and whirled 
round so as to cause a peculiar muffled roar. The /cwvo?, 
according to Lobeck {AglaopJiainus, 700) was " a little slab of 
wood tied to a string, and whirled round in the mysteries to 
make a whirring noise." The instrument has been tracked, .says 
Mr. Lang, almost round the world.- 

Nortia, Nurtia, or Nursia, was the Volscian (or the Etruscan) 
goddess of fortune, of destiny, of time. This has been conjectured 
to be a corruption of Nevortia, the immovable, that which cannot 
be turned away, or of Neverita. She appears to have resembled 
the Fortuna of the Latins. The Etruscan mirrors frequently give 
the divinities of destiny carrying the sphere, the pole, and a mystic 
chest, which may be the area containing the arcana of the future. 
Another Etruscan deity of destiny is Mean, who has been con- 
jectured to be the same with Mania, the mother of the Lares.^ 
She was represented winged : for Fortune and Victory — alas ! for 
the beaten and the luckless — are both winged ; and even docking 
the wings of their statues (so they treated Ni/c?; at Athens) will not 
keep them at home. But the wings are also, and perhaps primarily, 
the attributes of these goddesses, as powers of the flying heavens. 

Pausanias said (x, 24) that in the temple at Delphi there were 

1 De Panitcutia i^Decrdoniiii, lib. xix). 
- I\I. K. and A"., i, 284 ; ii, 226. ^ q^. jj„j q jj^ 51^5^ 5^7_ 



PVAee/.^ The Wheel of Forhme. 607 

two statues of the Fates, but Zeus Moiragetes (leader of the Fates 
or Dispensers) is dedicated instead of the third of the Fates 
(Motpai). 

One of Numa's famous precepts, of which Plutarch gave the 
priority to the Pythagoreans, was " Turn-round to pay adoration to 
the gods ; sit after you have worshipped." And hereon Plutarch 
observed that as to the turning which worshippers were to use in 
divine adoration, it was said in his time to represent the rotatory 
motion of the Universe.^ Unless, indeed, added he, this change of 
posture may have a mystical meaning [as if the first was not 
mystical enough !] like the Egyptian Wheels,^ and signify to us 
the instability of human fortune ; and that in whatsoever way Zeus 
changes and turns our lot and condition, we should rest contented 
and accept it as right and fitting. The theories here developed 
reconciles Plutarch's two explanations into one. 

The foregoing leads up naturally to the globe or sphere (the 
more perfect symbol) and wheel of Fortune — volubilis Fortuna^ — 
which have not yet perhaps been adequately accounted for. Such 
wheels were to be found not very long ago in Brittany in several 
churches and chapels, either hung from the roof, or high up against a 
pillar. The wheel was provided with little bells, and with a pendant 
cord which, when pulled by a devotee, set the wheel turning. Youths 
and maidens consulted these wheels about their own juvenile wishes 
but staid men and the aged did so also as to their worldly projects. 
There is an account of such a wheel in the Abbey church at Fecamp 
given by Baldric, Bishop of Dole, who visited the monastery about 
the year 1120.^ This Normandy v/heel seems to have been an 
elaborate piece of mechanism ; for it not alone revolved, but rose 
and fell — rota Fortunce quce desceudebat et ascendebat, et semper 
rotabat. It is perhaps needless to multiply instances ; but there is 
a similar English wheel mentioned in the Monasticuni Angliaun 
(i, 104) which being full of little bells was turned to excite increase 
of devotion — ad inajoris excitationevi devotionis. Here, there is no 
room for doubt, we have a survival of the adoration or the praying- 
wheel proper. But the Breton wheels were clearly for speiring into 
the future, and there was a triangle inscribed in some of them, with 

^ Clough's Plutarch's Niima, 147, 148. 

- This wheel idea is also to be found, I think, in Clement of Alexandria [Sironi. 
V. 568). 

■'' Cicero : Pro Miloue, 26, 69. •* Neustria Fia, p. 227. 



6o8 The Night of the Gods. [The 



figures of a child, a youth, and an old man at the corners. There 
is among the Blockbooks exhibited in the British Museum (No. 14) a 
wheel of Fortune^ containing a human figure, which is altogether 
as like the Whe~el of Ixion given at p. f as well may be. 

That distinguished mythologist, M. Henri Gaidoz, whom I hope 
to number among the adherents of this portion at all events of 
these theories, writes thus of the globe and wheel of Fortune" : 

But now we meet with Fortune, ^\'hose wheel has become a 
hackneyed and a famous symbol, i)i which the wheel has tost its 
sense of a solar symbol. The wheel is here the emblem of the 
mobility, of the volubility, of human affairs. But it must be noted 
that as an emblem of Fortune the wheel has a doublet or a 
substitute ; when Fortune has no wheel she has a globe. Wheel 
and globe alternate one with the other ; they are evidently 
divergent transformations, the doublets of a same symbol. Wheel, 
ball, and disk, have the same signification." 

"I say ditto to Mr. Burke" (as Southey vouched the second 
candidate to have done at Bristol), except that instead of saying 
the Wheel of Fortune "has lost" the sense of a solar symbol, 
I move the previous question, and say it never had it. The title of 
Fortuna redux, the bringer-round, seems especially applicable to 
an unrollcr of the events of Time, to the revolver of the sphere 
of heaven which "brings about" those events. Accordingly it is 
given to Fortune only in a secondary way ; the supreme Jupiter is 
the deus redux. Thus there seems to me to be little reason to 
doubt that these particular wheels of Fortune are also resolvable 
into the Universe-Wheel ; and they were turned by the provident 
and by the impatient alike, to prompt, to hasten the evolution of 
events, or to forecast them. Thus the imitative adoration-wheel 
became not only a praying but a divination apparatus ; and this 
last form of it may even have preceded the custom of set prayer. 
Thus the old original Great Wheel of Fortune is not a roulette. 
It is worth noting that the Baal-God of the Canaanites simply 
meant Lord, that is God, of Fortune. 

Wheal, a mine (Cornish : hwel, whel, wheyl ; Welsh : chwel, 

^ Described in the Archaologia, vol. 35 (1853). 

t See Index to References before Index. 

^ Le Dieti Gaiilois du Soldi, Paris, 1886, p. 56. I have taken many facts about the 
wheel from this frank, lucid, and valuable treatise ; although I have turned those facts 
to other uses. 

^ Le Dieu Gaiilois ctu SoleiV (18S6), p. 56. 



Uliccl.\ The Wheel of Fortune. 609 

chvvyl, a turn), must be the wheel or windlass at the nnouth of the 
mine, just as tongs \\'as the name of the Kent and Sussex iron- 
foundries. 

Wheel itself is connected by Fick with the roots kar, to move- 
round, and kal, to drive. Thus the Russian kolo is a wheel, 
and %o'\o9, the axis or pole of revolution, is said to stand for a 
(non-existent) word koKo'^. This last may, I think, be doubted 
furiously, as the French say. 

Whirl, a motion ; ivhorl and zvherve, a spinning-weight ; and 
ivhotd of leaves, are all obviously of the same family as wheel. 
Quern ought to belong to these, one would imagine ; and it is 
referred to the root gar to grind, which is the same as kar, Clumi 
(Icelandic : kirna) is doubtless the same word as quern, whatever 
etymological mystics may say. 

In terminating the perusal of this fatiguing section, I trust the 
reader will not wish its writer the curse of the man who was 
" made like unto a wheel." 



6 1 o The Night of the Gods. [ The 



The Glyph Ra o. 

A SIMILAR origin must be suggested for the Egyptian 
super-excellent sacred glyph Rd, _0, which, with one 
notable exception — the iconoclastic Amenhotep IV — is invariably 
initial in the glyphic names of kings, no matter what its proper 
syllabic order in those names may be. The glyph Ra, though 
generally called a disk, seems more accurately to be a sphere — 
that is, of course, a hemisphere — in low relief, whether on Egyptian 
or Assyrian monuments. With the spot in the centre, O, the 
glyph may have indicated the heavens and their omphalos. Or 
the spot may even be the punctum saliens of the Universe-Egg 
(see p. t), the point at which the life-spark was supposed to be 
kindled ; or it may be the name of a solid wheel. And the 
attentive reader will have seen that these suppositions are in no 
way conflicting, but rather cumulative ; they are all " on the 
spot " ; on the same central spot of the Universe. The supreme 
position of Ammon-Ra as King of the Gods, may thus perhaps 
receive a fresh illustration. The Egyptian temples where the 
suspended wheels appeared (see p. 605), or their .sites, may 
have originally been dedicated to the revolving-heavens deity ; 
but the wheel may have often come to be identified, or rather 
confused, later with the disk of the Sun rolling like a wheel upon 
its heavenly diurnal course. 

"The Masonic 'point within a circle'," says the Chinese scholar 
Mr. H. A. Giles,^ " is held to represent the one Supreme Power, 
whatever that Power may be, the great architect of the Universe, 
recognised alike by ourselves, and our brother masons of every 
religious denomination." This is extremely curious 
and interesting for my purposes ; and it must not 
be forgotten that Ptah was assisted in Egypt by 
the Seven Khnumu or Architects. Mr. Giles 
justly considers it curious also that the same 
emblem should be found among the Chinese 
"signifying, if not Heaven itself, still the most 
prominent object in the sky" — namely the Sun. He points out 
how it was (that is, how it is alleged by the Chinese to have 
been) the ancient form of the character for Sun, which is now 

t See Index to References before Index. ' Historic China, p. 3S9. 




Wheel.'] The Glyph Ra. 6ii 

written Q, a shape which it had almost taken in the Shuo 
Wen dictionary, of our first century. I venture entirely to deny 
that this symbol originally meant the sun in China. It may have 
descended to it. But how anyone wlio patiently reflects and 
compares can take this round with a centre for the sun as 
" a dot within the circle of the sky," I cannot comprehend. This, 
too, is a quite opposite explanation from the " disk of the sun," 
which is the common form now used by almost everyone. And as 
a matter of stubborn, universal, unvarying fact, the sun is not a dot 
at all to the human eye ; nor is it in the centre of the circle of the 
sky, except only on the equator at the equinoxes and at noon. 
All the rest of the time it is (save at rising and setting) an eye- 
blasting blaze moving over the heavens. 

The comparatively modern Chinese, I suggest, may have made 
a mistake similar to that of the Japanese — they are both hopeless 
as archaeologists — who mis-apply the word aim (heavens, sky) to 
the sun. 

In the Rev. Dr. Wm. Wright's Empire of the Hittites, Prof 
Sayce says that the following Khetan ideograph O " is the solar 
disk." In an inscription from Jerabis, now in the British Museum, 
he says, "it is preceded by the determinative of divinity 
and must here, accordingly, denote the Sun-god" (pp. ^p^~) 
168, 183). I believe there is firm ground for saying that, 
so far, there is no " Hittite " reason for connecting these emblems, 
as Hittite, with the sun. The ideograph O seems to me to be a 
solid archaic wooden wheel, with its central nave-1 for the axle. 
Otherwise, how can that navel be accounted for ; and, in any case, 
what can the hole have to do with the Sun ? And we have even 
another equi-valent and most adaptable idea for the symbol — the 
revolving Universe-millstone (see p. 464) which replaces the wheel 
in Norse mythology, and the " Eye " of which is directly above the 
Hvergelmer well, the source of all heavenly, earthly, and under- 
ground waters.^ 

Further, presuming the duplex "determinative of divinity" to 
have been hit upon with his usual happy ingenuity by Prof. Sayce, 
I would suggest that it may be an emblem of the dual divine 
nature, as male and female ; but it must not be forgotten that it is 
a form of the Cypriote syllable Mo. 

' Rydbcig"s 'J'fu/o/iii Jhyt/to/o^y (ii6()), p. 395. 



6l2 



The Night of the Gods. 



[Th 



■le 



The following examples of wheel -symbolism are taken from 
Moor's Hiiidit PantJieon. 

I. Three sect-marks of Vishnu-wor- 
shippers, y and z " are very rarely 
found, and may represent the chakra of 
Vishnu " (Plate 2). They undoubtedly 
do so. X, which Moor said meant Shiva, gives us the famous wheel 
in the tri-une symbol of the triangle. 




2. Held by the four-handed Devi (goddess) consort of 
Shiva (Plate 38) 



3. o and / are held, right and left, 
by four-handed Vishnu, q is held, 
left, by Lakshnu in the same group 
(Plate 43) 




4. Is held by the four-handed Devi (Plate 43). 



Here is a tracing from NincveJi and Babylon'' of the central 
wheel and seven stars found at Bavian, in company of the 
winged sphere and other symbols, overhead the figure of an 
Assyrian Monarch. Sir H. Layard called the wheel " a Maltese 
cross (? symbolical of the sun)," and it no doubt 
gives us an origin for the symbol vulgarly known 
by that name since its adoption by the Knights of 
St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards of Rhodes, and 
finally of Malta. They must have adopted it in Malta, for their 
Rhodian cross is straight and quite different.^ 




000, 
000 



' London, John Murray, 1853, p. 211. 



Biliotti's Rhodes, 1881, p. \12. 



iVheeL'] 



The Wreath. 



613 



The Wreath. 

THE wreath, apparently as an analogue of the wheel, is found 
in Christian symbolism from the 6th to the 9th centuries. 
The hand of the supreme deity is seen issuing from the wreath, 
just as we have seen the divine torso issuing from the wheel. 
Ciampini, in the Vetera Alonnnienia, has given instances from 
the Roman churches of SS. Cosmo and Damian, S. Euphemia, 
S. Stefano in Monte Celio, S. Agnese, S. Praxede, and S. Maria 
Nuova. Indeed Bosio in Roma Sotterama gives a much earlier 
wreath from a grave-stone in the catacombs, in which we actually 
do find the torso ; and he adds another wreath from a catacomb. 
Sarcophagus, where the wreath acts as fellies to six spokes ; and 
further, Gori, in Synibolcs Literariee, gives a similar design from a 
brass shield, also found in the catacombs. These 
two last do not display the hand ; but Gori's 
brass, of which a tracing is here given, contains 
the A and 12. I direct attention to the form of 
the final letter, which may have been adopted as 
a triune symbol, and its lilceness to the fleur- 
de-lis is patent. Of course it will not be forgotten that the 
wreath, or crown, was a very ancient pre-Christian symbol of 
supremacy, whether in sovereignty or in victor}'. 




6i4 



The Night of the Gods. 



{The 




The Romaunt of the Rose. 

THE wheel which eventually gave us our " gothic " wheel 
windows and rose-windows may be detected in the remoter 
times of Christianity. Here is one from the "sculp- 
tures of the ancient sarcophagi of the Catacombs 
earliest epoch," taken from Didron's IconograpJiic 
Chrctienne (fig. loi). And here is another from the 
capital of a column in the Church of St. Demetrius at 
Salonica of the 4th century {ibid. fig. 102). It may be a defect of 
perception on my part, but I cannot imagine how Didron could 
claim the first of these as a variety of the Greek form of the Cross 
of Christ, and the second as " a Greek cross 
or star, with six equal branches." On the 
same page he certainly does use the term 
" Mystic Wheel " ; but the symbols cannot be 
cross, wheel, and star, all at once or at choice. 
For me they are obvious survivals of the 
Universe-wheel ; and I add for comparison 
a specimen of a six -spoked wheel from a 
Roman covered travelling waggon called a 
covimis, which exhibits a striking resem- 
blance to the Salonica example above given. 
It is taken from the French edition of Guhl 
and Koner's work.^ 

Every tarik or path, that is order, of the 
Muslim dervishes has its particular sign. That of the Kadiri is the 
rose (gul) worn on the cap. It is thus expounded by Ibrahim el 
Eshreme. Mahomet called his two grandsons Hasan and Hosein, 
his two Eyes, his two roses. The rose is a sign of the prophet 
himself. The Kadiri " rose " of Bagdad has two outer and two inner 
rings and three circles, and is made of green cloth. The first circle 
signifies shir'at, the Law [which is just the Buddhist's wheel of the 
Law] : the second the tarik or path of the order ; the third the 

' La Vie antique : Rome. Paris, 1885, fig. 360. The covlnus or covinnus was also 
a Breton and Belgic war-chariot. The word is said to be from the Celtic, and perhaps 
contains the same root as our cover, and cove, to arch over. The roof of the waggon 
was barrel-arched over in the manner common in our own London brewer's dray. 




WkeeQ The Romaunt of the Rose. 6 1 5 



ma'rifet or Knowledge; the three together mean the hakikat or 
Truth. This "rose" is also the sign of the seven names of Allah. 
The Kadiri dervish copyist of this MS. of Ibrahim's calls himself 
" the fakir, the hakir, the kitmir (that is, dog of the Seven Sleepers) 
of the gate of the sultan of the saints who dwell by the rivulets 
of paradise."^ One of the cap-roses of the Rufai dervishes " is a 
perfect circle, or rather two circles, one within the other ; within 
these is another circle, much resembling a wheel with its spokes."^ 

M. Napoleon Ney'' says the secret societies of Islam in Algeria 
form a clan of the Chain (Ahl es Selselat) ; their holiness is a 
Ladder, at the summit of which is the R'outs, the refuge or 
Saviour ; the members followed the Way, trika ; and the initiation 
is called "taking the oiirid" or rose. "What Rose do you 
wear?" is the question of one Moslem to another. M. Ney's 
suggestion that this Rose (which I identify with the Universe- 
wheel) is the true mystical rose of Rosicrucianism, must be 
accepted as the veritable theory on the subject. And, of course 
the rose is not a flower but a rose-cross, that is a wheel-cross. 
This theory at once makes plain the perennial puzzle of stereo- 
typed snh rosa, and effectively glosses such a phrase as " rosarium 
auxilium," in Appuleius.* It also gives the true etymology of 
rosary. 

For rose and roue ; rosa and rota (wheel) and Irish roth 
(wheel) ; Greek polov (rose), Portuguese roda (wheel) and Welsh 
rhod (wheel) ; with the Sanskrit ratha a wheel-cart, all come from 
one source. And as for the derivation from the dialect word 
^pohov and therefore from the ancient Persian vrada and Sanskrit 
vrad, " to bend, be flexible," which Littre patronised for rose (but 
not for roue), I venture to say that it is as wild as anything ever 
set up by the old snapshot school of All-eggs-under-the-grate 
etymologists. 

This also gives us, at last, the true key to the interminably- 
disputed etymology of the island-name Rhodes. Other suggestions 
were that Rhodes comes from the rose-briar itself, or from the 
oleander or rose-laurel, the poSo-Bd(j)vr] ; or from pod or pocd 
" the tree or fruit of the pomegranate." But it is obvious from the 
similarity of this last word to rose that it must also, and perhaps 
initially, have meant the flower of the shrub. And all these 

1 Jno. P. Brown, T/ie Dei~i>ishes , jip. 89, 93. ^ ibid. p. 114. 

3 Societes Secretes Musulmanes (v. Le Temps,]\\\^ 13, 1890.) ■* Met. iii, 1 41. 

VOL. II. ^ 



6i6 The Night of the Gods. [The 

suggestions are nonsensical ; for the rose, oleander, and pome- 
granate are rampantly luxuriant not in Rhodes alone, but in the 
Levant generally. 

But we may retain for further use the probable fact that the 
word poa, porj, or poia is the original name of the rose-w/ieet ; 
which would throw a considerable light on the symbolism of the 
fruit of the poa-flower, the pomum granatum, the garnet-apple 
itself The shrub sprang from the blood of Dionusos ; also from 
the blood of Agdistis. 'Volo, the daughter of Staphulos and 
Chrusothemis, was shut-up (pregnant by Apollo) in a coffer, and 
launched to sea — a Moses-myth. 

The Telchines who called themselves Heliades (rj\td8e<i) that 
is children not " of the Sun " (they might as well be called " of 
Elias ") but " of "HA-to9 the great central god who primes Sun- 
worship, and whose nomen appears in so many ages and tongues 
in II, El, 'EXajd/Sako^i, "EXevo<i and 'EXevrj, and so forth. These 
Seven Heliades were born of Helios and the goddess Rhodos or 
Rhode, one of the Okeanides, daughter of Poseidon and Aphrodite. 
That is, as it might be interpreted, the Seven of Ursa Major were 
born of the turning of the Wheel which has produced or spun all 
creation. This is why the Rhodians, descendants of the (Seven) 
Heliades, called themselves autochthones. And Rhodes is thus a 
true parallel in its genesis to the Japanese Onogoro ; for Helios or 
Apollo (apud Pindar) asked Zeus for the island, which he had 
discerned in the depths of the Ocean. Lachesis, the Fortune- 
goddess of the golden spindle and the star-spangled robe, then 
extended her hands, and Rhodes appeared on the surface of the 
waters.^ It is thus forced upon us that Helios must here have its 
screwing, revolving sense, and that the spinning or churning 
motion imparted by Lachesis is as important as in the case of 
Onogoro ; and this is a paramount origin-reason for calling Rhodes 
the wheel-island (or the whirled, churned, spun, island) ; Avhich all 
the gods, before its production, swore the great oath to place for 
ever on the head of Helios ; that is to make of it a central-land on 
the Axis, a middle-kingdom, the Earth in fact ; for all these 
Islands are but figures of the Earth : and the gold that rained 
upon Rhodes is nought but the heavens-river — tlie Yellow River 
of Chinese myth — descending upon the Earth. 

' L'/Ze de Rhodes, par Biliolli and Cottret : Rhodes and Compie^ne, iSSi, pp. lo, 12, 
&:c., and Noel. 



IVkec/.'] The Romaunt of the Rose. 617 

The Rhodian Helios was son of Hyperion and Basileia ; he 
was drowned by the Titans ; and in his myth actually crops up the 
great mythological leading incident for which I contend throughout 
this hiquiry. In a dream, 'YXkvr) (daughter of Zeus) tells her 
grieving father that the quenched Helios was placed among the 
gods, and that wliat zvas theretofore called in the heavens the Sacred 
Fire zaas tJienceforzuard to be called Helios or the San. Helios is 
also son of Perseus. 

It would be absurd to contend that the Heliades-nymphs who 
became poplars were daughters of the Sun. Their metamorphosis 
shows them to be central Universe-tree dryads. (I am not 
forgetting the long and short e, the r/ and the e, nor the presence 
and absence of the aspiration.) What can Helas son of Perseus 
and Andromeda have to do with the Sun ? What has Helene to 
do with the Sun ? Mount 'EXt/ccoj/'? name cannot possibly be 
drawn from the Sun. 

It is here impossible to avoid the repetition of the central mythic 
cosmic fact that 'KKlkij means a turn or a tower, a round turn, a 
volution ; and therefore the great celestial revolver, the Great Bear. 

The Seven sons of this same Helios (or of Apollo) by the 
nymph Rhode were (apud Diodorus Siculus) Kerkaphos, Kan- 
dalos, Makareus (Makar ?), Triopas, Aktis (to act, to actuate, action 
and activity, of course come from the root a^; to drive ; as well as 
agent, axis and axle do), Ochimos, and Tenager, This is clearly a 
great heptarchy of great gods. 

The eldest of them, Kerkaphos — also called the fourth Heraklis 
or fourth Makar — was probably a revolving-heavens-light god — see 
KepKL^ a spindle, KepKco to weave, KepKvpa and K.6pKvpa, Corcyra, 
Corfu — perhaps another spun-island. Kerkaphos fathered the three 
brothers Kd/j,6ipo<; (most probably a form of Kd/3eipo<i), 'luXuao'i and 
Li'ndos. The mother of lalusos was Kvp/Sela (but Kurba and Putna 
and Hieraputna were also names of the Cretan Kameiros town) 
The lalusians were also Telchines ; they had the P^vil-eye, and 
were changed to Rocks. The mother of Lindos was Kudippe. 
This triad divided the earth (i.q. Rhodes) between them. A 
PlKEnician myth m.akes Kadmos, the creator and First-man, pursue 
his sister Europe and Zeus to Rhodes, where the great cemetery 
of Camiros still (as it ought) discloses Phoenician relics. 

Kandalos (who may be Kandaules) went to the island of Kos 
Tcos) says one legend ; but the master-myth seems to be that four 

L) 2 



6 [ 8 The Nioht of the Gods. [ The 

sons of Makar, or four Makars, took possession of the four 
Makarian islands, Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Cos. Rhodes (like 
Cyprus) was also called Makar— it may be the central island (as it 
were mythically, though not geographically) of the four. The 
meanings of " happy," " blessed," for ficiKap (compare /xaKpd<;, great, 
high, distant ; /jiaKeSvo<;, long, tall ; and MuKeSovia, and also what is 
said of the Maccabees, p. t ) must be entirely secondary meanings ; 
just as the beatific sense of " that blessed word Mea-oTTora/xia " is 
assuredly due to its mid-position between the heavens-rivers : there 
is Paradise ; there is Nirvana. 

These four Makar gods or genii should be, according to all the 
analogies in this Inquiry, the four gods or spirits of the Cardinal 
points. 

Armenios or Armenos, the argonaut, was a native of the Rose- 
island, Rhodes. Iphi-Kles, brother of Hera-Kles and an argonaut 
(who eats the rust of a knife which rusted in an oak) is said to have 
seized Rhodes. Phorbas, son of Argos or of Lapithos, and thus a 
heavens-stone god, came from Ehs (that is descended from the 
heavens) on the Island. There was a temple there to Helene 
Dendritis (thus a Universe-tree goddess). Nor should it be for- 
gotten that Helene named another island (alias Makronisi) one 
of the Cyclades {k,vic\o<^, a wheel); and there Paris had his first 
interview with her — a clear parallel to Izanagi and Izanami. 

In view of the functions of Lachesis in producing Rhodes, it is 
worth noting one Simonides is said to have written that the 
Kolossos was constructed by one Laches of Lindos, and that these 
lines were inscribed at its foot : 

Toj/ ev PoScp KoXoaaov oKTaKrjs SeVa 
Adx^js (TvoifL TrTjx^ecoi' 6 AivSos.^ 

This is generally discredited, but it seems just as valuable as 
anything else told of the Kolossos, and it fits singularly into my 
arguments ; for the consonance of Laches and Lachesis would 
point to the mythic spindle-Axis and make the Kolossos an Atlas. 
Attention is directed to the sacred number of (8 x lo ■=^)cigJity ; and 
the tradition also says that the artist (whether Laches or Chares) 
worked tzuehe years at it. Eight and twelve are, as is abundantly 
seen here, the half cardinal and zodiacal points. Recollect the 
French rose-des-vcnts with its (8 x 4 =) 32 rhumbs, or spears. 

t See Index to References before Index. 
^ Biliotti and Cottret, p. 26. 



Wheel. ~\ The Roiuaiint of the Rose. 6 1 9 

We must not quit Rhodes without a glance at Rhodope, the 
Ocean-goddess who wedded Al/zo?. This pair, aspiring to be 
worshipped under the names of Zeus and Hera, were changed into 
Mountains. On the summit of Mount Aimos, the Balkans of 
to-day, the poets placed Ares when prospecting the earth for the 
slaking of his fury. The Aimodes were also Seven Western islands 
(peaks .'' the Shetlands ?) ; and the Romans are said^ to have so f?) 
called the victims immolated to Jupiter Fulminans. Al[xo<; is a 
thorn, a spit, which is a connection with the central spit-axis whose 
end enters the eye of the Cyclops. 

[A folklorist (suspected of an occasional sardonic grin at his 
fellows) has perfidiously suggested that the oath by " the holy 
Poker " must have originally been sworn by the Universe-axis.] 

K'lfjbwv was a King of Thebes, that is of the heavens. The place 
name Haemi Extrema, a cape in Thrace, must have a similar 
origin, and so must Ha^monia for Thessaly. Akastus, son of Pelias 
and husband of Atalanta, was called Haemonian. lason was 
hsemonius juvenis ; Achilles, haemonius puer, and so forth. 

There was a Rhodopean spicula as well as a Rhodopean rock ; 
and Orpheus, who was of Rhodope, was changed into a rock. 

' Barth en Stalius ; 7/itV'. iv, 223. 



620 



The Night of the Gods. 



[Buddhdi 



CHAPTER II. 



Buddha's Footprint. 



The Shoes of Swiftness 

Buddha's Footprint ... 

The Three Steps 

The Legs o' Man 

The Chakra (Wheel of the Law) 

The Suastika ... 

The Labyrinth... 

The Conch-shell 

The Chakra as Weapon 

Stone Weapons of the Gods 

The Flaming Sword ... 

Ceraunia, Bronlia, and Ombria 



Page. 
620 
624 

635 
640 

649 
662 
677 
678 
682 
687 



The Shoes of Swiftness. 

And he walketh on the vault of the Heavens. — {Job xxii, 14.) 

I HAVE already theorised, under the headhig of the Load- 
stone Mountain, when deahng with the brazen, tireless, feet of 
Talos, that a walking or running round of the hea\ens-gods 
may have been devoutly believed in before the conception of a 
wheel arose in the human brain. This maybe the chief clue to the 
leading significance of all the footprint legends and also of those of 
the shoes of swiftness, and the mythic and sacred sandals, and 
slippers. We should thus have three differing though coinciding 
theories of the going o{ the heavens: (i) the walking, running, or 
dancing ; (2) the flying ; and (3) the Wheeling. 

This walking-round idea of the heavens seems to be preserved 
to us in the English Welkin ; so etymologists need perhaps no 
longer be so shy of connecting the word with the Anglo-Saxon 
wealcan, to walk, to roll ; the last, oddly enough, being it is said 
the earlier sense (see Prof Skeat's Dictionary). 



Footprint ?\ The Shoes of Siuiftness. 621 



Pallas Athene binds beneath her feet her lovely ambrosial 
golden sandals that bear her alike over the wet sea and over 
the limitless land, swift as the breath of the wind {Odyss. i, 96.) 
Hermes does precisely the same in the same " run " of words (v, 44.), 
Here is called golden-sandalled (xi, 604). These shoes of swiftness 
are clearly the common wear of the deities of the revolving heavens 
and that must of course be the original reason why Apollo was 
called Sandaliarius at Rome ; and the cobblers came to the god, 
instead of the god — which is base — taking his name from the 
cobblers. I think we must also, on a comparison with El's walking 
on the vault of the heavens, in Job (xxii, 14), admit a similar 
conception of the majestic progress of the heavens-god in the fine 
passage in NaJium (i, 3) : "Jehovah hath his way in the whirlwind 
and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet." 

The idea here favoured as to all the celestial foot-chases, such 
as that of the swift huntress Atalante by HippoMenes, and of the 
Roar of Kalydon by Atalante among a very select field, is that they 
have their origin in the running-round of the heavenly hosts in 
chase of one another : and that that is why Zagreus (lost in 
Dionusos) was called a mighty hunter. Another aspect of the same 
cosmic motion is of course the dance of the stars, yopa'^o'^ aorpwv 
— fully treated of under the head of " Dancing." 

The Irish Feni (= the Whites), the subjects of Finn (= White, 
bright) were swift of foot. Finn's nephew especially was renowned 
for this quality. I constantly have occasion to point out that 
whiteness (see Argos) is a common note of the heavens in all 
myth ; and this is giving a high origin to the names of the Fenians 
and the Whiteboys. A triad of the champions of the Feni were 
Finn-, Dubh-, and Treun-Chosach = Whitefoot, Blackfoot, and 
Strongfoot.- 

The third name compares with the shoes of IppiKrates, and 
indicates an axis-power ; the second with MclamPous, and the 
first and second can refer to heavens-walkers of the day and of the 
night. 

To change the venue somewhat, we find in that odd booklet of 
Cyrano de Bergerac's L Histoire couiique des Etats et Empires de la 
Liine (the same that fore-made the phonograph), that he throws it 
out that the earth may very well turn, not for the reasons which 

' Compare the butter in Ila's footprint, p. 62S. 
^ Dr. Joyce's Celtic Romances, 243. 299, 413. 



62 2 The Night of the Gods. \Buddhds 

Copernicus alleges, but because the fire of hell being at its centre, 
the damned, in their efforts to get away from the flames, scramble 
along the vault, like the dog in a spit-wheel, and so send the earth 
round ! 

Perseus got his winged sandals (TrrTjva 7reSt\a and ireBiXa 
vTroTTTepa) from the white-haired triad of Graiai (hags), with the 
cap of Hades ("AtSo? Kwy) : note that kwyj also = dogskin), that is 
the cap of invisibility, and the (beggar's) wallet (Kt(3Lat<;y which is 
also owned by the Japanese god of Fortune, Hotel. 

Here doubtless we also get the real clue to the seven-league 
Boots and the Shoes of Swiftness of Jack the Giant-Killer. He 
gets them from a huge and monstrous Giant with three heads, who 
runs and hides himself in his large vault under ground — a fallen 
triune god. The Norse Loki wears these shoes when he escapes 
from hell. The two Pisasha demons in Stanis/as Julicris Indian 
Tcle> from the Chinese, have each a magic shoe, and when he puts 
it on he can walk as if flying, without encountering any obstacle. 
In the Katlid Sarit Sdgara the shoes of the (male) Ma)'a give the 
pov/er of fl>'ing through the air. This Maya was the architect and 
artificer of the Asuris, dwelt on the Deva-giri (god-mountain) and 
built the palace of the shining white Pandavas of the heavens. In 
the German story of " Heads off! " are a pair of boots which carry 
the owner wherever he wishes to go. In the Norse tale of the 
Three Princesses of Whiteland (the heavens) is a pair of boots 
which make the wearer invisible and enable him to go where he 
pleases. In the Greco-Italian tale of Lion Bruno, the robber who 
pulls-on the boots can run a mile faster than the wind. In 
Solomon's slipper (in the Persian tale of King Bahram Ghur) 
which is wrought with threads of gold, a joUrney of a hundred 
years wearies not, but seems a distance of a hundred steps. It is 
given to the King by the lord of one of the four cardinal Kaf- 
Mountains of the Universe. In a tale of the King and his Seven 
Sons- are a pair of sandals which carry the wearer where he wishes. 
In the Indo- Persian tale Bahar-i-Danish a pair of wooden clogs 
transport the wearer from end to end of the world in the twinkling of 
an eye ; and there is the German and Portuguese magic tale of the 
" Dancing shoes." I here draw upon one of many useful chapters 



' Pherecydcs, /mc- 26. Apoll. fiibl. ii, 4, 2. 

- Steele and Temple's Widc-A-wakc Stories (Panjal) and Kashmir. 



Footprint?^ The Shoes of Szuiftncss. 62 



J 



in Mr. W. A. Clouston's Popular Tales and Fictions (i, 72) ; but 
only so far as the incidents are concerned. 

The shpper incident in the Cinderella myth finds its place quite 
naturally in this magic shoe-shop. Perhaps one of the earliest 
appearances of the Cinderella slipper is in the Rhodope legends. 
I cite the version in Abraham Fleming's blacklettcr translation 
(1576) of Tlic Variable Hystoric of rElianns (bk. xiii, ch. 32). 

" Of the Fortune of the harlot Rhodope . . . As shee was 
washing herself uppon a time, and her wayting maydens keeping 
her apparell, an Eagle came swingeing downe out of the christall 
ayer, and snatcheth up with her talans one of Rhodopes shooes, 
and carried the same with her as far as Memphis, and there let it 
fall in the lap of Psammetichus, as he sate in iudgement. At the 
fairenes wherof, and the cunning workemanship therin shewed, 
he much mervailing — and besides that, wondering not a little at the 
straunge deede of the Eagle — commanded that a general search 
should be made throughout al Grecia for the person whose fine 
foote that prety shooe fitly served. In ye executing of which 
precept Rhodope was founde, and therupon presented to 
Psammetichus ; in so much that the vertue of her amiable 
personage did not only kindle the fier of love in Psammetichus 
hart — wherby he had her in no small estimation — but did so 
inflame his affections, and wynde his wit in suche knots of 
intangling desires, that hee maryed her forthwith, and enioyed 
her company in the pleasaunt and delectable bed of wedlocke." 

The viidlci of the fabled kings of Alba (the heavens) were 
purple, that is blood-dipped, slippers {Festns). This must be the 
origin of la mule du pape. There is a golden cross on the slipper 
of the pope, which might be likened to the suastika on Buddha's 
footprint, and which cross it is that is kissed by the devout. In 
French the word in?de is now alone applied to this particular 
pantoufle. Baiscr la mule du pape, they say for what English less 
reverently calls kissing the pope's toe. Red slippers are put on a 
dead pope's feet, which are then put out through the railings of the 
chapel where he lies in state, that the faithful may kiss them as 
they throng by. 

I suppose we must detect somewhat of the same supremely 
sacred general idea in our own otherwise idiotic observances as to 
carefully throwing old shoes and slippers, " for luck." The Moslem 
shares these pagan weaknesses with the Christian. 



624 '^^^ Night of the Gods. {Buddha i 



Buddha's Footprint. 

TD UDDHA'S Footprint.— \ here find it indispensable to devote 
"^ some space to the famous Footprints of Buddha, and their 
connection with the Wheel. 

The bas-reliefs of the Amravatti Tope (near the mouth of the 
Kistnah, on the East coast of India) afford numerous examples of 
the footprint. These carvings, which are supposed to date from 
the 2nd to the 5th centuries A.D., frequently represent altars on or 
before which are a pair of footprints marked with the chakra 
(wheel), but with no other figures. On one fragment is cut in 
relief a large pair of feet, which exhibit other emblems. "In the 
centre of the soles," describes Professor Fergusson, " is the chakra ; 
above it the trisul emblem reversed, with a suastika on each side. 
Below the chakra is the suastika again, with an ornament like the 
crux ansata on each side. On the great toe is the trisul ; on each 
of the other toes a suastika."^ 

Before proceeding farther, stress must be laid on the considera- 
tion that the chakra or wheel, the trisula, and the suastika are all 
claimed in this Inquiry as insignia of the central heavenly polar 
deity. On one of the gate pillars of the Sanchi Tope there is 
carved a large footprint marked with the chakra, in this case " an 
unmistakable chariot-wheel."' E. Burnouf gave a list of the foot- 
print-emblems in his Lotus de la Bonne Loi (1.S52), which he took 
from the Cinghalese Dharnia Pradipika ; and Col. Low contributed 
another, which he took from a Siamese source, to the Transactions 
of the Royal Asiatic Society. Alabaster gave another in his 
translation of the Siamese Life of Buddha. In all of these, the 
centre of the foot is occupied by the chakra. In Alabaster's list of 
emblems we find that — 

" On each of his feet is a figure of the beautiful wheel chakra 
with its thousand rays or spokes, all richly adorned as if it were a 
wheel of emeralds. Its outline is shown by elegantly drawn 
circles, and its centre is filled with exquisite devices, which gleam 
in beauty like the jewelled chakra of the angels. Around the 

' Tree and Serpent IVcnship. .\Iabaster"s Wheel of the Law, p. 249. 
' Alabaster, p. 255. 



Footprint. \ Buddha s Footprint. 625 

chakra are loS other figures ; namely, the crystal spear . . . 
a palace ... a chakra . . . the mountains which form 
the walls of the world ; the Himalayan forest ; Mount Meru 
. . . the constellations ... a figure of the lord of the 
chakra (Vishnu ?) . . . the seven great rivers or seas, the 
seven chains of mountains that encircle those seas ; the seven 
great lakes . . ." (Alabaster, p. in.) 

Alabaster, commenting on this, fully recognises the cosmical 
character of the loS symbols, which of course are not unconnected 
with the 108 names of Vishnu. 

We have, says Alabaster, Mount Meru, the centre of each 
system of the Universe ; the seven annular mountains that 
surround it, and the seven belts of ocean between them . . 
Mount Chakrawan (Chakrawala) the wall of the world, the crystal 
annular mountain which encircles the system ; a group of stars 
which may refer to the principal constellations, or the signs of the 
zodiac. 

He then proceeds to give a plate which is taken from the 
facsimile in the great Wat Po temple at Bangkok of the footprint 
at Phrabat ; and he points out that the 108 Siamese compartments 
tally in number with those of the Burmese footprint in the British 
Museum and with those of a Ceylon drawing in Mr. Skeen's 
account of Adam's Peak ; this is also the number of the " evident 
gates of the Law" in the Lalita Vistdra. Continuing his com- 
mentary, Mr. Alabaster says, as to the crystal spear, that the 
word crystal, keon, is applied in Siam to anything gemlike, or 
beautiful, or royal. The "trident," or ^'r/sula, which appears on the 
footprint, he represents as the "weapon of Siva." As engraved 
from a photograph, it resembles rather an archaic fleur-de-lis ; and, 
ab origine, must have been rather the triune emblem of a triad 
than a "weapon" (see ante, p. 62). I direct especial attention to 
the fact that the spear is the first symbol on the footprint, the 
palace the second, and the /rz'sula the third. Thus the palace 
stands between the " spear," representative of the Universe-Axis, 
and the /r/sula, representing the central 
supernal triad. The /r/sula also consists 
clearly of a reproduction of the spear itself 
with the addition of two side-branches 
curved outwards, which form the fleur-de 
lis ; as may be seen from the rough sketches 




626 The Night of the Gods. \^Euddhds 

here given. The connection between the Japanese spear and palace 
(pp. 43, 228) will be borne in mind. The following description of 
the " palace of the angels," which occurs a second time in the foot- 
print, is taken from the Book of Iintra, one of the most ancient 
of the Siamese law-books : 

" There is a celestial abode in the Dewa heavens, an aerial 
dwelling covered with gold and gems, with roofs shining with gold 
and jewels, and roof-points [ornamental finials] of crystal and 
pearl ; and the whole gleams with wrought and unwrought gold, 
more brilliant than all the gems." 

This is clearly a myth taken from the gorgeous night-heavens 
of the limpid-aired East. The mountain appears in the footprint 
in ten compartments ; seven of these are together, and three are 
single and separate. But the footprints are otherwise connected 
with the world- mountain, and also with the Tower. The Chinese 
pilgrim-traveller Fah-Hian (circ. A.D. 400) mentioned the footprint 
on Adam's Peak, and another at Sangkashi— perhaps Sankisa^ — 
about which he wrote that " a Tower is erected where there are 
certain marks and impressions left on the stones by the feet of the 
different Buddhas." Sung-Yun, another Chinese, a century later, 
said " there is a trace of the shoe of Buddha on a rock ; they have 
raised a Tower to enclose it." It is by no means to be disregarded 
that the Adam's Peak footprint is claimed by Hindus as that of 
Siva, by Moslems as that of Adam, and by Christians as that of 
St. Thomas ; but the Buddhists are in possession. 



My suggestion upon all this briefly is that the manifold symbols 
on the sole of the Buddha's Foot are not exactly the imprint left 
thereon by his footing of the Universe, but that they figure forth 
the forms he impressed on the Universe in his progress. This is a 
reverse idea, a complement, a mould plus matrix idea. The 
various footprints we shall here see all over the world are made by 
the divine feet ; but the print /;/ the divine foot — on its sole — is, 
like the pattern cut in a butter-printer, the formative mould by 
which Matter, by ivhicJi all things, were pressed, trodden, into Form- 



Mandara no Mida (Amitabha of the Wheel), is the Japanese 
name of Buddha bearing the wheel-mark on the right hand and left 
fuot, and the suastika on the breast.^ 

' Anderson's Cat. of Brit. Mus. paintings, 83, 




Footprint ^^ Buddha s Footprint. 627 

These feet on the lotus-flower on the (sheep-headed or calf- 
headed?) world-tortoise, and guarded by the triune Naga serpent, 
whose vast hood probably represents 
the heavens-vault, must be taken to 
convey the same holy cosmic meaning 
as the Footprint. The drawing is 
taken from plate 102 of the Hindu 
PantJieon of Moor, who remarks that 
" as to the exact reference of the pair of 
feet on the back of the tortoise, the 
author can give no satisfactory explanation." 

" In Japan Buddha is never represented by the feet alone, as in 
the Amravati remains and many other Indian art-relics."^ 

The very natural human and common biblical metaphor of 
enemies as footstools is found in another form in Egypt, where 
overthrown and garotted foes were painted on the mummy's sandal- 
soles, which really furnishes a sort of a parallel to my theory 
about the soles of Buddha.^ David speaks (2 Chron. xxviii, 2) 
of building " a house for the footstool of our El." " Exalt ye 
Yahveh our El, and worship at his footstool" (Ps. xcix, 5). 
"Thus saith Yahveh, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is 
my footstool" (Isaiah Ixvi, l). This last is applied to the Most 
High in the Acts vii, 49 (and of course I here always claim that 
celestial position for the Polar deity). 

Of course the idea of the Footprint was pre-Buddhic in India; 
and we find also another aspect of it, which seems to me clearly 
to refer to a centrally placed deity at the Northern Pole of the 
Universe— where the visible world is displayed as it were his foot- 
stool. 

A connection between the Footstep and the Eye of the 
heavens is even made in the Satapatha-brdJnmxnd^: " The wise 
ever behold that Highest Step of Vishnu, fixed like an Eye in the 
heaven." We have this idea again in the Russian abbot Daniel's 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 1106 A.D.,* where a mosaic of Christ is 
labelled : The sole of my foot is a measure of heavens and earth. 
This was on the vault which covered " the Navel of the Earth." 

^ Anderson's Catalogue, 63. 

2 E. De Rouge, Notice Soiiunaire (1876) in. 

3 Dr. Eggeling's ii, 172. (He here cites " Vag. s. vi, 5 ; Rig Ved.:, i, 22, 20.) 
Pal. Piigrims' Text Soc. 1S88, p. 14. 



628 The Night of the Gods. [Buddhdi 



"There is also the temple of another Artemis," gibed the 
slapdash Clemens of Alexandria/ " Artemis Podagra (or the 
gout) in Laconica, as Sosibius says." If this be not pod-arga, and 
thus white-footed, it ought to mean foot-bound, and would have 
reference to a fixed-pole or fixed-axis (? a female oidiPous) 
goddess. For that is how I endeavour to explain the connection 
between the (differential) idea of the footprint we are just at this 
moment considering in these immediate instances ; and I connect 
this idea also with the gods who stand on One Foot (p. 215 supra). 

An oracle warned Pelias (who had succeeded KreTheus as 
king of lolkos) to beware of a one-shoed man (monosandalos), 
who turned out to be lason, who had lost one of his shoes or 
sandals in fording the heavens-river Anauros.^ (Compare the 
single sandal of Perseus at Chemmis.) The Samoan god Ti-iti-i 
pushed up the heavens, and his hoofs made holes six feet deep in 
the rocks as he pushed.^ Here we have the shoes of IphiKrates 
(or -os), and the nails in the shoes of Magnes, by which he is fixed 
to the loadstone rock, as close variants. 

In the myth of Ila, the daughter of Manu makes in the form of 
a cow the print of her hoofs "on the most sacred spot of earth," the 
naveP ; and a mantra addressed to her says " glory to the butter- 
filled footmark of Idha." 

This butter (or ghee ?) in the footprint seems to be an analogue 
of the oiling of the Semitic stones, pp. in and 120 supra. 

Agni, when generated by friction for the sacrifice, is placed 
" in the footmark of the Earth in the form of a cow (prithivya 
//^zyaspade)," that is, according to the commentator Sayana, " on 
the Northern Altar," Rig V. iii, 25. " Now sit down, Agni, on the 
footmark of Ila," 381. " Agni, we place thee upon the earth in the 
centre [navel], in the place [footprint] of Ija (Ilayaspade nabha 
prithivyah adhi) " ; that is, in the middle of the northern altar, 
explains Wilson, adding that the same recurs in the YajusJi xxxiv, 
14, 15, and is also quoted in the Aitareya BrdJiuiana i, 5. So that 
the passage has always been an important one. Rig V. iii, 34. 
(Wilson is somewhat inconsistent — as usual with him — ^in his 
renderings and glosses, from having had no central guiding ideas 
on these £ubjects.) "Agni who art Ilita," Rig V. iii, 242. "Ila, 

> Exhort, to Hellenes, Ch. 2. - Apoll. Bibi. i, 0, i6. 

5 Turner's Samoa, p. 198. ■* Kig Veda, ii, 24 (Wilson's). 



Footprint.^ Buddha s Footprint. 629 

Saraswati, Mahi, the three goddesses who are the sources of 
happiness," 243. 

We shall immediately see the three steps of Indra and of 
Vishnu (as Vamana). Vishnu is again to appear as (or seated 
on) Kalkin, the white horse, at the close of the present Kali yuga, 
or black age, with a flaming sword like a comet ; and the great 
white horse is to stamp its right fore hoof as the signal for the end 
of all things. 

The print of a horse's hoof, to be seen in Cicero's time in a 
silex at Regillus, was believed to have been made by Castor's 
horsc.^ The horse-fountain HippouKrene issues from the foot- 
stamp of Pegasos on Mt. Helikon, which like Helike, the great 
Bear, must derive its name from its revolution, for it is the vault of 
the heavens. Pegasos must be formed from Trrjji], a fountain, as 
has always seemed evident. He is the river-horse in point of fact 
of the heavens-river. The shoe of Perseus at Chemmis in Egypt 
(Herodotus ii, 91) must here be again mentioned. It brings 
together the horse, the rider, and the footprint. 

Mailduin and his companions discovered a very large and 
broad and flat island, where was a broad green racecourse, in 
which they saw immense hoof-marks the size of a ship's sail or of a 
laree dining-table. The horses were swifter than the wind.^ Have 
we not in all these a sufficient origin for the practice of carefully 
putting-up old horseshoes (which must be found promiscuous-like) 
" for luck " ? 

Sir G. Birdwood, however, does not take this "footprint" view 
of the sacred horseshoe. The vault of heaven, the womb of nature, 
with its included constellationary life, and above all the seven 
guardian planetary and twelve guardian zodiacal divinities, is what 
is represented by the HorsesJioe with its seven gems or nails, by 
the nava-ratna (nine-gems), and by the Ark. The two first are 
magical images of the vault, that is talismans.^ 

An ode of the Shi-King, into which it is utterly impossible that 
anything Buddhistic can have intruded, relates that the mother of 
the first of the Chow family in order to terminate sterility, sacrificed 
purely, and walked in the print left by the foot of Shang-Ti.* 
" I follow still the tooting of thy teete." 

' De Nat. Deor. iii, 5. - Joyce's Celtic Romances, 123. 

•■ Soc. oi h.x\^ Journal, March i?, 1887. '' I.tgge's version, Decade ii, i, i. 



630 The N'ioht of the Gods. [Buddha s 

Herodotus recorded the sandal of Perseus in Egypt (ii, 91) 
and the footprints of Herakles in Scythia. Pythagoras measured 
such marks on Olympia, and calculated ex pede Herculem. At 
Mecca are Abraham's footprints. At Hebron is the print of 
Adam's foot in the Haram.^ Said a South African Bushman 
to Dr. Moffat^ : " I'll show you the footsteps of the very first 
man." 

The footprint of Christ on the Sakhrah or holy Rock at the 
Sepulchre of Jerusalem was shown in the twelfth century, where 
Mahomet's footprint is now shown.^ Here we have evolution, or 
devolution, and the falling of gods well brought home to us. The 
print of Christ's right foot is still shown on Mount Olivet, as it was 
in the twelfth century. In the Byzantine age, the prints of both 
feet seem to have been extant. These were the last marks made, 
as he sprung to heaven. 

The various Leaps that are shown must be connected with this. 
There is the saltus Domini at Nazareth, shown now as in the 
twelfth century.^ 

Seven footprints were shown as Abraham's to Nasir-i-Khusran 
in A.D. 1047, on the south side of the Sakhrah Rock.^ The 
Itinerary of the Bordeaux pilgrim to Jerusalem (A.D. 333?)" said 
that the marks of the shoenails of the soldiers who killed Zacharias 
were to be seen throughout the whole enclosure, so clearly that you 
would think they were stamped in wax. One of the relics of 
Mahomet shown at the Mid-Ramazan festival of the hirkai'-sherif 
(holy mantle : compare the holy coats of Trier and Argenteuil) at 
Stamboul is a calcareous stone with the impress of the Prophet's 
foot, which he left either in mounting his horse at his own door, or 
else when he sprung up to heaven.'' Matthew Paris relates^ that 
the friar-preachers gave Henry HI a piece of white marble on 
which was the mark of a human foot — one of the Saviour's feet. 
It was deposited by the King in Westminster Abbey. At the 
church of St. Sebastian at Rome is still shown a similar footprint, 
which William Wey mentioned in the fifteenth century." On the 

' Hdh and Moab, p. 294. " Missionary Labours, p. 263. 

3 Citez de Jhenisalem (1187 A.D. ?) in Pal. Pilgrims'' Text Soc, 18S8, p. 37, 40. 

"• Citez de Jherusalem, pp. 44, 54. 

s Pal. Pilgrims' Text Sac. 1888, p. 47. " Ibid. 1887, p. 21 

" Le 'lenips (Letter from C'ple) 2nd June, 1S90. 

8 Hist. Anglor. (Rolls' Series, 1866), iii, 6c. 

3 Piincrarics (RcxLuighe Club 1857) p. 1^8. 



Footprint ?\ Buddha s Footprint. 6 



.3 



roche de Beaune near Chambon are two footprints, one of Saint 
Martial (doubtless a corruption from Mars), the other of the queen 
of the fays.' 

A famous instance, which has thrilled to the marrow every 
man of us when a boy, leads on to the irrefragable origin of the 
extreme significance of the human footprint. Predatory wild 
mankind doubtless took an absorbing interest in the tracks of the 
animals he chased ; but there was one footmark that outmarked 
all pawprints, the trace left by homo homini lupus, by the most 
terrorising of all the wild beast enemies of man, by savage Man 
himself Thus Defoe upon it : 

"It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat 
I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot 
on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand. I stood 
like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. . . 
Like a man perfectly confused, and out of myself, I came home to 
my fortification ; not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but 
terrified to the last degree . . . fancying every stump at a 
distance to be a man. ... I fled into my castle like one 
pursued . . . for never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to 
earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat. I slept none 
that night . . . and did not stir out of my castle for three days 
and nights " {Robinson Crnsoe. ) 

If there be anything in this view of the matter, it would be 
one instance, at all events, in support of the hackneyed verse of 
Petronius: Primus in orbis deos fecit timor ; though not in the 
sense of the rest of the quotation, which runs : ardua coelo fulmina 
quum caderent. 

I must also mention the custom of the ancient Egyptian 
pilgrim, who left the conventional print of both his poor feet 
engraved at the shrine, with his name, quality, and genealogy. 
At Bramfield in Suffolk "there is not much of a view" from the 
round church tower, which stands at a distance from the church, 
" but people go up there to cut their names atid tlic sJiape of their 
feet on the leads, and I thought perhaps as how you might like to 
cut yourn," said the parish clerk's boy-son to the traveller." 

Tebti ^J^l meant sandals, steps, feet; tui I'^^^'^M and 

' Collin de Plancy, Di<t. Inf. (1S26) iii, 29. 
- T- J. Hissey's Tour in a P/iaelon^ 1889, ]>. 153. 
VOL. II. E 



632 The Night of the Gods. \^BiLddhds 

tuti I l[)l[) are given as sandals and shoes.^ Tebti 
is given as the chief place of the tenth nome of Upper Egypt by 
J. de Rouge; and Tebti Wj) is given as a pehu or division of the 
twelfth nome of Upper Egypt by Brugsch. Can these places have 
possessed holy Footprints, or shoes ? 

The very strange observance by which the skin was removed 
from the foot-soles of Egyptian mummies may have been a refine- 
ment upon the eastern custom of taking off the shoes when 
entering a mosque or even (in Japan) a house. " Put off thy 
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is 
holy ground " {Exodus iii, 5). And with this last we must connect 
the evil-working action of " shaking-off the dust of one's feet 
against " an enemy, as Paul and Barnabas did against the Jews 
of Antioch of Pisidia {Acts xiii, 51), soon after Paul had "fastened 
his eyes " on Elymas the Magus at Paphos, and cursed and blinded 
him, as is related a few lines earlier. This Egyptian funereal 
custom, observed as we might say on the mummy's entering the 
dread kingdom of Osiris, curiously enough crops up in an Icelandic 
tale.^ " The Giant told her that Hermodr was in a certain desert 
island ; but she could not get there unless she flayed the soles of 
her feet, and made shoes for herself out of the skin " [which 
contains a confusing introversion of ideas] ; " and these shoes 
would take her through air and over water as she liked " ; this 
last giving us precisely the Odyssean sandals of Pallas Athene 
on p. 621. 

: Pienet, Vocah. 668, 687, 708. 

2 Powell and Magiiusson's Icelandic Legends (2nd series), p. 379. 



Footprint.^ The Three Steps. 633 



The Three Steps. 

HTHE Three Steps. In the Rig Veda, "Vishnu is glorified, 

because that in his three paces all worlds abide " (ii, 94). He 
is called " thrice-traversing " (ibid.), and he is said to have " traversed 
the three regions with three wide steps" (ii, 97), and to have 
"three times planted his foot" (i, 53); "his three imperishable 
paces, filled with ambrosia, delight us with sacred food" (ii. 95); 
and all these texts have their explanation in another statement 
that " Vishnu alone made, by three steps, this spacious and 
durable aggregate " (ii, 95^. See also the strange text : " Four are 
his horns, three are his feet, two are his heads, seven are his 
hands " (p. 164). 

" Oh rivers, the dwelling-places of the intelligent gods are 
thrice three " (for each of the three Lokas has three divisions) ; 
" the measurer of the three " [worlds] " is the sovereign at sacri- 
fices ; three females of the waters" [Ila, Saraswati, and Bharati] 
" charged with the rains descend from heaven at the triple 
solemnity. . . . Three are the excellent uninjurable bright 
regions " {Rig V. ii, loi). " The three" (divisions of the) " firma- 
ment" [Universe?], "the three worlds, the three brilliant spheres, 
the three heavens" [the Indra, Prajapati and satya lokas] "the 
three-fold earth" {ibid. 218). 

Some of the final additional notes (1849) of Guigniaut's Creuzer 
(ii, 1338) make the Zeus of Dodona a Universe-god of the three 
empires, heavens, sea (earth?) and hell, and he seems to corres- 
pond to the triple or three-eyed Zeus (Triopas and Tpi6(p6aXixo^) 
of the Argives and Etolians.^ 

When Bali usurped the sovereignty of the three worlds, Vishnu, 
as Vamana the dwarf, tricked him into a gift of three paces of 
land, and then, growing vast, stepped from heaven to earth and hell. 
In the Taittirtya Santiitd, " Indra, assuming the form of a she- 
jackal, stepped all round the Earth (?) in three strides ; thus the 
gods obtained it." In a different temper Indra is addressed : 
" Devourer ! having trampled on the heads of the malignant, crush 
them with thy wide-spreading foot, th}^ vast wide-spreading foot " 
(^4" K ii, 43). 

' K. O. Miiller Doner i, 6i ; Pan of Ka : Verlcgenc Mytheii^ p. 19. 

E 2 



634 The Night of the Gods. [Bitddhds 



I suggest that these texts furnish us with the best interpre- 
tation of Gradivus as an adjectival title of Mars, and I support the 
suggestion by his connection with the leaping, dancing Salii in 
Livy i, 20, 4 : (Numa) Salios item duodecim Marti Gradivo legit 
Shakespeare's scrap of some old hymn-song, too, in Lear (iii, 4, 
125): "Saint Withold footed thrice the wold," seems to have its 
place here. 

Lords of the Three Worlds, Sam-Kai-Kung, H W- S-, is the 
term applied in Amoy to the spirits of the Universe.^ They are 
called Kwan 'g or governing-spirits, and the first is the T'lcn 
(heaven, %) Kwan, the next, the Te HI) Kwan, and the third the 
Sui 7j\c Kwan. The Chinese Buddhists also have their three worlds, 
tray-lokya, Sam-Kai (as above). Dr. De Groot says the three are 
a kind of trinity always mentioned together ; a sole divinity in 
three persons. They are addressed in inscriptions on lanterns as 
H 'L'.' -X 'mj' Sam Kwan Ta Ti, which De Groot renders " O three 
governors, great gods " ; but I think it is obvious that we have 
here at Amoy a popular Taoistic version of the Tai Ki triad. 

' De Groot, Fetes cfE/iioia\ 9, 10, 126, 129. 



Footprint ^^ The Legs d Man. 6 



35 



The Legs o' Man. 

n^ HE Legs d Man. It seems to me to be nothing less than 

obvious that this famous device finds its particular explanation 
in these three Vedic steps, and its general one in the running- 
round of the heavens. 

It is found in Greek art both on the shield of Athene and on 
the buckler of the giant 'Ey/ceXaSo? (/ce\a8o9 = noise), on whose 
body Jupiter threw Mount Etna, or otherwise Athene cast upon 
him the whole island of Sicily — Sicilia, Sicelia, Si/ceXta, TpivaKui] 
(Odyss.), Trinacria (y£?i)., Trinacris (Ovid), Triquetra (Horace). 

One would be inclined to expound the names of the people 
— Siculi or St/ceA,o/— from seculum (archaically seclum), generation, 
race, epoch ; and also to connect the word with the Campanian 
word for a falx, secuta (Varro), our sickle. Compare ^dyKXr] or 
^dyK\ov, the Sicilian's scythe. The Siculi were said to have been 
driven from the banks of the Tiber. 

Besides the form of the three running legs — for they are with- 
out any manner of doubt running full speed — there was a form of 
three sickles. The name triscelum, rptaKeXi]^, means three-legged ; 
but I think, in view of the unmistakeable three sickles on the 
coins of Megara and Megarsus and Lycia, we must also admit 
that the word could have meant three sickles. This parenthesis is 
merely to clear the ground ; for the three helter-j-/^^/ter legs are 
also found on the Lycian coins. But to account for the sickle, we 
must, I think, go to the Speiravrj or dpTrr} of Kronos. There is 
another view of these "sickles," that they are meant for curved 
radii to imply wheel-motion, like the designs on the Hissarlik 
whorls (as to which please see Index).] 

These human legs are also on the coins of Aspendos in Pam- 
phylia, " charged " sometimes on a flj'ing eagle, sometimes accom- 
panied by a barndoor cock, regardant. On a Lycian coin the 
"sickles" even become three cocks' necks with crested heads. 
Three winged monsters take exactly the same position on a 
Persian cylinder.^ On this subject, reference is also requested 
to "the Tomoye" (p. t)- This bird-symbology is, for me, 
' Goblet d'Alviella, Mij^/i des Symboles, 27, 71, 222. 
t See Index to References before Index, 



636 The Night of the Gods. [Buddhas 

merely dififerent but not distinct from the other. The legs are the 
rounding-round of the heavens ; the wings mean their flying-round. 
The human legs, are also found on Celt-Iberian coins, with a 
human face at the middle. 

There is nothing new in giving the idea of celestial motion to 
these three running legs, but this interpretation of that motion has 
hitherto been confined (so far as I am aware) to the theoretical 
three bounds of the Sun, its supposed hop, skip, and jump at 
morning, noon, and night. Faint lunar suggestions have indeed 
also been made.^ But the major explanation which I desire to 
furnish, the running-round of the heavens, encompasses both sun 
and moon as items in the universal march or course of the celestial 
phenomena. 

It is stated that the Legs are not found in the arms of the 
ancient kingdom of the Isle of Man before the thirteenth century.^ 
But what does that mean.? There is an original example in the 
Heralds' College of a shield of the time of Edward P (1272- 1307) ; 
and this only proves to me that the badge may have existed any 
time previously. Such devices as that don't grow on such shields 
like mushrooms. It is also said to be in the arms of " many noble 
families in England, Germany, Switzerland, and Poland."^ The 
Duke of Athole (Stuart-Murray) quarters it ; so does the Earl of 
Dunmore (Murray) — motto of both : Furth Fortune and Fill the 
Fetters. So does the Earl of Cromartie. Note by the way that 



this motto is four F's. If they be arranged like this 4tti they 

afford an exact fylfot with the addition of the short middle-bars. 
Was this the motto's genesis ? And did both the fylfot and the 
four F's come, from the crusading fights, like much of our heraldry, 
as the conquest of the Manx and Scottish spears .? (See what is 
said of the fylfot under the heading of " The Suastika.") 

The common term, as an inn-sign and so forth, for this Manx 
symbol is still " the Legs o' Man," an expression comparable to 
the French jambes de Gargantua. As to the Isle of Man here, 
there is much more to be said than meets the eye. The Gaelic 
is Inis-Manann, so called from Mannanan Mac Lir, a sea-god. 

^ Mign des Sy inhales, S3, 223. 

2 Ibid. 28. 

* Boatell's A';/;'-. Jleraldiy (4tli f<lition) 74, 

■' Mign des Symboles, 28. 



Footprint^ The Legs d Man. 637 



Cormac's Glossary made a merchant — that is I suppose a sedi-man 
— of him, and said he knew by examining the heavens how long 
fair or foul weather would last.^ This makes a heavens -god of 
him also. Lough Corrib ( = Orbsen) burst out of his grave over 
the land- — a myth like those of Lough Neagh and of the Italian 
lake Albanus (see " The River.") Professor Rhys calls him " the 
great wizard of the sea " f and he says that Llyr (with which word 
I presume Lir is to be equated), " was a great deal more than a 
god of the sea ; he was apparently a form of the Celtic Dis, and 
was assimilated under the regime of the Romans with their Janus." 
The town of Leicester ( = Leir-cestre = Caer Lyr) seems to have 
been a great centre of his worship. 

If this symbol then ever belonged to Llyr, we should be drawn 
again towards my former suggestion that another triple emblem 
may, after all, be the Fleur de Lli, which river forms with Archan 
the two rivers that separate Britain from the world of spirits, and 
through which the blessed Welsh Bran (son of Llyr) waded, like 
lason through the Anauros.* I would also suggest that Man and 
Maine are related. And it seems to me extremely interesting that 
I should have been led quite independently to the identification of 
the Tomoye in Ireland (see p. t)- Thus there would not be one 
but four triple Celtic emblems : the shamrock, fleur de Lit, tomoye 
and legs o' Man. 

We can even trace the triple idea again in the (now) Good- 
Friday Manx custom of making a large " hammock or soddog, 
with three corners," which is baked on the hearth itself, and not on 
a griddle, for no ij-ofi must touch the fire that day, a rowantree 
stick being used as a poker.'' This ritual may thus actually date 
from before the use of profane iron came in ; and the three-cornered 
cake is ceremonial and sacrificial, which gives us a genuine origin 
for our popular jam-tarts in that form. " 6'<?^/-cakes " of this shape 
used to be made in our Lady God\wa.'s town of Coventry on New 
Year's Day, and sold about the streets.'' The names of these cakes 
and of Godiva are, it is presumed, to be referred to the Godes who 

' Joyce's Celtic Romances, 402, 405. 

- Joyce's Irish Names (ist series) 4th cd., 163. 

■' Arthurian Legend {\%<^\) 355, 216. iji. 

^ Ibid., 250. 

» Train's Hist. Isle Man (1845) ii, 1 1 7. 

fi Notes and Queries (2nd series) ii, 229. 

t See Index to References before Index, 



638 The Night of the Gods. [Bnddhds 

surrounded Odinn. But the triplicity in the tri-angle is that of a 
triad or trinity. 

The Finnish Para is a three-legged scarecrow or fetish which 
could be endowed with life by three drops of blood from the left 
little finger, a magic word being spoken while they fall/ Its pos- 
sessor is always sure of plenty of milk and cheese. " In the Cosmic 
philosophy of Hwai Nan-tsze (B.C. 122) it is asserted that a bird 
with three legs exists in the sun."- Hel or Helle, Death in Norse 
mythology, rides a three-legged horse ; but this may only refer to 
the halting pace at which death overtakes many mortals.^ 

It would seem that we must also connect both the Tripod, 
tripus, rpLTTovi, and the tripudium, with the three-legged idea. 

Apollo as a prophetic god, that is as a power that brings 
round the sphere of the future, was frequently represented seated 
or leaning on the tripod or on the Omphalos. Through the tripod 
he shoots his arrows at the Python on coins of Crotona.'' The 
omphalos here gives a central celestial " pitch " to the tripod. 

One of Apollo's two mighty tripods (rpLTrov^ fieya^;) is buried in 
the land of Hyllus, "TXXo?, deep within the earth, that it may be 
ever hidden from mortal ken"' ; with the other tripod Triton 
vanished into the Triton ian lake, 

Tripodo or tripudio was the verb which applied to sacred ritua- 
listic dances or hops such as those of the Arvalian Brothers. The 
dance itself was a tripodatio, and tripudatio was a dance of priests 
round the altar. I think we need have no doubt that it was a well- 
accentuated three-stepped movement, say like a polka. Tripudium 
must be the same word, and the augural sign so given by the sacred 
chickens" must also have been a jumping " in exultatione," as Festus 
in one place said it was. Fowl will sometimes do this — and a very 
comical antic it is to see by accident — but only for a second or 
two ; and when one begins, two or three more will do the same ; 
and prank about as if demented. But it is all over before you can 
count half a dozen. The other explanation about pecking so 
hurriedly that the food dropped from their beaks, was invented 

' Crawford's Kalevala, xxix. - Mayers' Manuel, p. 76. 

^ De Baecker, Relig. Nord France, 152. ■* Saglio's Diet, i, 320, 319. 

•'■' Argonaiitikon, iv, 528, 535, 1589. 

^ Chicken is a genuine plural, like oxen, children. In East Kent no one adds an s. 
See also William Wey's Itineraries (1456, 1458, 1462) : " Also by yow a cage for half a 
dozen of hennys or chekyn to have with yow in the galey " (Roxburghe Club, 1857, pp. 
4, 6). 



Footpj'inL^ The Legs d Maji. 639 

(Festus gives it also under Sollisthnuvi) by a man who was no hen- 
wife. It looks very much as if it was born of pure ignorance and a 
vulgar confusion of tripudatio with trepidatio ; unless indeed it 
be also partly a " whim-wham for a goose's bridle," hit upon by 
augurs to give a crooked answer to cross questions. 

I can quote a very remarkable Chinese parallel for reading ritual 
into the actions of birds. It is in the Li Ki^ where it is said (in 
the Taoistic section called the Yiieh-Ling, or Monthly Calendar) 
that in the first month of autumn " Young hawks at this time 
sacrifice birds, as the first step they take to killing and eating 
them." Elsewhere (in the Wang Chih or Regal Rules) the otter 
sacrifices fish in the first spring month, and the wolf sacrifices 
its prey.^ And this was a good deal older than Festus. 

' Dr. Legge's version, i, 284. 
- Ihid. 221, 251, 292. 



640 The Night of the Gods. [Bttddhas 



The Chakra as Wheel of the Law. 

OF all the symbols on Buddha's Footprint (see p. 624) it is 
the chakra or Wheel that most immediately concerns us here. 
In Professor Fergusson's bas-relief No. 2 from the sanchi tope 
there is a chakra " exactly like a chariot-wheel, with two figures 
standing by it, and perhaps about to make it revolve, while others 
around are offering it adoration." The Lalita Vistdm describes 
the chakra as the first and most marvellous of the seven extra- 
ordinary possessions of a universal emperor. In the Thibetan 
version, as well as by Southern Buddhists, this chakra or disc is 
regarded as a quoit-like " weapon," but also at the same time as 
the glorious Wheel of the Law, which, being set in motion by the 
Emperor, rolls before him and establishes the law in his wide 
dominions. But the name of the universal emperor, Chakra-vartin, 
clearly shows him to be a Wheel-god ; and it is expressly stated 
that he rules not only over this Earth but over the other three 
kindred earths described in cosmogony. 

[It seems as if this Wheel-god, this Universe-Emperor, this 
chakravartin, showed himself again in the Greek inscription found 
in the Mosque of Light in the ancient Emesa (now Horus) of the 
black stone of Elagabalus. Dr. H. Hayman's version of it was 
" The King, who is the round image of the Universe, won over the 
peoples having all things by driving a chariot with skill." The 
inscription as given by Waddington is : 

KvKXoT-e'pj;? Kixrjxoio tvttos ^aatXfvs €K6{iJ.LCT(Tev) 
'Edvea Tvavra exovra aocpais cjjpealv jjvLOK{evu>v). 

Hcth and Moab, 44.] 

In the Zoid Avesta, Gaya Maretan, the first man, that is 
Man-god, "first took the turning of the wheel from the hands 
of the Daeva" (ii, 201). M. James Darmester remarks on this 
that the wheel meant is that of sovereignty, and that "the 
expression smacks of Buddhism.." It is doubtless the same 
Universe-wheel as has descended almost as a nominis umbra 
to Buddhism, and it is also the same wheel as is given to Mithra 
in another passage of the Avesta (ii, 136) where the god "drives 

1 See pos/, p. 194. 



Footprint ?\ The Chakra as Wheel of the Lazv. 641 

along on his lofty-wheeled chariot, made of an invisible substance, 
. . . accompanied by the wheel of sovereignty, and rolling 
upon it." I see no reason to accept Mithra for a sun-god in 
this passage, but rather as the heavens-god " who goes over the 
Earth, all her breadth over, after the setting of the sun" {Z.A. 

ii, 143)- 

Professor Rhys Davids says •} The cakra, Pali cakka, is no 
ordinary wheel ; it is the sign of dominion ; and a cakravarti is 
he who makes the wheels of his chariot roll unopposed over all 
the world, a universal monarch. The title given to the first 
Buddhist sermon, the rolling onward of the royal chariot-wheel 
of righteousness, Dharmacakra Pravartana Sutra, may be derived 
from, or it may be the origin of, the chakrawarti parallel. The 
Moslem dervish suspends a cherkha, or circle from his neck, 
meaning thereby that he resigns himself entirely to the will of 
God, for blessing or for punishment.- 

Speaking of the " Rail" at Buddh Gaya, Fergusson calls it " the 
most ancient sculptured monument in India," and states that "its 
religion, as might be expected, is principally tree and serpent 
worship, mingled with veneration for dagobas, wheels, and 
Buddhist emblems."^ I have elsewhere claimed the dagoba as 
a symbol of the heavens-vault (p. 220). 

The toran or gateway of the Bharhut tope had for its " central 
emblem on the top of all " the chakra or wheel {ibid. 87), which is 
an exact parallel to the position of the (winged) sphere on the 
Egyptian pylon. On the torans at Sanchi " the worship of trees 
is represented at least y^ times ; of dagobas or relic shrines 
38 times ; of the chakra or wheel, the emblem of dharma, the 
Law, 10 times" {ibid. 97). On a "Rail" at Amravati is "in the 
central compartment the chakra or wheel, now generally acknow- 
ledged to be the emblem of dharma, the second member of the 
Buddhist trinity." " Below that the tree " he continues ; but 
I shall not pursue him into the speculation that it "possibly 
represents Sanga, or the congregation" (p. 102). Of course, 
what all the sacred trees and plants represent is the cosmic 
Universe-tree, as so often retraced in this Inquiry, 



' BuudhisDi, 1S80, pp. 45, 188. 

" Jno. P. Brown : The Dei-vishes, p. 190. 

•* Indian A re It. p. 86. 




642 The Night of the Gods. [Buddha s 

Here is the wheel, on a pillar, on a rough unhewn stone altar, 
taken from the carvings at Buddh Gaya. I have else- 
where, I trust abundantly, shown that the wheel is 
pre-Buddhic, and that its connection with the Buddhist 
dharma is to be understood as meaning that that 
dharma is the Law of the revolving Universe and 
of its revolver, of which the wheel is an emblem. 

Daniell describing the cave at Karli says, "on the 
pillars, above the capital, is a group of lions from the centre of 
which a few years since rose the chacra of Vichnou though not 
the least appearance of it at present remains." "The Chacra of 
Vichnou the Mahadeva, and the bulls, seem not to favour the 
opinion of its being a temple of the Bhoods " [Buddhists]. Follow- 
ing this indication, Fergusson^ agreed that the pillar of four lions 
(at Karli) supported a chakra, " or Buddhist wheel." As elsewhere 
shown, I see no reason for making very archaic examples 
" Buddhist " in origin. This Buddhist preoccupation of Fergusson's 
mind led him to say of "Cave No. 17" at Ajunta that it "is 
generally known as the Zodiac cave, from the figure of a Buddhist 
chakra or wheel painted at one end of its verandah, which was 
mistaken by early visitors for a celestial emblem."- If the theories 
here set forth by me are urged to any purpose, it may be thought 
that the mistake was not on the part of the "early visitors." 
The tower of the temple of Jagannath, figured by Fergusson 
from a photograph (p. 431), carries where we put weather-cocks 
a vertical wheel exactly like the steering wheel, with projecting 
spokes, of a ship. He puts a similar wheel to his own restoration 
of the Black Pagoda at Kanaruk (p. 222). In each 
case the vertical wheel is traversed by an upright 
pole carrying a flag. Appended is a sketch of the 
wheel and staff on the Black Pagoda, as to which 
I will add that the Tibetan Lamas are fond of every- 
where putting up "Trees of the Law," which are 
nothing but lofty flagstaffs with silk flags, emblazoned 
with the formula Om mani padme hdm. Every fie.sh flirt given 
to the flag by the winds is a new mantra of praise.^ It is almost 
needless for me to point out how we have here brought together 
the Universe-tree, the Universe-wheel, and the Universe-axis. 

' Ind. Arch. pp. 121, 55. ^ Jl>id., P- I5S- 

* Rhys Davids : Buddhism, p. 210. 




Footprint ?\ The Cliakra as Wheel of the Law. 



64. 



Another paraphrastic fantasia upon the conception of the 
Wheel of the Law is that all existence of which we have any 
notion is but part of an endless chain or circle of causes and 
effects ; that so long as we remain in that Wheel there is no 
repose and no peace ; and that rest can only be obtained by escaping 
from that Wheel into Nirvana. The twelve nidanas, or cause-and- 
effects, are the twelve constituent parts of the Wheel ; ignorance 
and desire are the axle of the wheel, which has predisposition, 
samskara for its spokes, and decrepitude and death for its tire.' 
Thus, too, in the Dai-mu-ryo-jyu Kyo, a sutra of the Japanese 
Buddhist Shin-Shiu sect, to attain salvation or nirvana is " to 
remain in the state of not returning to revolve (avaivartika), and 
to enter the company of the steadfast ; "- that is, of the non-revolv- 
ing, of the fixed, the steady. 

Now it seems to me that we can get back to no other starting- 
point for all this wheel-symbolism and imagery than the (apparent) 
revolution of the heavens, which gives Law to the Universe, to the 
unresting whirling Universe in which we live, move, and have our 
being ; and in which the decay and renewal of things is perpetually 
and everlastingly repeated. 

To escape from this never-ending whirl is the life-idea of the Bud- 
dhist — is the dream con- 



fined to the Buddhist? — 
to have done with it, to 
get out of the Wheel, de 
s'echapper de I'engre- 
nage, to obtain refuge 
at the mathematical 
point which is the 
motionless centre of its 
Nave ! — this is Nirvana. 
Medio tutissimus ibis, 
as I said on p. 144. 
And what a light does 
not this throw upon the 
myth of Ixion ? 

Here is an Ixion 
from an " antique monument " now lost, and preserved for us by a 

' Alaliasfer's Wheel of t/sc LaiO, \)z?,^\m. 
' Trans. As. Sog^ Jap. xvii, lie, 114, 137. 




644 '^^^ Night of the Gods. \Buddhas 



design in the Codex Pighianus of Berlin, which I venture to copy 
from M. H. Gaidoz's valuable Dieu Gaidois du Soled, p. 48 (see 
also the remark at p. 34). 

An observation of De Rouge's about the tet^ u of Ptah, which 
I seek to identify with the Universe-axis, here finds its proper place, 
" In the hieroglyphs the tat designates stability by the summit 
(faite), and probably the pleroma, that is to say the final and 
perfect end which the soul ought to attain by the imitation of 
Osiris."" 

A friend, whether in half-joke or whole-earnest I do not inquire, 
here suggests that the mad desire to reach the north pole of this 
planet may be a survival of the belief that it is a motionless spot 
partaking of the nature of nirvana. 

[There is, however, a curious curse pronounced in the Rig Veda 
(iii, 304) against " the man who invites the Rakshasas to the food 
of the gods " or who reviles a priest : the Maruts are prayed_to 
" send him into darkness de void of wlieels/^I 

But I have still more directly to expound the fact of the 
chakra being on the soles of Buddha's feet. The emblem is either, 
as we have seen, the only or the chief emblem in the footprints. 
In either case it is central and imposing, in the very middle of 
the sole of the foot. Admitting the explanations I have been 
endeavouring to develop, would we not thus (see also p. 626) have 
Buddha as the central supreme power of the Universe, presiding 
at, standing on or above its wheel, on, at, or above the nave of its 
wheel, trampling the world under his feet ; or else from place to 
place leaving behind him those marks of his footsteps which, 
rightly interpreted, are but cryptic emblems of the whole of his 
Creation. 



As to the form of the chakra on the Siamese footprint, as to 
which I have already said so much, I think there need be no 
hesitation in admitting that it implies rapid revolution on its 
centre. I here give a rough sketch of it, merely indicating, as 
needless for the present purpose, its elaborate and minute 
ornamentation. An identical symbol is seen on the shield of 
Athene Polias (which I maintain to be the title of a Polar divinity) 

' [The tet represents the tree which grew up around the coffin of Osiris, and the four 
cross bars indicate the four cardinal points. — E. A. W. B.] 
- Notice Soininaire (1876) 149. 



Footprint P\ The Cliakra as Wheel of the Law. 



645 





on an amphora in the Berlin Museum (catalogue, No. 1686). The 
goddess is standing, and menacing with a spear.^ I do not see 
how the connection of the revolving Uni- 
verse-wheel with the adjectival name 
Polias is here to be denied. The curvature 
of the conventional spokes appears to 
indicate a spinning round ; if not, I am at 
a loss to attribute any other signification 
to it. Among the multiplicity of orna- 
m.ents or symbols on the "whorls" dug 
up at Troy and figured in Dr. Schliemann's 
Ilios (1880} are many either rude in the extreme, or occasionally, 
exhibiting some amount of regularity. Among the latter are Nos. 
1833 and 1837, which I here outline. It is scarcely 
possible to compare these whorls with the Siamese 
chakra above without coming to the same conclu- 
sion that the deflected rays were meant to imply 
revolution, which would be quite natural in spinning- 
whorls ; but I hope in addition to prove, in the 
chapters on the Suastika and Weaving, an intimate and wide- 
spread connection between Spinning and the Universe with its 
wheel. Among the more 
obvious of the ruder 
examples of the revolv- 
ing-wheel decoration are 

Nos. 1987, 1991, 1946, \ H ^^^^ Jt^^>^l \/f^^^\^)^^ 

1993, 484, 1979, 1862, 
1842 and 1822 of the 
illustrations in Itios, here 
roughly shown (p. 647). 
Nos. 1 99 1 and 1993 are taken not from a " whorl " but from a terra- 
cotta ball. I shall have more to say about this. 230 is off a vase. 
There are some whorls still, in which the intention of the whorl- 
scratcher is not so well expressed ; and that intention can now only 
be inferred by comparison with the others. Such are Nos. 1834, 
1842, 1853, and 195 1, with which I do not trouble the reader. 
I cannot embrace the theory {Ilios, p. 413) that No. 484 is either a 
cuttle-fish or a tortoise ; Dr. Schliemann is no doubt correct in 





No. 1837. 



No. 1 83 J 



' See an engraving of the full scene in Verrall and Harrison's I\Iyth. of And. Athens, 
V- 457- 



646 



The Night 



of the Gods. 



[^Bicddhd^ 




are in point, 
directions in 



saying (p. 417) that " in the pattern 1862 we see the sign y-| , the 
reversed suastika, repeated ; only its branches are here curved, and 
the centre of this curious cross is occupied by a circle with a point." 
The suastika is, " to the best of my belief" (see the chapter on the 
subject), a symbol of the revolution of the Universe, and embraces 
also the indication of the four cardinal points. 

There is, however, a straight-rayed chakra on other footprints. 

Such is that from the Amaravati Tope already here 

mentioned, and figured by Mr. James Fergusson. 

It is repeated in Ilios (p. 349) and here follows a 

rough sketch of that particular chakra. There is 

no lack of corresponding markings on the Trojan 

whorls. Nos. 18 17, 18 18, 1820, and 1995 in Itios 

and exhibit at the same time the four cardinal 

an unmistakable manner. Nos. 1824, 1829, 1831 

and 1835 are equally clear examples ; and so are 

1 82 1 and 1828, which resemble each other, and 

1 84 1 , which shows another variety of pattern. The 

following sketch of 1835 sufficiently indicates the 

design on that whorl. No. 1991, already given, 

seems to combine both the straight and the curved 

rays. Of course, the black spots in the centres of 

the whorls denote the hole through which passed the spindle-stick, 

when the whorls were used as weights to aid in effecting the spinning. 

I shall just add here a quite different type of 

wheel, taken from a terra-cotta ball, not a Vv'horl, 

found at Hissarlik. 

Here is the wheel of an ox-cart from a Thracian 
coin of the fifth century B.C., believed to be the 
earliest representation of an Aryan wheel now- 
extant.^ Solid wooden waggon wheels are still 
in Portugal in which the two wheels are worked, 
with the axle attached, out of one straight log of a tree, 
in one piece, the centre part being hewn away." 

[It is worth while referring to what is given in the 
Appendix (p. f) regarding the brontia and the " Serpent's-egg." 





^ Head Historia Nunwniiii, p. i8o. 

- Dr. I. Taylor's Orig. of the Aryans, l8t,o, p. l8o. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



Footprint ?\ The Chakra as Wheel of the Law. 647 




1979 (top). 




1979 (side). 




* 



1 8^2. 





4S4. 



1987. 





1946. 




199,3- 




1862. 




1991. 



1822. 



VOL. II. 



648 The Night of the Gods. [Buddha s 

Van Boot/ writing of the Serpent-stone, which the Bohemians 
called Duchanek, and held in such great esteem for its magic powers, 
said it was nothing but the spinning-weight (peson) used by women 
on their spindle, in order the better to make the thread twist, and to 
prolong its twirling. " I recollect thirty-six years ago," he says, 
" when I lived as a child in Flanders, to have seen with the women 
many similar pcsons."] 

' Le Parfoict loaillier, Lyons, 1644, P- 443- 



Foofpriut7\ The Suastika. 649 



The Suastika. 

THE late justly celebrated Dr. Schliemann arrived at the 
conclusion that all the many thousands of Whorls gathered 
by him at Hissarlik in the course of years had served as votive 
offering's. This verdict was strongly supported by Mr. H. Rivett 
Carnac, who wrote upon the many similar " clay discs called 
spindle-whorls " found at Sankisa and at other Buddhist ruins in 
the N.W. Provinces of India.^ The designs cut on many of the 
Indian whorls are identical with those of the Trojan examples. It 
is worth noting that Sankisa was already connected with a 
Buddha's footprint, and therefore presumably with the chakra, by 
Sung-yun 1500 years ago (p, 626). Similar whorls are possessed 
by the Pelew islanders of the Pacific ; they give them a supernatural 
origin, and use them as money of high value. Such whorls have 
also been found in the Swiss lake-dwellings, with the spindle-stick 
still remaining fixed in them. Professor Sayce seems to concur in 
Dr. Schliemann's conclusion.- My theory is "the same, but 
different." 

I fancy that the populations that made and used these whorls 
in their manual domestic industry were profoundly penetrated 
by a very living belief in the connection between the spinning 
round of the whorl and the supremely adorable revolution of 
the heavens. Their devotional feelings would have been akin 
to those which we see surviving in such vigour at the present day 
among the Tartar and Thibetan Buddhists and Lamas, where 
everyone is ever and always turning a praise-wheel, or cylinder, or 
barrel, or some other similar machine, to gain m.erit and perform 
worship. Hand-toys of this kind are the very commonest of 
objects. One pictures the spinners of those far-gone days as 
happy in the simple faith that they too gained merit by the twirl- 
ing of the whorl rather than by the busy labour of their fingers ; 
and that they would by no means have held with Mrs. Browning's 
" Get work, get work ; 'tis better than what }-ou work to get." 
From this point of view it is easy to attribute the symbols on the 

^ Journal As. Soc. Beiii^al, 1880. 

- Troja (1884), ])]). xviii ; 39 to 41 ; 106, 300. 

V 2 



6 so 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Bitddhd s 



whorls to a sacred origin, and to bracket them with the now 
cryptic formula of the praise-wheel : om mani padme hum. The 
symbolism of many of the whorls, as I have shown in the chapter 
on the " Footprint," has reference to the revolving Universe-wheel, 
and T must now exhibit specimens of another class which clearly 
adopt the Suastika, an emblem which I have already sought to 
identify (p. 646) with the same great turnabout. The seven 

following designs represent whorls on which the suastika y~| or 

some resemblant scratch appears ; they are all taken from Dr. 
Schliemann's Ilios. There are many more, either similar (with 
a difference^ or else much more rude. I have pointed out 

and endeavoured to account for the reversed suastika rT~ by a 

reference to the southern hemisphere, the underworld of the 
infernal powers (p. 670). Whether the arguments will have 
convinced other students of the subject I cannot say, but the 
Trojan whorls supply a great number of examples of what I 
venture to call the more evil emblem. The following outlines 
sufficientl)- indicate the class referred to. No. 1999 is not from a 




:2iS. 





1868. 
From 1872. 



1S51. 



From 191 1. 



;v r^ %^ ^^ 




'-IS 

IS74. 



r^e -?i tL 



1949- 



1999. 



Footprint ?\^ 



The Snastika. 



651 





1849 Ilios. 



^>i7j- 




1859 (chipped) 





1850 and 1852. 



1990. 



6^2 



The Night of the Gods. 



\_Biiddha s 



whorl but from a ball ; and 12 1 8 is from a vase cover. Only one 
whorl is given here complete ; the remaining figures are picked out 
of others. The double end to one of the four points of the emblem, 
which occurs twice on each of the whorls numbered 1872 and 191 1, 
can scarcely be accidental or a mere slip of the hand ; but one 
must be slow to build upon this, because the incisions or scratches 
are very rude, and also because examples of a mixed emblem, half 
right and half reversed, are common. Whether this — and even 
whether the total reversal was due to ignorance, carelessness, or 
design, who shall now say ; but supposing it to be due to design, 
we may perhaps see in this variety of the suastika (if I may loosely 
employ a now convenient term) a combination of the supernal 
and infernal emblems : or, again — -for it is well-known that the 
reversed suastika was used as a female symbol — an epicene emblem 
embracing the male and female duality of most of the primeval 
cosmogonies.^ I now insert some drawings of this mixed symbol, 
all again taken from Dr. Schliemann's wonderful Ilios (1880) : — 



i85i. 



iS6j. 



1865. 



1866. 



1870. 



.4n '^ -^ dP r£ '=51 




1991. 




It will be seen that 1871 shows what must be meant for the 
right suastika, in rude but cursive form, four times over; that there 
are also four crosses, which I take to be a simpler form of the four 

^ I have already under the heading of "The Palace" suggested yet another 
theory, which is not without its weight and its attractions ; and it is in no wise incon- 
sistent with the present considerations. 



Footpriut?\ 



The Suastika. 



65. 



rays of the wheel ; and that the mixed symbol occurs but once. 
To the foregoing I add four examples of the pure right and pure 
reversed suastika, occurring together on the same whorl : 



1S79. 




Near Vishegrad in Bosnia, at Zejeb, a group of mason's- 
marks (?) is cut in the rocks, and excites the wonder of many a 
traveller.^ Among them is the following, which is identical with 



1947. 



rP^ 



Ri 



the divisions of the globe on p. 162, and resembles the figures on 
these whorls. This curved cross or suastika must thus, I incline 
to say, represent the cardinal division of the sphere, and the 
curvature may be simply spherical ; or, do they represent four 
ivings ? Not alone that, but may not the angular suastika be a 
merely stiffened, conventional development of the curved .symbol ? 
But upon this again see " The Palace." 

To these is appended a corresponding example from the 
Buddha footprints at Amaravati. It is taken from one heel (the 

' J. de Asboth : Bosnia and I/ci-ic^ovina, 1S90, p. 2S. 



654 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Bnddhds 



right ?) ; and the similar pair of suastikas on the other heel are 
both " right." In fact, of the eleven suastikas now 
discernible on this pair of footprints, only the one given 
here is reversed. But by far the most miscellaneous 
assortment of these mixed emblems is to be found 
on the central, the equatorial, band of a terra-cotta 
ball No. 245 {Ilios, p. 349). I here reproduce the band, and shall 
perhaps have something to say regarding the ball later on. 

246. 




245. 246^^ 



The etymology of the word suastika is, it is suggested, as 
follows. The syllable su is the same as in the excellent, j-//perior, 
5//pernal mountain j-zz-lMeru, to which is opposed the evil, infernal 
m.ountain Ku-Meru (p. f) ; e^s is the verb to be, to live ; and 
titli, fire, it is timidly suggested, also appears in the term. Simi- 
farl}', one concludes that the T/Vans were fire-gods, not Sun-gods 
which would make them central deities, and so connect them 
with their central Kronos (p. f). If a possible fire origin for the 
term su-astika could thus be conceded, etymologically, it can I think 
be supported b\- other evidence. Ad. Kiihn in Die Herabkuvft des 
Feuers says it represents rhe wooden 
apparatus for the production of fire men- 
tioned so often in the \"edic hymns ; 
suggesting that the elbows at the points 

I q" '^ were for nailing it down, while the end of 

I I I another stick, the pramantha, was twirled 

with a cord in the central cavity until fire 
was produced. Emile Burnouf concurred in 
this.^ So much has already been said upon 
the nave of the wheel in connection with the production of fire 
that it need be only here remarked that Kiihn's theory is, although 
partial, not inconsistent with what is here advanced. The drawing 
of the Hindu suastika (which it will be seen is reversed) is taken 
from M. Gustave Dumoutier's excellent paper in the Revue 
iVEtlinograpJiie, 1885. The root mat, to whirl [iiiatli, to churn) 
seems to betray itself in pramantha ; and of course the same 
pramantha is said b}' some to ha\e been the origin of the myth of 

• Science dcs A\//^'., p. ::56. t See Index tu References before Index. 



Footpriiit.\ The Suastika. 655 

Prometheus ; and J/^t/arishvan also brought fire from heaven for 
Manu. 

I should also wish to mention the theory of Mr. R. P. Greg, 
who has devoted much time to the subject. He argues that the 
right and the reversed s}'mbols are identical, and that they were 
the emblem of the supreme Aryan god, Dyaus or Zeus, originally 
the Bright Sky god, who came more especially to mean the god 
of both sky and air, and the controller of rain, wind, and lightning 
— as in Jupiter tonans and Jupiter pluvius. Later the symbol 
belonged to Indra, the rain-god in India (still according to Mr. 
Greg)"; to Thor or Donnar among the early Scandinavians and 
Teutons; and to Perrun or Perkun among the Slavs {Troja, 
p. 124). The distinguished Scandinavian scholar and antiquary Mr. 
George Stephens has figured and described in his Old Northern 
Runic Monuments a Viking's runic sword, found in a barrow in 

1825, on which the suastika M-i vvas employed as a phonetic for 
Thur (/.t'. Thor) in the sword-owner's name Thurmuth. The sign, 
he says, is " also found on early Christian monuments for the 
divine Lord in the new creed, Christus. Just so we write Xmas 
but pronounce Christmas."^ This is an extremely interesting 
observation. 

Agincourt in his Histoire de TArt par les Monuments gives a 
suastika from a granite slab in the catacombs. 

Far be it from me to go counter to these theories. As the 
reader of these pages will have seen, I go even farther back ; 
referring the suastika to the wheel, and the wheel to the supreme 
heavens-deity who controlled the revolution at the polar centre of 
motion. Of course this wheel-origin does not exclude, but really 
coincides with the simple four-spoked " rose " formed by the 
N. and S. line as it crosses the E. and W. line. The palace too 
(if that be one of the significant allusions in the suastika) revolves 
like and with the infinite Universe-wheel (see p. 584). 

In the"Hittite" rock-sculptures near Ibreez or Ivris in the 
territory of ancient Lykaoniathe garment of a priest is ornamented 
with the suastika. It is found times without number on the pre- 
historic pottery of Cyprus and the Trojan plain, writes Professor 
Sayce,- " but no trace of it has ever yet been found on anything 

' See The Academy, loth Aug., 1889. 

- The Hittites, p. 142, and Letter to me dated 13th May, 1889. < 



6c6 'T/ic N^iglit of tkc Gods. \Bucidlias 



genuinely Eo-yptia;n. Assyrian, Phoenician, or Babylonian." This is 
very swe-v-ping. 

It has been discovered, says Captain Conder, on the rocks of 
Rumbold's Mow, among mediaeval mason's-marks, and is now a 
caste-mark among the Hindu worshippers of Vishnu. It has also 
been found on Assyrian bas-reliefs, and in Attica {Heth and 
Moab, 228). 

After all that has been said here upon the subject of Chinese 
astrology, no surprise need be felt at finding the emblem in the 

Chinese celestial sphere. It 



/9z 

is called Pa-kui, the eight 

chiefs ; and consists of eight 

stars, besides a central one, 

as shown in the drawing. 

These stars are a, e, /m, and 

three others stars of Phcenix, 



« 



*/^ 



with xxiii, 192 and 259 of Piazzi's catalogue, and another star in 
the southern Pisces. The Mongols call it the eight demons that 
preside over brigands ; and perhaps they are right, for it is a 
southern, that is an infernal, constellation, and the figure it gives is 
the reversed suastika. This, too, is the form of the archaic 

Chinese character f\^ now otherwise written (^ Wan), which 
meant a hive of bees with their queen. Reference is begged to 
what is said about bees, p. t ; and also the number 10,000 (p. f). 
The Chinese name for the suastika which is marked upon the 
breast oi Buddha is Wan-tsze, the 10,000 character, from which the 
Sinico-Japanese Man-ji is a corruption, and it has been already 
pointed out that the Japanese Man-ji or " 10,000 sign" ought 
perhaps to be rendered the All (p. 538); but that sign is what we 

have been calling the "right" suastika j-J^ . It may perhaps 
some day turn out that, after all both have often been indis- 
criminately used, and that it is, as above hinted (p. 652), now 
difficult enough to reclassify all the various ramifications of the 
sign. Be this as it may, the (reversed) suastika is said to survive 
in the 24th Chinese radical, sheh -)- . T\\<i Shuo [F^;/, as cited by 
M. Gustave Dumoutier,' says that the horizontal line is East and 
West, the upright line North and South ; and that thus the four 

• Rev. Ethnogr., ut supra. + See Index to References before Index. 



Footprint^ 



The Suastika. 



657 




quarters of the world and its centre, that is to say, the entire 
universe, is included in the sign. Liu sheh, a literati of the 
seventeenth century who became a Christian, said that on ancient 
vases the same sign was employed in place of the three, or four, 
characters which mean the origin of vegetable life, the renewal of 
all things, and that which perpetuates itself (Ts'ai Y , Kia ^ , and 
Tsai ^ or Ts'un ^). Thus, said Liu sheh, the character sheh J- 
comprises all these things : the origin, existence and perp2tuity, 
or infinite renewal, of life.^ 

Here is inserted the Japanese Manji, as it appears in the 
cognisance of the Hachisuka family, copied 
from an excellent paper on " Japanese 
Heraldry " in the Transactio)is of the Asiatic 
Society of Japan (v. i), by Mr. T. R. H. 
McClatchie, and this is what he says about it : 

" The Manji badge of Awa is curious. 

This figure is drawn thus pj2_ - a'ld some- 
times, but less frequently, thus M-i . It is 

taken from a Chinese character meaning 
10,000, and is a Buddhist symbol supposed 

to be emblematical of good luck. It is frequently to be seen on 
Buddhist temples as a sign of Fudo Sama, the motionless Buddha. 
It was often marked upon the lids of coffins, to act as a charm 
against the attacks of a demon. An exact fac-simile of this figure 
is also to be met with in European heraldry, but it is a very rare 
" charge." It is there termed a Fylfot, but nothing is known as 
to its origin ; the only description given in heraldic works being 
that it is supposed to have been a mystic symbol. 

I would venture to suggest that in the suastika's Japanese 
name Manji, the i/.-r/z-sign, the word man should not be rendered 
" 10,000." " The All," Pan, the Universe, would be better equiva- 
lents. Man, ^ or 7/ means " myriad " and " all," as well as 
1 0,000. 

Here is given Mr. McClatchie's drawing of the Fylfot, adding 
two others from Mr. Charles Boutell's English Heraldry (1879; 
which describes the Fylfot as 



C'lest of the Hachisuka 

family (Daimios of Awa 

in Shikoku. ) 



' Rev. Ethnogr. , tit supra. 



658 



The Night of the Gods. 



Buddha s 





The Fylfot 

(from Trans. As. Soc. 

Japan, vol. v.) 



Fylfots from 
Bomeirs Em^/ish 
Heraldry (1879). 



detecting the origin of origins of 



" A peculiar cruciform figure, supposed to have a mystic 

signification, found in mili- 
tary and ecclesiastical decor- 
ations in England, and on 
Eastern coins, &c. The 
latter example is from the 
monument of Bishop Brons- 
combe in Exeter Cathedral " 
(p. 126). 

Are we here, at last^ 
this fylfot ? In Le Grand 
d'Aussy's well-known Vie Privce des Francais^ I have met with 
the curious remark that the different parts of wind-mills, so 
frequently found in old heraldry, were brought by the crusaders 
from Asia, where windmills were invented. His editor, De Roque- 
fort, repeatedly searched the Armorial General and other heraldic 
books without, he strangely affirms, ever finding trace of such a 
heraldic sign. Le Grand d'Aussy must, however, have referred to 
the fylfot ; and also to the anile or fer de moulin, ferrum molen- 
dinare,- which appears in English heraldry as the " fer-de-moline " 
or mill-rind, the iron grip of the eye or central hole of a mill- 
stone.'' Mr. C. Boutell makes this emblem a modification of the 
Cross-Moline, which is properly the croix anillee or crux Molen- 
I. 2. 





dinaris. It resembles the cross borne b}' the Melin family; and 
may clearly come from the cosmic symbolism of the great Uni- 
verse-mill. The crux Molendinaris may establish a connection 
between the arms of a windmill and the suastika. 

' Vol. i. p. 62, c(l. of 1815. 

- Baron : V Art Ha-aldiquc, Paris, 1687, pp. 44, 95, 187 

^ BoutelTs English Heraldry, 1879, pp. 121, 126. 



Footprint. \ The Suastika. 659 

No. I. Az, a cross moline or; borne by De Molines or 
Molyneux (Boutel!, p 56). 

No. 2. Maltese cross of eight points, 1521 (Boutell, 57). 

No. 3. D'azur a la croix a seize pointes d'argent borne by the 
Melin family (Baron's VArt Hcraldiquc, 1687, p. 49). 

No. 4. " Fer-de-moline or mill-rind. The iron affixed to the 
centre of a millstone ; a modification of the cross-moline." [This 
last must be questioned] (Boutell, p. 121). 

The arms of the windmill idea, combined with the lucky 
influence of the Suastika, induces me to see in the little windmill 
or little toy-man on a pole, whose windmill "arms" are still 
twirled by the breeze in gardens, not a bird-scarer but a lucky 
engine and charm against the evil eye. Much symbolism still 
remains to be explained from the Mill idea, as in the water-wheel, 
for example. 

As regards what Mr. McCIatchie says about good luck, there 
can be no doubt whatever that the suastika or manji, or fylfot, or 
whatever we choose to call it, was freely and universally used as a 
talisman. Its use on seals is clearly of this nature. It occurs, 
reversed, on a slightly-baked clay seal found at Hissarlik (No. 496 
Ilios,^^. 414, 415), with the arms curved round into spirals, some- 
what like No. 1868 above drawn ; and seven terra-cotta seals have 
been found at Pilim in Hungary with either the right or the 
reversed sign ; one of these seals even shows two of each {Ftios, 
p. 562). It is found on the chest of the horse in a Cypriot terra- 
cotta equestrian statuette in the Louvre, just in the position in 
which the Moslem horsemen now suspend the crescent as an 
amulet.^ 

Wuttke in his Deiitscher Aberglatibc (p. 268) says that in 
Oldenburg a Wheel is put on the gable, or else near the door, to 
protect a house from bewitching. MM. Jourdain and Duval, 
writing of the " symbolic wheels " of the cathedrals of Amiens and 
Beauvais,- attribute the origin of the rose windows which began 
to appear in the gables of Gothic cathedrals in the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries to nothing else but the lucky wheel, the wheel 
of Fortune. These last two points, as well as many others on the 
subject of the Wheel, are taken from M. Henri Gaidoz's able and 
attractive Dicu Gaiilois dn Soleil {I'^'^G). 

' Ileuzey, p. 153. " Bulletin Aloiiunieii/al, 1S45, ^'' 59~64. 



66o 



The Night of the Gods. 



\_Buddhdi 



It is stated in UWie's Buddha and Early BuddJiisvi (pp. 7, 9, 22, 
227) that the suastika is seen in old Buddhist zodiacs, and is one 
of the symbols in the Asoka inscriptions ; that it is the sacred 
mark of the Jains, and that Vishnu-worshippers have the same 
sacred sign. He adds that it occurs also in the early Christian 
catacombs. 

It has likewise been pointed out that as the old Hebrew letter 

tan it was marked as the sign of life on the forehead in Ezekiel's 

vision (ix, 4, 6). I have found an ancient form of this Hebrew 

fi^mmm letter in the Thresor of Claude Duret (1619) p. 124, 

n^* which I here insert. Origen in his Homily In diversos, 

V# and St. Jerome, on Ezekiel, say that the tan of their days 

had the form of a cross. (Duret, p. 316). 

Professor Max Muller mentions some important facts on the 
subject of this suastika emblem, among others : 

It occurs often at the beginning of Buddhist inscriptions, on 
Buddhist coins, and in Buddhist manuscripts. It always means 
an. auspicious sign. In the footprints of Buddha the Buddhists 
recognise 65 auspicious signs, the first of them being the svas- 
tika. [This is taken from Eugene Burnouf's Le Loins de la 
Bonne Lot, p. 625 ; but although the suastika may be considered 
the first of the minor signs, the great central Wheel, as shown 
above, is undoubtedly the main great sign of t.he footprints. 

J. O'N.] The fourth is the sanvastika, r-j-', the third the nandya- 

varta, a mere development of the svastika. 
[I wonder whether the nandyavarta can be a 
sort of labyrinth of the " paths " leading to 
the holy centre typified by the middle of the 
suastika. J. O'N.] Among the Jainas the 
svastika was the sign of their 7th jina, 
suparsva ; and the 7th of the twenty-four 
Jaina Tirthankaras is also marked by the svas- 
tika. Some sthupas are said to have been 
built on the plan of a svastika, and the outline of certain buildings 
called svastika and nandyavarta does not correspond very exactly 
with the form of those signs, {llios, p. 346 ct scq) 

I confess I have not been able to satisfy myself as to the 



\^ 



fU 



"E. 



H 



ru 



::\ 



Nandyavarta. 



etymological meaning o{ sauvastika, as used by Prof. Muller. 



Footpj'int^^ 



The Siiastika. 



66 1 



J 



L 



J 



Moor in his Hindil Pantheon (plate 2) gave these, to which he 
gave no name, as being rare marks of Vishnu- 
worshippers, and belonging " rather to certain 
great families than to religious sects." This 
curiously accords with the Japanese use of the 
symbol as a family crest. 

This large symbol is taken from Moor's Hindu Pantheon 
(plate 2). He did not • 



A 



name it (no more 
than he did his two 
suastikas above) but 
says, as he did of 
them, that it " belongs 
rather to certain great 
families than to 
religious sects." 

Sir Monier Wil- 
liams says^ that the 
suastika is a kind of 
curtailed form of the 
Buddhist wheel, and 
may be supposed to 
consist of four spokes 
and a portion of the 
circumference . . . and I must further note here, with reference 
to what has been said above as to the female principle, that the 



U 



^ 



reversed suastika, in this position 



/^ is 



traced on the triangular 



vulva shield of a leaden statuette of the Chaldean goddess Nana 
(Artemis) found at Hissarlik — that is in the same locality as 
the whorls — and figured at p. 337 of Dr. Schliemann's Ilios 
(see also p. 694). It is also found in a raised circle, like this 
on the belly of an owl-headed, feminine, Trojan vase, supposed 
to represent a similar goddess.- 



' Rel. Thought and Life in India, 
^ Troja, p. 191. 



1 04. 



662 The Night of the Gods. \Biiddhds 



The Labyrinth. 

THE current derivation of labyrinth is unsatisfying, if not 
eccentric : " Put for \aFupiv6o<i ; from XaFpa, usually Xavpa, 
a lane, alley, Homer, Od. xxii, 128." This does not deal with the 
termination -pivOo'^, nor does it get us very far with the word 
Xd^ipo<i a pitfall, or labrum, "poetically [i.e. mythologically ?] a 
ditch with a raised bank of earth : IMoeniaque in valli formam 
circumdata labro (Ausonius, Be Clar. Urbib. v, 9)." This word 
the dictionaries chose to make, came from lambo, to lap (!) ; but 
labrum (with a differing quantity) a vat or bath, they brought from 
lavo, to wash (!). Of course the words are identical, and as for the 
quantity, nous nous en fichons, 

Liddell and Scott says \d^pv<; is a Lydian word and = TreXe/cu? 
(citing Plut. ii, 302A), which was an axe for felling trees, with two 
edges ; also a sacrificial axe and an executioner's axe : but not a 
battle-axe proper. These meanings apply of course to TreXe/cvi, 
which Mr. Wharton in his Etynia GrcEca puts to the old-Irish lee 
stone ; which oddly enough brings us back again to the stone- 
weapon. 

There are a number of mythic names in Lab- which a priori 
ouo-ht to be connected. Such are Labda, Labdakos, Labrados, 
Labros, Labes, and others. 

Labdakos (grandson of Kadmos) was father of Laios, and they 
were both kings of the heavens {id. quod Thebes). Labdacidae 
were particularly famous in ancient story, wrote Dr. Leonard 
Schmitz, on account of the misfortunes of all of them (Sophocles, 
Antigone, 560; Stat. Theb. vi, 451). That is, according to the 
theories here urged, they were all fallen supernal gods. 

Labda was the daughter of Amphion, who was also a king of 
the heavens, and a son of Zeus. Amphion (which it is elsewhere 
suggested means Dual-Being) is a supreme god of Universe- 
harmony (a doublet of Orpheus, who was also turned to Rock), 
dominates the brute creation with his lyre, and by his harmony 
builds up the firmament, that is charms the stones into stacking 
themselves without other aid to form the walls of Thebes. In the 
myth of Labda (Herod, v, 59, 92 ; i, 14, 20, 23), her infant Ku^/reXo?, 



Footprint.^ The Labyrinth. 66 



J 



Kadmos 

Poludorcs 

I 
Labdakos 

Laios 



who passes round from hand to hand until he returns (through ten) 
to his mother, is clearly a revolving-heavens myth. 

Laws. — The clue to the meaning of Ldios is afforded unwittingly 
by Herodotus (v, 92), where he says that 'Her/oy 
was the son of 'E;^e«:/5aT7;9 of the tribe of Petra (the 
Rock) but whose ancestors were AairiOai. The 
Lapithai were of Olympus, that is of the heavens, 
and fought the Centaurs in a war-in-heaven. As 
to Lapithes we have certainly XdiraOo'? and \d7rad0v 
a trench, which may run parallel to Xa/3i/309 the pit- 
fall ; but it seems to me that with the clue of irerpa, 
and the fact that Laios can come from T^a'i, a stone-pillar, we 
must detect in Lapithes (the Latin) lapis a stone, which persisted 
in the Greek as Xd-a^ and (tt and all) as XeTra? a bare rock, clifif, 
or scaur. The Lapithai were thus clearly stone-deities ; and Laios 
would be the god of the stone-pillar, king of the heavens. When 
the ten Bacchiades, too, set out to kill Kupselos, they arrive 
in the canton of The Rock, trerpa, and enter the house of Eetion. 
Laas, too, say Liddell and Scott, is used " especially of stones 
thrown by warriors " ; which completely suits the idea of a 
god's missile hurled and falling to Earth. It was also applied 
to the (heavens-)stone of Sisyphus. The " original form," say 
Liddell and Scott, however, "wasXafa9; and a connection with 
X/^09 and lapis seems impossible." But then, I ask, how about 
Xe7ra9 ? 

Lapithes was son of Apollon, brother of Kentauros, and father 
of Phorbas, Triopas, and Pen'phas. The Lapithai were governed 
by Pein'thoos (whose myth wants studying) the son of Ixion and 
half-brother of Kentauros. We are here clearly among none but 
supreme heavens-gods of the stone, central, triad, wheel, and circle 
categories. 

Labrados is the brother of Ataburis ; and both are connected 
closely with Zeus. It would here take us too far to follow-up 
(Zeus) Ataburios, Labradeos, Labrandeos, &c., which seem to be 
fusions of other gods in assimilating, syncretic Zeus. As Labradeos 
he held a hatchet (of stone, of course, see p. 112) instead of lightning 
or the sceptre. 

This hatchet seems to have been called Xd/3pv<;, which must 
mean falleti from heaven — a meteorite in fact, a stone-weapon of 
the gods.^~~~^ 

VOL. II. G 



664 The Night of the Gods. [^Buddha s 

This \d^pv<; is taken from a ridiculous book, Noel's Diction7iaire 
historique et etyniologique des Nov is Grecset Roviains {\%o6 ; p. 195). 
He hardly ever cites a source ; but says that Arsalis, king of 
Caria, conqueror of Kandaules, king of the Lydians, brought back 
the battle-axe of the kings of Lydia which was called labrys ; 
whence Zeus was called Labradeos in Caria. In his Dictionnaire 
de la Fable (1803) the word labrys is not given, but he records that 
the hatchet belonged to Herakles, who gave it to Omphale, queen 
of Lydia [of course, she is a central goddess at the omphalos tes 
ges] whence it passed through the line of the Lydian monarchs 
down to Kandaules, when it fell into the hands of the Carians, who 
armed their Zeus with it. 

Another account is that of ^Elianus, who says labradeus came 
from the violent rains that fell at Labrada ; which is not wholly 
absurd, for it retains the idea oi falling. 

As to the usual derivation of labradeos from 'Kd/Spo^;, a glutton, 
it may reasonably be suggested that the taproot of the matter goes 
farther down. Labros, a dog of Actaion, runs in a couple with his 
other dog Argos. What if Argos were the dog of the upper 
(Northern) heavens, and Labras the dog of the infernal regions 
of the dead ? They would then go on all fours with the Egyptian 
" jackals " of the North and South (see Dogs, p. j). Labrados 
was a Carian god. The " gluttony " may be because of his being 
the god of the infernal regions, which are never sated with the 
dead, as he was never sated with human and other victims. The 
words labiros, pitfall ; and lapathos, the pit, would then fall into 
their places ; and we should perhaps be driven to search for our 
root in the rare and very classic, and therefore (perhaps) ancient 
word labes, " a fall," as in the fall of the rain from the heavens, 
labes imbris e ccelo (Arnobius v, 185) ; an idea we have just had 
otherwise. The root is " 7'ab or lab (= lap), to droop, hang-down, 
slip, glide, fall" (Skeat : who cites Fick, 1,751 ; VaniCek, 791 ; 
and who, aptly enough for the present occasion, gives limbo for one 
of the examples). 

The sense " droop, hang-down " accords very closely and 
strangely with the idea of the " inverted precinct " and the bent 
mountain (pp. t and f). In the first — the inverted or infernal 
mountain — we have a wholly different idea from the bent, that 
is the over-arched mountain of the upper heavens; but the 

t See Index tc References before Index. 



Footprint.'\ The Labyrinth. 665 

sense of drooping or hanging- down can be, and probably was, 
applied to both. And here one might say that the detection of 
the inner meaning of a myth very much resembles the guessing of 
a riddle, or rather of that archaic, primitive, childish form of the 
riddle called the devinaille — a word that hides both the idea of 
hohness and guessing, of divine and divining. 

Labyrinth would thus be the many-chambered infernal regions ; 
and we should have a striking parallel in the Egyptian Amenti, 
where the sinuous path followed by the dead in their progress from 
death to resurrection is indicated by the loops of the serpent Mehen 

P- . Mehen ^ cr-zi is also the dwelling of Osiris (Asar, 
Ausar) in the Per-eui-Jiru (cxlii, 12); and Mehen I— ^ D and 



n 0} ^^ given as " couronne, ^aa-iXela {Caiiope 28: 56)" by 
M. Pierret^ ; still " couronne, diademe " is given by Brugsch as 
Meh °^ S c>^ and =^ QH and °-^ § ^ . (This last would 
indicate the crown of the north ?) (Another name for this 
serpent of the many loops is Apep □ □ V;^ which the Greeks 

made into Apophis (apep or apap n n 7:^ ^^so means to run).^ 
It is noteworthy that \a^vpLudo<; was used for " any wreathed or 
coiled-up body, €LvdXLo^\aj3vpcvdo<;, the twisted sea-snail, ^;^^'/^c»/iS'^/(^ 
Planudia, p. 6, 224 " (Liddell and Scott). We get this labyrinth 
idea another way from the twelve " horary sections " of the Book 
of the Inferior Hemisphere, which are also the twelve fields which 
the dead cultivate below in their progress towards resurrection.'^ 
Herodotus (ii, 148) says the Egyptian Labyrinth had twelve 
vaulted halls, and could be entered only subterraneously. This 
is almost decisive. All ancient labyrinths were described as wholly 
or partially underground. The Egyptian labyrinth was much 
earlier than Herodotus thought* The 3,000 (= 10 x 300) apart- 
ments or compartments of the labyrinth of Herodotus exhibit a 
curious accord with the myth of Cypselus, and the fact that half 
was North and half South, half under and half over-ground, is an 
inevitable indication of the upper and under heavens. 

The stronghold of Oeth and Ann-oeth in Welsh myth is a huge 

' Vocal). Hicr., 232, 231. - Ebers (Baedeker) 125 ; Pienet, Diet. 331. 

* Devenia, Catal. J/SS. 

* See Pliny, I/.N., xxxvi, 13 ; Diod. Sic, i, 61, 89 ; Strabo xvii, p. 811. 

G 2 



666 The Night of the Gods. [^Buddhds 



beehive-shaped prison, elaborate in numerous compartments both 
under and over ground. Its walls are wholly built of human 
bones,^ and it was built by Mana-wydhan, the enemy of Merlin. 
Majmm-\3.n is his Irish match, both are great gods ; and we may 
perhaps see Maine in both names. 

Herodotus (ii, 148) could not obtain admission to the real 
labyrinth, the underground portion, where they told him royal 
Pharaohs and holy crocodiles were interred. The Minotaur was 
also interred in the Cretan underground labyrinth. 

Minos was son of (Zeus) Asterios and consort of Pasi-phae 
(All-shine). He was father of Ari-adne (who led The-seiis out of 
the labyrinth and ascended into the heavens) ; of Phaidra {(^al- in 
all such names = brilliance) consort of Theseus ; of Androgeos ; 
and of Deukalion, a founder of the labyrinth, of which Dai'dalos is a 
builder. Have we in AaLSaXo^ and Aac-SaXa a couplet of central 
stone- or dolmen-gods ? (Deus + dallan, dalle, etc., see p. 270.) 

Then we have Pasiphae as mother of Minotauros or Man- 
Bull, who was not (nor is he) hard to seek and find in Nineveh. 
Minotauros was shut up in the labyrinth, or by another account 
engulphed in a labrum (a "bath" as it is called) with the aid 
of Cocalus (compare Kcokut6<;). Minotauros was also a god of 
cannibalistic sacrifices. The Seven couples of youths and 
maidens immolated (and eaten) to him yearly, are nothing 
but the celestial Seven (as dual entities) expounded in this 
Inquiry, finding expression in the acme of supremest ritual. 

Cicero {Favi. xii, 25) splits Minotaurus into Calvisius and 
Taurus. In that case Calvisius equals the "bald" heavens; just 
as they are arid in p. f. 

The brazen cow which holds Pasiphae is no other than the 
metallic firmament which coincides with and contains the All- 
brilliant heavens, for which the Cow is another most familiar 
Eastern symbol. 



It is here humbly suggested that Book of Resurrection is as 
good a title as any for the Peremhru ; which would thus literally 
mean " Arising-as-the-Day " (arises). Champollion said, " Mani- 
festation a la Lumiere " ; E. de Rouge, " Manifestation au Jour"; 
Dr. Birch, " Manifestation to the Light," but also Coming-forth 

' Rhys's Hib. Lects., 667, 337. f See Inde.x to References before Index. 



Footprint ?\ The Labyrinth. 667 

from (or as) the Daj^ {Egypfs Place, v, 161 to 171). Theodule 
Deveria (upon whom be fame !) wrote Permharu and gave a sense 
for per-m of sortir en (a I'etat de) that is " issue as." Per means to 
issue, to come-out, to appear, to come-up (as vegetation); and 
therefore in permharu it may signify, it is submitted, to rise, as 
the heavenly bodies do (in the East) from the under-hemisphere. 
(Th. Deveria: Catal. MSS. (i 881), 49; Pierret : Diet. 319; Vocab. 
151.) The sense ^' go-owt fro7n the day," seems untrue and con- 
torted. 

These infernal fields, this labyrinth, with the soul passing 
through it to the resurrection of day, seem to me to furnish a 
better explanation of the game of Hop Scotch than that given 
at p. 6^6 as progress through the various heavens. The " game " 
may have been originally a meritorious work (like the adoration- 
wheel) for the aiding of the " souls in purgatory " in their upward 
progress. We should thus have the Egyptian Amenti as, in this 
point of view, a straight type of the Christian purgatory for the 
souls of the just ; while the Egyptian hell of torments^ equals the 
Christian hell of the damned. 

As for the termination of Xa^vpivQo'^, it may be identical with 
that of Koptv^o?, Corinth. Liddell and Scott suggest \xi)pivQo<i a 
cord, and 'TdKtv$o<i, Hyacinth, who was killed accidentally by the 
quoit or discus of Apollo. But after all, perhaps 7r\ivOo<;, " a brick 
or tile, a brick-shaped body, a plinth," is as good a word here, and 
as handy, as any. And, just for record, it may be noted that 
labynnihos and Atabyr'xs have a resemblance. 

I would also here draw attention to the phrase Ato? KoptvOo'i 
which, according to Hesychius, was proverbially said of those who 
were always doing and saying the same things. This perpetual 
repetition is a primary note of the powers of the revolving 
Universe. 

The shot that endeavours to bring down laburinthos from 

rpa-Rehent ^ vl 'i:;:;;;^ does not seem well-aimed" ; 

the determinative denotes water. 

Herodotus mentions a late Babylonian king called Labunetos, 
which seems to have been a tit/e of several Babylonian monarchs 
(Smith) ; and I trust for his own sake that the scoffer will not here 

1 Th. Deveria, Ca/aL A/SS., 30, 33, 34, 35, 4S, 88. 
- Pienet, /Vc/. 296 ; Vocal'. 302, 309. 



668 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Buddha! s 



bethink him to ask that Labrador may be accounted for ; because 
that is properly Ar/wrador — Tierra Labrador — arable land, was of 
the Spaniard's christening. 

Thus we have as the result the idea of a stone or a fall as 
follows : — 



labiros 

lapathos 

labes . 

Limbo 

labyrinth 

Laios . 

Labda. 

Labdakos 

Lapithai 

labradeos 

labrus . 



idea. 

fall. 

fall (?). 

fall. 

fallen. 

fallen. 

stone. 

stone (?). 

stone (?). 

stone. 

fallen and stone. 

fallen stone. 



Lapathos and Lapithai do not here well accord ; but can lapathos 
be the hole made by a heavens-stone? if so labrum, a trench 
with raised lips, would be the same ; and this would throw some 
light on the mode of disappearance of all the many deities that do 
disappear by plunging into the Earth. Encore une etoile qui file 
et disparait ! 

Of course a fall implies a height to fall-from. Thus the fall of 
the stone may be as important in mythology as it is in gravitation, 
and may thus challenge comparison with either the Newtonian or 
the Adamic fall of the apple. 

Another view of the "falling" may make it the "depending," 
the "down-hanging" half of the heavens. 

The labarum {Xd^apov) of Constantine must range itself in the 
same category of mythological words. Tt showed a crown or 
wreath (that is the circle of the wheel) ; a cross (the pre-Christian) ; 
and a monogram, which came to be called by a violent wrench 
of interpretation, a symbol of the name of Christ. (Prudentius I)i 
Synnnach, i, 488. Niaph. H.E. vii, 37.) Liddell and Scott say 
Constantine " added Christian emblems " to it. 

There is another decidedly curious and interesting point that 
somewhat unexpectedly here comes to my aid. Zeus precipitated 
the /cu/cX-wTre? (or wheel-eyes) into Tartaros, but they killed KdfMTnj 



Footprint^ The Labyi'inth. 669 

their gaoleress, and escaped to the upper day. Another myth 
makes Kampe the female warder of the Titans ; and Zeus kills her 
because she would not let them out to help him. So that Kampe's 
position in legend is well-established ; and I suggest, and draw 
especial attention to the suggestion, that it is that name that gave 
us the Elysii campi ; and as Kd^iirr] means " a winding, a bending, 
a turn," it has nothing whatever to do with the Champs Elysees as 
fields, but only as the windings of the underworld, the Labyrinth in 
fact, for which Ka/xirr] seems to be another, but lost, word. The 
Greek 'HXvaiov irehiov certainly does not hint at Ka/xTrrj ; but 
the meanings " plain or field " for irehiov must be quite secondary ; 
for example there is the river IleSaio? in Cyprus (which may be so 
called after the Trehiov of the underworld, and not because you can 
during most of the year foot its bed dry-shod). It is true that 
irehov is the ground, but it is also true that irehr) is a foot-shackle ; 
and TreSiov must be connected with the oblique cases of ttoO?, ttoSo'?, 
Latin pes, pedis, in the sense, perhaps, of path, wanderings a-foot. 
The shepherd's crook was a pedum. The Greek analogue would 
thus be 7rdTo<i, a way trodden and worn ; and the root would be 
pat, to go. Thus 'RXvaiov vreStoi/ would be the Elysian (foot-worn) 
path and x\o\. field. 

(I know not whether any connection could be established 
between Kampe and tlie Indian Champa, the capital of Anga, of 
which Kama was king. Champa was founded by Champa son of 
Anu, son of Yayati.) 

It seems quite provable that 'EA-eua/^ and 'HXucrtoy are one and 
the same. 

Mr. Aston directs my attention to the fact that "the Lower 
Regions have in the old Japanese stories the epithet ya-kuma, 
that is eight windings or many windings." 

I have, under the heading of "The Suastika," suggested that \X 
the nandyavarta may be the Labyrinth ; see the 
illustrations of the Nandyavarta there given. I 
know not whether my readers will find any con- 
firmation of this theory in a silver coin of the town 
of Knossos in Crete. The minotaur on the reverse 
is a bull-headed man kneeling on one knee, and 
either casting a round stone or holding the Universe 
in the hollow of his hand. (From Barthelemy, in Guigniaut's 
Creuzcr, plate 212). Another labyrinth, also from a coin of the 




670 



TJie Night of the Gods. 



\BiiddJid s 



same town, gives us a quite different conception. The word 
Yivwdiwv surrounds the design. " ChishuU : 
Antiq. Asiat. p. 127" (same plate of 
Guigniaut's work). 

Colebrooke figured the nandyavarta 
thus ; and Burnouf calls it also the nan- 
davartaya and gives it sense as " the for- 
tunate involution (enroulement) or circle." 
It is thus lucky, like the suastika and 
the tomoye. The Amara-Kosha, the oldest vocabulary known, 
makes it also the name of a particular sort of temple or sacred 
construction, and Burnouf says the nandyavarta of the Jains 




\V 



nJ 



V 



H 



H 



A 



TD 



n 



NANDYAVARTA. 



TROYEBORG SLOT. 



might pass for a kind of labyrinth.^ Mr. C. A. Holmboe remarks* 
that a similar figure is well-known in Norway as a children's game, 
which he has heard called " Troy-town castle," Troyeborg Slot, 
which may be considered as equivalent to Asgaard Slot. This is 
bringing the labyrinth exceedingly near to the hop-Scotch 
diagram. 

" THE DORIC FRET." I here open a parenthesis, or an 
interleaf — an Extrablatt as Jean Paul Richter used to call it — to 
indicate the connection between the heavens-palace and the 
meander or " Doric fret," which will again lead me on to the Indian 
nandya-varta as a symbol of the heavens-palace or Universe- 
building ; to the Labyrinth as an exponent in brick and mortar of 
the same supernal (and infernal) idea ; and to the suastika as a 
most universal emblem of the same import, but embracing also the 
cross of the cardinal points. 

The Labyrinth and the Suastika have had sections to themselves 



Lotus (ie la bonne Lot, p. 626. 



2 Buddhisme en Norvege (1S57), p. 35, 



Footprint ?\ The Labyrinth. 671 



already, so mention is here made of them only incidentally, to the 
extent absolutely required by the context. 

I have purposely inserted the group of Egyptian hieroglyphs 
on p. 665 in order to train-on the Reader's eye to the present short 
excursion. 

The Egyptian hieroglyph cr^i, whose syllabic value was per, was 
the determinative or indicator of any group of other glyphs that 
meant " temple," " house," or " enclosed place of residence " (Budge). 

As such we may observe it in neter ^et | U temple, in ahu l| ^ |-_, 
king's-house, in hem CTZD harem. Then we have HH the 



consonantal value of which was h, as in hi [Xl l|l| 1=^^ a hypostyle 
hall, in hah S c=^ the heavens, and (notably enough for its 
application to primitive dwellings) in Mcrhare |-g ^^ ^ ^^ 
which Chabas called the " cabane " of the Saaru, a tribe of the Shasu 
or Shaasu nomad Bedawin of Arabia, Palestine and Syria. Now 
we all know the Bedawin's " cabane " to be a dome-shaped tent. The 

rO is also found in Ra. s. her. ab. (^_^ <S^ '0'j| the prename of 
Peta-Bast, a Tanite king of the 23rd dynasty ; in the name of 

'T^h^^^^ C3^^51 "^^ C^ ^1 the adversary of 
Assurbanipal (Sardanapalus). 

Let us next take ui, of which the syllabic value was mer, and 

we shall find it in some important words : merut (?) LP L-_j 



the crossing of corridors in tombs; Ta Mera "'i x^"" ^rr<<5, °^ "^"^^ 

^^ was a name for Egypt (var. '^ ^ ^r^ ^^en Mer = " land 

of Egypt," Birch, Egyptian Texts, 18) ; mer;^ J Xk "^^^^^ A 1 — 1 ' 

collection of tombs (Goodwin, Zeits. 1872, 21}, a rendering which is 
confirmed by the Amhurst papyrus which designates by Mer the 
whole of the monuments of a tomb (Chabas, Melanges iii, 2, 19). 

We also have ab Mer T J IV M sepulchres. Here I desire 

the reader's passing attention to the possible connection with the 
underground Labyrinth. The reason given in Pierret's Vocabulaire 
(p. 220) for calling Egypt Ta Mera, " because of the crossing of 
its canals," seems too meagre a guess. The cosmic supposition of 



672 



The Night of the Gods. 



[Buddhds 



the cardinal cross-roads (already developed under "The North") 
appears much more telling. 

It is all but needless to point out that we have in ra and LTI 
all the elements of the meander as here given from (i) the Corin- 
thian capital (of course the fret or guillochis was not Doric alone) of 
the temple of Apollo at Phigalia, (2) a soffit in Batissier,i (3) a 



r^ 


oil 




r-T-fA 



ii^= 



Roman " crenulated rectangular fret," also from Batissier ; and 
(4) from a piece of modern Japanese (Owari) pottery, whereon also 
appears the ornament (5). From a vase found at Herculaneum, and 
now in the Louvre,^ is (6) which also shows what is commonly 



3 



"^iwirM 



4. 5. 6. 

called the " Greek cross," but is diagnosed by me to be the cross-lines 
of the augurs celestial tcinphini, which eventually gave us the cross- 
walks of our old kitchen gardens, as was fully discussed under 
" The North." I request the reader to give a brief moment's medi- 
tation to this approachment of archaic Italy and Japan, before he 
follows me in some further tracking of the f[]. 



Brugsch gives use;)^t 



as the "o-reat hall with 



columns" which belonged to the great temples, and this was also 
depicted in sacred writing as |^| . And here I desire the reader 
at once to join me in theorising the connection between the sacred 
enclosure, the sanctuary, and the meander.^ This same last glyph 
denoted also the "judgement-hall of the soul," which gives me 
another connection with the infernal palace, the underground 
Labyrinth. The Decree of Canopus (late, of course — 32nd 
dynasty) was commanded, in the document itself, to be placed in 

this court (of each temple ?) eV rw iiricjiaveaTdTO) tottco ^^ Ijf'l 

^ VArt Momimental, 1845, p. 158. 

2 Revue Encyclopcdique, ii, in. A most interesting and valuable publication (Paris, 
Larousse, from 1891). 

* The Maeander was also used as a border of purple round vestments {.'Eneid, v, 25 • ). 



Footprint ?s^ The Labyrinth. 673 

"^(P) ^n > The same hieroglyph has been found used for the 
central part of the palace of Kurnah, the second columnar hall at 
Denderah, and so forth. This last hall was also called the Khai 

(Jlj j and 11 which was also the "hall of processions" 

(Brugsch). Here it will be seen that we have the quad completely- 
closed. We also find a similar glyph in the name Mehtet-en-use;^t 

°<=>^ fi ^ |i7^ a princess of the family of Sheshank I, 22nd dynasty.^ 

The word use;^ means wide, v\ ^^ or v\ _f ^» \\\\.\\ 

an indication of movement, as shown by the j^ , which I would wish 

to refer as well to the " majestic progress of the spheres," of the 
heavens-palace, as well as to the imitative processions of this temple 

sanctuary. We also find^ use;^t Maati f^ ^ P'^P^^ ''\i2\\ of 
the truths" (for there were two Truths, two Maat deities, of the N. 
and S., supernal and infernal, as I theorise). I shall just add that the 
astrological " house " is shown in the expression for " horoscopes," 

un tuau.t neter het, "divine house of the ««z^-stars " -^^ 'I J 

and shall then add a list of a few other terms* which illustrate the 
celestial sacred import of these hieroglyphs : 

temple (literally god-house, beth-lfcl). 

Ill temple of the gods (unidentified, Brugsch, 
Geog. i, 283). 

per-Netert | ^ house of god (mythological, ibid. 289). 

and Neter | © was (Brugsch 367) a 

serapeum at Bubastis where was preserved the leg 
J <=> o of Osiris (Diimichen, Geogr. InscJir. iii, 51).^ 

ust (error for use;^t ?) <£ I ^ great columnar court which 

followed the pylon (Brugsch). 
her abt great hall before the temple-sanctuary (Brugsch). 

' Dr. Wallis Budge, Reading-Book, 137. 

- K'on. 573. ^ Maiiette, Denderah, iv, 75, 14. 

■• Chiefly from M. Pierret's most uscfiil Vocahiilaire. 

* J. de Rouge, Geog. Ane., I2j. 



Neter-het 



het-Neter/^ 



674 '^^^^ Night of the Gods. {Buddha s 



hert "^ , '~^ heaven (Brugsch). 



un- 



pa :^b n abode of life (the tomb). 



ahat I ° ^ abode of lasting (the tomb,in the Rhind papyrus). 

ahai f I (IQ "^^ principal hall of a sepulchre, where the mummy 

lay (Chabas, Pap. Abbott, 60). 
henkit § ^ [1 ^ funereal abode (E. de Rouge, Diet. MS.) 
per-nefer [^ 111 abode of the blessed (under-ground tombs— 

ibid. 63). 
het-ka \J Etku, between Alexandria and Rosetta (Brugsch, 

i, 82, 28). 

r ^ ziY'^ temple Qat (Dumichen Geogr. Inschr. iii, 

51)." 

het-Ptah U j--,^ ^ [temple of Ptah, a name for Memphis 
per-Ptah-netar 'y^ 1^ j (^^^S^^^' ^34)- 

het-Ptah-ka [] ^ jly temple of Ptah's " Ka " (also read 

ha-Ptah-Ka) another name for Memphis. 
per-Ptah-Shetat "V^^llx^n ^^"^P^^ mentioned in the 

Louvre papyrus (Brugsch 1063). 
Het en Ptah-aa H ^ — ^ (j "^ [^ ^ i temple of the aged 
Ptah name of the oldest temple of Memphis (Pierret, 
Vocab^. 
per-I-em-hetep sa Ptah 'y'fi^= ^ g | abode of Imhotep 
son of Ptah, the Asklepieion of the Greek papyri (Brugsch 
1098). 
I now hurry the Reader's glance on to (12) a silver coin of the 
town of Knossos (see p. 669 siiprd) in Crete, which thus gave the 
great Cretan Labyrinth. My leading contention is that all there, 
whether Labyrinth, Nandya-varta, fylfot, Manji, or Meander are 

almost proved by the Egyptian hieroglyph ^i to be symbols 




Footprint ?\ The Labyj-inth. 675 

— full or reduced — of the wondrous impenetrable Universe-palace. 

The likeness of the suastika r+J (which is the 

Chinese and Japanese Manji) to the centre of the 

Nandya-varta is very clear, has often been remarked 

upon. I see, too, that M. Zmigrodzki (of Suchaj 

Galicia) has suggested that if we put entire sua- 

stikas in a row, connecting them with lines, no 

matter how, or even take half or quarter suastikas ^ 

and do the same, we obtain the different forms of the Greek meander.^ 

Burnouf wrote nandya-varta-ya, and gave the sense of the holy 
term as " fortunate involution (enroulement)." It is thus lucky, 
like the su-astika and the tomo-ye. The Amara-kosha, the oldest 
vocabulary known, makes it also the name of a particular sort 
of temple or sacred construction, and Burnouf said further that the 
nandya-varta of the Jains might pass for a kind of Labyrinth.^ 
Professor F, Max Miiller, quoting Burnouf, says'' that the outline 
of certain buildings called svastika and nandyavarta does not 
correspond very exactly with the form of those signs. Well, as 
for the matter of that, where are there any two sacred buildings, 
whatever, whose plans do correspond very exactly ? But here is 
Burnouf — no mean authority — putting the Labyrinth to the 
Nandya-varta, which is a sacred building as well as a sacred 
symbol. 

I first add briefly here that the Labyrinths of Nauplia are 
quarried tombs ; that the Catacombs are nothing else ; and that 
Pliny* made the remarkable statement that Labyrinths were laid- 
out in pavements and gardens for the diversion of children, who in 
a narrow space thus took many thousand steps. But Pliny is too 
disdainful here : else why did the Christians perpetuate the custom 
of decorating the floors of their basilicas with these Labyrinths, 
which, as Mabillon has shown in writing of the eleventh century," 
they considered symbolic of the temple of Jerusalem. But I go 
higher, to the heavenly Jerusalem. At the time of the Crusades, 
mimic pilgrimages were made in these Labyrinths by way of 
devotion by those who could not go to the Holy Land. Such was 
the custom in the cathedral of Rheims in the 13th century. 

' Congrcs des Trad. Pop., Paris, 1889, p. 75. 

^ Lotus de la Bomte Lot, p. 626. 

' Schliemann's Ilios, p. 346, et seq. 

•* Hist. Nat., xxxvi, 13, ig. ^ Ann. Ord. S. Bencd,, iv (year 1052). 



676 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Buddhds 



From all this I theorise that the processions in the Egyptian 
" hall of processions " supra were analogous devotional exercises ; 
that it is most likely that there was a " Labyrinth " in the pavement 

of those halls or courts ; that the hieroglyphs of this type |^| 

were an abbreviation of that Labyrinth, its picture in little ; and 
that the same original signification must be given to the Meander. 
Although Pliny is charged above with running down the Laby- 
rinth he might be sup- 
ported — but then it is 19 
centuries after date — 
from Mr. C. A. Holm- 
boe'sbookon Norwegian 
antiquities,^ where the 
following figure is given 
of the children's " Troye- 
borg slot " or Troy-town castle (which I think may be viewed as 
equivalent to Asgaard slot, for I always want to make the mythic 
Troia a heavenly Trinidad.) This is a clear Labyrinth. 

I am not aware that all these symbols and proofs have been 
focussed before ; and the circuit being thus completed for the 
first time I can only hope that — in the words of Virgil about the 
dark paths of the Cretan Labyrinth — some indeprensus et 
irremeabilis error has not led me wholly to grief by taking the 
wrong turn. 




■ Lc Biiddhismc en Norvcge, 1857, p. 35. 



Footprint^ The ConcIi-SJiell. 677 



The Conch-Shell. 

THE value placed in the East on the conch-shell {^Mazza rapd) 
with reversed spiral, which also appears as one of the sacred 
emblems in the Siamese Buddha's footprint, seems to be connected 
with the holy revolution of the heavens. In Siam it is called 
the chank-shell, and in the life of Buddha the thousand-eyed Indra, 
the heavens-god, marched before him blowing a great chank-shell 
2,000 fathoms long. The Siamese royal Brahmin astrologers blow 
shrill sounds from these shells in state processions ; and a gilt and 
jewelled chank is among the royal insignia. In Hindu mythology 
the sacred sankha is borne by Vishnu, and was churned up from 
the sea of milk.^ The Indian conch-shell is sacredest when its 
whorls, instead of coiling from right to left, as they ordinarily do, 
follow the reverse direction from left to right, that is in the same 
sense as the revolution of the heavens. A daksJimdvarta like this 
used to sell for its weight in gold, but now costs no more than 
four or five pounds sterling. Pouring sesam seed and water over 
the head from one of these right-handed sankhas destroys all the 
sins of a whole life.- 



' Alabasters Wheel of the Laiv , 299. 

' Rajendralala, Mitia's Indo-Aryans, i, 286. 



678 The Night of the Gods. [Buddhas 



The Chakra as Weapon. 

AS to the disc as a destroying weapon, Indra with his great 
weapon chakra drives the evil Asura from heaven ; it is also 
the attribute of Vishnu, and " flying from the hand, and rapidly 
revolving, utterly exterminates those against whom it is directed. 
As one of the insignia of Buddha, the Dharma-chakra, it would 
thus refer to the extermination of ignorance, misery, and sin." 
Mara, the evil one, hurled his chakra against Buddha, and though 
he could not injure him, his weapon clove the mountains in its course. 

*' Indra formerly stopped in battle the rapid chariot of Surya. 
Etasa has borne away the wheel (bharachchakram Etasah) and 
demolishes." {Rig. V. iii, 283). " Kutsa, thou hast swiftly 
destroyed the Dasyus, and thou hast cut them to pieces in the 
battle with the wheel of Surya." (iii, 148.) 

The destructive employment of the disk admits of another 
view. It seems to me that it is made clearer to the mind if we 
regard the Universe-wheel as the exponent of Time — of Kronog 
thedevourer — of teinpiis edax reruni. The conception is central in 
Hinduism, where Vishnu, who as Siva is the producer and 
reproducer, becomes as Rudra the destroyer and dissolver. " Le 
Temps matte toutes choses," wrote Rabelais. 

We have clearly the sam^ idea in Greek mythology when 
Apollo kills /f;/<'zcinthus (TaKcvOoi;) accidentally with a diskos, or 
quoit. First-man K adrn os also puts the Boeotian Hj'antes to 
flight in a heavens-war. 

Ifya, besides being the Latin pronunciation of the Greek letter 
V, was also a name of Semele as Hyes ("T?/?) whether " rainy " or 
otherwise, was of B acch us and Zeus ; the //y^cinthides, sacrificed 
to the Cyclops Gerestes (a word which implies old age) ; Hyas, 
son of Atlas and father of the Hyadts, who were otherwise daughters 
of first-man Kadmos, or of Atlas ; Hjagms the (Phrygian) inventor 
of harmony and first flute-player, who composed canticles for the 
Mother-goddess, Bacchus, Pan and company ; the Muses as 
Hyantldes ; Hyantms, grandson of Kadmos ; the hyperborean 
hyena (/y/^ina) ; all these and many more such demand study. 

Akrisios, the mountain-top god, or the supremest {aKpa 
summit ; aKpo<i, most high, supreme) king of Argos, which I hold 



Footprint?^ The CJiakra as Weapon. 



6/9 




to be simply the brilliant starry heavens, father of Danae, was 
also accidentally killed by Perseus, son of Zeus and Danae, with a 
quoit. Akrisios was also changed into a stone. Perseus had a 
harpe from Hephaistos (like Kronos) the shoulder, and heel-wings of 
Hermes, rode the winged horse Pegasus, and encountered Atlas, 
changing him also into a stone, or into a mountain. (Has Perseus 
any connection with irepQw, to devastate, as long maintained. If 
so, he would be an evil god, with a strong likeness to a personage 
in the Apocalypse.) Danae was shut up in a tower and visited 
by Zeus in the form of golden water. All these are central 
supernal heavens-myths. 

The hurling of the chakra is still frequent in 
Indian divine symbolism. The following are taken 
from Moor's Hindu Pantheon. 



1. Here is Vishnu whirling the chakra on his 

finger for a cast (plates 13,48), in propria 
persona and in the man-tortoise and man- 
fish avatars. 

2. As the boar-man he does the same (plate 48). 

3. Krishna does the same with a more orna- 

mental object, and reminds us of the juggler 
who still twirls a plate, a hat, and so forth, 
with a short wand or the finger. (Plates 
61,65.) 

4. Vishnu, seated on Mounted Mandara while 

it is twirled, does the same, with the little 
finger of the left hand. (Plate 49.) 

5. Indra does the same, using a short stick, which 

would answer to the Universe-axis (plate 79). 
One cannot but reflect that a Hindu who 
even now sees the juggler's twirling-trick may 
attach to it a sacred significance unknown to 
us ; and that the much-exaggerated magic 
tree-trick has also a holy creation meaning for 
the native mind. That both were once very 
holy may at all events be safely maintained. 

Sir George Birdwood, out of the wealth of his Indian 
knowledge, has been good enough to furnish me with 
some information as to the chakra weapon, three or 
VOL. II. 






H 




68o The Night of the Gods. [BuddJids 

four of which are worn on the conical caps of the Sikh Akah or 
worshippers of the god Akal and may be seen in the Indian 
Museum (Armour : Punjab case). It is a perfectly 
flat quoit having a cutting outer edge. It is used 
by twirling its inner blunt edge round and round 
the middle finger of the right hand, and then after 
it has acquired a certain momentum, letting it fly. 
It is a circular flying knife, that flies with great 
force but very uncertain aim, being quite a useless 
weapon in modern warfare. The dependence at any time placed 
in it, says Sir George Birdwood, was evidently due to its sacrosanct 
character as derived from the formidable fiery discus of Vishnu. 

Sir Monier Williams^ describes his visit at Patna to the temple 
of the tenth Guru Govind, rebuilt by Ranjit Sinh about fifty years 
ago. Over the gate are the first Nine Gurus, with Nanak in the 
centre. The guardian of the shrine, which opens on one side 
(? aspect) had a high-peaked turban encircled by steel rings 
(cakra) used as weapons. He was evidently an Akali or 
" worshipper of the Timeless God," a particular class of Sikh 
zealots who put every opponent of their religion to the sword. 
As Sir M. Williams entered, accompanied by a Mussulman friend, 
this Akali displayed great and hostile excitement ; but eventually 
the interior of the shrine was seen, with "a number of sacred 
swords which appeared to be as much objects of worship as the 
sacred books." Here we clearly have the deification of the central 
divine weapon — sword or lance — which this luquhy contrasts in 
Japan, Scythia, and Greece. 

Sir Monier Williams, in making AksX mean the Timeless, 
clearly indicates a .connection with the Zoroastrian (Zervan) 
^/^aran. It seems to be another great central god-name 
which we must put into the large category of divine words in 
Ak-, all perhaps to be referred, with axis and axle, to the root 
ak or ag (Sanskrit aj\ to drive, urge, conduct.- Akal would 
thus be the Impeller of the Universe wheel, and the chakra-weapon 
would thus be the fit equipment of his fanatical worshippers. 
Perhaps we must connect the place-names Akhal (of the Tekke- 
Turkomans), between Mero and the Persian frontier, and Akhal- 
zikh and Akhal-kalaki, south of the Caucasus between Tiflis and 

' Nel. Thought and Life in India, i, 175. 

' Skeat, Etyml. Diet., 730; citing Tick, Cuitius and Vanitck, 



Footprint?^ The Chakra as Weapon. 68 1 

the Black Sea, with this god's name. Vambery says " the 
Turkish spoken by the Turkomans of Akhal differs but slightly 
from the dialect spoken in the Caucasus."^ 

■^Jack the Giant-Killer's sword of sharpness which he obtains 
from the huge and monstrous giant with three heads who could 
beat 500 men-in-armour, and who can hide in a large vault under- 
ground, may be a reminiscence of the divine chakra. Veleut 
(Wayland) the Smith in the Edda of Sremund forged a sword of 
sharpness which is called Balmung in the Wilkina saga. 



' Coming Struggle for India (1885), p. 39. 



H 2 



682 The Night of the Gods. IBmWid s 



Stone Weapons of the Gods. 

AT p. t and p. f, we shall meet with the Japanese Mount Kagu 
as a Cosmic and as a divine metal mountain. At p. 704 
are mentioned the Japanese Kagura dances. At p. fthe etymology 
of the word Yamato is suggested. 

But I must now dwell somewhat longer upon the words kag7i 
and yaiiia, with the result perhaps of connecting some of the gods 
of Shinto witl'i the sacred mountain. Kagu-tsuchi is one name of 
the fire-god. This, according to the Japanese etymologists, may 
be either Kagu tsu chi, the Adorable of Kagu, or Kagu-tsuchi, 
the Kagu hammer or mallet, which would indicate a mountain 
thunder-god.^ If Kagu really means "shining" as suggested on 
p. t, then Kagu-tsuchi would be a shining weapon, a sort of 
Flaming Sword. Motowori's treatment of tsucJd in Kami-names 
is not convincing. He follows Mabuchi in taking it to be a cor- 
ruption of tsu iiioc/d ; but still thinks c/ii to be a mere honorific. 
'' At the same time it is remarkable," writes me Dr. W. G. Aston,- 
" that most of the gods with this termination to their names have 
something to do with thunder; and with this the mallet or hammer 
is an easy association of ideas. In a passage in the NiJiongi, tsuchi, 
in an enumeration of gods, is represented by the Chinese character 
for thunder." Kagutsuchi also produced the eight mountain-gods. 
When his father Izanagi clove him in three with his sword there 
were formed the triad of gods, Ika-dzuchi, great-hammer, god 
of thunder ; O Yama tsu mi, the August of the great (or old) 
mountain ; and Taka O Kami, the High great god, the god of 
rain, snow, and storms. There were two other deities, a male 
and female pair called Kana-yama, or Metal-mountain, produced 
at the same time as Kagutsuchi. For me, their names also have 
reference to the mythical Metal-mountain of heaven (p. 132), to 
Mount Kagu in fact ; and I further think that what has been said 
here about Kagu and Yamato (p. t) justifies me in suggesting 
that the names of the archaic Kagura and Yamato dances (see 
p. 704), connect them with the primeval polar mountain- 
worship. The name of the third dance, Adzuma, I cannot account 

• Trans. As. .Soc. /ap., vii, 398. * Letter of Qtli >r.'irch, iS S9. 

t See Index to References before Inflt\, 



Footprint.^ Stone Weapons of the Gods. 683 

for; the word occurs in the Kojiki with the sense of wife'; certain 
temples are " reverently styled the three temples of Adzuma,"- and 
of the triad of gods there worshipped one is Take-rnika-dzuchi, 
Lofty-great-mallct, or the thunder-god, who appears to be no 
other than the Ika-dzuchi named above. As a dual god he pairs 
with another of the triad, Futsu-nushi, whose temple faces the 
North, and whose symbols are a two-edged sword and also a 
" stone bow." Futsu-nushi means the keen or sharp lord, or the 
crackling, snapping lord, according as fiitsu is taken. If Futsu- 
nushi was really worshipped as a sword" (of which perhaps it is 
superfluous caution to have any doubt) we have a striking and 
complete parallel to the Scythian Ares. In either case, the name 
and the epithets may clearly refer to the weapon of the thunder- 
god, and recall Shakespear's " thunder's crack " and " the fire and 
cracks of sulphurous roaring" in T/ie Tempest. Other names for 
the deified weapon point in the same direction^ ; such are 
Sashifutsu, Thrust-and-crack ; Mikafutsu, great-crack ; Futsu no 
mitama, spirit of cracking. 

Elsewhere the Kojiki represents , Takemi-Kadzuchi as the 
offspring of Ame no Wohabari, the Broadsword of heaven, with 
which Izanagi clove Kagutsuchi. The whole of the passages 
about the various swords and weapons of the early Japanese gods 
are still obscure ; and I can only indicate, without at present 
demonstrating, a connection with the other mystic swords, lances, 
and spears, met with in the present treatise ; to which, perhaps, 
might be added the club of Rama, the seventh incarnation of 
Vishnu. It would, however, much simplify matters if we could 
refer the whole question (as I think we safely may) to a remote 
Stone Age. The connection of the stone weapons, or " swords," the 
thunder-bolt, and the heaven-rocks would then be easy. Indeed 
this seems to me to be the only possible solution of the difficult 
passage in the Kojiki, where two of the gods carry on their backs 
heavenly rock-quivers {iiva-yugi), that is, as I suggest, quivers for 
holding the thunder-stones ; at their sides " mallet-headed swords " 
{jsHclii no taclii or tsutsiii no tac/ii) ; in their hands wooden bows, 
and under their arms their arrows,"' which last is quite in accord - 

^ Mr. Chamberlain's version, p. 213. 

- Mr. Satow's Pure Shinto, p. 85. 

•' Mr. Satow's Essajs Trans. As. Soc. Jap., vii. 397, 399. 

^ Chamberlain's Ko-Jiiki, pp. 32, 135 

•'• Chamberlain, p. 112. 



684 ^^^ Night of the Gods. \Biiddhdt 



ance with the ancient Chinese practice, as shown for instance in 
the Lt-Ki, where the Emperor carries the bow in one hand and the 
arrows under the opposite armpit.^ This theory seems to me to 
be borne out by another Kojiki passage {ut sup., p. 102), where a 
god comes to an encounter bearing on the tips of his fingers a 
rock which it would take a thousand men to hft ; and it throws 
quite a new hght on the " multitudinous rock-masses" in heaven, 
and on the names of such deities as Iwasaku, Rock-spHtter ; Iwa- 
tsutsu, Rock-mallet {ut sup., p. 32), and Iwa-tsuchi-biko, Rock- 
hammer-prince (p. 25), and the first human Mikoto of Yamato, 
who is also a Kami {i.e. Kamu) — Kamu- Yamato At'^re-biko. The 
name Iware is still preserved in that of a village in existing 
Yamato {Kojiki, p. 129). One of the warlike songs seems to 
mention such primitive weapons without any additional word 
which could mean " sword " (pp. 347, 142) ; and these last passages 
seem very strong evidence indeed in favour of this Stone Age 
hypothesis. To these must now be added what, admitting the 
premisses, appears to clench the argument. There is a constella- 
tion in the Chinese sphere called T'ien-tsiang, heaven-mallet (or 
club). These mallets, i^, as well as hammers {ch'ui, ^f). were, 
according to the commentators, made of stone and of metal. - 
Here we have the heavenly stone weapons actually perpetuated on 
the Chinese celestial chart. 

It is important to add that the Taou Keen liih, a treatise on 
ancient Chinese swords written at the end of our fifth century, 
mentions swords of stone as well as of iron, copper, and gold.'^ 
The old Norse sax, the Old high-German sahs, and the Anglo- 
Saxon scax, a sword, are plainly related to the Latin saxum, a 
stone, and therefore indicate a descent of these sword-names from 
a time when they meant stone weapons. Saxanus is an epithet of 
Hercules in two inscriptions,"* and he is called by the identical 
name of lapidarius in another.^ And instead of meaning " of 
stone," these words must here have had the same signification 
as lapidator, that is stone-thrower. 

In the Norse mythology aerolites and the tubes named fulgur- 
ites were, as elsewhere, taken to be thunder-bolts launched red-hot 

^ Dr. Legge's Li-Ki, i, 295. 

* Uranog. Chi., p. 512; Biot's Tihcoii-/A, ii, 363. •"' Wylic's iV^Vt'.f, ]). 114. 
•• Giat. 49, 3 ; Mil rat. 15, 5 and 65, 6. 

* Niciens. , apud Orelli, 2012. 



Footprint.^ Sfoiic Weapons of the Gods. 685 



in storms by Thor ; whose name, of course, is equal to tlionar, the 
Old German domir, and the Norman-French thure, thunder. The 
same word {Jiamar, &c.) meant stone and hammer in the Gotho- 
Germanic languages, and the hammer-weapon was of course thrown 
like a stone as well as swung ; in fact one of our muscular games to 
this day is " throwing the hammer." Thus ccrolites were the 
hammers thrown by Thor, and his hammer was a projectile and 
not a sledge-hammer for mere hammering alone. And as the 
thunderbolt shatters what it strikes, the hammer of Thor is called 
the Crusher or Miller, Miollnir. Like the sword of the Hindu Arjuna, 
the hero of the AlaJidbhamta, which strikes of its own motion 
without brandishing, the hammer of Thor also returns to the hand 
of the god after it is flung and has stricken. And as the hammer 
was red-hot, Thor wore iron gauntlets.' 

Some passages from the Rig Veda on this subject may serve to 
supply some lights : 

Grasping his sharp thunderbolt with both hands, Indra whetted 
it to hurl it like the water ; he whetted it for the destruction of 
Ahi. Indra who art fully endowed with strength, with energy, 
with might, thou cuttest to pieces as a woodcutter the trees of 
a forest, thou cuttest them to pieces as if with a hatchet (ii, H). 

Endowed with increased vigour, Indra hurled the wheel of 
Surya (Suraschakram pravrihad), and deprived them of existence 

(ii. 35)-' 

Indra, aided by the Angirasas, has whirled round his bolt, as 
Surya turns round his wheel (Suryo na chakram), and slain Bala. 

(ii, 234). 

Indra, armed with the thunderbolt, crushed Rauhina when 
scaling heaven (ii, 238J. 

Indra with the adamantine [weapon] demolished the hundred 
ancient cities of Sambara and cast down the hundred thousand of 
Varchin (ii, 244). 

We catch from a distant quarter the sound of the stones [the 
thunder] whereby the performer of pious acts [the sacrificer for 
rain] has secured the waters (;i, 62). 

Here we have the weapon as a thunderbolt in every case, and 
also as adamantine and as a heaven-stone ; it crushes, and it is 
also sharp, and cuts like a hatchet, as the lightning hacks trees ; 

1 Beigmann's Gylfa Gimiin^. 257. 

- Sec what is said as to the chakia as weapon, p. 6S0 



686 The Night of the Gods. {Buddha s 

it is besides whirled round like a wheel, and is even a wheel itself 
hurled hy Indra. 

" Divine Twashtri " is further (7?z^ V. iii, 93. 483) "the able 
artificer, the dextrous-handed, the first divider, the well-handed"; and 
in hymning the thunder it is said (416) : " Fierce Indra, Twashtri 
made (for thee, the mighty One) the thousand-edged, the hundred- 
angled thunderbolt, wherewith thou hast crushed the ambitious, 
audacious, loud-shouting Ahi." 

The monkeys of Rama threw stone weapons against their 
enemies, and the thunderbolt of Indra {vajra, asaui) was a lithic 
missile.^ 

The great Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl was the child of the 
god Citlalatonac and the goddess Cittaliene by an extraordinary 
gestation. Cittaliene brought forth a flint dagger or tecpatl, which 
so alarmed her other sons that they flung the stone down from the 
height of heaven. It fell upon Chicomoztoc, the seven-caved 
divine universe-mountain, and gave life to 600 gods and goddesses, 
of whom the principal were Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca.- 
Another myth tells of a shower of stones which fell from heaven, 
and among them a large rounded one named techcatl {2,\\ox<\ which 
very much resembles tecpati) in the form of a block, which became 
the altar of human sacrifice.'' By yet another myth, Chimalma 
the wife of Mixcoatl (cloud-serpent) finds a cJialdiiJinitl stone in 
sweeping, swallows it, and becomes miraculously pregnant of 
Quetzalcoatl (feather-serpent.) The chalcJiihuitl is translated 
emerald : can it have been jade? Another version still makes the 
god Citlai-latonac (refulgent star) shine in the Milky Way, and 
send a messenger to Chimalman, who is a virgin of Tulan, or 
paradise, to announce to her that she shall miraculously conceive 
her son, Quetzalcoatl, to whom the invention of temples in the 
form of round towers is attributed.'* All the imagery here tends in 
the direction of the supreme__slar, the heaven-river, the universe- 
axis, and the holy heaven-stones, with which wc have been 
concerned throughout this Liqniry. 

' Rajeiulralala Mitra's I ndo- Aryans, i, 295. 

- Torquemada : Mouarchia Indiana, i, 76; Kings borough : Anl. of Mexico, v, I43. 

•* Sahagun : Hist. Gen. iii, 216 ; ii, 172. Mon. Ind. i, 91. 

* Kingsboiough v, 168. 



Footprint. \ The Flaming Sivord. 687 



The Flaming Sword. 

HAVING mentioned (at p. 6'S2) the "flaming sword," I 
ought now to say that a careful consideration of all the 
arguments advanced by Francois Lenormant leads me to go 
somewhat farther than it occurred to him to do ; and to claim 
that famous weapon too as the Chakra. 

The words that refer to it in Genesis form, as is well known, 
a most obscure expression — lahat ha'hereb hammith — happesheth. 
The lahat ha'hereb is a distinct independent unique object. 
Endowed with a proper motion, it turns on itself, as is formally 
indicated by the use of the reflective participle of hithpa'el. I 
(Lenormant) translate " la lame flamboyante du glaive qui tourne," 
in order not to diverge from the sense given to lahat in all versions 
since the Scptuagint ; but this traditional sense, although philologi- 
cally very receptible, is not certain, and there is no other instance 
of it ; whilst lahat does appear in Exodus vii, 1 1 (with which 
22 should be compared) in the certain and accepted sense 
of " prestige, enchantement, prodige magique." Therefore we 
could render the obscure expression : " the turning prodigy of 
the glaive courbe." In fact 'hereb is properly the harpe, the glaive 
recurved like a reaphook (faucille). 

[I purposely retain Lenormant's "glaive " and " faucille " ; and 
I draw especial attention to the fact how near he continues to 
approach to my perfectly independent line of argument.] 

In any case, the ' hereb is connected with the cherubim (kerubim) 
of the gate of Gan'Eden in a way which curiously recalls the 
connection of the cherubim and the wheels in the double vision of 
the Merkabah of Ezechiel (i, 15-21 ; x, 2, 6, 9-17). It would 
seem that we must place the 'hereb, continues Lenormant, whom 
I trust that I faithfully abridge, between the cherubim hovering 
(planant) at a certain height, where it turns upon itself, moving 
of its own proper motion of rotation, like the wheels of the prophet. 
I s to this movement of rotation, I (Lenormant) do not hesitate 
to think that it is not possible to understand it except as 
taking place, equally with that of the wheels, on (surj a horizontal 
plane. 



688 The Niglit of the Gods. [Btiddhas 

It is more and more certain that Chaldea was the starting-point 
of the story, which goes back to an extremely far distant date.^ 

At the same time Lenormant freely admits that these zvheels 
which moved before Ezechiel's cherubs were also very obscure to 
him. One wheel was near each cherub, and the wheel was a 
wheel-inside-a-wheel. The four cherubs went in the direction of 
their heads, and did not turn aside in their course. When they 
proceeded, the wheels went joined to them. . . . The wheels 
also, as well as the cherubs, were filled with eyes all over; they had 
an appalling circumference and altitude.^ 

As to the cherubim, Lenormant, in a masterly argument, proves 
them to be taken from, or identical with., the colossa [ w i n ged _ buljs 
(kerub, a bull), the favouring genii which flanked and protected 
the entrances of Assyrian palaces, and which the Chaldeo-As- 
syrians from the tenth to the fifth century li.C. called kirubu." 

[The most solemn subjects have their grotesque side ; and 
I find in a price-list of the "finest American beef" this year 
(1889), a mention of the "Wing end" of the sirloin and of the 
ribs.] 

It seems to me, on a comparison of all this with what I have 
here and in other passages advanced, that the 'hereb resolves itself 
into the chakra-weapon ; the wheels into the symbols of the revolu- 
tion of the heavens, or even at need into circles of the celestial 
sphere parallel to the equator ; and that the four cherubs become 
the four great animal constellations on which I have already 
dwelt. 

The chief weapon of the great Babylonian god Ea had seven 
rays and fifty faces, which turned every way, destroying the bodies 
of the fighters ; which reminds us, says Mr. WalHs Budge," of 
the flaming sword which turned every way mentioned in Genesis 
iii, 24. 



' Ortg. dePHist., i, 132, 138. ^ Ibid., 1 19, 131, 132. 

^ Ibid., 112, 129, 81. ■* Babyl. Life and Hi si., 133. 



Footprint.]^ Ceraunia, Brontia, and Onibria. 



689 



Ceraunia, Brontia, and Ombria. 

THE only way to make it clear what was meant of old by 
Ceraunia, brontia, and ombria is to classify a few extracts. 
Anselm van Boot, in his Historia Gemmanun} says the ceraunia 
was so called because it falls with the thunder. It is smooth, and in 
this differs from the brontia, and is sometimes round and sometimes 
long. The Germans called it " Donnerkeil, Donnerstein, gros Krot- 
tenstein, Schlegel, Straalhamer, Stralkeil, Stralstein,and Strapfeil " ; 
and the Italians, Sagetta, a word which they also applied to the 
glossopetra (of which lower down). The ceraunia is exactly like a 
wedge. They generally have, where the equilibrium is {i.e. in the 
centre of gravity) a very round hole, one side of which is larger than 
the other as the holes that are made in hammers are. And as all 
these stones look like hammers, wedges, hatchets, plough-shares 
(socs ?) or similar instruments which have hobs for handles, some 
have thought that they v/ere not the arrows (bolts) of the thunder, 
but iron instruments changed to stone by time. But it is a belief so 
constant and approved by so many that the ceraunia is the 
thunderbolt, that if any one would combat it, he would seem out 
of his senses. He cites Gcorgius Agricola, Kentmannus, and 
Conradus Gesnerus, and gives the following figures of ceraunia 
which clearly show that we would have been all treated as madmen 






in Van Boot's time, the latter half of the i6th century. The 
Ceraunia are white and transparent, black, or red. Some are 
like halberds. The black and round are called bctitli, and they are 



1 .\lias Lc Payfaki /oail/icr, Lyon, 1644, pp. 623, 43'^. 627. 4 {5. 



690 



The Night of the Gods. [^Buddhds 



thought to ha\e the power of breaking or dispersing a marine 
army or carrying the assault of a town. 



The Glossopetra is also pretty clear to us. Van Boot roughly 
fieures it as follows : — 





Here the largest spear or arrow-head was either embedded in 
some substance or had remained in an unfinished state. The 
tongue-like figure accounts for the Latin name, and the tongue 
was of course the serpent's. The Italians were nearer the truth 
with their " sagetta." Some believed them to be thunder-darts 
(pp. 436, 620). 

The Chelonite, Brontia, or Ombria, was called in Germany 
" gros Krattenstein, formerly Donnerstein or Vetterstein." They 
called that which fell with the thunder brontia, and that which 
fell with tempest and rain without thunder ombria. For all that 
they are identical. Some are yellowish, others greenish, others 
dark and dull, and of other colours. These stones are often 
hemispherical, and rarely longish. They are at times as big as an 
Ggg. Some have two circles like the nave which turns round the 
axle of a wheel, with five raised spokes, as it were, equally divided, 

going out to the circumfer- 
ence. Pliny said the brontia 
was like a tortoise-head. 
[This must be a mistake for 

■ - V ^'-V4i™w^-«w7w„^ ^^^^ hammer-head ceraunia 
^A^W^^ figured above. I. O'N.]. "In 
truth, to tell what I think," 
says Van Boot, " I believe the serpent's egg'' (of which below) "is 
distinguished from the brontia only by its exterior form.." His 




Footprint.^ Cei'aiinia, Brontia, and Ombria. 



691 



figures of the brontia (or ombria or chelonite) are here closely 
copied ; and it is clear that they are nothing but fossil echino- 
dermata. They seem to resemble cidaris or pedina rotata. 

This seems to explode (and account for) a good deal of the 
conflicting and unintelligible statements one meets with about the 
brontia and the ombria. 

The " Serpent's-egg," of v^- g;^^ /cr^^ 

which I also give a careful 
reproduction, must be rele- 
gated to the same category. 

But Van Boot said it was 
classified among the toad- 
stones. They were of a white 
black (there can be no mistake about it: " d'vn blanc noir"), 
very white inside and very hard outside, and seemed to have an 
affinity with the brontia and ombria. His own opinion was that 
they were the petrified eggs of land tortoises. 

It just occurs to one to ask whether some of the decorations on 
the whorls (see pp. 645, 646) may not have been made in imitation 
of these magic " stones " of the past. 

" Fossil echini of flint" have been found buried with bodies on 
Ashey Down, Isle of Wight, and (Saxon ?) near Chatham. 
Scottish peasants retain a belief in their virtue. Evans saw 
bored cidares in Saxon necklaces, and others turned into spindle- 
whorls.' 




' Ancient Stone Implements (a book of great value), 1872, p. 421. 



692 



The Nioht of the Gods. 



\Daneing. 



CHAPTER III. 



D 



ancing. 



Circular Worship 

Right and Left 

Rehgious Dancing 

Leaping 

The Sahi 

Numa Pompilius 

The Dance of the Stars 

The " Dancing" Dervishes 





Page 


692 




700 




703 




712 




■ • 714 




719 




723 




.. 725 



Circular Worship. 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread. 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of paradise. — {Kubla K/iaii.) 

BEFORE busying ourselves with a general examination of 
the ancient and universal prevalence of Religious Dancing, 
it will be convenient to deduce some particular considera- 
tions which should serve to connect the practice — at all events in 
part, in great part — with the Circular perambulation of Shrines, 
which is, as I conceive, to be referred in its origin to the supreme 
archaic worship of the revolving heavens. 

Circular Worship is, again, inseparable from the use of the 
Praying Wheel, which is dealt with at p. 589. 

Petrie, in his well-known Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland 
(1845) made some careful and important remarks upon Irish 
pilgrimages or "patterns" (p. 115). He there, endorsing Dr. 
O'Conor's view, showed that "to this day the word used for a 
pilgrimage by the common Irish is ailitJire ... a word 



Dancino:~\ Circular Worship. 69; 



composed of [from] ail, a great upright rock or stone, and itrial- 
lam, correctly truiUiiiin, to go round." In every respectable 
Hindu household throughout India, says Sir Monier Williams,^ 
the tulasi shrub or basil (ocymuin sanclnui) is planted in the court- 
yard, with a space round it for reverential circumambulation, or 
domestic pradakshina. As a rule, all the religion of the women 
consists in walking round the tulasi, and praying and making offer- 
ings to it. The perambulation is repeated 108 times, while repeating 
the 108 names of Vishnu, with the right shoulder turned towards the 
plant ; that is following, mimicking the (apparent) revolution of the 
heavens round the Universe-axis, with which the World-tree, or rather 
its stem, must be identified. A plant of this holy basil also appears 
on a stand at the foot of the village pipal-tree (a ficus religiosa) 
where women who have no tulasi at home go for their soul's 
constitutional.- At Vishnu's temples one of the acts of devotion is 
to walk round the outside of the temple, with the right shoulder 
towards it, once, seven times, or 108 times.^ The Buddhist 
dagopas of Ceylon arc circumambulated in the same way, and the 
tawaf or circuit of the Kaaba at Mecca is in the same holy 
direction.^ Hindus, when worshipping at serpent-shrines, lie prone, 
and thus wriggle round snake-like several times with the right side 
to the shrine.'^ The chief mourner, holding a lighted torch, walks 
three, or three-times-three, times round the funeral pile at Benares 
before he sets fire to it." The Adi Granth, the Sikh bible, is kept 
in the sanctuary of the Golden Temple at Amritsar ; and the Sikh 
reverence and worship of the book are well known. The chief 
act of devotion is to circumambulate the corridor which surrounds 
the sanctuary three, five, or seven times ; and many of the 
worshippers are not Sikhs at all, but Hindu women : so consonant 
is the practice with their ingrained habits of mill-round devotions."' 
The great pradakshinas or religious pilgrimages of the Hindus 
are always made " right wheel." The most remarkable of these 
circular tours are of course the well-known pilgrimages along both 
banks of a sacred river from the source down the left bank to the 
mouth, then across, and up the right bank again to the starting- 

' Kcl. Thought and Life in India, i. 

- (.'. F. Oordon-Cumming : Himalayas and Indian Plains, j). 5S4. 

» Jhid. p. 529. (Is. ic8 = (5 + 7) X 9?), 250, 587. 

* W. .Simpson : Meeting the Sun, p. 34I. 

•' 1. C. Oman's Indian Life, Social and Keligious, 1889. 



694 ^^^^' Night of the Gods. [^Dancing. 



point. The Ganges thus takes six years, if it doesn't kill ; the 
Nerbudda three years ; the Godaveri and Krishna about two 
years.^ The Paharis of the Himalayas take their flocks round the 
village in the same constant direction, walking at first and then 
running, thrice or oftener ; or they lead a sheep or a goat round 
the sick or injured, and then sacrifice it by striking off its head.^ 
This is of course an outcome of their dancing round the kJiuda, 
the Holy or " Ark " of their dcvi or village-goddess. At the great 
annual festival the khuda itself is frequently carried round in a 
very narrow circle — made to revolve in fact — " right wheel " ; the 
men at the same time dancing round it in the same direction. 
The women, however, dance simultaneously in the reverse direction, 
linking themselves together into a ring by each putting one arm 
round another's waist, and keeping the free left arm towards the 
khuda.- The reason of this particular reversal is to be found in 
the opposite natures of the two primeval dual co-principles, one of 
the names for which are the masculine and the feminine. In 
Abyssinia the priests march thrice round an ark, in the right, 
correct, direction.' 

This most important religious practice is found in India as far 
back as the Rig Veda : " The ministering priest performs Agni's 
worship ; having walked round [the altar], he takes up the ladles 
which are first, to present the oblations."^ 

In Thibet great stone-slabs are put up and inscribed with the 
divine charm Om mani padme hum, and merit is acquired by 
walking round them with the right shoulder to the stone. These 
stones sometimes extend for a mile or half a mile together along 
the great tracks, which always run on both sides of the stones, so 
that travellers both ways may pass them in the orthodox fashion.- 
If indeed in the famous formula Om mani padme hum the 
second and third words are to be rendered "jewel " and "lotus" or 
" the jewel in the lotus," it is also possible to consider mani 
(manava) as the child that issues from the lotus flower, and as 1 
signifying male or a phallus,* which would attract the mani to the j 
phallic interpretation (p. 66) of the Japanese spear made of a f 
jewel. If then the Egyptian symbolism of the lotus-flower as a 
feminine adjunct could be brought in,* we should have in Om the 

' Himalayas and Indian Plains, \). 584, 359. 

- Wilson's version, 361 to 364, 371, 433. ' Ibid., ii, 77. 

^ Creiizer and Guigniaut, i, 177, 821. 



DancingP\ Circular Worship. 695 



central triad, and in mani with padme the central dual male and 
female principles that form two of that triad. This interpretation, 
which seems to me of importance, departs but slightly (and without 
differing) from Prof Rhys Davids's " the self-creative power is in 
the cosmos " and from Hodgson's Thibetan gloss of " the mystic 
triform deity is in him of the jewel and the lotus." But among the 
endless attempts at interpreting this famous formula of Om mani 
padme hum, the Abbe Hue's seems to me easily to bear away the 
palm.^ He elaborated it after communing freely with the Thibetan 
Lamas. There is no doubt that viani means gem, and padme lotus ; 
and he then expounds as follows, taking the gem to be perfection, 
and the lotus as the emblem of Buddha: "Oh (for) perfection, 
(and absorption in) Buddha. Amen" The illimitable repetition 
of the mantra is thus a perpetual aspiration after Nirvana. 

In the Sinha-sana Dvva-trinsati a lotus-flower produces a 
diamond each day, and never fades. 

Hue mentioned various modes of circular pilgrimage practised 
outside the Buddhist Lamaseries of Tartary. The most meri- 
torious seems to be to prostrate the body flat, forehead to ground, 
at every step made ; thus measuring the path of pilgrimage with 
one's length the whole way round. Other pilgrims walk the 
distance, but carry an immense load of sacred books, the exact 
weight of which is prescribed for each by the local grand Lama 
When the round is completed, the pilgrim is credited with having 
repeated the whole of the sacred scriptures contained in the books 
under which he, she, or it — for children also go circuit— have 
staggered. Less fanatical persons simply walk the circuit, telling 
their beads or turning a chukor or hand prayer-wheel the while.^ 
And of course the Buddhist, Mahomedan, and other rings of beads 
must be put into the category of circular devotions. 

But the most comprehensive of all the practices of this kind is 
perhaps the Revolving Library invented by the Chinese Buddhist 
priest Fu Dai-ji (as he is called in Japan) who lived in our 6th 
century. As the Buddhist scriptures consist of 6,771 volumes, it 
is impossible for any one pair of eyes to read them through ; but 
the will can be substituted for the deed, and the whole merit of the 
encyclopedic reading realised, by Fu Dai-ji's invention. He fixed 

1 Travels (W. Hazlitt's translation), ii, 196. 
' Hue's Travels, i, 202, 
VOL. II. ' 



696 The Night of the Gods. \_Dancing. 

his library of 6,771 books so plumbly on a slick-swivelling pivot, 
that one vigorous push sets the structure revolving. The Rin-z6 
(revolving library) at Asakusa is of red lacquered wood on a black 
lacquered base, and lotus-shaped stone pedestal. The books it 
holds were brought from China 600 years ago, and are still aired 
at every autumn equinox.^ 

[See also the analogous facts as to the Praying- Wheels, p. 589.] 

There is a Lapp folktale of a man who disappeared in the 
winter-time, but was followed (in current slang "shadowed") in his 
disappearance by his wife. Tracking him in the snow, she found 
that he had walked round and round a bush, and that after several 
circuits his footsteps began to take the form of bear-slots ; where- 
upon she also circumambulated the bush, and gradually turned 
into a she-bear. Soon afterwards she found her husband as a 
bear in a bear's den. He lamented bitterly when he saw her, 
saying he was now doomed to be killed by his own son. She 
was, however, to jump on his empty skin so soon as he was flayed. 
She did so, and recovered her human form." Here we clearly 
have a (fallen) bear-worship, and the perambulation of a (once) 
sacred tree in the far North, leading, as worship, to perfect union 
with the deity adored. 

One of the most striking " actualities " of circular worship 
which has come under my notice is given by Mr. Consul, F.S.A., 
Bourne." He observed in February, 1886, among the aborigines — 
Shans or Lolos or both — near Ch'iao-t'ou, at an altitude of over 
6,000 feet, the following : 

" Another New-year's institution [besides the ' Christmas tree '] 
is an immense see-saw [which is also a round-about] ; that is, a 
pole 25 feet long, pivoted on an upright iive feet high, so as to 
revolve freely. Two men mount the machine, one at each end, 
and throwing arms and chest over the pole, they then, as if with 
giant strides, make it revolve ; one man shoving off with his feet 
from the ground while the other is high in the air." 

Thus we may again see the Tree and the revolution of the 
heavens combined in these primitive festive observances. 



• Satow and Hawes's Handbook, p. 31 (2nd edition). 

^ Lappiske Eventyr og Folkesagv. By J. Qvigstad and G. Sandbcrg (Kiistiania.) 
Tale No. 10. 

^ Journey in S.W. China. Parly. Paper C 5371 (188S), p. 28. 



Dancing^ Cwcidar Worship. 697 

In a Korean Buddhist temple " the monks in their finest 
garments were solemnly walking in procession round and round 
in an endless circle, chanting as they did so a litany in Sanscrit."^ 

There are some curious passages in the Rig Veda (iii, 132, 133) 
which seem to make the fire circumambulate the victim on the 
altar. The words in brackets are added by the all-supplying and 
all-questionable scholiast Sayana, who was so studiously copied by 
Wilson. "The multiplying [priest] conducting [the worship] of 
the gods, circumambulates " [the fire]. " The offerer of the 
oblation, ancient and multiplying [the ofi'ering] thrice circumam- 
bulates " [the victim]. " Agni moving measuredly, circumam- 
bulates [the victim] of his own " [accord]. One can only repeat 
Wilson's constant remark : " the expression is not very clear." 

In the extremely ancient Hindu ritual for cow-sacrifice, the 
Agnidhra priest thrice circumambulated the victim clock-hands 
fashion ; and the victim was also led round the fire three times."-^ 
The Lacasdemonians used to whip their children (as a relic, doubt- 
less, of child-sacrifice) round the altar of Artemis Orthia, the 
upright Diana.'* 

In the oldest known form of Arabian sacrifice, as described by 
Nilus, a camel is bound to the altar, and the worshippers are then 
led thrice round it, chanting solemnly, before the immolation. In 
later Arabia the tawaf or act of circling the sacred stone was still a 
principal part of religion. At Mecca in the times of heathenism, 
the sacred circuit of the Caaba was made by the Bedouins either 
naked or in clothes borrowed from a religious community."* 

The celebrated sheikh Muhi eddin el 'Arabi related a vision of 
his when in a state of insila meditation : Once when I was near 
the holy and reverend Ka'ba I beheld a Person who continuously 
made the tawaf or circuit of that holy building. His height was 
quite as great as the Ka'ba itself I concluded the Person must 
belong to spiritual bodies only. As he continued his circuits, he 
recited the words : " Truly we have been for many long years 
engaged in walking round this holy house." Muhi-eddin questioned 
him, and he replied, "I am of Mankind ; it is now more than 40,000 
years since I left this world."^ 

* Choson, by Percival Lowell, p. 365. 

- Rajendralala Mitra's Indo-Aryans, i, 372, 377. 

3 Bryant's Aitct. Myth., ii, 15. ^ AV7?>. of SaiitUs, 320, 321, 432. 

* Jno. P. Brown : The Dervishes, p. 303. 

I 2 



698 The Night of the Gods. {^Dancing. 

In consecrating a church the bishop makes three circuits of the 
new building. In his iirst circular turn he sprinkles the upper part 
of the walls with holy water ; the second time the sprinkling is 
made upon the lower part of the walls, "towards the foundations " ; 
and the third aspersion is made at his own height. Subsequently 
he walks round the new altar seven times sprinkling holy water 
upon it. Later on a priest with an incensor unceasingly circum- 
ambulates the altar, incensing it, until the prayers and ceremonies 
are complete.' And the Lavabo of the mass seems to preserve a 
mention of circular worship in the phrase : circumdato altare tuum, 
Domine. 

Most devout Christian processions still start from some sacred 
spot of assembly and, without stopping anywhere on the road, 
return to the same place by another route." This seems to perpet- 
uate the idea of the non-retrograding heavens-motion ; and the 
same superstitio is seen in the ubiquitous dislike of retracing the 
steps on a journey. Processions are still commonly and almost 
instinctively made with devotion round villages and fields ; round 
the parish ; round a cloister in a monastery ; or round a church, 
inside or out.^ 

The only ancient processions cited in the Montpellier Catechism 
are : the translation of the Ark from Kiriathiearim to the house of 
Obed-Edom and from there to the town of Hebron (ii Sam. vi) ; 
the solenni procession at Antioch to transport the relics of the 
martyr St. Babylas, in the time of the Emperor Julian ; and a 
procession at Milan under St. Ambrose to transport the relics of 
St. Gervais and St. Protais. But these instances, it is to be feared, 
do not assist us very much. Another remark of the catechism 
(pp. 285, 291), which is more to the purpose, is that pious proces- 
sions in time of public calamity were called Litanies, that is 
supplications, whence also comes the term Litanies of the Saints, 
Litania, litatio, a sacrifice'* ; lito, to sacrifice* ; liturgy ; and lituus, 
an augur's wand, ought all to belong to one central idea of 
worship. 

Some translators have even suggested, writes Capt. Conder,^ 

' I\rontpellier Catechism, iii, 264, 266, 268. - Ibid. 2S5, 286, 289. 

•* Agnam opimam immolaverunt et hostire litationem inspexeiunt. {Insn iption of 
Aivalian Brothers in Orell. No. 2271.) 

•* Mola tantum salsa litant, qui non habent tura. 
' Helk and Moab, ]). 22 1. 



Daiicing.~\ Circular Worship. 699 

that when Samuel is represented as going " in circuit " to Bethel, 
Gilgal and Mizpeh (i Sam. vii, 16) the real meaning is that he 
perambulated or walked in procession round the sacred enclosures 
at these three shrines. 

One of the vanished MSS. catalogued in the " library " of 
Denderah was " Instructions for the procession of Horus round his 
temple." 

Numa used processions and religious dances, as testified to by- 
Plutarch^ ; (and on this subject of Numa I must particularly 
request the reader to consult the Index). 



^ Clough's Plutarch's Numa, 137. 



700 The Night of the Gods. {Daiicing. 



Right and Left. 

THE mystic ceremony of Thakshina " (Sanskrit, dakshina, 
right), says Alabaster, is observed by Buddhists and 
Brahmins in Siam. On festival days they — especially the women 
march thrice round some holy spire, with hands raised in ador- 
ation, or holding smoking scent-sticks ; and Fergusson in his Tree 
and Serpent Worship says the gallery of the ancient topes was 
clearly intended for this purpose. The practice of walking round 
persons or objects, keeping the right hand towards them, is also 
Brahminical.^ 

Then there is the old Highlanders' ceremony of going deisiil, 
" sunwise," round chapels, houses, people, and cattle ; now done for 
luck, but preserving for us a lingering trace of the worship 
practised by their ancestors.^ It is also done round graves, and 
it was a common custom to turn oneself round to the right at the 
beo-inning and end of journeys for luck, as well as at weddings, and 
on other occasions. The " turn round three times and catch who 
you may " of children's games will here occur to any one ; and the 
catching may hang on to the practice of securing a victim for 
human sacrifice pointed to in the Welsh stampede, after the 
quenching of the Halloween bonefires, to the cry of " The cutty 
black sow catch the hindmost!"; just our own "devil take the 
hindmost ! "" To turn the reverse way, to the left, still well-known 
in Scotland by the expressive term " wither shins," is evil and 
unlucky. Witches dance that way, and it is like the Bible upside 
down."* 

Essentially the same thing, the turning of the whole body to 
the right — " left shoulders forward," " right turn " — is to be found 
in Pliny (xxviii, 2). In adorando dextram ad osculum referimus, 
totumque corpus circumagimus ; and in Plautus {Ciirculio, I, i, 70) 
Si deos salutas, dextroversum conseo ; and further Solinus (45 
Med.) : Tarpeium Jovem terna dextratione lustravit. The round 
of the altar to the right is also mentioned by Aristophanes : 

Ilfpeidi TOP ^u^iw Ta)((U>s eVt Se^ia. 

' Alabaster's Wheel of the Law, 190. 

''■ Himalayas and Indian Plains, pp. 359, 430. 

=* Prof. Rhys's Hib. Led. (1886), p. 515. ■* \V. Simpson : Meeting the Sun, p. 341. 



Dancing.~\ Right and Left. 701 

Plutarch records^ that Alexander, having anointed with oil the 
funeral column of Achilles, ran, as was customary, naked round 
the tomb with his companions, and placed a wreath or crown (see 
p. 613) of flowers on it. 

We now generally call the direction of these circulations " with 
the sun," and thus we still " send round the bottle "—a practice 
which was once doubtless sacred, and arose in archaic sacrificial 
meat, bread, and wine feasts. The term " with the sun " is by no 
means a clear or a good one, and indeed that remarkable " phil- 
osopher " known to us as Mr. Alfred Jingle added the explanatory 
gloss of " through the button-hole." Perhaps the quickest way of 
indicating the direction to the modern perception is " clock-hands 
fashion." 

The cards are still dealt in the same direction at a round game. 
Those still amenable to the old superstitio walk round their chairs 
or turn them round for luck. When playing a game of chance, 
the clairvoyant author of " A Lodging for the Night " makes the 
president of "The Suicide Club" deal out the fatal cards the reverse 
way.^ 

One can get the idea of " with the sun " another way by 
imagining (or observing) a gyrating plant, such as a hop, doing 
its spiral climbing round a pole. The point of its shoot follows 
the sun from its rising to its setting, and it therefore goes round 
the pole (ascending of course meanwhile) as the hands of a hori- 
zontal chronometer do round their pivot. But there are many 
plants, like the Wistaria and the Kidney-bean (phaseolus vulgaris), 
which do their climbing the reverse way ; in fact Darwin'' says the 
greater number of climbing plants do so ; so that this illustration is 
ambiguous also, and we must keep to the useful phrase " clock- 
hands fashion." 

The Greek diviners, who faced the North (p. 425) had the favour- 
able auguries of the East on their right hand, while the Romans, 
who right-about-faced to the South, looked upon the left-hand 
auguries as the lucky ones. But of course the Grecian practice 
came to have its influence on the Romans : 

Quce mollissima fandi 
Tempora, quis rebus dexter modus. 

{ALn. iv, 294.) 

1 Alexand. xv. • R. L. Stevenson : New Arabian Nii;hts, i, 39, 47. 

^ Climbing Plaiili, 2\\A ed., p. 33. 



702 The Night of the Gods. [Dancing. 

and to step out with the left foot, sinistro pede proficisci/ was 
inauspicious. The English infantry, nevertheless, lead off with the 

left foot. 

The left hand of an Egyptian mummy at all periods bore rmgs 

and scarabs. 



» Appul. Met. i, 2, 104. 



Dancing^ Religious Dancing. 70^ 



Religious Dancing. 

SCHOPENHAUER who, it need scarcely be said, identifies 
muscular irritability with the Will, has the following philo- 
sophy of Dancing. Irritability, he says, objectified in the muscular 
tissue, constitutes the chief characteristic of animals, and of the 
animal element in man. Where it predominates to excess 
dexterity, strength, bravery — that is fitness for bodily exertion 
and for War — is usually to be found. Nearly all warm-blooded 
animals, and even insects, far surpass Man in irritabilit)'. It is by 
irritability that animals are most vividly conscious of their exist- 
ence ; wherefore they exult in manifesting it. There is even still 
a trace of that exultation perceptible in Man, in dancing.^ 

In this view many dancers will agree ; but nevertheless an 
endeavour is made in the following essay : first, to trace the origin 
of at least some forms of Dancing more closely than has yet been 
done, to a primitive religious practice ; next, to connect that primi- 
tive religious practice both with the circular perambulation of 
Eastern shrines and with the use of the Prayer- wheel ; z.\\^ finally, 
to explain all three — round dancing, circular worship by perambu- 
lation, and the twirling of the prayer-wheel — from the extremely 
ancient worship of the (apparently) revolving Heavens, which first 
gave a primitive sacred symbolism to the Wheel. 



In the most archaic times China would appear to have been 
already well-accustomed to ceremonial, ritualistic dancing. In the \ 
first month of spring, the imperial chief director of music had to 
practise dancing with his pupils.^ In the second month of the 
same season dances were publicly performed.* Such ceremonial 
dances "displayed the gravity of the performers, but did not 
awaken the emotion of delight." They were taught to boys from 
thirteen onwards." On all occasions of the display of sacrificial 
offerings, the accompaniments of dancing and singing were imper- 
ative, unless some great state reason interfered as an obstacle.^ 



' The Will in Nature, Bell and Son, 1889, p. 250. 
- Dr. Legge's Li-Ki, i, 255, 261, 477, 348- 



704 The Night of the Gods. [^Dancing. 

The CJioiv Li laid it down that the imperial dancing-master directed 
the dances with silk-tasseled wands and plumes at the periodical 
sacrifices to the deities of mountains and rivers, or to the spirits 
of the Earth, of its four regions, and of cereals ; or at the cere- 
monies prescribed in times of drought.^ The emperor took the 
lead of the " sons of the state," or young nobles, and danced the 
six consecrated dances with them.' To this day in Formosa 
(Hainan) a Spring feast of Fire is celebrated about our month of 
April, and during the previous week the peasants are instructed in 
the dances, or rather cadenced miovements, which the ceremonies 
require.''^ 

We shall now cross over to Japan, and examine the similar 
archaic Shinto observances still extant. At the famous Kasuga 
temple at Nara, young girls are kept in readiness, just as we have 
seen them in India, to go through the ancient Kagura dance for the 
pilgrims. They wear a white inner garment, loose red drawers, and 
a long gauzy mantle ornamented with the Kasuga crest of the 
Wistaria flower. Their locks are gathered into one long tress which 
hangs down the back, a chaplet of artificial Wistaria and single scarlet 
camellia flowers crowns the forehead, while their faces are thickly 
painted white,. As the dance proceeds, to the accompaniment of 
an orchestra of three priests — who perform on the drum and flute, 
while singing the Kagura tita or hymn — the dancing-girls grasp 
alternately a fan or a bunch of small bells.^ Mr. Satow has traced 
the ritual of this temple back to the (alleged) Japanese date of 
859 A.D., when it is said to have been first composed. The temple 
of Oharanu near Kioto, where the Kasuga gods are also wor- 
shipped, is said to have been founded in 850, and there, according 
to the very ancient ritual of the purification feast, the general of 
the body-guard directed his men in the dance called Adzuma-mai. 
Subsequently, at the command of the vice-minister of religion, the 
musicians performed a sacred concert in which the flutes first 
played a short movement alone, and were then joined by the 
harpists and the singers ; an officer of the ministry of religion 
leading ofT with the first few bars, and the official singers finishing 
the piece. This again was followed by a Yamato-mai, danced in 
turn by the chief priests of the temple, by members of the great 

1 Biot's Tchcou-Li, i, 268 ; ii, 29-32, 41, 65, 37. 
- Prof. G. Schlegel's, Uranographie Chiiwise, p. 143. 
Satow and Hawes : Handbook of Japan (2nd ed.), p. 388. 



Dancing?)^ Religioits Dancing. 705 

Fujihara family, and by the vice-minister of religion himself.^ At 
the Ge-Ku and Nai-Ku temples at Yamada similar dances are 
now performed for pious pilgrims at a charge of from five to 
twenty dollars, according to the number of dances required. At 
Mitake the dances are exhibited on a large covered platform, and 
there is a similar stage at the temple of the goddess of Food near 
Daruma-ji. So also at To-no-mine, at Nikko, and at Yahiko.^ 
The Kami, the native Shinto gods, delight in these Kagura, and 
also in the Yamato-mai dances, which last from March 18 to July , 
10, and are no doubt of extreme antiquity. The dancing takes 
place, in fact, at every notable Shinto shrine. It is pantomimic, 
and represents — so Dr. W. G. Aston informs me — some mythical 
or historical religious event. At one temple in Tokio it took 
place once a month to sound of fife and drum. The dancers were 
masked and costumed ; there were no words spoken, the rite 
consisting solely of music and dancing. 

The dancing, like the Wistaria, has been adopted from Shinto- 
ism by all-assimilating Buddhism ; and there is a dancing stage 
with an orchestra at the Hondo Buddhist temple in Kioto, just as 
there is at the Shinto temple of Shimo-Gamo in the same capital; 
while the family of the hereditary Buddhist high-priest of the 
Shin-shiu or Monto sect embroider the altar-cloth of their chief 
temple with an eightfold Wistaria flower.^ 

Chaitanya, the founder of the Hindu sect which bears his name 
and is peculiar to Bengal and Orissa, was born about 1485, and is 
regarded as an incarnation of Krishna. One of his tenets insisted 
upon the importance of singing (sankirtana) and dancing, added to 
contemplation, in order to fit the mind for ecstatic communion 
with the deity ; and his followers often swoon away in their fits of 
religious choreal emotion.* But this is merely a quite modern 
revival. In the Rig Veda Indra is called the Dancer: "Thou/ 
Indra, the Dancer^ hast destroyed ninety cities ; Dancer, thou hast 
destroyed tliem" (ii, 34). I cite Wilson's version. The Scholiasts 
say the dance of Indra is the war-dance of battle, but the gloss is 
unnecessary, and it seems inaccurate. 

In Saivism at large, one of the aspects of Siva is that of a wild 
and jovial mountaineer (kirata) given to hunting, drinking and 

1 Trans. As. Soc. Japan, vii, 393, 40S- 

2 Handbook of Japan, pp. 173, 176, 200, 397, 404, 447, 297. 

^ Ibid., pp. 370, 378, 365. ^ Sir Monier Williams : Hindiiisni (1880), p. 147. 



7o6 The Night of the Gods. {Dancing. 



dancing (nritya-priyah). He is even called the Lord of Dancing, 
and performs with his wife the tandava dance, surrounded by 
troops of dwarfish buffoons. Prof. Robertson Smith explains 
" lord of dancing " as meaning : he to whom dancing is due as an 
act of homage^ ; but the consideration here now urged induces me 
to hazard the view that the dancing of which the supreme central 
god is lord, is the turning of Indra, of the Universal heavens. The 
worshippers of Siva in this character generally belong to the sect 
called Saktas, who are devoted to the wife of the god.^ The 
extremely archaic and mysterious god Bes (see remarks upon him 
at p. t) " is associated with ideas of the dance."'^ There can be 
no doubt, says Sir Monier Williams, that dancing in the East was 
once exclusively connected with religious devotion, especially with 
homage paid to Siva in his character of I ord of Dancing." There 
seems to be no adequate reason for thus " especially " circum- 
scribing the ritualistic worth and significance of the observance. 

An important bronze statue in the Indian Museum shows the 
mahadeva tripur-antika Shiva apparently unconsciously destroying 
the demon Tripur-Asura by merely graceful and solemn dancing.* 
A plate in Moor* shows Mahadeva, Brahma, and Indra dancing in 
worship before the seated goddess Devi or Bhavani. A hint that 
dancing was (nay, still is) also a natural, instinctive mode of 
showing off the paces in sexual selection. Vishnu as Krishna 
dances while playing the flute,'' or holding the sphere as Bala- 
Krishna while he treads on the serpent Kaliya's head. The 
Mandala-nritya or Rasa-mandala'' which is called merely " a 
circular dance in honour of Krishna," is really (compare rasi-chakra 
for the zodiac) the dance of the spheres. A representation of it in 
Moor (plate 6^) shows eight couples of Gopis dancing in a ring 
round Krishna and his consort Radha, who are also dancing. 
There are eight musicians — six females outside the ring and the 
two deities inside, who both play on the flute, which was Krishna's 
favourite instrument. 

To quote further from Sir M. Williams : Most of the South- 
Indian temples, he writes, maintain a band of musicians ; that of 

' Relig. of Semites, 1889, p. 93. 

2 Sir Monier Williams : Rd. Thoiighi and Life in India (1883), i, 84, 450, 451. 
' Pierret : Diet., 95. 

* Moor's Ilindii Pantheon, pi. 14, 32. ^ Plate 51, 60. 

® Is not Mandala, a circle, an orb, the same word as Mandara, the Universe- 
Moimtain? t See Index to References before Index. 



Dancing.^ Religious Dancing. joy 



Tanjore has one of fifty. They all too keep up troupes of dancing- 
girls, of whom there are fifteen at Tanjore. Ten of these danced 
before Sir M. Williams in the court of the temple. It is well- 
known, he adds, that in ancient times women were dedicated to 
the service of the temples, like the Vestal virgins of Europe. 
They were held to be wedded to the god, and had no other duty 
but to dance before his shrine ; hence they were called the god's 
slaves, deva-dasi.^ 

Although the texts are familiar, I may not omit to adduce the 
dancing, sacrifice, and worship before the golden calf in Exodus 
xxxii, 8, 19 ; the prophets of Baal leaping on the altar (i Kings, 
xviii, 26) ; the prophetess Miriam and the rest of the women 
singing to the Lord with timbrels and dances (Exod. xv, 20, 21) ; 
and David leaping and dancing and playing before the Lord with 
all his might (ii Sam. vi, 14, 16 ; i Chron. xv, 29)." The exhorta- 
tions in the Psalms must also be quoted : " Praise the Lord with 
the timbrel and dance " (cl,4), and " Let the children of Zion praise 
His name in the dance " (cxlix, 3). 

Captain Conder in his Syrian Stone Lore says that the sacred 
dances which formed part of the ritual of the Phoenicians and 
Hebrews still survive in Palestine. At Debir (Dhaheriyeh) he saw 
the elders of the village dancing solemnly before the shrine of their 
Neby. According to the Mishna, dancing used to take place in 
the temple at Jerusalem at the feast of Tabernacles, that is, of 
tents or huts. Numerous Phcenician clay and stone statuettes 
show that dancing to music was a common practice at temple 
festivals. Perrot and Chipiez^ engrave a limestone group of three 
dancing-women holding hands at arm's length, with a flute-player 
in the middle. The women (who remind one of the modern 
dancing dervishes) wear long skirts down to the feet, with conical 
hoods. Sometimes dances took place round a cone, or round a 
tree-trunk with a pigeon's nest in it — probably a practice of the 
Assyrians round the sacred tree of Asshur. These dances are 
doubtless connected with the Maypole dances, and may survive 
in the nursery game of " here we go round the mulberry-bush." 

Doubtless the Kadeshoth or dedicated women of the Khetans 
or Hittites, who were attached to the sacred shrines, danced and 

' Sir M. Williams : Rcl. T/ioti^i^-hf and Life in India (1883), i, 84, 450, 451. 
^ In the Vulgate : " Michol filia Saul . . . vidit regem David saltautem atque 
ludentemy (i Paralip. xv, 29.) ' Hist. detArt, ii, \?-^ 



7o8 The Night of the Gods. {Dancing. 

sang in their carnal devotions. Kadesh, the capital of that nation, 
which means " consecrated," was only one of the many shrines/ 
such as Kadesh-Naphtali and Kadesh-Barnea, where such loose 
rites were established. Dancing is an important item in the deota- 
worship of the aboriginal Himalayans ; but a curious outcome of 
this is the order promulgated by a former orthodox Brahman 
Rajah in Kulu who ordered that all the deotas in his dominions 
should assemble once a year at his capital, and dance in homage 
round the image of the god Rughonath (?) which he had brought 
from the holy city of Benares ; " and this order is still obeyed by 
some 200 deotas."- The Shakers, whom Anna Lee founded in 
1774, dance during divine service, by a revival and not a survival 
of an ancient rite which was long ago practised by the Essenes." 

Dances still take place round the menhir (tall-stone) in the 
Orkneys on New-year's night, and also round that near Croisic in 
Brittany.'' 

If we now consider the customs of the American continents, 
we shall find from Velasco' that, as pointed out by Dr. A. Reville 
in his Hibbert Lectures, the grand form of religious demonstration 
among the Peruvians was the dance. The title of the principal 
festivals, rayvii, means " dance." These dances were so animated 
that the performers seemed to the. Spaniards to be out of their 
senses. The Incas themselves took no part in these violent move- 
ments, but had an Inca dance of their own, which was grave and 
measured ; and it is well known that the Lica was identified with 
the deity.*"' In Franklin's first Journey' he found even the half- 
breed red Indian women passionately fond of the dance, though a 
stranger would have at first imagined the contrary from their 
apparent want of animation ; for they affected a sobriety of de- 
meanour the very opposite of their general character. Here was, 
doubtless, a reminiscence of the sacred origin of their dancing, and 
we may compare the fact with what has been already stated as to 
the Incas and the Chinese. 

The word for " dance " (bina) has come to mean religion with 
the Bushmen, who say when they are ignorant of a religious 

' Rev. W. Wright's Empire of the Hittites, pp. 75, 79. 

" Oldham's Native Faiths (in Conteiiip. Rev., Mar. 1885). 

«* Bellarman : Informations Hist, sur les Esseniens, p. 106 

^ Conder's Heth and Moab, p. 198. ^ Hisioria Antigua, v, 4, 17. 

^ Hibbert Lectures, 1884, p. 224. " (Joiui Murray, 1829), i, 105. 



Daizcing.^ Religious Dancing. 709 

mystery : " I don't dance that dance."^ When Pund-jel, the 
supreme creator of the Black-fellow, made the two clay images of 
the first men, he danced round them. Lucian {irepl 'Opxwewf;) 
said that there was not a single ancient mystery in which there 
was not dancing, and it had come to be said that the revealers of 
mysteries " danced them out " {i^opj(^ela6aL). " That's how it's 
done," in fact, as Jack Pudding says. 

It has flashed upon me since writing the foregoing that the 
Seven Maccabees must have been originally supernatural. They 
" were also known as the As!noJiQdi.ns, a name traced ... to 
an illustrious ancestor named Chasmon : in Josephus, Asaino7i&\xs."'^ 
The suggestion is here inevitable that we have to do with none 
other than Eshmun, the Eighth, about whom so much is here said 
(see Index). In that case Maccabee would be connected with the 
Greek (or Phoenician ?) Makar (see Index) ; and the Seven would 
be simply the Kabirim of Ursa Major ; which would account for 
the Danse Macabre ! Judas, who alojie of his father's jive (not 
seven) sons, was called Maccabeus (i Mace, ii), would have been so 
named after the Seven Maccabees, just as we have the Orsini 
(from Ursa) in Italy to this day. This supposition will alone 
make clear the rabbinical cabalistic playing with the name Mac- 
cabee, in which they saw either the final letters of AbrahaM, IsaaC 
and JacoB, or else the initial letters of Exodus xv, il. They also 
said it meant a hauniicr, " as expressing valour and success in 
war."^ In this last case we should have some of the endless 
obscure references to the weapons of the gods often pointed out 
in this Inquiry. This crux is commendable to Semitic scholars. 

We find another leading instance of religious dancing in the 
Dance of Death, or danse Macabre of the middle ages, which was 
also known as the chorea Machabaorum according to Littre, from 
whom however Devic utterly differs. This " dance of the Macha- 
bees " is described by Du Cange in terms which seem to make it 
more of a mystery-ballet— to invent a term — than anything else 
It was, he says — and he traces it in a text of 1453 — a pleasing 
ceremony piously instituted by ecclesiastics, in which the dig- 
natories, whether of the church or of the world, together led the 
dance, quitting its mazes one by one, so as to figure forth that 

* Lang : M. R. and A'., i, 70, 170, 282. 

" Churton's Uncanonical Scriptures (1S84), p. 413. ^ Ibid, 



7IO The A'ight of the Gods. {Dancing. 

each one of us must undergo death. The clearness of this passage 
is not that of cr}-stal ; and we may conclude that the dignatories 
were personated by " professionals," for the text of 1453 mentions 
four measures of wine for them : quatuor simasias vini exhibitas 
(subsequently a doctor's phrase) illis qui choream Machabaeorum 
fecerunt. Naturally, I shall not attempt to decide between Littre 
(who relies on Du Cange) and Devic ; but it would seem that the 
subject is by no means threshed out. Meanwhile Littre's witnesses 
seem to have the best of it.' 

" In the early Christian Church," says the Encyclopedia Brit- 
annica, " special provision was made for dancing in the choirs." 
[This, it may be remarked, was a clear inheritance from Paganism.] 
" Scaliger, who astonished Charles V by his dancing powers, said 
bishops were called praesules because they led the dance on feast- 
days. According to some of the fathers, the angels " [who would 
thus be clearly star-beings] " are always dancing, and the glorious 
company of apostles is really a chorus of dancers," [which brings 
them hazardously close to the zodiacal signs]. " Dancing however 
fell into discredit with the feast of the agapze. St. Augustine 
says : Melius est fodere quam saltare ; and religious dancing was 
generally prohibited for some time "; but " After the middle of the 
1 8th century there were still traces of religious dancing in the 
cathedrals of Spain, Portugal, and Roussillon ; especially the 
Mussarabian mass at Toledo." 

Spanish : mozarabe, mustarabe ; Portuguese : mozarabe, musa- 
rabe. From mosta'rib = arabized ; the name given by the Arabs to 
the foreign tribes that dwelt among them. Engelmann {Gloss, p. 2 1 ) 
says that this term for the Christians who dwelt among the Moors 
was especially applied to those of Toledo who were there per- 
mitted six churches. Cardinal Ximenes, according to Voltaire,^ 
re-established Mozarabian mass in the cathedral of Toledo, with 
its orderly and devotional dances in the choir and nave. The 
Mozarabic liturgy is in great part Grecian in character, although 
Latin in tongue ; and, differing in this from all the ancient 
Christian liturgies of the Gauls, it takes no account of the Gre- 
gorian or Ambrosian chant. The Mozarabian liturgy has been 



' Little, sub voce " Macalne " ; and vide Supplement. 
"■ Diet. Phil. : Messe. 



Dancing^ 



Religious Dancing. 



711 



of Chinese astrology 




erroneously attributed to St. Isidore. For one thing, they divide 
the hostia at Mass into nine portions.^ 

The Nine Mansions Kiu Kung j\^ 'g 
consist of the four cardinal and four half- 
cardinal points, with the centre.- These 
are also called the Nine Heavens :^ ^ or 
\.'^ ox -)\^^. These would thus be nine 
compartments of the Northern hemisphere, 
thus shown, and not nine concentric 
spheres as in the Indian and Western 
mythologies. 

Prof. Rhys adduces suggestive information about the " nine- 
night week " ; the nundina or market of every ninth day among 
the Romans ; our nine-days' wonder ; Heimdal's nine maiden- 
mothers ; the nine witches of Gloucester ; the nine sacred hazels 
growing over the Irish Well of Wisdom ; and Niall of the Nine 
Hostages, (or jewels? which would take us to the Indian nava 
ratna), a supreme supernatural personage, father of one at least of 
the Maini ; the nine Muses of Helicon, p. t ; the monk of the 
nine tricks (Mynach Navvmon) or of the nine forms (Nawmod) ; 
the nine porters at the nine gates of the Dark; Fedelm ( = 
Athene?) of the nine forms or hearts.'^ 1 shall only jadd the 
novena, or nine-days prajer for a particular purpose, still so 
popular in Ireland. 

Orpheus adding two strings to the original seven of his heavenly 
kithares-harp, given by Apollo or Hermes, is full of meaning as 
to the ancient endeavours to explain the Nine. 

Cervantes in one of his Exemplary Novels, La Gitancl/a, 
mentions the dancing feast-da) s in the Spanish churches ; relating 
how that Gypsy girls were brought in on festivals to dance before 
the images of the saints, and so gained prizes. Church digna- 
tories too, when assembled for Councils, opened by a ball at which 
cardinals and doctors in theology were wont to dance. All this is 
significant. 



' bistrtictions Gencralcs (Catechisme) de I'Eveque de Montpellier, Paris, 1751, p. 



227. 



^ Mayers, Manual, 342, 345. 

+ Ste Index to References before Index. 



' Hib. Leds. (Index) 



VOL. II. 



K 



7i2 The Night of the Gods. ^Dancing. 



Leaping. 

AS to the scriptural "leaping" just mentioned, a parallel 
custom in Chinese mourning may here be introduced. It 
would seem as if — music and dancing and singing being out of the 
question in the funeral ceremonies — ^jumping and shouting took 
their place, as a relief to pent-up emotion. Thus the Li-Ki^ lays 
it down that when a ruler dies, " the officer of prayer, the minister, 
the officer of the temple, all the relatives, and the high nobles, with 
tlie great and other officers, will wail and leap ; leaping three times 
\\\\\-\ each burst of grief . . . The son in the arms of his 
bearer is made to leap, and the women in their apartments also 
leap. Thrice will they do so, leaping three times each time " — a 
strange inversion of our festive three times three ; and it might be 
added in passing that it is at least odd that three times three is 
still the ordinary number of commencing strokes to /^// the death 
of a man in the tolling of our own " passing bell." Thence, it is 
said, the libellous joke upon our Alton Lockes : Nine tailors (for 
tellers) to a man. 

We are further informed in the Lt-Ki (i, 169) that "beating 
the breast by women, and leaping by men, are extreme expres- 
sions of grief." There are many other similar passages in this 
Ritual. It might here be noted that Richard Pococke, writing in 
the middle of the i8th century,- described the funerals of Mull, 
where " widow and children danced with others round the corpse 
till very lately." 

This form of devotion occupied in fact a large place in primitive 
religions generally, and the remarks of Tsze-yu, the great disciple 
of Confucius, on the subject of the expression, the relief, of inward 
emotions by outward movements of the body, will not be out of 
place here. When a man rejoices, said the sage, he looks pleased ; 
when pleased he thereupon sings ; when singing he sways himself 
about ; swaying himself about he proceeds to dancing ; from 
dancing he gets to stamping and a state of wild excitement ; that 
excitement goes on to distress ; distress expresses itself in sighing ; 
sighing is followed by beating the breast, and beating the breast 

' Ur. Legge's version, i, 313. » Tours in Scotland, 1 747-1760. 



Dancing^ Leaping. 713 

by leaping.^ This attempt at a psychological analysis is wooden 
and superficial to a degree — compare it with Schopenhauer's — and 
the commentators seem to think the passage corrupt ; it is not 
however, without its interest, especially for those who have 
witnessed the ceremonies and contortions of the Moslem Rufai or 
" howling " dervishes. 

This jumping was also a mode of showing grief in ancient 
Egypt. Mariette says of a mourning bas-relief of Sakkarah 
(Memphis) : " Women are jumping with the strangest contortions 
, . . these funeral dances are kept up at the present day in the 
greater part of the villages of Upper Egypt."^ 

As to this jumping, again, it remains of course in numerous 
dances familiar to our eyes and feet, such as the Highland Fling 
and the Irish Jig. Even in the milder gymnastics of our modern 
drawing rooms it survives in the polka, the Mazurka and the 
Schottische. 



^ Dr. Legge's Li-Ki, i, 177. ' Pienet's Diet., p. i{ 



K 2 



714 The Night of the Gods. [Dancing 



The Salii. 

THE (fifth) priestly college of the Salii, the ancient Roman 
dancing dervishes of Mars, the father of Romulus and of the 
Roman nation, must not be forgotten. 

Mars was Protean in his aliases — Mamers, Mamercus, Mamii- 
iTus, Marmar, Mars, Mars pater, Marspiter, Maspiter, Mavors, and 
perhaps Marsyas. The Marsi of Latium, who had been doubtless 
the original worshippers of Mars, were known as Magicians and 
snake-charmers down to the latest Roman times. They were 
augurs (cic. Divin. ii, 33, 70) and their incantations were called 
Marsa nenia by Horace {Epod. xvii, 29). They were probably as 
lugubrious as what is now known as the Gregorian chant. 

The origin of the Salii was lost, for we m.ust transfigure their 
own fable that they were founded by Numa to guard the buckler 
that fell from heaven ; but we may group all the facts known about 
them. Their college was on the Palatine hill, and their annual 
feast was in the first half of the month of Mars, of March, the 
opening of the natural year with spring, when they made solemn 
processions round the city and the holy places, dancing, singing, and 
carrying — " moving " — their twelve bucklers (ancilia movere) ; et 
salius la^to portans ancilia collo (Lucanus : Pharsalia i, 603 ;) for the 
one buckler was twelve bucklers, which, doubtless, represented the 
annual zodiac, and furnish a curiously close parallel to the twelve 
bells of another fabulous Emperor, Hwang-Ti (p. f). The later 
invention, when the symbolism was forgotten, that they were merely 
priests of the god of war,^ and that Numa had eleven other fac- 
simile bucklers made, to puzzle would-be thieves of the single 
heavenly object, is transparently childish : it would have been so 
easy to steal the whole dozen of little oval ancilia cut out at the 
sides. On the preservation of the heaven-dropt buckler, too, 
depended the safety of Rome ; which gives us a clear plagiary of 
the Trojan palladium and the Athenian statue of Athena. 
A These priests of Mars carried a lance, or spear, or wand, or staff, 
' or rod," and wore the conical headdress or apex described at p. f. 

' I must here beg the reader to refer to the observations on the most archaic concep- 
tions of Mars at pp. f. 2 Smith's Diet. (Apex), 
t See Index to References before Index. 



Dancing?^ The Salii. 715 

Dionysius (ii, 70) describes it as conical, but on ancient monuments 
it is round as well. They had the head veiled (which recalls 
Kronos) and their songs, sung by their vates or inspired chanter 
were called axamcnta, a word derived from axis, because, say the 
grammarians, they were written on tablets of wood ; but it seems 
to mc that this gloss is quite needless, and misleading besides. 
These axis-hymns were in a speech so archaic that they had become 
incomprehensible, even to the Salii themselves in classical times. 
Varro {L. L. vi, t6, Seal.) gave the beginning of one of them : 
Divom Dio exta cante, 
Divom Dio supplicante ; (Z. L. vii, 3, 86). 
which sounds very much like a forerunner of the early rhymed 
Latins hymns of the Christian church^ ; and Festus (p. 3) said they 
were in univcrsos Jwniines coinposita, where homines is clearly an 
error, perhaps for deos, for he goes on to say : " nam in deos 
singulos versus ficti a nominibus eorum appellabantur, ut Janualii, 
Junonii, Minei-vii." That is, as I understand it, that the Carmina 
Saliaria, the axis-canticles, were addressed not to individual gods 
but to the gods or god of the universe ; to Janus, Mars, Jupiter, 
Juno, and Minerva ; that they were part and parcel of a heavens- 
worship. 

A hym n to Ista r in Akkadian and Assyrian thus begins, 
according to Prof. Sayce, " Thou who as the axis of the heavens "7 
dawnest. In the dwellings of the earth her name revolves."" 

It would appear that the old and rude poetic metre called the 
Saturnine versus, numerus, carmen, or metrum, which Ennius said 
was invented by the Fauns of the rocks, was in its origin proper to 
such sacred hymns as those of the Salii and the Arvalian brothers, 
which latter Marini'' thought were embraced by the general term 
carmina Saliaria. 

As to the bucklers, there is room for much doubt about their 
actual form. Lanzi^ gives a drawing of three or five, which look 
bean-shaped carried on a pole by " slaves," from a Florentine gem, 

1 .g., Salve radix, salve porta, 

Ex qua mundo lux est orta. 
The god of gods, the divum dius here adored, is said to be Janus, whom the Salii 
called Janes or Eanus, calling themselves too after him, Janes or Eani. The fratres 
^rvales also had a common formula : Jano patri Arietes II (? to Janus, second cf the 
Mars-ian fathers) which was attributed to the Salii as well. (Vossius : Inst. Oral, iv, i, 
7 ; Marini : Atti, &c. ii, 366, ?86.) See also what is said on Janus. 

2 Wallis Budge's Babyl. Life and Hist. 131. ^ Atti, &c. 11, 596. 
■• Sa^gio, II, iv, I. See also Guhl and Koner : La Vie Antique, ii, 414. 




7i6 The Night of the Gods. {Dancing. 

which is here retraced. But this scarcely accords with a silver 
denarius (which I also sketch) struck under Augustus.^ In the 
latter the ancilia have some resemblance to zodiacs 
joined by an oval piece which bears the hand and 
arm rings. In the centre we have the apex head- 
dress. As to the motto P. Stolo III Vir, Stolo 
was a surname in the gens Licinia. 

The description given by Festus is tantalizing : 
" E coelo cecidisse fertur Ancile, id est scutum 
breve, quod ideo sic appellatum-est quia ex utroque 
latere erat recisum, ut summum infimumque ejus 
latus medio pateret." Festus p. 131 (ed. Miill.) 

Creuzer conjectured that the bucklers may well have had an 
astronomical and calendaric sense ; and Johannes Laurentius Lydia 
seems to have made this certain by saying that the twelve Salii of 
Numa celebrated Janus after the number of the Italic months.^ 
The tunics of the anciliae-bearers or " slaves " on the Florentine 
gem are, says Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, covered with 
zodiacal or celestial-constellation figures. 

The forged legend of the forging of the eleven terrestrial bucklers, 
with intent to deceive, also gives the name of their maker as Mamu- 
rius Veturius, which must mean no more, and no less, than Ancient 
' Mars (Mamers). Surely this is more common-sense than Varro's 
shot which gives the meaning of " ancient memory " to mamurius 
veturius ! Itague Salii quod cantant " mamuri veturi " significant 
veterem memoriam (Z. L. vi, 6, 63 § 45). 

Nor must we forget the indubitable connection of Numa, who 
ordered the 1 1 bucklers, with numen, and of Pompilius with the 
solemn pomps of the gods ; nor the pregnant fact that Numa as 
high-priest was Numa Martius, the Numa .of Maj; s.^ which brings 
us back again to Mamers, as before. Furthermore Numa is credited 
with the division of the year into 12 mos, and the making of the 
bucklers may be a fantasia grounded on this belief. [See the 
fuller disquisition on Numa, p. 719.] It is as well here not to 
forget the round bucklers prominent in the rites of Hera of Argos 
(as to Argos meaning the heavens, see Index), nor the bucklers of 
the Curetes. 



' Fortia : Hist, des SalteitSy 173. 

2 Lydus : De Alensibus, p. 56, Schow. ^ Livy, i, 20 ; Tacit. Ann. vi, 11. 



Dancing:'] The Salii. 717 

The reward which Mamurius received for his art in forging the 

additional bucklers was, recorded Plutarch/ to be commemorated 

in the hymns which the SaHi sung. This is obviously pure legend. 

Mamurius was in the hymns because he had been the hicrhest o-od 

There were Salii at Alba as well as at Rome, and Hercules had 

atTibur his Salii, his Leapers, as well as Mars ; and they employed 

hired dancing-girls (salii virgines conducticias), who also wore the 

apex, and aided the priests in the sacrifices (Festus). These 

Sabine Salii were later installed at Rome on the Quirinal hill. 

Indeed Servius says- (though it may be doubted) that in the more 

archaic times the Salii of Mars had served Hercules, and that it 

was Numa who diverted them to Mars. Tullus Hostilius seems to 

have doubled their number to twice-twelve, perhaps to provide 

deputies, and none but patricians were admitted. 

The dance of the Salii seems to have been a sort of polka 
rather than a waltz ; its name, tripodatio and tripudium, seeming 
clearly to imply three " steps," while the priests' (and the girls') 
very title, Salii, indicates jumping, or hopping. Livy (i, 20, 4) 
says they went through the town as Numa ordained, cum tripudiis 
solemnique saltatu ; and Seneca (Ep. 15) calls it familiarly a 
fuller's jump, fullonius saltus. And Horace {Odes, iv, i.) 

Illic bis pueri die 

Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum 
Laudantes, pede candido 

In moi-em SaliCim ter quatient humum. 

May we not also conclude from the three steps that it was a 
" round " dance, and does not this number of steps connect the rite 
with the central supernal triad ? 

Creuzer \\\, 399, 511) recognises the "complete analogy of the 
dances of the Salii with the astronomico-mimic dances of the priests 
of Anterior Asia, Samothrace and Crete," to which I refer under the 
headings of Kabeiroi, Corybantes, Curetes, and so on (see Index). 

No Roman citizen, says Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities, 
danced except in connection with religion ; and all the religious 
dances, with the exceptions of the Bacchic and Corybantian, 
were simple, and consisted of gentle movements of the body, ^ 

' Numa, 146. [Mannirius Veturius] qui prxmii loco petiit, ut suum nomen inter 
Carmina Salii canerent. Festus, p. 131 (cd. Mull.) 
- Ad. Virgil. A^.n. viii, 285. 



7i8 The Night of the Gods. [^Dancing. 

witli various turnings and windings round the altar. The Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica adds that" a mystic philosophy" [—which 
is merely an empty phrase if the thing be a positive fact — ] found 
in the sacred dances which formed so prominent a part of the 
worship of antiquity, a resemblance to the courses of the stars. 

The feast-days of the Salii were also those of the Matronalia or 
women's festival, when beans were exchanged and eaten. ^ 

The eating raw, with salt, of the young tender pods of broad 
beans is still a common incident of the spring in that part of France 
which was formerly the country of the Santones, and small cottagers 
vie with each other in having this primeur. 

We find in a seventh-century sermon of St. Eloi, directed 
against Pagan superstitions, that leaping was among the surviving 
observances of the vanishing faith which were then being cried 
down, especially at the summer solstice. Nullus in festivitate S. 
Johannis, said the Saint, vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus 
solstitia aut vallationes, vel saltationes aut caraulas, aut cantica 
diabolica exerceat." It is perhaps needless to point out here that 
the carol was primarily a dance. 

[The sequence of a line of argument has obliged me to show 
elsewhere that the three-stepped dancing of the Arvalian Brothers 
resembled that of the Salii ; that the dancing of the Dactyles 
may have given rise both to their name and to the metric dactyl ; 
and that the Curetes and Corybantes had their sacred dances, 
which were meant to show forth the harmonious march of the 
hosts of the heavens. The remarks under the heading Dactyles 
as to Gigon (Herakles) and the dancing of the stars, and as to 
the circular hymn-dances at the initiations of the Kabciroi are 
also important.] 



Lydus : De Mensibus, p. 76, Schow. 
- Henri Gaidoz : Etudes de RIythologic Gauloise. What are tlic odds that these 
devil's canticles were not allied to the Salian and Arvalian hymns ? 



Dancing.^ Nunia Ponipilms. 719 



Numa Pompilius. 

'^T^HE following points taken with those already stated, seem 
j[ to me to be quite sufficient proof that Numa Pompilius 
rg^j resents aji extremely ancient supreme heavens-god , and parallel 
to the similarly accoutred fabulous Emperors of the dawn of 
Chinese cosmogony. 

Numa's senators \j-cad, zodiacal constellations] had to offer 
solemn sacrifices, and dispatch public business \_rcad, the most 
public of all affairs — and yet the most secret ! — the working of 
the machine of the Universe] for the space of six hours by day 
and six by night [the chronological import here is the only and 
obvious one] to preclude rivalry.^ 

Numa was o ne of the four sons \jrad, cardinal points] of 
Pomponius. He was born on the day of the foundation of 
Ronie in spring [that is, the beginning of the year, the creation 
of the Universe]. 

One of Numa's foursons was called Mamercus [clearly Mamers, 
that is Majrs]. And surely we must never forget that if Numa was 
the second King of Rome, Romulus, who was the first, was the god 
Ouiririlis, and was the s on of Mars, the supreme god, and Rhea 
(Sylvia), who was clearly an avatar of the daughter of Ouranos and 
Gaia, and who was also the m other of Zeu s. We are, in fact, " in 
the dead waist and middle " of the Cosmic gods. 

The year (of 365 days) was introduced by Numa [that is, he 
initiated the revolution of the Universe]. 

His father was Pomponius, himself Pompilius, his daughter 
Pompilia, and one of his sons Pompo, in which one may venture 
to see the pompa or iro^iTri, the sacred solemn public procession 
of the gods, commemorating the highest of all processions, the 
successive revolving of the hosts of heaven. There were pompilia 
indigitamenta (Arnob. ii, 95). 

Plutarch said further that Numa's precepts came from the 
Pythagoreans ; but they were Universal. One was " When thou 
sacrificest to the celestial gods let it be with an odd number, and 
when to the terrestrial with an even." This is also of the very 

I dough's Plutarch's A'wwa, 129, 130, 13S, 152, 12S. 



•J20 The Night of the Gods. \Dancing. 

essence, root, and origin, of Chinese conceptions. The male yang 
is odd, and the female yin is even. 

Days with odd numbers are strong, those with even numbers 
are weak. External projects should be kept for odd days, while 
internal ones belong to even days.^ Sacrifices should be on the 
odd days to the constellation Ma-tsu." The whole system of the 
Chinese radical philosophy is mapped-out in a sort of Memoria 
technica called the Ho-t'u Loh-shu, that is "the yellow (river)-plan 
and the Loh (river) writing." These are both heavens-rivers, as 
will be here abundantly shown for the Whang Ho. Now the 
central figure of this great numerical and symbolical chart is 

• 
• • • which is simply the confluence of the odd yang • • • 

with the even yin * . This cross symbol of dots is found 

(let it be parenthetically said) on Gaulish coins, on vases, on 
cylinder-heads, and on bronze nails of the lake-dwellings and 
Etruscan tombs ; on coins of Louis d'Outremer and Raimond 
de Tutenne, and even in the ornaments of the sacrifice-altars 
of Mexico. It is impossible to separate these crossed dots, 

• 
which on joining by lines become a cros ^ ©-•-• from the 

• 
analogous cross-symbol of the s_uastika, and both sources com- 
bined give us a remotest origin for the pre-Christian cross. 

Another of Numa's precepts was " when thou goest on a 
\t journey lo ok not behind thee." This universal superstition has 
its supernal origin of the never retrograde motion of the revolving 
heavens. The next remarkable precept'' was " Turn round to pay 
adoration to the gods ; sit after you have worshipped." Plutarch 
hereon recorded (what must have ceased to be indubitable to him) 
that the turning was said to represent the rotatory motion of the 
Universe. No wonder then that Numa used processions and 
religious dances, as Plutarch stated (137). 

The legends about his Egeria resemble the Phrygian tales 
about Attis, the Bithynian about Herophile, and the Arcadian 
myths of Endymion. Egeria seems to have been a title of Juno 
as the midwife, and St. Augustine suggested that Numa's Egeria 

• Dr. Legge's Li-Ki, i, 94. - Chow Li, cited by G. Schlegel, iic. 

•* Clough's Plutarch's Nnuia, 147. 



Dancing.^ Numa Pompilius. 721 



was an embodiment of hydromantia or divination by water. She 
would thus have been a heavens-river goddess, before becoming a 
terrestrial perennial fountain. The meaning of Egeria (e-gero, to 
bring forth or forward) would suit a supreme revolving-heavens 
goddess. That she was a mountain, that is a heavens-mountain, 
goddess is allowed.^ Numa's consort was Tatxa., daughter of 
Tat'in?, the Sabine, who was dual king (that is, god) with Romulus. 
One would like to connect this tat with stat and the Egyptian tat 
or dad. But etymology does not seem to see it. 

Others of her emblems were white robes and veils, a seal or a 
heart held in the hand, and the familiar Freemasonic pair of clasped 
or hands made fast. The Roman archaic god Fjdius is clearly a 
duality of this idea. 

This Mcdius was also called Modius and was miraculously 
conceived in the temple of Enyalian Mars ; founded and dwelt 
in the town of Cures (see " The Curetes ") ; left a son called 
Sabinus or Sabus, the first king (that is, god) of the Sabines ; and 
was also descended of the Sabines. [See what will be said of 
words in Sab- later.] 

This son of Mars was named Cures, either from (his ?) pike, 
called Curis in the Sabine tongue, or else " from the name of the 
genius who passed for his father" (Noel). This is just the deifica- 
tion of the weapon (sword or lance) which we find in the cases 
of the Japanese deity Futsunushi and of Ares himself A sense 
of the word Modius given by Isidorus Hispalensis- must not escape 
us ; he said it was the hole in which the mast (here the Universe- 
Axis) is stepped. Fidius was also called Fabidius (? the Bean-god) 
which may, after all that has been said and done, give us the clue 
(to be pushed home some other time) to the hitherto unexplained 
and most archaic superstitions about beans : such as that the 
flamen dialis could neither touch a faba nor even pronounce its 
name. It would be like Orpheus, the harmony-god, who makes 
the universe dance-round tabooing eggs because of the supreme 
sacred significance of the Egg of the Cosmos. 

Sancus in one Roman inscription is called Semo,^ whose 
feminine form would seem to be Semonia (see " The Arvalian 
Brothers "). 

' Clough's Plutarch's yV>/wa, 131. 

^ Orig. xix, 2. (He was Bishop of Hispalis in Spain in our 7th century.) 

* See also Ovid, Fast, vi, 214 ; Livy viii, 20. 



jlZ 



The Night of the Gods. [Dancing. 



Here is the place to recall the fact that one of Numa's four sons 
was Calpiis/ and that Calpe was one of the pillars of Hercules. 
The sacred Calpar wine must have a sacred connection ^\■ith this. 
Pinus was the remaining son of Numa. Thence, perhaps, the 
rinarian priests (of Hercules ?). The pine was the tree of the 
all-mother Cybele, and of Sylvanus, that is. Pan.- And here 
perhaps we get at the true origin of the sacred pine-cone, which, 
ornamented with ribbons, topped the thyrsus 6i pco^. The pine 
was used in sacrificial fires. 



• Clouglvs riiitarch's Niima, 156. - Piopertius. 



Dancing.'] The Dance of the Stars. 7^3 



The Dance of the Stars. 

rHE "dance of the stars" was an ancient classic idea in 
Greece and Rome. Plato in riiiucus spoke of the turnings 
and dances of the stars — ra? ^o/aem? Kau Ta<i irapa/SoXa'i rcov 
daripcov. Varro in Marcipor had : 

Quum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus 
Coeli choreas astricas ostenderet. 

Manilius too (i, 668) used the words signorumque choros, which 
are to be understood of the dance of the signs or constellations. 
Hyginus too (cap. xxii) : Pleiades existimentur chorcam ducere 
stellis, which is like the Zoroastrians calling the Great Bear the 
leader of the stars in the North. And Horace (Odes, iv, 14) 
Pleiadum choro scindente nubes. The folklore about the sun ' 
dancing on Easter morning may well be a garbling of this idea. 
The word chorus seems originally to have meant a round dance, 
Hesychius making x^P^"^ equivalent to /cJ/cXo?.^ Tibulhis, again, 
(ii, I, 88) makes the stars dance after their mother Night : 

Jam Nox jungit equos, curmmque sequuntur 
Matris lascivo sidera fuh'a choro. 

According to Aratos, the two other stars next the polar in tlie 
Little Bear's tail were called xop^vrai, the dancers. 

Proclus has rather a curious passage (in Theol. Plat. t>67) 
where enlarging upon the natures of the triad of great gods, 
Zeus, Poseidon and Plouton, he says, "the first of these gods 
governs the inerratic sphere, and its revolution ; the second 
presides over the planetary spheres, and perfects their multiform 
efficacious and prolific motions."- 

In 1627 Peacham's Compleat Gcntlcnia7i still taught its students 
that " The coelestiall bodies are the eleuen heauens and Sphceres. 
The eleuenth heauen is the habitation of God and his angels ; the 
tenth is the first mooner ; the ninth the christalline heauen ; the 
eight tb.e starry firmament; then the seven planets in their order" 
(i Saturn, 2 Jupiter, 3 Mars, 4 Sun, 5 Venus, 6 Mercury, 7 Moon). 
"The Imperiall Heauen is immoueable." [This seems to have been 

^P assow, stib voce. - Paus. iii, 255 (notes). 



724 The Night of the Gods. [Dancing. 

an original confusion with the motionless Pole], " most pure ; 
immense in quantitie and cleere in qualitie. The tenth Heauen 
or first mooner is also most pure and cleare, and maketh his 
reuolution in foure and twenty houres, carrying with the swiftnesse 
the other Heauens violently from East to West, from their proper 
reuolutions, which is from West to East. The ninth or christalline 
heauen moueth, by force of the first mouer, first from E to W, then 
fro W to E upon his owne poles, and accomplisheth his reuolution 
in 36,000 yeares. The eight Heauen or glorious starry Firma- 
ment hath a threefold motion, viz. : from E to W in foure and 
twenty houres, secundum primum Mobile ; then from W to E 
according to the motion of the ninth Heauen ; then sometimes 
to the S, and sometime towards the N, called motus trepidationis. 
Touching the motions of the Planets, since you may haue them in 
euery Almanacke, I willingly omit them" (pp. 58, 59). 

Lucian^ said that the people of India saluted the rising sun with 
a dance, in imitation of the dance of the god. This of course can 
only refer to the (apparent) circular revolution of the sun. Irish 1 
nurses still tell children that if they get up early enough on Easter 
morn they will see the sun dancing. Dancing can even still be 
traced in connection with the worship on the housetops mentioned 
in the Old Testament ; for on the frontier of Franche-Comte, on 
Twelfth Night — le jour des Rois — it is the custom to dance on 
the roofs in order, as the peasants now say, to obtain a good crop 
of hemp.^ 



1 De Saltat., § 17, v. 133 Bip. 

^ L. F. Sauve : Le Folklore des Hatitcs Vosges ( 1 889). 



Dancing?)^ The '^Dancing'' Der^vishes. 725 



The "Dancing" Dervishes. 

AS to religious dancing in Mahometanism, there are few who 
have not heard of, and there are many who have seen the 
Mevlevi or " dancing dervishes." Before saying anything con- 
clusive about them, I shall quote from Mr. John P. Brown's useful 
work on the Dervishes generally^ some account of their origin. 
Their founder was a native of Balkh, and was born A.D. 1226. 
Their sheikhs, or heads, are descendants of the prophet, and the 
office of head sheikh or general of the order is hereditary. On 
account of the connection of the order with the earliest Sultans of 
the Ottoman family, it frequently happens that the reigning 
Sultan becomes an honorary member of it, and sometimes attends 
its religious exercises. Turkish grandees follow their Sultan's 
example, and those of them who are of this order never fail, when 
alone, to take off their turbans, and put on the high Kulak or 
conical felt cap of the Mevlevi. The Mevlevi convents are better 
endowed than those any other order of dervishes, and inherit vast 
lands given by the Seljucide sultans, and confirmed by the 
Ottoman princes. 

Their high conical, pointed, unrimmed, felt bonnets are also 
directed to the Zenith, while twirling rapidly to the right on 
one spot. This pivoting is managed by a " step " in which the 
bare or stockinged left toes continue constantly to be placed and 
replaced over the right, while the pivoting is done on the heels 
almost without quitting the same spot. In this consists their 
" dancing." 

The Mevlevi Dervishes, says Mr. Jno. P. Brown in his useful 
book, " move round from E. to W. " on the left foot, pushing them- 
selves round with the right, " in a quasi-mystic circle " ; the left 
hand pointed to the earth, and the right upwards to the heavens, 
in profound silence, mentally reciting their zikr^ which consists 
simply in a continuous repetition of the one word " Allah ! " 

When a postulant (Murid) is admitted to the path by the 
Bektashi dervishes he stands on his left foot and presses the right 
great-toe over the left one (p. 167). 

1 The Da-uishes, or Oriental Spiritualisiii. Trlibner, 1868. 

* Z/Xv-means " mention, commemoration, calling-to-mind (oral or mental) ": Rcdhouse. 



726 



The N ighi of the Gods. 



[Dancing: 



" I have been told the custom refers to the harmonious move- 
ment of the Universe, and that the soft music of their order is 
symbohc of that of the spheres; but I am incHned to doubt it " 
(p. 54). Mr. Brown also says "the singularity of their dance has 
nothing in common with that of the other societies " of dervishes : 
and he thinks " it is probable that these innovations had their 
origin among Mussulmans in the sacred dances of the Egyptians, 
the Greeks, and the Romans of the Lower Empire " (p. 229). 
However that may be, Mr. Brown adds elsewhere from the Shekaik 
Nuiiidiiieh, and without comment of his own, that " the Mevlevi 
are those who join together as brethren, and by the love of Allah, 
worshipping Him in a house of love, to the melodious sound of the 
fljitc (nai), which expresses the harmony of his creation, revolve 
round like his empyrean, dancing for joy, the result of their ardent 
desire to be united to him. Revolving round and round the Sima- 
khana (dancings-hall) they free themselves from all unworthy 
passions " (p. 203). 

It scarcely seems as if this can be invented ; it carries convic- 
tion with it as a traditional belief which must be quite pre-Ma- 

hometan. It should be noted that pre- 
liminary to starting for their spin, these 
dervishes fold the arms on the breast in 
the form of the suastika ; and that their 
pirouetting causes their full, long petti- 
coats to balloon-out in a conical form. 
Petrie^ wrote of " the dancing festivals of 
the Canaanite and other ancient nations 
in honour of the Heavens." 

There is also a legend that the angel 
Jebrail (Gabriel) once brought some 
good news to the Prophet, who from 
joy turned round like the Mevlevi, and 
let fall his cloak. They all take off 
their cloaks (khirkas) to " dance." Their 
flute, the nai, open at each end, is peculiar 
to the Mevlevi, and many of the order play on it exquisitely, all 
their music being soft, tender, and pathetic. The pipe or flute 




' Simi] also means heavens ; selva sima, the seven heavens ; that is, presumably, the 
seven dancers. 2 F.cch-s. Arch., p. 15. 



Dannng.~\ The ''Dancing'' Dervishes. 727 

seems to represent the Universe-axis in Greek myth (see p. 48). 
The Mevlevi also on Sunday and Friday, repeat, seated in a 
circle, a prayer called the Ismi Jalal (name of Majesty), 1,001 times. 
This "prayer" is simply the one word Allah. It is odd, too, that 
the celebrated m)stic work the Mcthncvi Sherff, attributed to the 
founder of the Mevlevi, says that " the Beinsr who is above all 
combination, all distinction, is a Tree without branches, or trunk, or 
roots to which the mind can be attached." 

The Kadiri and Khalveti dervishes take each other b)- the 
shoulder and turn round in the hall of their convent, calling out 
Hai Allah, Living Allah. This is called the dewan, or turning 
(Brown, pp. 104, 201). D'Ohsson gave this, which he called devr, 
dance or rotation, to the Kadiri, Rufai, Khalwetti, Bairami, 
Gulsheni and Ushaki dervishes. Of my own observation I can 
state that the Rufai did not practice this when I saw them. They 
sat in a circle and swayed the body. 

The " howling " of these Rufai dervishes seems to have its 
_origin_ Jn the shouting (hallel, tahlil) that accompanied sacrifice 
among the Semites, and may, says Prof. Robertson Smith, have 
been a wail over the death of the victim, though it ultimately took 
the form of a chant of praise, hallelu-Iah ^or. among the Arabs, 
degenerated into a meaningless repetition of the word labbaika.' 
It may have been to drown the (human) victim's cries, or to make 
a concert with them. This theory would also account for the show 
of self-mutilation and self-torture still practised by the Rufai. 

The Peyadis, or dancers of Pey among the Shanars of Tine- 
velly, in their frantic movements, shouts, and (apparent) self- 
mutilation, approach closely to the Moslem howling dervishes. 
They also wear " a high c onical cap." 

This is quoted from " Demonolatry " in the Contemporary Revieio 
(xxvii, 371, 374, 375). The article translates Pey (in Bottom's 
sense), writing devil in its stead. It also quite throws the reader 
out by its use of the English word God in such a phrase as nanc 
Sattya sami, which is paraphrased as " it is indeed I who am the 
trnc God !'' When will missionaries (and others) give up these 
aberrations? One only wishes in \ain for vaore facts about Pc)-. 

The Hill Arians of the Western Ghats in Travancore also 
worship Pc)', who is male and female. The male is worshipped 

' Relig. of Semites, 411. 
VOL. II. L 



728 The Night of the Gods. {^Dancing. 

once a year ; the female once in three or seven years. A shrine 
is built ad hoc, and a tripod, lighted lamp, and sword placed in it ; 
a branch of the pala-tree being also set up, with a light on its top 
Sacrifice is made, and a great feast follows. There is a Pella-Pey. 
(Mr. A. F. Painter in Bombay Gazette Budget, nth April, 1890, 
p. 23.) Pey ought to come from the same \-oo\. pa as pater and 

father. 

I abridge an account of the dancing of the malawiyeh (Mevlevi) 
derwishes at Tripoli in Syria, given by Capt. Conder {Heth and 
Moab, p. 65 sqq. ) : High cap of light-brown felt, in shape of 
truncated cone — room opening to the air on the north — conical hats 
—Right great toe placed over left one, with legs close together ; a 
very ancient attitude of contemplation in India and elsewhere- 
long robes expanded into cones as they twirled— time of music a 
slow waltz, revolutions 30 to the minute— motion ; a turning on sole 
or heel of left foot, the right foot being brought round in front. 
" We could not doubt that the ancient dance we witnessed was 
that of the Cabiri, the seven 'great ones' or planetary gods, 
revolving round the centre of the terrestrial globe." The Mala- 
wiyeh are of Persian origin. Their mosque at Konieh containing 
the tomb of Hazret Moulana, their original leader. The position 
of their arms in twirling— left hand down, right hand raised— 
[which I have connected with the axis on which the heavens seem 
to turn], Capt. Conder takes to typify the female and male 
elements in nature, merely. But this does not explain the position 
of the arms ; for left is feminine, and right masculine, no matter 
what the position of the arms and hands. Elsewhere (p. 82) Capt. 
Conder notes that on the bronze plate found at Palmyra, the 
emblematic figures of the seven planets have "the right hand 
raised, the left lowered, as among the Derwishes." This I think 
must be scored up in favour of the axis theory. 

The phrase " with the sun," as indicating a direction, is, as I 
have elsewhere noted, an extremely vague and bad one. A good 
instance of this is that Capt. Conder says (p. 218), the Khonds of 
Eastern India in their worship perambulate circularly " with the 
sun"; but (p. 68) he states that these dervishes spin against the 
sun on their own axes and at the same time revolve in an orbit 
against the sun. 



Dancing.^ The "■Dancing'" Dervishes. 729 



There are reckoned twelve original orders of Dervishes, but 
these have many branches. Altogether some say that there arc 
as many as sixty different orders, and others even a hundred, each 
bearing the name of its founder. Some, such as the Vaisi, are said 
to be anti-Mahomet, and the Bektashi arc said to be "quite 
atheistic," while some of their branches are called " pantheistic." 
Though called Orders or Sects, in accordance with our Western 
Customs, the proper title for their divisions is paths} tarigat. At 
all events they believe in transmigration (hanasukh), and sacrifice 
a sheep at the admission of a postulant (Murid). Their mystic 
ritual is clearly freemasonic. 

I. de Asboth- describes a dzikr of the howling dervishes at the 
Sinan thekia, or monastery, at Serajevo in 1882. When the 
half-circle of howlers had become frenzied, a lad sprung within it 
and began twirling round like a spindle with outstretched arms, and 
gazing upwards, ever quicker and yet more quickly. He grew 
paler and paler, and was soon as pale as death. His eyes closed 
when he had been spinning for " half an hour," and was " at the 
rate of sixty evolutions {sic) per minute," one thought he must each 
moment collapse. 

Loftus'' described the dancing of a dancing-boy at Hillah, near 
the ruin of Babylon, who began dervishlike to move slowly round 
on one spot, gradually increasing the speed as the music quickened, 
until at length he spun round with amazing velocity as though 
fixed on a pivot. " Like dervises who turn as on a pivot," wrote 
Byron in Don Juan'' ; and thus too must the famous Chinese 
beauty of 18 centuries ago have danced. She called herself Chao, 
and was surnamed Fei-yen or Scudding Swallow, because of her 
lithe graces. Daughter of a musician, she was trained as a dancing- 
girl, led a life of pleasure, entered the Emperor's Seraglio, and 
danced herself successively into the positions of leading concubine 
and Empress- Consort. Her skill was such that she could dance on 
the palm of the hand, or in a bowl.'' 

A Korean dancing-girl at a Buddhist temple " began slowly to 
revolve with her arms extended horizontally, after the manner of 



' Jno. P. Brown : Tlie Dervishes, 50, 52, 58, 66. 
- Bosnia mid Herzeg., 1890, p. 210. 

Travels in Chaldea and Susiana, by W. K. Loftus (1857), p. 23. 
* iii, 29. ^ Mayers : Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 13. 

L 2 



730 The Night of the Gods. {^Dancing. 



a dancing dervish." " She soon reversed the motion." " A good 
name for it would be the peg-top dance."^ 

I think there is no longer any room for doubt that all these 
religious ceremonies which we have been considering are like the 
adoration-wheel, the Kalmuck's rotator}' calabash, the tulasi and 
other perambulations, including the Irish ailitJin\ a survival of 
Polar-star worship, a ritualistic homage to the stupendous, over- 
whelming (apparent) revolution of the Heavens. Is it too " light 
fantastic " to surmise that all our modern " round " dances had an 
identical origin ? And if they had, how strange to reflect upon 
the comparative rarity in these same modern round dances of the 
anciently sacrilegious " reversing," which even at the present day is 
still gibbeted, and even taught, under some such horrific byword as 
ambipedipulation. Although it may serve to raise a smile at my 
own expense, I cannot refrain from here repeating the " religious 
dancing " story of the )'oung hussar who, as many a soldier will 
do, had become suddcnl)' " converted." He was not at first quite 
resigned to the surrender of all the joys of his unregenerate stage, 
and so, by way of making the best of both worlds, he suddenly in 
the whirl of a w^altz asked his partner about her soul. " Oh," said 
she promptly, " if you're going to talk like that, we had better sit 
down." 

This section may wind up by quoting from Dr. A. Reville's 
" Hibbert Lectures, 1884," a- very important passage for my 
present purpose : 

The dance was the first and chief means [this is perhaps over- 
strained] adopted by prehistoric humanity of entering into active 
union with the deity adored. The first idea was to imitate the 
measured movements of the god, or at any rate what were supposed 
to be such. Afterwards this fundamental motive was more or less 
forgotten ; but the rite remained in force, like so many other 
religious forms which tradition and habit sustained even when the 
spirit was gone (p. 224). 

Perhaps I ought here to say that my conclusions were arrived 
at quite independently of Dr. Reville's ; and I am not aware that 
he has anywhere made even an allusion to the worship of the 
(apparently) revolving Heavens, and of their pivot the Polar-star, 
in connection with Dancincr or otherwise. 

o 

* Chosen, by Percival Lowell, p. 249, 



sphere. ] 



The Winged Sphere. 



731 



CHAPTER IV. 



The Sphere. 





Page 


The Winged Sphere 


IZ^ 


The Man-Bird-God 


741 


The Wings of Kronos 


748 


Divine Birds 


751 


Feathers 


761 


The Egg 


76s 


The Winged Scarab 


769 



The Heavens declare the glory of Jehovah 

And the Firmament showeth His handiwork. 

Day unto Day uttereth speech, 

And Night unto Night discloseth knowledge. 

There is no speech nor language 

Their voice cannot be heard. 

Their Line (Axis ?) is gone out through all the earth, 

And Their words to the end of the Universe. 

In Them hath He set a Tabernacle for the Sun. 

{Psalm xix, I to 5.) 



The Winged Sphere. 

THE Hittite (Khetan) monuments bear witness, says 
Professor Sayce,^ to the prevalence of the worship of this 
symbol in Northern Syria. He adds that the Hittite queen 
of Amenhotep HI of the i8th Dynasty (circa 1500 B.C.) clunfj to 
its adoration in Egypt. Professor Sayce, however, calls the emblem 
the " winged solar disk," and points it out above, the figure of a 
king brought from Birejik on the Euphrates to the British 
Museum ; and he adds that even at Boghaz-Keui (Village of the 
Pass) far away in Northern Asia Minor, the symbol has been carved 
by Hittite sculptors on the rock. It "assumes in Hittite sculpture 

' The Hittitcs, 1888, p. 21. 



/J-' 



The Night of the Gods. 



{The 




a special character which can never be mistaken" {ibid. 115). I 

give a tracing of the symbol at Boghaz- 

/^^ y^ Keui, at lasili-Kai'a, according to Perrot 

■n^ s^^^ ^^^ Guillaume,^ which Prof. Sayce calls " a 

winged solar disk, the two extremities of 

which rest upon baseless columns " (pp. 88, 

90, 93). These columns deserve notice, and 

may be phallic as well as symbols of the 

Pillar so often dealt with in this book. 

Creuzer said' that the globe surrounded with the serpent, or the 
circle or disk in the centre of which is a hawk-headed serpent, were 
emblems of Kneph or of Amen. And Guigniaut stated' that Creuzer 
had discerned even before Young that the globe or disk flanked by 
two uraei serpents, winged (as on the temple-fronts) or unwinged, 
o-oes back to the supreme divinity Kneph-Agathodemon, as the 
Greeks called Khnum. Champollion the younger gave it specially 
to Thoth. Khnum, it should be remembered, is associated with 
Ptah, and is sometimes found moulding the cosmic Egg on a 
potter's- wheel out of matter furnished by Ptah. 

But it is more to my purpose that Theodule Deveria had 
recoo-nized on the naos-cornices "the solar disk flanked by two 
wxTSA and by two eyes " as " symbols of the celestial spaces," adding 
that " the winged disk has the same signification."* I can desire 
very little more when I find this accomplished and lamented 
scholar bearing me company so far on the way to my generalisa- 
tion of the emblem of the winged Sphere. 

There must be more than meets the eye in the following extract 
from Pierret's Vocabulaire (69) : 



ap, api, to fly, 
ap 



or 



or 



api, the winged 



disk " (I say Sphere). 




u 



or 



n 



CIS. 

ap, pyramid, s A . 
apap, apapi, to run J\ or 

apap, the great serpent Apophis 

* Babelon's yIAz;;«a/ (Evetts), p. 195. 
'^ Ibid., p. 953. 



D n 



n D 



j^ 



Jielig. de fAnt., i, 823, 824. 
Mannscrits li.gyptiens, 1881, p, 



78. 



sphere?^ The Winged Sphei^e. ^j^^Z 

To Horapollon (of whom or of his odd-looking Greco-Egyptian 
name we know absolutely nothing) we owe the transcription 
ovpaio'i (Greek, ovpa, a tail) of the Egyptian word ara (araret) 

, the name of the haje asp (/« . "This serpent," said he 




(i, i) has the tail folded under the rest of the body ^^^. The 

Egyptians call it ovpatov, the Greeks jBaaCkio-Kov, and its image in 
gold is placed on the heads of the gods." For that reason it was 

worn by kings also. It was employed f/,. to determine the word 
goddess, while god was written | (hatchet) or ^^. (hawk). 

Placed over the basket i^^ , it " expressed domination over the 

regions of the North" (pp. 556). Its head was an amulet. When 

two arau wearing the hats of the N. and S. 

are combined with the winged sphere (houd) 

empire of the Universe is clearly signified vj 

(pp. 187). <J 

De Rouge make a somewhat similar statement to the above 
elsewhere (p. 105) ; " the heavens of the N. and of the S. are 
represented by two crowned vipers." 

"An uraeus (ara) and a vulture with extended wings represent 
the heavens-goddesses of the N. and of the S.," says de Rouge.^ 
This is the only time I have met with this statement as to the ara. 
Again ; " The upper portion of the Egyptian stelae," said de Rouge,^ 
" is occupied by figures which generally have refer- 
ence to the supreme deity under the form of the ^^^^^^^^^ 
solar disk adorned with two extended wings. 
The divinity in that case bears the name of _Hat, g reat god , lord 
of the heavens." [He calls it Hat, but Pierret's Dictionnaire (p. 
187) gives Hout or Houd, <•> . Prof Ebers says Hut means wing- 
expander, and Mr. Wallis Budge informs me it is properly 
Behutet] At the top of a stela of the xiiith (?) dynasty de Rouge 
(p. JJ^ describes the same, accompanied by 
the two arau (uraji) " which represent the 
goddesses of the N. and the S." as having 
beside it the legend " Hat, great^god, ray of light, lord of heaven." 

' Notice Sonimaire, p. 73- 

- Notice stir les Motiiit/tents (Louvre), 1883, pp. 71, 77, etc. 




/J' 



The Night of the Gods. ^The 



De Rouge's exposition (p. 71) that, " in the solar course directed 
from E. to W., one of these extended wings [of the Sun] was 
directed towards the N., the other towards the S." must be a 
late (as it is a lame) superfaetation of sun-worship. In describing 
a stela in the style of Sais (p. 120) de Rouge calls it " the winged 
globe," \\liich approaches my theory that it is the winged sphere 
of the universe; and Layard {Monumeuts, ist series, plate 20) 
calls the similar Assyrian symbol the winged globe. The 
winged sphere with ura:^i is also found sculptured in relief on the 

vaulted ceiling of the monolithic Phoe- 
nician cella or shrine at Ain el Hayat.^ 
The North side of the pylone at Karnak, 
the abode ofAjneru shows in high bas-relief an unmistakable 
sphere~flarn<edby two arau, and winged. 

The fact that when the wings are omitted they are replaceable 

(and replaced) by the uja ^^§ eyes of the N. and of the S. 

confirms the theory that the sphere is the Universe-sphere of the 
heavens, when it is understood that the eyes are (as I venture to 
think is in this inquiry part-proved) the motionless points of the 
Universe-axis. There are instances where one wing is replaced 
by an eye, the other wing remaining on the sphere, as in a stela 
of the 1 8th dynasty (Louvre: Notice, 106). 
v^ " The name of the Sun," said de Rouge,^ " varied according to 
y/ the diverse places where it was adored " [It would be much safer 
^ to say that the Sun drew to itself the various names of divers local 
gods.] " Thus at Edfu the Sun was called Hout, and that is the , 
name which it receives ordinarily in the winged disk which I 
decorates the summit of all temple doors." Of course I demur to) 

■ the unqualified assertion that Hout (properly 
^^2ZdlX^^ Behutetfls'lhe Sur[ But here we have the 

historical fact that the hut or behutet was specially worshipped 

at Edfu or Teb A J (otherwise Apollinopolis magna). 

[Hut there was another serpent, the Mehen ^^ j^l which de 

Rouge meant when he said the " serpents that adorn the sides of 
the sarcophagus of Tent-hapi (D. 39 Louvre) figure by their long 
windings the peregrinations to which the soul must submit in the 

' Kenan ; Mission de Phenicie, ■ Notice Sonimaire (1876), 12S, 



sphere ^^ The J4^ijiged Sphere. 735 

infernal region."' Elsewhere, however, " the serpent expresses by 
its undulations the route of the Sun traversing the region of souls." 
The Stoic Cleanthes was of opinion that the sun " described a 
spiral when departing from the equator towards the N. and towards 
the S."^ Can this perhaps be the same conception ?] 

In the Popol Vuh there was in the beginning nothing but water 
and the feathered serpent or serpent-bird, Ouetzalcoatl, so far as / 
the Quiches knew. 

I am happy to find myself in some agreement with Capt. 
Conder" in the opinion that in these matters " old-fashioned 
authorities *' are not to be despised and disposed of in the lump, 
as mere " 2d. a lb." stuff. One such investigator of the old school 
was Stukeley, and in his Abiiry'' the following passage deserves 
disinterment and separate preservation : 

" When these ancient patriarchal temples came to be perverted 
to idolatry, they consecrated many of them to the Sun, thinking 
their round form ought to be referred to his disc ; and that these 
pyramidal stones set in a circle im.itated his rays. And had the 
ancient Greek writers seen our temples of Stonehenge and the rest 
they would have concluded them dedicated to the Sun. 

"These temples of ours are always of a round form, yet there 
are three manifest diversities which I have observed, regarding that 
threefold figure by which the ancients expressed in writing the great 
idea of the deity. This figure by Kircher is called ophio-cyclo- 
pterygo-morphus. 'Tis a circle with wings, and a snake proceeding 
from it. 

" I. The round temples simply, I call temples ; 2. Those with the 
form of a snake annext, as that of Abury, I call serpentine temples 
or dracontia, by which they were denominated of old ; 3, Those 
with the form of wings annext, I call alate or winged temples."' 

[Proceeding in a straight line from Thebes to Glisas, said 
Pausanias (ix, 19), you will see a place surrounded with chosen 
stones, which the Thebans call the head of the serpent. I. O'N.] 

Then he proceeds to describe alate temples on the banks of the 
Humber near Barrow (p. 92), at Navestock Common in Essex 
(p. 96), and in Cornwall (" the Hurlers," p. 97). 

Again Stukeley interprets Rowldrich in Oxfordshire, where a 
stone temple exists (called " Rollerich stones" by Camden) as 

' Xotiic Soiii/iiaire, 56, 63. " Bailly : Ast. Ancieiiue, 248 (citing Stobreus). 

2 Heth and .Mo ah, p. 193. ■* Folio, 1743, p. 9. 



736 The Night of the Gods. {The 

" Rholdrvvyg, which means Druid's wheel ox circle'' (p. lo). And 
then he cites the case of Joshua (iv, 20) pitching the 12 stones in 
the form of a wheel (gilgal),and caps it by citing Joshua v, 9, where 
the place is said to be called Gilgal because of the rolling away of 
reproach. 

Things changed afterwards, for we find in Hosea (xii, 11; ix, 
15 ; i^) 15) that the Jews were forbidden to go to Gilgal, where 
bullocks were sacrificed, and where all wickedness was ; where they 
multiplied transgressions, and were sure to go into captivity as 
surely as Bethel was to come to nought (Amos iv, 4 ; v, 5). After 
these passages I think we are justified in reading i Samuel vii, 16, 
as meaning that Samuel performed circular-worship at the wheel- 
temple and the stone-god and the sacred tower when " he went 
from year to year in circuit to Gilgal and Bethel and Mizpeh." 
He " called the people together unto the Lord to Mizpeh " (the 
tower), and the terrible sanctity of the place among the sanguinary 
Israelites may be but too well seen in Judges xx and xxi, where 
the cold-blooded slaughter of the men, women, and children of 
Jabesh-Gilead, and the enslavement of 400 maidens, was per- 
petrated because " they came not up to Mizpeh to the Lord." 

To return to Stukeley. He suggests (p. 11), or rather he 
doubts not, that the altar which Moses built with twelve pillars 
under Mount Sinai (Exod. xxiv, 4) was such a circular work as 
our stone circles, and (p. 25) that the gable-end of a house was 
so-called from gabal, which we find in Elagabalus. The Semitic 
root gabal means lofty, as I have before pointed out (p. 94), and 
the gable-end also displayed the sacred wheel (p. 659). I must say 
that this derivation of gable, a word which, in nearly resembling 
forms, is universal throughout Europe, seems a much more 
possible and sufficing one than that from the Irish gabJial, a fork, 
which is nothing but a shot, and a blank shot besides. 

I must, too, claim as a leading symbol of the leading heavens- 
god — that is of the Polar deity — the " dotted ball with expanded 
wings" found by Loftus at the Susa ruins. He described his find^ 
as moulded composition bricks in a ruined wall, with glazed 
coloured figures and designs in high relief, the colours being much 
varied and in a good state of preservation. Among the smaller 
figures was frequent " the symbol of the Deity — a dotted ball with 

' Travels in Stisiana, 1857, p. 396. 



sphere 7\ The Winged Sphere. y^)! 

expanded wings." This ball, it seems to me, can be nothing else 
but the celestial sphere, and its " dots " the constellations. I beg 
to submit that it is strong evidence that the " winged disk " (which 
one sees so often surrendered to the Sun) was originally a symbol 
of the flying of the heavenly sphere round the pole. There is an 
engraving of a similar symbol in Rawlinson's Great Monarchies,^ 
taken from an Assyrian cylinder, where the "Sphere" seems to 
me to be sensibly ovoid. If this be really so, we have the Egg of 
the Universe, and a notable support of what will be said about it 
later. 

The following " literal translation " by Sir Monier Williams 
from the Isa Upanishad — the only upanishad " not written by 
men " — seems to me clearly to refer to a Polar celestial deity : 

There is one only Being who exists 
Unmoved, yet moving swifter than the mind ; 
Who far outstrips the senses (?), though as gods 

They strive to reach him, who, himself at rest, 

Transcends the fleetest flight of other beings ; 

Who, like the air, supports all vital action. 

He moves, yet moves not. 

This passage is extraordinarily close to Sanchoniathon's description 
of Il-Kronos and his wings (p. 748), 

And the wings are not confined to the sphere itself, or to its 
pivot ; they are also found combined with the world-tree emblem 
upon which I have already so much insisted. Such is no doubt 
the winged oak over which Zeus threw a magnificent veil, on 
which were represented the stars, the earth, and the ocean. This 
myth was taken by Pherecydes of Syros from Phoenician books. 
The Universe is thus conceived of as an immense tree, furnished 
with wings to indicate its rotatory motion ; its roots plunging into 
the Abyss, and its extended branches upholding the display of 
the veil of the firmament.- 

An important variety of the winged sphere is that of the frieze 
of the great temple (of Hathor) at Dendera. The sphere or 
" disk " is generally painted red, and the wings are multicoloured. 
The hieroglyphic sentence, " Great God, Lord of the Upper region," 
accompanies it. The wings here would seem to assume and 

' Five Great Monarchies, i, 475. Also Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 343. 
^ Orig. de FHist., i, 96, 56S 569. 



738 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Thc 



convey the form of the heavens-vault. The illustration comes 
from the plates (iv, 23, 3) of the Description de t'Egypte. 




Perrot {Hist, de t'Art, ii, ^S) recognises Assur, the companion- 
less god, the true monarch of the empyrean, in the winged 
Assyrian " globe." Here is one which Perrot (and M. Henri 




Gaidoz) take from Layard's Monuments (ist series). A good 
example of the Egyptian winged sphere may be seen in the 
photographs of the Pylon e at Karnak. 




This fine specimen probably shows the influence of Greco- 
Roman art upon Phoenician religious symbolism. It is from 
the entablature of a temple at Byblos, alias the baptistery of 



sphere.^ 



The Winged Sphere. 



7 39 



Gebeil.^ The serpents have become conventionahsed — are turned 
to stone, in fact — but the sphere still continues a true ball. This 
symbol in Phoenicia thus filled the same supreme position on the r 
lintels of doorways that it held in Egypt, and this should be i 
compared with the frontispiece of Vol. I. For further examples, 
there are the door of Um-el-Awamid (Renan, pi. 52 ; Per. and 
Chip. iii. 126) and a votive stela of Carthage (Crespi : catalogo pi. 
2 ; Per. and Chip. 253). This other model, which omits the 





serpents, but has a triple topknot, comes from the top of a Cypriot 
Phoenician funeral stela. But another form still, in which the 
wings disappear, but the serpents 
remain, with a developed top- 
knot, was found by Renan, also 
at Um-el-Awamid (^Mission, pi. 
55). And to these must be added 
(for topknot and serpent-changes) this Carthaginian Tanit votive 
stela, from the Bibliotheque Nationale (Per. and Chip, iii, 127, 128). 
The topknot is three balls in one case, 
and taking the four last examples, and 
combining them with the feather head- 
dress of the Pataikoi (which see), we seem 
to cret the same idea as in the feather- 
hats of Egyptian deities and the Prince- 
of-Wales' plume. Is the whole concep- 
tion, after all, not the tuft on the head of 
some divine bird ? In the last instance 
of all we see the " serpent " almost becom- 
ing a " dove," as to its head, and in the 
preceding one, the serpents are very cockatricy indeed. 
side with it are most conventional puff-adders whose heads 
are mere balls. The last example is the only one in which 
I have met with anything above the winged sphere or 
(t^'g. Here is another case of the crescent-and-ball symbol 
from a little column 26 inches high (Louvre) brought by 




Side by 




' Kenan's Mission, 157 ; I'cnot and Chipicz, I'Art, ^c, iii, lU. 



740 



The NigJit of the Gods. 



[The 




Saulcy from Tyre (Per. and Chip. p. 128) in which we almost seem 
to have " the new moon with the old moon in her arms," the phe- 
nomenon of the earth-light. 

Here is a tracing from Nineveh and Babylon'' of the winged 

sphere (which Sir H. Layard called a " winged disk 

or globe ") which occurs at Bavian, in company of 

the wheel and the seven stars, over the head of an 

Assyrian Monarch. For comparison another, which 

displays the bird's legs, is added from an Assyrian cylinder found 

at Koyunjik, where it floats over a conventional artificial sacred 

tree, the fish-god Dagon grasping one of the claws. 

(Perhaps an indication of the intercessory office and 

power of Dagon or Cannes, the mediator ?) It is 

not impossible that the nucleus of the winged 

symbol may here represent the Cosmic Egg^ or Eye. 

A very conventional winged object, where the ring seems to 
take the place of the bird's head, is seen at the 
summit of the " Hittite" (?) stela from Birejik in 
the Brit. Mus.'' Another form of the same symbol 
from PerscpoHs is to be seen in plate 41 of Ouseley's Travels ; 
and yet another analogous emblem is added from an Assyrian 






standard copied by De Beaumonf* from Layard, and by me from 
De Beaumont. Perhaps in this suppression of the human figure 
we have that rebellion against idolatry found later on in Islam. 



' London, John Murray, 1853, pp. 21 1, 351. - Nw. and Bab., p. 343. 

Babelon's Manual, p. 1S7. ■* Kcchcrchcs sur le Blazon, 1853, p. 75. 



sphere^ 



The Ma ii - Bird- God. 



741 



The Man-Bird-God. 

FLENORMANT mentions the "symbolic image of the 
Supreme god, that is a winged disk surmounted (or not) 
by a human bust," which is often found on Assyrian bas-reHefs 
and on Babylonian and Assyrian cylinders, above a mysterious 
and sacred plant which is frequently guarded by celestial genii, 
and sometimes adored by royal personages.^ This plant is, of 
course, the Universe-tree. 

The royal cylinder of Sennacherib exhibits above a sacred tree 
a crowned human torso issuing from a circle which has a bird's 
wing, extended feet, and fanned tail. 
On each side of the central figure another 
bust issues from the wing, giving us a 
triad. Layard describes it as a "winged 
figure in a circle, here represented as a 
triad with three heads " ; and he adds 
" the mythic human figure with the wings 
and tail of a bird, inclosed in a circle, 
was the symbol of the triune god, the 
supreme deity of the Assyrians and of the Persians, their suc- 
cessors in the empire of the East."- A similar but single figure 
is given by Mr. Dosabhai Framji in his History of the Parses, 
apparently as a type of Ahura Mazda. 

Here is another, and apparently imperfect, symbol which is 
given in the Empire of the Hittites from one of 
Schlumbcrger's terra-cotta seals. I know not whether 
it is to be taken for a winged man, or rather a man- 
bird ; the reverse of the seal exhibits a galloping 
winged-horse (or mare) with the wings outspread — 
a Hittite Pegasus. 

I add one more, taken from an ancient white 
agate cylinder with cuneiform writing in Ker- Porter's 
Travels (plate 80). 

Similar figures to the first of these, of which Perrot and Chipiez 
say that " the god, from the tenor of the inscriptions, cannot be 





^ Orig. de PHisl., i, 74 to 76. 



- Nineveh and Babylon, p. 160. 



;42 The Night of the Gods. [The 

other than Ahura Mazda," will be found on plate 164 of La Perse 
Ancienne (Flandin and Coste) ; also in Perrot and Chipiez's La 
Perse, p. 814, figs. 480 and 392 ; to these should be added the 
tailpiece of their ch. 5. In the Persepolitan fig. 480, one hand of 
the god is extended, the other holds, like a large knuckle-duster, a 
ring (the chakra }). 

In the palace of Xerxes at Persepolis is, on one of the walls of 
the apadana, tlie king on a high throne, and in the centre of the 
canopy overhead is "the winged emblem of Ahura-Mazda" (Dieu- 
lafoy). This " symbolic figure of Ormuzd, with his winged disk, is 
a reproduction of the similar divine figure so often seen hovering 
over the king and his soldiers on the Assyrian bas-reliefs." 
" Ormuzd is often represented on the monuments of the Acha;- 
menid dynasty ; he has the form of a man crowned with the tiara, 
and enclosed in a winged disk." [In this case it is clearly an 
annular flat rim. and not a disk.— I. O'N.] It will be seen that the 
supreme winged symbol was intruded by the Achemenides, and to 
be at all tolerated by the Mazdeans, who had no idols, statues of 
gods, or representations of them, must have been regarded as 
supremely holy and significant indeed. " In the sculptures of a 
royal tomb at Nakhsh i Rustam we see a king in adoration before 
Ormuzd and a fire-altar." In the rock-caverns near Persepolis is to 
be seen Darius and " opposite him is a lighted fire-altar and the 
image of Ormuzd " [M. Babelon has here wholly failed to grasp 
the leading fact that the winged man-wheel-bird is not " before " or 
" opposite," but always without exception in the uppermost central 
sky of the picture or sculpture.— I. O'N.]. On the cylinder of 
Darius (Brit. Mus.) is "the disk of Ormuzd hovering in the air" 
above the king in his chariot. The seal of Artaxerxes Mnemon 
(Louvre), from Susa, shows " the winged disk " (which again 
seems to be a ring) '' of Ormuzd " above the medallion of the 
king, which has for guardians or heraldic supporters a pair of 
winged sphinxes, with head-dresses like the Egyptian pschent 

(or skhent) xf , with the uraeus (not the lituus) in front.^ There 
was clearly a good deal of assimilation or absorption of foreign 
divine ideas, a sort of theological syncresis going on, at all events 
in court circles, at this time. It must be remembered too that 
these divine emblems arc found on royal tombs, while a true 

' Babckm's J/(r;;/<rt/ (1SS9), pp. 165 to 182. 



sphere?^ 



The Man-BU'd-God. 



74: 




Mazdean could not have a tomb ; it was a damnable abomination 
to defile the earth with his corse, which had to be exposed to 
beasts and birds of prey. On every side, therefore, it is likely 
that this emblem of Ahura, if it be Ahura at all, was a foreign, a 
heretical, importation. 

An Assyrian woman-bird found at Van may be seen in figs, 
loi and 1 02 of Babelon's 
Manual} It clearly exhibits 
the ring, seen also in the man- 
wheel-bird. It is bronze, and is 
now called " a sort of Siren." 
It is clearly the central supreme 
goddess. Here is an outline of 
its back, with a central loop for 
suspension, so that it might seem to soar overhead, no doubt. 

I add the wings and eagle-head of another four-winged man- 
bird which is one of the " supporters " of the sacred tree on an 
Assyrian bas-relief (Louvre), and I draw attention 
to the four-winged man-gods at pp. 92 and 93 of^ 
Mr. Babelon's handy and valuable Manual. In all 
these cases it will be seen that two wings are 
erect and two depressed ; and in considering this 
arrangement, it is not easy to avoid the conclusion 
that, so far as wings are concerned, the Sanconiathon 
fragment which describes Thoth's statues of Kronos 
(see p. 748) must have been written from some such statues. 

This is how Cyrus is represented (apud M. Dieulafoy) in the 
bas-relief which is " the most ancient Persian sculpture known," 
and the conical -capped but otherwise nude " Hittite " Ashtoreth 
found at Carchemish has but two wings.^ 

A rare form of Anepu (Anabis) gives him the trunk of a bird, 
the legs and arms of a man, the head of a "jackal," and the equip- 
ment of an archer.' This is clearly a heavens-god, whether Anabis 
or no. 

A " Gnostic gem " of loadstone, of which a rough drawing is 
given by King* shows " the jackal-headed Anubis " with two pairs 
of wings springing from his sides. Above his head is a winged 
scarab and " in the field the sun and the moon " drawn thus : ^|^ 

' Translated by Evetts (1889), p. 129, etc * Babelon, p. 160, 188. 

* De Rouge : Notice Sommatre (1876), p. I48. * The Gnostics, 1864, p. 200. 

VOL. II. M . 




744 TJie Night of the Gods. \The 




and ^-=^ . It will be observed that the sun is neither O nor O 
here. 

We may detect the germ of our persistent term of the 
" aquiline " nose in the accompanying upturned 
face of the winged man-god-bird Garuda, embraced 
protectively by Hanuman the ape-man-god.-' An- 
other face is added from a wanged Garuda uphold- 
ing Vishnu. The beak of the raptorial bird is 
clearly put into the god's nose. 

One text of the Rig Veda (Wilson's, ii, 143) makes 
^'1^ Indra himself a bird. It runs as follows: "They have 
r^f styled Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni ; and He is the 
celestial well-winged Garutmat." Besides giving the 
wings (of Kronos) to the supreme Indian heavens-god, this passage 
'* also supports my contention elsewhere that Mitra was not originally 
the Sun-god, but a form of the supreme central heavens-deity. 

The Irish god-Druids (see p. 350) and Mog Ruith ( = slave-of- 
the-wheel) in particular are described soaring in the air by means 
of a simple pair of wings put on and off at pleasure.^ They are 
thus gods of the Winged-Tree. 

The Volundr or Wayland Smith of the Norse Edda is clearly 
both an axis and a revolving god. He loses the use of his feet,^ 
which simply fixes him to one, the central axial, position ; and he 
tlien makes himself efficient wings, which are those of the winged 
sphere. I know of no other supposition for reconciling the two 
mystic facts ; and this supposition does so perfectly. The 
identification of Hephaistos and Daidalos by some ancient authors'* 
is thus too no longer a puzzle. 

Among the " savage " curiosities in the British Museum may be 
seen (in the case labelled : "New Ireland, 36"- — 28th Jan. 1890) a 
whole pantheon of large wooden god-images taken from a temple in 
the large island of Tombara, to the East of Papua or New Guinea. 
With these very strange, elaborate, and apparently unique idols, 
which are painted in parti-colours, chiefly red and white, may also 
be seen spread-winged birds with beaks like toucans and ibises. 
These too are formed in wood and painted in a conventional 
manner to represent feathers. But strangest of all is a large 
divine man-bird, with extended wings and tail, wherein the god 

' Moor's Hindu Paiithcoii, ])]atc 90. - O'Cuny's Matmet s, *2rc., ii, 214, 215. 

* Preller's G?: Myth., i, 14S ; ii, 497. •* Corpus. Poet. Bor., i, 173-5. 



v^ 



sphere.^ 



The Man-Bird-God. 



"45 



squats not in a circle but in a sort of scroll or banderolle. It is 
almost absurdly odd to find the two Eyes of the Egyptians also 
paralleled by two glass eyes fixed to two wooden struts in front of 
the wings. The identity with the conception of the Assyrian, 
Persian, and Egyptian symbols, is astonishing and undeniable. 

The Eyes on the coffin of King Antef (nth dynasty) in the 
Louvre^ are encrusted in enamel. A statue of the 5th or 6th 
dynasty shows eyes of opaque white quartz with a pupil of trans- 
parent rock-crystal let-in, and a little metallic point in the crystal. 
The eyes of a lion-ornament (?) are in glass-paste, with a leaf of 
metal. 

This discovery of the winged man-god and the Eyes in New 
Ireland, has induced a search — very superficial as yet — for similar 
Egyptian or West Asiatic coincidences. The boomerang of 
Australia was clearly known in Egypt. It was a curved bit of 
heavy hard wood » — --• which was flung at long-necked water-fowl. 
Sport of this kind is often the subject of monumental paintings. 

A leading case in the representation of these winged deities is 
the great fight between Bel and the Dragon, that is between 
Merodach or Marduk and Tiamat the demon of Bahu (Hebrew, 
Bohu) the Deep, the Ocean, or chaos, 
which is also mentioned at p. 85. A 
piece of sculpture in the British Museum 
gives the forms of the combatants as 
here shown (p. 746) by the kind gener- 
osity of Mr. Wallis Budge, who has 
already given them in his Babyhmian 
Life and History. 

It is thus natural that the evil, the 
fallen, as well as the good powers of 
the heavens should be winged. A 
bronze 4-winged figure in the Louvre is 
said to be (from a cuneiform inscription 
upon it) " the demon of the S.W. wind." 
If so, (and the quarter of the compass 
may have been evil) the two pairs of 
wings must have been extended to the evil gods. 

There was one evil spirit who was a great terror to the 




De Rouge, Notice Soiiiinaire (1876), pp. 72, 79. 



M 2 



746 



The Night of the Gods. 



[The 




sphere?^ 



The Man- Bird-God. 



747 



Babylonian, says Mr. Wallis Budge/ the spirit of the South-West 

wind, which brought disease and 

death with it. There are four 

images of this monster in the British 

Museum and another in Paris. 

This figure seems to be connected 

with another in the De Clercq 

collection which backs (and looks 

over the front of) a bronze plaque, 

the designs on which M. Clermont- 

Ganneau takes to be " the Assyrian 

hell," but which appear to be 

heavenly, funereal, and infernal ; 

containing in the upper stratum 

or compartment the winged sphere 

side by side with the 8-spoked 

wheel, both being flanked with 

other emblems. In the second 

compartment is a row of Seven i 

long-robed figures, one arm up and ^^'^^ ^""^ 

one down, each owning the head of some animal. "These are 

the heavenly genii called Igigis." They may parallel the Seven 

Kabirim. The plaque is engraved in Mr. Babelon's book.^ As to 

the 4- winged animal-god or jinni whose back we see as he looks 

over the plaque, his face is that of a leopard, his body that of a 

dog, and his hind legs those of a large raptorial bird. 




' Baby I. Life and Hist., 139. 



' i.e., ^l/i?«//(?/ (enlarged), p. 132. 



748 The. Night of the Gods. [The 



The Wings of Kronos. 

I MUST here comment more fully than has yet been done 
upon the symbolic representation of the Phcenician ll— the 
Kronos of Philo— which was given by the Phcenician Sanconiathon : 

"Taautos, that is Thoth, . . . imagined for Kronos the 
insignia of his royalty: four eyes before and behind, of which two 
are in repose and shut " [while the two others are open], " and on 
his shoulders four wings, two raised and two lowered, to express 
symbolically that Kronos saw sleeping, and slept awake," [which 
has been dealt with under " The Eye of Heaven " ;] "and in the 
same way the positions of the wings show that he flew in repose, 
and reposed in flying." [Just the symbolism for the Polar Power 
whirling the heavens round, but ever reposing himself at the 
motionless centre of motion.] " He had also two wings on the head." 

" To the other gods Taautos gave two wings on the shoulders, 
as accompanying Kronos in his flight — ox? r]ri avvLTrravro r^y Kpovw.' 
[These would be other heavenly stellar gods, gods of the revolving 
firmament, which never rests ; and they therefore were figured 
without the furled wings of Kronos.] 

Thoth, as the designer of the idols of Kronos, must be viewed 
as our own embodiment Art — that is art religious. 

These considerations are important for my purposes, but they 
will lead us farther afield. 

In the first place the four shoulder-wings — two raised and two 
lowered — exhibit a most striking likeness to the Kerubim of t\v2 
Merkabah of Ezekiel (i, 6 ; x, 2i) which have the same number 
of wings — two raised and two extended on the quarters ; and this 
contributes another argument for regarding the cherubs (see p. i86) 
as powers of the celestial sphere, stellar gods or genii, in the sacred 
astrology of the dim past. 

The gate of Asgard is guarded by two ganns, wolf-dogs, called 
Gifr and Geri. Geri is also the name of one of Odinn's dogs, and 
Gifr indicates power to fly. Odinn flies through the air with his 
dogs high above the earth. One of the Asgard dogs always 
watches, while the other sleeps.^ Here are the ideas of the eyes 

^ Rydbery's TcKt. Myth., 516. 



sphere.^ 



The Wings of Kronos. 



749 



and wings of Kronos and of the heavens-beasts again under other 
forms. 

[I fancy that the self-same idea, but with wheels taking the 
place of wings, is to be found in the " obscure " passages of the 
Rig Veda (iii, 357 ; i, 78) in an address to that mysterious duality 
the Aswins : " You have arrested one luminous wheel (vapus- 
chakram) of the car for illumining the form (irma ? the creation) 
while with the other you traverse the spheres (to regulate) by your 
power the ages of mankind " ; which are expounded to mean 
" the divisions of time in general." ^ 

The wings at the shoulders, head, and heels of Mercury clearly 
range themselves in the same category, and the wings of his 
caduceus seem to me to go very near to making it the Universe- 
axis. (See the fuller remarks on p. 53.) 

The Korean black court-hat is " in the form of a rounded cone 
terraced in front. On either 
side project wings like 
gigantic ears." The king's 
hat is somewhat similar, but 
is dark blue, and the wings 
are " fastened behind, as if 
folded in rest." Again it 
has " a high oval crown* 
with a step in it half-way 
up," and it fits tightly over the forehead, 
from a photograph. 

It seems to me noteworthy enough to find this idea of supple 
mentary wings still extant in a 12th century 
manuscript of the Hortus Deliciariuu, in 
the Strasburg library. They belong to a 
pigeon, or dove as we have got into the 
habit of calling it ; and the accompanying 
figure was given by Didron in his Icono- 
grapliie CJircticnnc. 

f The statues of Saturn or Kronos with 
/a globe on his head are generally, but quite 

(erroneously considered, to represent his late-named planet. They 
must be referred to the sphere-guiding heavens-god ; and it ought 

' C/iosdn, by Peicival Lowell, pp. 155, 158, 339- Allen's A'orraii Talcs, 18S9, p. 
140. 




It is here outlined 




750 The Night of the Gods. {The 

to be trite to refer all the Egyptian " disk "-bearing deities to a 
similar heavenly spherical symbolism. Among the Herculaneum 
paintings is found a series of medallions which are assigned to the 
planets in the order of the week-days which they have named. 
But it always seems to be forgotten, or thrown into the back-ground, 
that the deities flourished for awful ages before their fallen names 
were given to the planets. The first of these medallions represents 
'Saturn with his apTrr), or scythe, in his proper rank as first of the 
gods and owner of the first day of the week. A graving said to 
be Etruscan^ represents him winged, with his scythe rested on a 
globe or sphere, the well-known type of the supreme deity of the 
Universe which has now fallen so low that it is relegated to old 
Time with his hour-glass in the comic almanacks. A medal of 
Elagabalus, struck at Heracleain Bythinia, affords the same design. 
A fine cornaline in the museum of Florence represents a half-nude 
Saturn (?) seated at the prow of a vessel, his scythe in the right 
hand. Behind him rise the walls of a city wherein is seen a 
temple. The city is perhaps the celestial city, and the temple is 
the palace which we have so often seen in these pages. The 
position of Kronos here as pilot is of importance when viewed 
in connection with what is elsewhere advanced (p. f) as to the 
Cabiri. Capt. Conder" calls the Phoenicians a "stock of hardy 
sailors who were the first to learn to sail by the pole-star" ; but he 
cites no authority for this statement. 



' Noel : Diet, de la Fable. ' Heth and Moah, p. 85. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



sphere?^ Divine Birds. 751 



Divine Birds. 

THE most sacred religious bird with the Egyptians seems to 
have been the bak, the hawk ; which I presume we must 
take, chmate for chmate and species for species, to represent the 
Roman imperial eagle of Jove. In another direction, the Greek 
name for the hawk, Ikpa^, is sufficiently indicative of a consecrated 
character. Poseidon and Hermes, both first-rates, each of them 
changed Hierax into a hawk ; the Ocean-god (in a foolish myth) 
because Hierax supplied wheat to the Trojans ; and Hermes 
because Hierax (the hawk itself of course) woke up Argos (the 
heavens) while Hermes was stealing, for Zeus, a heifer. The 
hawk was especially the bird of Ra ; Ra was hawk-headed, 
and was the supremest, all-embracing Universe-god ; the gods 
themselves were (according to one view) merely so many imper- 
sonations of his various attributes. 

The whole conception of the divine bird springs from the idea 
of motion in the heavens, in the atmosphere ; the fleshly type of 
which was the flight of the noblest birds — the hawk and its con- 
geners ; and its divine manifestation was in the motion of the 
universe, in the unresting flight of the winged___Krgnos, the El or 
fl of Sanchoniathon. Mr. Frederick Greenwood^ writes of that 
born observer of Nature the late Richard Jefferies : "He was not 
in the least afraid to say (though whether he did so in print I 
forget) that he had discovered in the hawk's ascending flight — (a 
sweeping spiral flight, in which the wings do not seem to beat at 
all) — a distinct law of motion unknown to the philosophers ; and I 
fancy a learned duke has since discoursed on the same theme." 
This is a valuable fact for me. No one would dream of accusing 
Jefferies of symbolic mysticism ; his evidence on the point is as 
natural and spontaneous as spring water. In a generation of 
Egyptian gods later than Ra, the jia\vk lias_desc end ecLto_Jiorus, 
to whom also then belongs the winged-spher e ("disc j^f the sun " 
as it is generally called) with the ara^ serpents. The hawk is 
obviously proper to gods, to the male principle ; for the vulture 
on the other hand is sacred to the female principle.- I have here 

' The Scots Obsovc'i; 2 Aug., 1890. - Creu/or and Guigniaiit, i, 947, 954, S94. 



752 



The Nip-Jit of the Gods. 



[The 



tabulated for convenient use the several divine functions of the 
Egyptian hawk. 



Gods. 



Horus 



Khons 



Mentu 



Ptah (embryo) 



Ra 

Rehu 

Sebek-Ra 

Sokar 

Sphinx ... 
Supti or Sept-Hor 



God 



:3un 



"the hawk ^^v is the bird of Horus" (P. 
Diet. p. 109. "This bird is consecrated to 
Horus whose name it forms " ^^^ (p. 468). 

'• sometimes has a hawk's head " (p. 293). 
Khons appeared in a dream as a golden 
hawk to the prince of Bakhtan (p. 519). 

has a hawk's head, with the sphere upon it, 
and two long straight feathers (p. 2>Z7)- 

two hawks are often perched on liis shoulders 
(p. 460). The hawk was also engraved on 
the back of the sacred ichneumon, which 
seems to connect itself with Ptah (p. 275). 

hawk's head, with sphere upon it (p. 210). 

the dual god or gods Rehu, has one head, a 
hawk's (said to be Horus + Set), p. 480. 

hawk-headed crocodile (Dc Rouge : Notice 
Soninmire, p. 148). 

sometimes a hawk {Diet. p. 517; Not. Soui. 

137)- 
sometimes hawk-headed {Diet. p. 523). 

represented as a mummied hawk (p. 521). As 
a crouching hawk with two long feathers on 
its head (p. 56). 

the hawk was the hieroglyph {ox god (nuter) in 
the later baser epochs {Diet. p. 210) instead 

of the older hatchet | (244). 

"gives the name of the goddess of Amenti " 

(p. 210). 
" divine Sun with hawk's head," wrote De 

Rouge {Not. Soni. p. 102) ; but this seems 

to be pure theory on his part, 
again De Rouge said the ram-headed hawk 

was "one of the forms of the Sun" (pp. ji,, 

74). But this also is obviously pure theo- 



Sphere^\ 



Divine Birds. 



753 



Genii 
Hamemu 



Kebhsennuf 



(?) 



Decades ., 



The dead 



The " soul" (ba). 



Hawk 



Feathers 



Head 



retical assertion. [We have also a ram- 
headed beetle (at his p. io6), and the 
ram's head clearly implies Khnum, I sub- 
mit. (Baed. Low. Eg. p. 127.)] 



I a class of human beings 



(P- 235). This is extremely vague. 

the god of one of the four cardinal points is 
hawk-headed (p. 289). 

Eight human-headed hawks are said to be 
" certain spirits of the abode of souls," 
which is vague {Not. Som. p. 51). 

the 2)^ decades of the year of 360 days, on 
calendars, were man-headed hawks {Not. 
SojH. p. 55). 

may become hawks (or bennu, swallows, ser- 
pents, crocodiles, or lotus-flowers) Diet. p. 
342. 

a human-headed hawk (bak). The human- 
headed hawk hovers on the sarcophagus- 
lid over the breast of the mummy (p. 492, 

495)- 
the soul put on in Amenti the two forms of a 
golden and a " divine " hawk {Not. Som. p. 

99)- 
on the banner-poles of the Pharaohs (like the 

imperial Eagle) Diet. p. 210. 
the two great feathers of Amen seem to be 

from the hawk's tail {Diet. p. 35). 
the hawk's head was worn as a collar pendant 
{Not. Som. p. 91). 
The Eagle and Lion Chaldean tablet from 
Tello, dated B.C. 2,500 (?) (Louvre) shows an 
eagle with outspread wings standing on a 
lion's back. The Chaldean vulture stela 
(Louvre) of the same date shows an "eagle " 
on a standard-pole apparently. If this bird 
be an eagle, it is a possible prototype of the 
Roman and Napoleonic Imperial war-eagles ; but these "tablets" are 




754 



The Night of the Gods. \The 




worn fragments merely/ In like manner the two-headed (damaged) 

" Hittite " eagle at lasili-Kaia (Babelon, 
p. 198) or at Eyuk- and Boghaz-Keui 
[Keui or KoT = village ; boghaz = pass] 
may be the ancestor of the Austrian 
^"^"^ Idllii/r"^^^ imperial bird. In any case it clearly seems 
a dual bird with double body as well as 
two heads, and probably conveys the common notion of divine 
duality merely. 

The same Austrian spread-eagle may be seen, surrounded by 
four elephants, on a gold coin from the collection of Tippoo Sahib 
in Moor's Hindu Pantheon, plate 103. 

[The Reader must also be referred to the important discussion 
of the Eagle and the Vermilion Bird under the heading of the Four 
Living Creatures, p. 185.] 

The most primitive shape of the chief god of the Blackfellows, 
Pund-jel, is that of an eagle-hawk, and he and the antagonistic 
crow between them created everything.^ Yehl the god of the 
North American Thlinkeets, according to Bancroft, is a raven or 
flies in a crane's skin. Odin had his hawk-skin. This raven or 
a crow created for the Thlinkeets, while a hawk, a crow and a teal 
did the same for the Yakuts. The hawk was an Aztec messenger 
of the gods. Among the Canaris men descend from a beautiful 
bird with the face of a woman. Aristophanes was far from 
romancing when he said birds were the oldest of gods. In the 
(Greek) Osiris myth Isis became a swallow to seek round the world, 
without resting, the body of the god ; light flashed from her feathers. 
The Thlinkeet Yehl stole fire for men, in his form of a 
heavens-bird, the crane, he brought in his beak a burning brand 
which dropping on stones and sticks gave them the fire which is 
still got out by rubbing or striking.'' In the Torres Straits Kusa 
Kap, the gigantic fabulous bird, brings a burning stick (moii) to 
his mother, who then invents cookery.^ Yehl also stole water for 
man from the evil Khanukh, just as Odin in bird-form stole 
Suttung's mead, or the hawk Gayatri brought the soma from 

heaven. 

The Gallinomeros of Central California theorised that in the 

' Babeloivs Manual, p. 26. - Prof. Sayce's Hittites, p. 85. 

2 Lang's M. R. and R., i, 169. ■* Bancroft, iii, 100. 

'" I'rof. A. C. riaddon in folk-Lore, i, 5[. 



sphere?)^ Divine Birds. 755\ 



primeval darkness the hawk and the coyote made two balls of 
inflammable things. The hawk then flew up with them into the 
heavens and lit them with flint-sparks/ and they became the Sun 
and Moon. Here we have Egg, (see p. t) hawk, Egyptian scarab 
and fire all together. 

The Egyptian goddess Mut (= Isis = Hathor = mother) was 
represented by a vulture, or as vulture-headed ; a vulture-cap was 
worn by Isis, and according to the Egyptian belief the vulture had 
no male, and so produced its young by parthenogenesis.- 

The Vulture ^\ is the symbol of maternity. It writes the 



word mother, as well as that of the Theban goddess Maut ^^^ 



Horapollon (i, ii) said V\ meant mother or heaven. Maut wore 

thehatoftheN.and S. Xy which would mean both hemispheres of 

the heavens, and a Vulture-skin or a brooding Vulture seems 
sometimes to be identified with her head, the wings forming her 
cap. But Nekheb, the goddess of the S., is at times a vulture, 
and a vulture over a basket indicates sovereignty of the S. The 
vulture and the hawk were both graven (with the winged sphere 
or the scarab) on the back of the sacred ichneumon. 

The vulture must thus be connected with the central divine 
winged bird, and thus we obtain a very lofty sacred sanction for 
the Parsi devotion of their dead as food for vultures. The Parsis 
still carry vultures for their dakhmas to places where they are 
scarce." Of course, too, the soul in its becoming a bird would be 
helped on by being swallowed up and assimilated by a bird. 

The notable Chaldsean vulture stela in the Louvre, on which 
the names of the kings indicate a date circa B.C. 2500, exhibits a 
flock of vultures flying away with human heads, hands, and arms in 
their beaks.* 

The star-name Altair, for Aquilae, is really Al-nasr al-tair, the 
flying vulture, and not the eagle. It is odd that Vega, that is 
Al-vakah, more correctly and in full Al-nasr-al-waci, " the falling 
vulture," is on its way to become the polestar. In some 12,000 
years or so it will be within 5° of the pole. 

^ Lang's M. R. and R., i, 127. - Theodule Deveria, p. 148. 

^ Rajendralala Witva.'s /ndo- Aryans, ii, 119. 

•• Babelon's y]/a««a/ (Evetts), p. 25. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



756 The Night of the Gods. {The 



In Mexican legend the Wok, or serpent-eating hawk, is the 
messenger of Hurakan, " the heart of heaven," and of the lightning 
and the thunder which are the signs of Hurakan,^ who was also 
called "heart of the sea" and "centre of the earth": all names 
which correspond to the Navel. 

I think that the natural selection of hawks, eagles, vultures, and 
such other birds of prey, was influenced by their habits of soaring 
and hovering. Of course their superior general powers of constant, 
rapid, and facile flight, which make them almost denizens of the sky, 
would help ; but the hovering all but motionless seems to me to be 
the point of contact with the motionless centre of the winged 
heavens-sphere,^ 

It should be kept in view also that the Chinese ritualistic view 
of the hawk m^ade it sacrifice its prey.'' Other animals of prey 
were said to sacrifice to the supernal powers also — as the otter (its 
fish) and the wolf. It might be added that the swallow, whose 
powers of flight are even more striking at first sight than those of 
any bird of prey, and which works the air sometimes at immense 
heights, does not appear much among the heavens-birds, but the 
pigeon (another bird of great flight- powers) does ; perhaps in its 
character of messenger. The swallow's somewhat evil repute 
might connect it with the shooting stars and the pairkas (p. 90). 

The widespread idea of the souls of men becoming birds must 
perhaps have sprung from the belief that they joined the winged 
choir of gods, genii, angels, and so forth, who fly round as and 
with the heavens-deities. 

It is besides a fantasia upon the same ever-strong human desire 
which is put in words in the title of Nadar's well-known booklet, 
Le Droit dc Voter. Man wants to leave his planet-prison. It is a 
constant blasphemous rebellion in fact, like high spirits and 
muscular irritability, against the divine force of gravitation. 

Augury by the flight of birds must have had a similar heavenly 
origin, and we should remember that in making his temple Math 
his rod or lituus the first thing the Augur did was to face or to place 
his back to the North (see p. 431). In the Egyptian funereal 
papyri it is common to see the souls depicted over each personage 

' Brasseur de Bouiboung : Popol ViiJi, 71, cxxi. 

- See also what is said (Appx. p. 687) about the hovering of the cherubim. 

* Dr. Legge's Lf-Ki, i, 284, 221, 251, 292. 



sphere.^ Divine Bi^-ds. 757 



in the form of human-headed birds/ sometimes with human hands. 
The Sanskrit Kalavinka bird becomes in Japanese Buddhism the 
the Kariobinga bird of paradise, which has a human face and a 
sweet voice.^ 

Two of the symbols on the Siamese Buddha's footprint are a 
Kinon or Kinara, half man and half bird, and a Kinari which is 
half bird, half woman.'' 

The Hindu demons, the man-eating Rakshasas, keep their souls 
in parrots. According to the Chaldean tablets, the first monstrous 
generation of men was bird-headed, and was developed in the bosom 
of Chaos,'* 

We find the same idea in the cosmogony credited to Cannes by 
the Berosus fragments. In the primeval waters and darkness 
were engendered marvellous two-winged men, of whom some had 
four wings and two faces, one body and two heads, male and 
female, each possessing the organs of both sexes.'' " Their 
images," and those of many other monstrosities or symbolic and 
mythical combinations, " were to be seen in the temple of Bel," and 
doubtless now exercise our own gaze in the Assyrian and Baby- 
lonian monuments and cylinders. This was what gave Phoenicia, 
says Prof. Robertson Smith, its cherubim Griffins and Sphinxes." 

When the Mexican Earth is burnt, in the second age of 
Tletoniatiuh (sun of Firej, men are all to be changed into birds, and 
so escape.^ 

In Iranian myth the heavens-bird Karshipta was also the same 
as Zarathushtra (Zoroaster) ; and later the tri-natured Saena-bird, 
Simurgh,^ became the incarnation of Supreme Wisdom {Ze?id 
Avesta, \, Ixxviii ; ii, 203). The bird Khamrosh every year strips 
the tree Harvisptokhm of its universal seeds. Tishtrya, the star, 
then scatters them with the rains to all regions.^ 

There can now, I presume, be but little doubt that the rukh or 
roc of the Arabian Nights is the story-teller's form of the same 
supreme volatile. 

» T. Deveria's MSS. Egypt., 1881, p. 42, So, 116, 120. 

■ Satow and Hawes : Handbk. of Japan, p. [73]. 

•'' Alabaster's Wheel of the Law, pp. 300, 303. 

•• Smith's Chald. Acct. of Gen., pp. 102 to 106. 

^ Creuzer and Guigniaut, ii, 889. " Relig. of Semites, 18S9, p. 87. 

^ F. Lenormant : Orig. de VHist., i, 459. 

* Simurgh is the corruption of Saeno-Meregho = Saena-bird. 

' Bundahish, x.wii, 2, 3 ; Alinokhirad, Ixii, 37. 



758 



The 



Night 



of the Gods. 



[The 



De Saulcyi said the Arabian rokh might be the last syllable of 
an Assyrian word nesrokh, almighty eagle, the primordial divinity 
of the Assyrian theogony. But nasr in Arabic is a vulture. In 
Malayan ruwak-ruwak means a bird of prey. 

I think we may also, without being too fanciful, retrace the 
central Bird in the Princess Parizade's Talking Bird in Galland's 
Arabian Nights. The Bird is on the top of a mountain, which 
has to be laboriously climbed to attain it ; and it is in company 
with the Singing Tree, whose leaves chant a perpetual harmonious 
concert, and the gold-coloured Yellow Water, which incessantly 
boils up in a great fountain-jet, and ever falls back in its basin 
without overflowing it. Here, doubtless, we have the World-tree, 
the music of the Spheres, and the Heavens-river. 

Aengus and his consort Caer as a pair of swans flying thrice 
round the Lake ; the bird-maidens of Emain and of the fairy 
mansions of Connacht silver-chained in pairs ; the pair of birds 
joined by a chain of red gold in the myths of Cuchulainn,- are all 

Irish heavens-bird deities. The most 
beautiful of these world-birds has a golden 
necklace, from which thrice fifty golden 
balls depend by golden chains. 

The sacred brazen melek-taoush or 
king-peacock (?) taken about by the Kawals 
or priests of the Yezidis (who have been 
loosely called devil-worshippers) was, I 
believe, first figured in Layard's Nineveh 
and Babyton (pp. 47, 48). Like the gold- 
feathered, glittering - plumaged cock 
Vidofnir, who perches on the topmost bough 
of Yggdrasil,'' I claim it for the divine bird 
on the summit of the Earth-axis, and draw 
attention to the likeness of the stand to 
the seven-branched candlesticks shown at 
p. f. The great standard brass lamps in 
the Indian Museum (14,987 and 14,988) have 19 peacocks (three 
tiers of six, plus one atop) which much resemble this Yezidi-bird. 

' I\ez>. des Deux Mondcs, xx, 457. 

^ Rhys's Hib. Lects., 171, 433, 459, 172. 

2 Rydbeig's Teut. Myth. (1889), pp. 479, 511, 514. 

t See Index to References before Index. 





sphere^ Divine Birds. 759 

There is also in the Museum a Bombay lamp for 9 wicks, sur- 
mounted by a peacock, which is like the Yezidi-bird and its stand. 

This Yezidi bird has also a re- 
semblance to another bird on an 
Assyrian standard, which is here 
copied from De Beaumont,' who 
confesses his indebtedness to Layard. 
(See also the Chaldean standard-eagle 

at p. 753-) 

On a Babylonian contract-tablet, 
the seal of one Kiribtu gives us a priest standing before an altar, 
over which a cock is perched on the top of a pole." This was in 
or about B.C. 753, when Rome was a-building. 

[I hope no one, flinging a gibe at the writer here, will ask for 
a connection of these instances with the weather-cock on the 
church-steeple. If any one so does, he must be referred to the 
words of Holwell," for which however all responsibility is 
emphatically declined. 

" The ancients kept a cock in their tirit or towers to give notice 
of the dawn. Hence this bird was sacred to the sun, and named 
WeKTcop, which seems to be a compound out of the titles of that 
deity [? !] and of the tower set apart for his service ; for these 
towers were temples."] 

K. O. Miiller pointed out^ that one name for Orion was 
WXeKTpoTToSLov, SL gigantic Cock's-foot, the spur of which was the 
girdle of Orion. 

Agenor was the father (by Telephassa) of Europa, Kadmos, 
Phoinix, and Kilix. Thus the bird-god Phoenix and first-man 
Cadmus are brothers in this myth. Of course they were both 
Phoenician conceptions. 

The fact that (pctvc^ meant both a phoenix and a palm-tree 
deserves, perhaps, more attention from this point of view. But the 

word (})olvi^ is considerably mixed ; and the bennu of Egypt ^^ 

(the very doubtful " origin " of the phoenix) roosted in a tamarisk, 
not a palm. The .sacred palm-tree of bronze at Delphi which 
Plutarch described should not be forgotten. 

' Rccherches suy le Blason, 1853, ]i. 75. 
" Babyl. Life and Hist., by Dr. Wallis Budge, p. 120. 
•' My t hoi. Diet., p. 16. " ^fytIlo!. .\i)px. 

VOL. II. N 



76o 



The Night of the Gods. 



IT he 



The Egyptian Ibis of the god Tahuti (Thoth) must not be 
omitted here ; but it does not seem that this bird can be connected 



with the heavens. The Khu 
dead in the PeyemJini 



(S 



often is used to designate the 
khu. The i^^, {b) also stood for 



ba^ the soul. The goose <^. was Seb's bird. 

The Korean king of birds lives in bird-land beyond the frosts 
[of the North ?]i 

The owl is a most evil bird on the Gold Coast, and sudden 
violent deaths are pehtu-wuh, owl-deaths.^ 

[See p. 606 as to the wings of Fortune and Victory, and pp. 688, 
735, as to Ouetzalcoatl, meaning Serpent-bird.] 

The winged sphere and central bird ideas can even be pursued 

into. Christian symbolism. I 



insert here a drawing from 
a 13th century window in 
Auxerre cathedral, in order 
to have an opportunity of 
recording the surmise that it 
may be some day possible to 
trace more closely the connec- 
tion here apparent between 
the central supreme winged 
creature and the waters of 
the heavens-river. Didron 
{Iconog. Chn't., fig. 129) of 
course points out that it is 
" the divine Dove floating between the waters of the Creation." 




' iVlIiu's Korean Talcs ^ iSSy, p. 26. 



^ Ellis : Ts hi- speaking Peoples^ p. 203. 



SpJiei'c. 



Feathers. 



761 




Feathers. 

STUKELEY (p. 92) laboured to show that the name of the 
Egyptian god Kneph (now identified with Khnum) was 
equivalent to the Hebrew ganapJi, to fly ; and he, oddly enough 
for what has herein been said about the cherubim (p. 748), quoted 
from Psalm xviii, 10, "he rode upon the cherubim and did fly." 
And he quoted from Eusebius {Pr. Ev. iii, 3) that 
" the Egyptians painted the god whom they called 
Kneph like a man in a blue garment [which seems 
a confusion with Ptah, for Khnum is usually green] 
holding a circle and serpent, and on his head feathers 
or wings." I have here given, from Baedeker's Lozver 
Egypt (127), the head and head-dress of the ram- 
headed Khnum, who is " associated with Ptah, and is sometimes 
represented as moulding the Egg of the Universe on a potter's 
wheel, out of matter furnished by Ptah." And I think that, if all 
that has been said in this Inquiry about Kronos and his wings be 
unbiassedly compared with what is just here advanced, it will be 
conceded, as extremely probable in every way, that the feathers 
upon the atef, SJiuti and other crowns of Egyptian deities are not 
simply the " ostrich-feathers of truth," but are divine emblems 
subordinate to the 
wings — feathers, if 
you will, of the 
wings of the winged 
sphere ; just as in 
Sanchoniathop all 
the other heavenly 
gods who follow II 
(Kronos) in his flight (p. 748) arc less gifted than their primate in 
the matter of wings. I here add, merely for reference, the some- 
what similar head-gear of the crocodile-headed Sebek and of 
Osiris. There is also the single feather of Maat, and the " long 
feather head-dress termed Shuti " of Amen-Ra. (I must also refer 
here to what is said at p. 739 about the Prince of Wales's plume.) 
For convenience in study the following list of the feather- 

N 2 







Sebek. 



Osiris. 



Maat. 



Amen-Ra. 



762 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Thi 



wearing gods has been drawn up. 
are not of yesterday. 

Gods, &€. 



Amen 
Anheru 
Ankh, the 

Hathor 

Heru-Amen 
Horus (of Arabia) 

Amsu 

Mentu 

Merscker ... 
Mnevis 



Drawing-room court feathers 



zuear on head 



... two long feathers (of hawk's tail ?) 

bunch of four feathers. 
. . . bunch of feathers. 

... " disk " and two feathers )v{ . Her 

fish wears the same head-dress. 
... the two long feathers of Amen. 

two long feathers il (which recall the 

plumes on our hearses), 
two long feathers, 
hawk-head, "disk," and two long 

straight feathers, 
same as Hathor. 
two feathers of Amen on " disk." 
Nefer Tum (son of Ptah two long feathers in lotus-flower, 
and Sekhet). 

Osiris (dweller in Amenta) has top of tat u surmounted by 

The Ostrich feather (1 ... the emblem of Truth. 

„ „ „ ... on heads of the 42 divinities, " masters 

of Truth," in the scene of the judg- 
ment of the dead. (These are the 
42 judges of the 42 sins, and 
" Truth " here must mean righteous- 
ness.) 

„ „ ,, ... writes the name of the god Shu 

(Atlas ?) 

„ „ „ ... is pronounced both Shu or Maat. 

„ „ „ ... the fly-brush (an ostrich-feather with 

rich handle) was an ensign of princes 
and hieh functionaries. 



I have suggested on p. 214 that the dual feather 
the two poles. 



represents 



sphere 7\ ' Feathers. 763 

The Atef sacred head-dress was made up of the white mitre 

of the South, two ostrich feathers (1 , ram's horns, ara serpents and 

others. It was worn by — 

Khnum (upon his ram's head). 

Malul (a god of the base late epoch). 

Nekheb. 

Sekar (as a hawk). 

Thoth (on his ibis-head). 

\n\}aQ Zend Avesta (ii, 241) Zarathushtra asks Ahura Mazda 
what is the remedy for the curse thrown upon him, the spell 
uttered upon him, by the many men who hate him — he wants 
a cure for bad luck in fact. 

Ahura Mazda answered : " Take thou a feather of that bird with 
pesho-parena feathers, the Varefigana. With that feather thou 
shalt rub thy own body ; with that feather shalt thou curse back 
thy enemies. If a man holds a bone of that strong bird, no 
one can smite or turn to flight that fortunate man. The feather 
of that bird of birds brings him help ; it brings unto him the 
homage of men, it maintains him in his glory. All tremble before 
him who holds the feather ; they tremble therefore before me, 
Ahura." 

In Mexico the mother of Huitzilopochtli, or left-hummingbird, 
becomes pregnant of him by a floating feather. 

In the SJidh Ndniah when Rudabah's side was opened to bring 
forth Rustem, her wound was healed by rubbing it with a feather 
of the Saena-bird Simurgh, and Rustem himself, sore-wounded by 
Isfendy^r, was cured in the same manner. 

The Saena bird is also of course the Syena or Hawk or Kite to 
whom portions of two .Suktas of the Rig Veda (iii, 172) are 
addressed, and whom the commentators say is to be understood as 
the supreme spirit, Parabrahma. Wilson thought this was " the 
notion of a later day," but those who follow my arguments may be 
inclined to assign to the identification a very archaic origin indeed. 
This was the bird whose shape the Gayatri took to carry off 
the Soma plant from heaven. Indra himself is elsewhere called a 
Syena (iii, 156). 

In the Iliad {y^M, 237), Apollo flies down the slopes of Ida, 
that is of the heavens-mountain as a hawk. " In the Rig Veda, 



.64 The Night of the Gods. [The 



says Gubernatis/ " Indra often appears as a hawk. While the 
hawk" [not Indra but Gayatri ?] "carried the ambrosia" [soma] 
" throuo-h the air, the archer Kricanus shot off one of its feathers 
which, falhng on the earth, afterwards became a tree." 



1 Zool. Myth., ii, 1S2. 



sphere.'] The Egg. 765 



The Egg. 

'T^HE EGG. As has been said (p. 769) Ptah, the opener, was 
also the creator and breaker of the egg of the Universe, from 
which the Sun and Moon came forth ; and there is, strangely 
enough, an egg-shaped single Object (ichi motsu) in Japanese 
mythology, according to Hirata, which formed in space, and after- 
wards developed into the Sun and the Earth. The first words of 
the ancient Chronicle of Japan called the Nihongi are : 

Of old, before heaven and earth separated, and the negative 

and positive were unparted. Chaos was like a fowl's 

Q^g ; and subsequently Deity came into existence in the 

midst thereof. 

I have come across a somewhat irreverent allusion to this in a verse 

of poetry contained in a sermon of the Elder Okuda Raijo: 

Ame-tsuchi no 
Hirakenu saki ni 
Utauran 

Tamago no naka no 
Niwatori no koye ! 

(Is it likely, now, that a cock could have crowed inside a hen-egg 
before the separation of heaven and earth ?) which leads one to 
repeat Bayle's remark upon Anaxagoras that the ideas of the 
Ancients who wrote about Chaos were not less confused than 
Chaos itself. 

[A lengthy monograph would not be wasted upon the ramifi- 
cations of the Egg conception. I shall only add the following as 
more immediately pointing to the heavens and to their central 
deity ; for, indeed, the question cannot be left here in its present 
crude state. The Sidonians according to Eudemos, posited before 
all things Time, and then Desire and Darkness. From the union 
of this first pair came another duality, Aer and Aura, or Air and 
Breath, who in their turn produced the Cosmic Egg, of which 
Time is here, as it were, the grand-parent.^ 

Another genesis, due to Damascius, makes Time engender in 

1 Damasc. De prim, princip., 125, p. 384 (Kopp). 



766 The Night of the Gods. [The 

the dark chaotic ether an Egg containing the dyad of the male 
and female principles, and so virtually the multitude of all things. 
Yet another genealogy— here are any number of them, each more 
or less inconsistent — given by the same Damascius as that of the 
Phoenician Mochos, says that there were at first Ether and Air, 
corresponding — though not in primitiveness — to Eudemos's Aer 
and Aura, as above. From these was engendered Tiutc (called 
'Ulom). Time then produced first Chousoros, the opener ('Hushor, 
Ptn/i), the demiurgus who opens the Egg, and then Time produced 
the Eee itself Damascius looked upon the egg as intended for 
Chaos, or perhaps for the heavens, seeing that it was said that 
when it split in two its halves formed heaven and earth. In both 
these suppositions Damascius is borne out by Sanchoniathon, whose 
o-enesis — the last to be given here — makes Rua'h (Breath, the 
above-named Aura) become amorous of its own essence ; the union 
was called Desire (Hipesh), and gave rise to Muth or Mot, in the 
form of an Egg, which illumined itself ; and so sun, moon, stars, 
and planets shone. The Egg here certainly looks like Chaos, in 
which case the eggshell would answer to the vault or sphere of the 
hea\ens.' As to the contents, the meat, in the egg, we further find 
that Sanchoniathon's egg-shaped Muth consisted frankly of mud, or 
more academical!},' of a humid and chaotic matter in which the 
elements of earth and water were still mixed ; or, again, of the 
putrefaction of a watery mixture, a slime ; and from this Muth or 
Mud issued all the seed of creation, and the generation of all 
things.^ 

The golden Egg, splendorous like the Sun, in which Brahma, 
the father of the worlds, took birth b}' his own energ\', floated on 
the waters. The god took thought, and split his envelope into 
two parts ; with these he formed the heavens and the earth, placing 
between them the subtle ether, the Eight regions of the world and 
the permanent container of the waters.- In the SatapatJia BraJi- 
mana (xi) " a golden Egg came into existence in the Waters. It 
then became a year [that is one revolution of Nature, the unit of 
Time]. From it in a }'ear a man came into existence who was 
Prajapati. He conceived progeny in himself ; with [the word of?] 
his mouth he created the gods." 

' F. Lenoimant : Orig. deVHist., i, 533, 535, 536, 558. 
- Cieuzei- and Guigniaut : Relig. de PAttt., i, 179. 



sphere:] The Egg. 767 

Another Egyptian account is that the Egg was laid by the god 
Seb. Now Seb sometimes bears a goose on his head, and his 

name is written with a goose "^ J Jj , and both the goose and 
the Qgg '^ signify son.^ So that it might almost seem as if 
crediting him with the laying of the Egg was an afterthought, or 
the theory of a sect who held that the bird came before the Egg. 
For Seb is the god of the Earth, the consort of the heavens-goddess 
Nut, and together these are the parents of the gods. I know not 
whether we are to see an emblem of " hatching " in the vulture 
which forms with its enclosing wings the head-dress of Maut 
(consort of Ammon). 

One myth makes the dove-goddess Atargatis be born from an 
t%^' ; and when one comes to reflect upon it the opening of the 
Egg ought, if it took place naturally, to produce a bird ; and this 
may have supplied another sort of support to the heavens-bird 
conception. 

In Korean cosmogony an Egg of extraordinary size, shaped like 
a gourd, and of pure gold, is found on a mountain, and on being 
opened discloses a beautiful rosy baby-boy. He wedded the 
daughter of a well-dragon. Their daughter, again, married a 
foreign youth who was also born out of an Egg which had been 
laid, in point of fact, by a queen, his mother.^ It does not seem 
that we have as yet got this legend quite accurately. 

Mr. E. A. Freeman, writing of the Mosque of the Companion 
at Khairwan, say-s* : " the ostrich-eggs that hang about his tomb 
may suggest the roc's eggs of Sindbad and Aladdin. They are 
said to be merely ornamental, and to have no symbolical meaning." 
It seems to me that there can be no doubt that these eggs (which 
also hang in festoons in Armenian churches ; and not, as is 
amusingly said, to keep the rats from the oil) are symbols of a lost 
heavens-bird worship. 

It is just as well to extract from Galland* the passage about 
the roc's agg in the talc of Aladdin : 

"Jinni," said to him Aladdin, "there is wanting to this dome 
a roc's ^^\g hung from the centre of the vault ; I demand of thee 
in the name of the Lamp I hold, that thou doest in such sort that 

' Cliosi.iii, by Percival Lo,\vcll, p. 211. " Relig. of SemiUs, 270. 

2 Griffis's Corea, p. 309. ■* The Speaker, 17th May, 1890, p. 532. 

•' Les Milk et Une Nuits, Paris, 1806, vi, 186. 



768 The Night of the Gods. [The 

this defect be made good." [Now Aladdin had been counselled 
hereto for his destruction by the false Fatima, who was the evil 
brother of the dead magician.] Aladdin had not finished speaking 
these words before the Jinni raised a cry so loud and so appalling 
that the hall was shaken with it, and Aladdin staggered ready to 
fall. "What, wretch!" said the Jinni to him, in a voice fit to 
make the boldest man tremble, " doth it not suffice thee that I and 
my companions have done all things in consideration of thee, but 
that thou must ask of me, with an ingratitude without its like, that 
I should bring thee ;;// Alaster, and hang him in the midst of the 
arch of this dome ! This insult deserves that thou shouldst be 
reduced to ashes on the spot ; thou, thy wife, and thy palace ! " 
The Mangaian universe is like the inside of a vast cocoa-nut.^ 
The egg of that extinct giant-bird the aepyornis of Madagascar 
is as large as 150 heneggs. The eggs of whales are not larger 
than fern-seed. For the amazingly complex structure of the 
nucleus, or punctum saliens of the ancients (discovered by Purkinje 
in 1825) and included nucleolus (R. Wagner) of a henegg, with its 
system of strands, coils, or loops, membranes, sap, chromatin, 
" disordered ball of twine," living network, minute active inde- 
pendent individualities, germ plasma, and the rest, the reader is 
referred to Geddes and Thomson's tight-packed piece of good work 
The Evolution of Sex.^ 



' Gill's Myths and So7igsfrom the South Pacific 
■ London, Walter Scott, 1889, pp. 99, &c. 



Sp/ierc.~\ The Winged Scarab. 769 



The Winged Scarab. 

THE winged Scarab shown on the summit of Ptah's pillar of 
stability (here claimed for the Universe-axis) at p. 66 seems 
to partake of the supreme central bird idea. 

'■^ Ateuchus sacer, the celebrated scarabaeus of the ancient 
Egyptians, was believed to be of the male sex only, and its act of 
rolling the clay-balls containing its eggs was supposed to be its 
manner of propagating its species (Plutarch, De hide, 1. x, 74). 
The Egyptians accordingly consecrated the scarabasus to Ptah, the 
god of origin and creation, who is often represented on the monu- 
ments with a scarabsus in place of a human head."^ 

'.' The principle of light, and the creative power of nature " 
[here unwarrantably confounded, I. O.'N.] " which implants in matter 
the germs of existence and light " [the same confusion, under the 
influence of the all-sufficiency of sun-worship] " was Khepera or 
the Scarabseus with the sun's disc, whose emblem was the beetle 
{scarabceus sacer)'' [One is the more surprised at the words " sun's 
disc " here, as the writer immediately goes on to talk of the " ball," 
which I, greatly daring, call the spho^e^ " As that insect rolls up 
into a ball the eggs which produce its offspring, and was supposed 
to have no female, so this deity was believed to have concealed 
within the globe of the world " [say rather sphere of the Universe\ 
" the germs of organic life. Ptah is the greatest of the gods, and is 
the embodiment of the organising and motive power. It is Ptah 
who imparts form to the germs sown by Khepera, and under the 
name of Sekhem Nefer breaks the ball rolled along by the 
Scarabaeus, or in other words the Egg of the Universe, from which 
emerge his children, the elements and forms of heaven and earth 
. . . . After the breaking of the Egg of the World, the 
Universe is resolved into three empires . . . (3) The infernal 
regions which are presided over by Ptah " [here there is no 
recognition of the all-important fact of the fall of PtahJ " the power 
productive of new forms, the germinating principle of seeds, and 
god of light and heat." [Here is confusion again between " light " 
and the dark kingdom.] 

^ Btedekei's Lower Egypt, p. 84. 



770 The Night of the Gods. \^The 



"Ptah was the ancient god of Memphis, who deHvered to Ra 
the germs of creation, and was assisted in his labours by the seven 
Khnumu or architects " [whom I identify with the Rishi of Ursa 
Major]. " As from him were supposed to emanate the laws and 
conditions of existence, he is also styled Lord of Truth." [The 
titles lord of truth and judge of heaven, seem rather to come from 
his immovable unswerving position as a Polar deity and an all- 
seeing Eye.] " The ' primaeval Ptah ' is also spoken of as the head 
of the Solar " [why " solar " alone ?] " gods, and also occasionally 
as the creator of the Egg from which, according to an older Myth, 
the sun and moon came forth. Thence too is derived his name 
which signifies ' the opener.' "^ 

The winged-beetle, winged-hawk, and winged-vulture appear on 
the back of Ptah's Hapi bull as well as the winged-sphere does. This 
is not surprising considering the supreme rank of Ptah. What is 
more unexpected is to see them all also on the back of the 
ichneumon. This at once demonstrates a supreme significance in 
the divine ichneumon-emblem. I would suggest that this may 
have had its origin in the animal's antagonism to the serpent. 

The name of the beetle, K/icper, the becomer, means also the 
roller or evolver, I believe, and if the god Khepera not only 
produced all things, but also produced himself (Khepera meaning 
self-begotten), and afterwards gave birth to the other gods, 
Khepera must simply be an alias of Ptah. I cannot admit that 
what the beetle rolls along is " the disc of the sun," nor can I see 
how that view can be cosmogonically maintained. It is much too 
local for the archi-supreme central notions with which I would 
connect Ptah. The beetle must be rolling up or rolling round the 
sphere of the Universe ; and it is the revolutions of that sphere 
which cause all becomings in Time ; it is that sphere which we 
have already seen (pp. 607, 608) as the Fortune-globe of the events- 
goddess. 

The sacred and cosmic significance of the word %eper is 
exemplified by the formula " %eper %enti %ep ^et neb em-;i^et 
%eper-sen : the Becoming which is m the Becoming of the All 
when it Becomes." Again the term " %epera %eper t'esef: self- 
existent Being " frequently occurs in Egyptian texts, where %epera 
fully means scarab as well as being. 

' Fredeker's Lower Ei^ypt, pp. 123, 124. 



sphere.'] The Winged Scarab. 771 

A hymn contains the passage : " Hail Ra, lord of the Law, \ <^ 
whose shrine is hidden, lord of the gods, %epra in his boat, at whose I 
command the gods were made."^ 

Canon Cook- points out the resemblance of Kheper ^ 

to our chafer, a kind of beetle. De Rouge'' calls it the " mysterious 
symbol of divine renaissance " and describes Ramses I as adoring 
the scarab as the "symbol of the creator." 

The god Khepera, Khepra H <z> [1 , the Becoming, had a 
scarab for head. The verb kheper " to be, to become, to be trans- 
formed " was Q <=> \ and ; and ^^ while " to give 

existence," s-kheper, was 00^^^ . The mummies of the nth 
dynasty almost always wear a scarab on a finger of the left hand. 
The replacing of the mummy's heart by a large stone scarab at the 
same time demonstrates the high significance of the scarab and the 
great importance of the heart in the Egypcian view of the human 
organism. The Ptah called embryo is hatted with the scarab, 
and there was a bull-headed scarab which is very rare. (Pierret : 
Diet?) The scarab that replaced the mummy's heart had the 
30th chapter of the Peremhru inscribed on it. 

Tahutmes (Thothmes) III " furnishes more scarabs than all the 
other monarchs put together. His legend was reproduced on 
scarabs down to very recent epochs, either from reverence for the 
person of this king or because of the mystic sense that it 
presented." (De R., Not. Sojil, 76.) This legend is the celebrated 
" Ra-men-Kheper which must have been adopted for /^"T^ 
religious reasons by Tahutmes (" born of Thoth ") and for 
the same reasons continued subsequently. As already 
stated it would seem to convey an absorbing worship of Ra © 
and Kheper the stablishers, which was perhaps the devo- \^_^ 
tional weakness of Tahutmes and his time. But Tahutmes I, H 
and IV also had the beetle in their ranu 

Gi^u] C5EJ C°°^!l 

Ra-a-Kheper-ka. Ra-a-Khepei-n. Ra-men-Kheper-u. 



' P. Le Page Renoufs ////'. Lats., 192, 2 S, 217, 225. 

- Origins of Rel. and Lang., p. 464, 406. ' Not. So///., 55, 63. 



772 The Night of the Gods. [^The 

and it was also found in the similar prenames of the much earlier 
1 2th dynasty Usertesen I and II f O ^ U J Ra-Kheper-ka 

( OQ^ J Ra-kha-Kheper Amenhotep II (i8th dynasty) had 
a very similar cartouche f ® | ^ | J Ra-a-Kheper-u. The first 

ran of the iconoclast Amenhotep IV was I J] A M } -^^^^ j • ^^^ 

group oS I Ra-Kheper-u is also used for Horemheb of the i8th 
dynasty. Nekht-ncb-f (345 B.C.) also employed the prename 
Ra-Kheper-ka ; and the cartouche of the Roman emperor, Decius 

(250 B.C.) leads off with the O . 

A cursory search reveals some other cases. An unclassed King 

f ^N 

Antef of the Abbott papyrus has for prename ( O fw^ ^ J 

(other Antefs seem to be of the nth dynasty), f o| ^ J is the 

prename of Kames, who is conjectured to have been the mother 
of Aahmes I (Amosis) i8th dynasty. Osorkon I of the 22nd 

dynasty also quartered the scarab in his prename O y O I> — ^ 

as did also Osorkon III (of 23rd dynasty ?) in his O j S? ti 
One of the Ethiopian Piankhis used the " Ra-men-Kheper " talis- 
man, and so did the last of Amen's usurping prophets. One of 
these high-priests of Amen at the end of the 20th dynasty has 

for prename ©MsJl" • Manetho's ■^l''oi;(Tei^^779, 21st dynasty, 
is identified by M. Mariette with a king whose prename is 



G =^ 



Ra-sa-nekht-Kheper-u (?) | |[_J L=J O 1 who had for pre- 

name Ra-ankh-Kheper-u (?) QT"M ' married the daughter of the 

iconoclast Amenhotep IV, and seized the power after the death 
of that fanatic. Seti II (19th dynasty) had for prename 

oi S I (] "^^^ The Sheshanks I, II and IV of the 22nd dynasty 



Sphere?\^ 



The Winged Scarab. 



IIZ 



o 



dfff^i^ 



^A^'^A/^ A^^AAA 



used the beetle in their prenames O /) M i>— X and o 

^l V^ AAAAAA 

and QQ^ Smendes or Sementu (21st dynasty) had for prename 
Tout-ankh-Amen of the i8th dynasty had the prename 







A brace of Scarabs from Nimriid are given here. The first 
was inlaid in gold on a bronze cube ; the second, which has the 




four wings (of Kronos), is " more Phoenician than Egyptian," and 
is from a bronze bowl.^ 

I suppose that the flies may here be classed with the beetles 
and the birds. An ox was sacrificed to the flies near the temple 
of Apollo in Leukas. But flies generally belong to the evil gods. 

Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, is, says Prof. Robertson Smith, 
"owner of flies," rather than BaaX M.vla, the fly-god.^ In either 
case, I think he must be claimed as a winged heavens-god. 

There seems to have been a decoration or " order " of the Fly 
in ancient Egypt (p. 179). 



' Nin. and Bab., pp. i86, 196. 



Relig. of Semites, 1889, p. 93. 



[This section should have been revised but it must now stand. — H. O'N.] 



774 



The Night of the Gods. 



\Kronos 



CHAPTER V. 



Kronos and Ptah. 



Kronos ... 

The Symbols O, Q and 

Fallen Gods 

Polar versus Solar Worship.. 

The White Wall 

Argos, Argo, and the Argei . . 

Danac 

Seb-Kronos 



PAGE. 

774 
780 
784 
790 
803 
807 
809 
Sii 



Kronos. 



§ 37. Kuhn and others make Kronos god of the nocturnal 
heavens, which is quite in the direction of the present Hne of 
argument. Menzel said he must be conceived of as enthroned in 
the North ; and it is necessary to point out that the ancestor of 
Kronos, the ^^Xtovv of Sanchoniathon in the Philo-Eusebian 
version which Philo explained as 'TyJriaTo<;, or the Most High, 
must also be claimed for the position of the Polar deity, to whom 
it seems eminently to apply, for his abode is clearly in the highest 
point, the apex, the pole, of the revolving sphere ; every other 
point being, by comparison, on a lower level. In Pausanias's 
description of Corinth (II, ii ; see also V, xv) he says that in the 
forum " there are three statues of Zeus in the open air ; one of 
these is without a name ; the second they call Terrestrial, and the 
third the Most High, 'T-^icno^." This is the Phoenician divinity 
whom the late Francois Lenormant identified with the el-'elion of 
Genesis xiv, 18. Sanchoniathon's Phoenician original of Philo's 
Kronos was (Philo's " Ilos," that is) II or El, and both he and 



and Plah.'] Kronos. 775 

Atlas, whose correct Phoenician name is now lost [the Phcenician 
word for the apin) might give it ?] were sons of the Heavens and 
Earth, of Philo's Ouranos and Ge, the Phoenician Shama and 
Adamath.i 

Osiris as the Most High, " the lord above all," Neb-er-tcher, must, 
it would seem, be viewed as a supernal god, that is in his pristine 
stage, before he was relegated to the lower hemisphere. Another 
of his titles Neb-ua, the Only, would refer to the same period of 
his evolution. 

It is utterly out of the question to ignore the importance of the 
survival in the Latin Mass of such Hebrew words as Sabaoth, 
Hosanna, Alleluia and Amen. " Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, dominus 
Deus Sabaoth " (thrice holy Lord God Sabaoth) " Hosanna in 
Excelsis : Hosanna au plus haut des Cieux," that is, to (or in) the 
highest spot of the heavens. Such were the words which in 
Isaiah's vision (vi, 3) he heard the six-winged- Seraphim shouting 
to each other ; and such are still the exclamations in the Preface 
of the chiefest part of the Mass. Before that there is the famous 
" Gloria in Excelsis Deo : Gloire a Dieu au plus haut des Cieux " ; 
and the same adscription of unlimited praise says : " Tu solus 
Altissimus— thou alone art the Highest." I have purposely left 
the rendering in the original French of the Montpellier Instructions 
or catechism.'* 

The Preface of the Mass also makes the Angels praise, the 
dominations adore, the powers tremble, the Heavens and the 
Virtues of the Heavens and the blessed Seraphin all exultantly 
celebrate together the majesty of the omnipotent P'athcr and eternal 
God — Cceli, Coelorumque Virtutes ac beata Seraphim socia exulta- 
tione concelebrant. These are important words, and my desire 
is here to lend them their very fullest weight. 

The term Ancient of Days seems also to me especially applic- 
able to a deification of the backward abysm of Time, as in Daniel 
vii, 9, 10: The Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white 
as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool ; his throne 
was like the fiery flame, and his Wheels as burning fire. A fiery 
stream issued and came forth from before him. This in one 
respect somewhat resembles the imagery of the Greek poets who 

1 Orig. de mist., i, 542. 

- Twain to fly withal, two on the head, and two on the feet. Mercury-wings in fact. 

3 of 1751, iip. 160 to 162, 166, 191, 192. 

VOL. II. O 




776 The Night of the Gods. \Kronos 

make Kronos an old man with abundant hair and beard ; he is 
ev'^airr\<i, \daio<;, evpvjev€io<;. 

I append an illustration which would seem 
to be this aged, bearded, hairy (and winged) 
Kronos ; but Bellori and Bartoli, in their 
Colnmna Aiitonini, call it Jupiter Pluvius, who 

^^^C'WMW extends his arms and wings, while tJic rain runs 
-'fl'JlKjy^" jj-, floods from his body. It is for me, too, the 

same idea that we are so familiar with in French as le Pere Eternel. 

Belitan meant Bel the Ancient, that is Bel considered as Time. 
The Ancient or the Old of the Phoenicians had his image as such 
in the Kaaba of the Arabs, who called him Hobal and Ab- and 
father of Time. (Movers, p. 263.) 

In the Zulu myths Unkulunkulu, or Old-Old one, the first man, 
" came to be " ; the Bushmen have their Ovakuru Meyuru, or " old 
ones," who control the skies' ; and the creation of the Black-fellows 
was effected by "the very, very old ones" (Nooralie or Nurrum- 
bung uttias). 

Hoary Old Father Christmas, with his tree too, clearly belongs 
to this class of conceptions. 

A very significant invocation of a form of Horus (?) which 
belongs to the baser epoch, calls him the " Old man who becomes 
young." Here, for one thing, we have perhaps the original of the 
Faust legend. It is said to represent " the eternal youth of the 
divine nature victorious over time and death" (Pierret, Diet. 132) ; 
but this explanation ignores the old age. The conception is 
perhaps rather that of life-in-death, of the renascence of things, 
of the continuance of the species but disappearance of the used-up 
individual. It seems to me more than probable, too, that this " Old 
man who becomes young " is properly not Horus but the embryonic 
Ptah. If this could be ascertained, it would be satisfactory in many 
ways. 

The " disappearance of the used-up individual " of course infers 
the uprise of a new generation, which is, however, in this case of 
Ptah (or Horus) accomplished by a magic or, as I expound it, a 
natural-magic change, and is not a transmission by generation. But 
the changes were rung upon this idea in Egypt in many different 
ways, so that the succession of human generations was completely 

' Lang's M. R. ^ R., i, 167, 177. 



and Ptah.^ Kronos. 777 

set at naught in the conceptions of the supreme divine power and 
methods of self-continuance. 

Thus a god Hke the infant Amen (or Hor-Amen) could 
engender himself and become his own child, which is merely a 
restating of the case of the ancient cosmogonies at their start 
(p. 20). Or the god was " the fecundator, the bull, of his mother " 

5^ ""^^-^ \^\ ^^^=— • Thus the ithyphallic god Khem or Amsu 

the generator is his own father and his own son and the husband 
of his mother. Another strange way of stating this idea of the 
blotting-out of generations in the eternal existence of the gods was 
to make a deity (as Hor-Amen is by " another account ") the 
generator of his own mother. 

Under these circumstances a genealogical tree is a diiTficulty 
in Egypt, and these considerations serve to explain why in the 
Chaldean and Assyrian similar " trees " we find the same, or 
nominally almost identical, gods appearing in more than one 
generation ; and even quite independent " trees," purporting to be 
authentic, which only occasionally coincide or confirm each other. 
This is important to bear in mind whenever we find a son-god 
usurping the worship of the father, or the new generation, son or 
daughter, taking the place of the old, in the case of fallen or falling 
gods. 

Freret had ascertained in the last century^ that the worship of 
Kronos represents the most ancient form of the religions of Greek 
countries ; a form so very archaic that there scarce remained here 
and there a vestige of it in what we are wont to call Hellenic 
times. The name Dea applied to Rhea the consort of Kronos 
made her as it were tJie goddess par excellence^ and was said by 
Hesychius to have been Tyrrhenian.^ 

[In the Phoenician mythology of Mochos, Ulom, Time answers 
to the Kronos of Eudemos. Hieronymus and Hellanicos call him 
Kronos ay/]paTo<; imaging Time — which it has been conjectured 
should be unbounded, air^qpavro'^. He was so far back as to be 
father to the male and female duality Ether and Chaos.^ Phere- 
cydes made Zes, who lives eternally, Kronos, and Chthonia, the 
three first cosmic principles ; the first of the three preceding the 

" Mem. de P Acad, dcs Inscr., xlvii, 41 sqq. 

^ Creuzer and Guigniaut : Kelig. de rAttt., ii, 2S9. 

3 Orig. dcVHist., i, 534, 535. 

O 2 



778 The Night of the Gods. [Kronos 



other two. Zes is equivalent to Zeus, and Chthonia of course to 
Ge, the Earth. Zes is also called Ether, the active, and Chthonia, 
Earth, the passive principle ; or Zes is Fire ; or Zes is the breath, 
Ruah of Sanchoniathon. But then Kronos, according to Phere- 
cydes, produced by his generation, fire, breath, and water.^ In 
any and all cases the remotely primaeval place of Kronos is clear. 
It is scarce necessary to remind the reader that in Homer Zeus 
is earlier than Kronos, while in Hesiod he is later, Kronos being 
son of Ouranos. 

Proclus- in his Scholia on Plato's Cratylus said that " Kronos 
had been considered by some as the same with the one Cause of 
all things. He was however," said Proclus, [not this Cause but] 
"analogous to this Cause; just as Orpheus calls the first cause 
Xp6vo<; (Time) nearly homonymously with Kp6vo<; (Saturn). But 
the Oracles of the Gods " (that is, expounded Taylor, the Chaldean 
oracles) " characterise this deity by the epithet of The O/wc, tm 
aira^, calling him Once beyond, arra^ iirUeiva. For the Once is 
allied to the One." But all this refining is mere spinning of Pla- 
tonian cobwebs round the one initial quibble of maintaining that 
K/30V09 and Xpovo'i are not, to all intents and purposes, one and 
the same. 

Eusebius, in his book called, by a foregone conclusion, the 
Pr(Eparatio Evangelica (iv, T/), gave human sacrifices to Kronos, 
Zeus, Ares, Apollo, Dionysos, Hera, and Athene. These then, by 
this test of highest sacrifice, ought to have been the chiefest Grecian 
gods. Clement of Alexandria adds Artemis, Peleus and Chiron. 
The last was a son of Kronos, and clearly a primeval astrological 
heavens-beast, and Peleus was by one account his grandson. The 
human sacrifices therefore ran in the family, in this first and best 
of families. 

It was Ptah's eldest son Imhotep, who was worshipped with 
him at Memphis, that seems to have been really taken for Ask- 
Icpios by the Greeks. They also called him 'lfxov6'>j<; (p. 275). 



Guigniaut paralleled the Phoenician Time (11) not alone with 
the Time (Zervan Akarane) of the Avesta, but also with the 
Time of the Orphic verses.'' I have elsewhere connected Kronos 
with the Zoroastrian Zervan Akarana ; and Guigniaut also per- 

' On\r. dcPHist., i, 555, 556. 

' T. Taylor's Paiisaiiias (1824), iii, 333. ' Creiuer and Guigniaut, ii, 868. 



and Ptah?\^ Kronos. 779 

ceived the identity of Kronos (or Saturn) to whom numbers of 
ancient peoples immolated human victims, with the Belus or Baal 
adored on mountains, and also with the Indian Siva- Rudra, 
one of whose epithets is Maha Kala, mighty Time, and who had 
such names or (Vaishnaic?) incarnations as Bali or Maha-Bali.^ 
Vishnu is considered as Time in the Rig Veda? Siva, as Kala, 
Time, is the father and dissolver of all things, while his daughter 
(who is also his consort) Kali, is Death and the mother of tears' ; 
and in fact it might be said broadly that deeply rooted in Saivism 
is the contemplation and personification of the forces of nature, 
that is the powers of the supreme deity, now as generative and 
productive, again as destructive, and then again as regenerative, 
and so on in an infinite circle. 

Siva, Time, is often represented with his son and counsellor 
Ganesa, the god of intelligence, invention, numbers and much 
more'' ; which affords a parallel to Sanchoniathon's Kronos and 
Thoth or rather Ilos and Taautos. 



' Relig. de F Antiquite, i, 162. - Wilson's version, ii, pp. viii, 97. 

^ Relig. de rAni.f i, 174. M. Williams : Hinduism, 92. 
* Creiizer and Guigniaut, i, 166. 



780 The Night of the Gods. \^Kronos 



The Symbols o and Q and 



CIDI 



THE circular re-entrant idea of Time is also, of course, to be 
detected in such words as cycle (= /cu/cXo?, circle = kakra, 
wheel) ; period {irep'i + oho's, a way) ; annual (annus, year; annulus 
ring, i.e., little annus, which is thus a big ring) ; the revolution, 
the rotation {i.e., wheeling, rota = wheel), and even the whirligig, 
of time. 

In the celebrated Babylonian tablet of 900 B.C. in the British 
Museum, given by Dr. Wallis Budge's kindness on p. 602, the 
Supreme heavens-god Samas holds in his extended right hand 
(fS^ what I conceive to be perhaps the earliest form of 
>^^ the Egyptian arcana-symbol Q. In the hand of this 
Babylonian god there appear to be two objects, a ring and a rod 
each separate. If this be so, I would theorise that the rod is the 
Universe-axis and the ring the revolving Universe. The combina- 
tion would then be a Universe symbol, and, as Q in Egypt meant 
10,000,000, would be comparable to the Japanese Manji (see p. 656) 
which means io,ooo, and would therefore be the All. The idea of 
revolution will then too fit-in to the general interpretation of the 
sign Q as " reproduction, renewal, eternity," "the infinite renewal 
of years," or of revolutions, that is of the natural unit of time. 

If Q thus means Eternity, it would also, of course, imply 
Immortality ; and this may explain its stretching into the r'an 
( — ;^ in which royal names are inscribed. They thus "entered 
into Immortality." This would explain, too, the sarcophagi which 
are hewn in the form of a ran c — > . such as that of Ramses III 
(Louvre ; lid at Cambridge). 

It will assist us, perhaps, to take a list of some words in which 
Q occurs : — 

Q Shen — 10,000,000; infinity. 

,^r Shen — the Nile at the period of inundation (Brugsch). 
This may be fancied to have been originally the heavens- 
river or the subterranean river which furnished the 
unknown "source of the Nile." 

Q and | Q Shen — contour, circumference (Brugsch). 



and Piah.~\ The Symbols o and Q and cza . 781 

^ Q and t„ _Q and 5 f\ VC=^ — Shen, Shennu, to 
move-round ; circumference, circle, orbit (Brugsch). This 
is the motion of the heavens and the ( — > should be 
compared with what is said above as to its probable 
origin. 

Q© and ^ O^^ Shen, Shennu, a place in the first 
nome of North Egypt (Brugsch, Geog., i, 242). 

Q P Shen, rule, precept, example (Brugsch). The joining of 
these two symbols (see what is said of Mat — (Index) 
seems to make this the order, the tao the dharma of 
the Universe. 

Q I Shen, form (Brugsch). 
^ ^ Shena, to circumscribe by a defence, i.e., a fence, 

or fortification (E. de Rouge). 
Q" T/p. Shna, sacred serpent (Brugsch). 

Q ^^_^ T=T Shenur, the great circle of water designation of 
the sea (Brugsch). This is the Cosmic Ocean. 
There is another way of considering this symbol. Eternity has 
been and can be viewed abstractedly (the only way of thinking it) 
as two or as one. "Each moment is the conflux of two Eternities," 
a sounding but barren phrase which so enchained the mystic side 
of Carlyle's brain, might be represented by a straight line starting 
each way to an infinite distance from the moment in, thus : — 

m 



-^ — Eternity (past) 1^ (future) Eternity 

Or, again. Eternity may be conceived (but not 
comprehended) as re-entrant, that is as return- 
ing into itself; when a circle would represent it, 
and come into play thus : — 

The circle-symbol would have been helped 
into use, too, by the various cycles which re- 
constitute certain celestial positions, and which 
of course led to the ancient belief that terrestrial 
events also re-happened at cyclic intervals. Of course the original 
suggestion of the circle-symbol would have come from the Universe- 




782 The Nig Jit of the Gods. \Kronos 

revolution, the unit of time, that which was in fact conceived as 
being one with time, as explaining why all things take place in 
time, and as thus fitting the circle as a representation of time and 
its events, that is of the All. 

The sign Q may combine all these ideas (of line and circle), 
and the point where the circle reposes on the line may be the 
Present. Rut " 'twere to consider too curiously, to consider so." 
It must not be forgotten either, that in the Egyptian symbol the 
line and circle (if such they be) are often bound together and 
become a bar and a ring joined by a clamp, as it were, and parti- 
coloured so as to convey, apparently, a complex set of ideas now 
perhaps for ever lost to us. 

Guigniaut thought that boundless Time was represented by the 
ring or the circle^ ; but it would seem that the definite, simplex, 
signification is the unit of time which one revolution of the heavens 
affords. Thence of course the meaning of continuous revolution — 
beginningless and endless — of Eternity. 

^ I know not whether it is permissible to theorise that 

the sign of "eternal life," as it is now generally interpreted, 

the ankh -r , is compounded of Q and | the latter being 

meant for stability. I believe Ptah is the only god 

that combines the aiikli, the tat u and the divine ivas 

sceptre 1 , all which he holds thus in his hands. The 

arikh was made into neck-chains and (with the was) is 
poured-out in a thread of the water of eternal life (?) 
from vases. 

The Rig Veda says that " Vishnu causes 94 periodical revo- 
lutions- by his gyrations, like a circular wheel vast of body." 
Again, " the twelve-spoked wheel of the True revolves round the 
heavens and never decays ; 720 children, in pairs, abide in it," 
(p. 1 30) ; " all beings abide in this five-spoked revolving wheel ; 
the heavily loaded Axle is never heated ; its eternal compact 

* Relig. de rAiit., ii, 917. 

"^ Wilson's version, ii, 97. The commentators make up the 94 with the 8 watches, 
the 30 days of the month, the 24 half-months, the 12 months, the 12 zodiacal signs, the 
5 seasons, the two solstices, and the i year. It will be observed that the day itself per 
se, the prime heavenly (apparent) revolution is here omitted ; and that many of the others 
are mere reduplications ; so that this gloss must be received with caution. 



and P tall ?\ The Symbols o and Q and (zzx 



l^Z 



Nave is never worn away ; the even-fellied, undecaying wheel 
repeatedly revolves " (p. 131); "the fellies are twelve, the wheel 
is one, three are the axles (but who knows it?); within are 
collected 360, which are, as it were, movable and immovable " 
(p. 143). Tzvelve and five are here expounded to be the months 
and the seasons ; the 360 are the days (day + night) in the vague 
year of 12 times 30, and the " 720 in pairs " are the same, reckoning 
day and night separately. As to the three axles and the gibe " but 
who knows it ? " I have little doubt they refer darkly to the three- 
fold divine nature of the central Power ; to conjecture, with the 
commentators, that they are "the three double seasons, or hot, wet, 
and cold " would be puerile. Thus we see that Vishnu was, as 
Wilson pointed out,^ " identical with Time," or rather with the 
supreme central Power who by turning the Heavens produced the 
grand total of successive motions which measure Time ; and thus 
does the Rii^ Veda bring us aeain to the Wheel and to Kronos. 



» Rii: Veda, 



784 The Night of the Gods. {^Kronos 



Fallen Gods. 

1AM not oblivious of the fall of Kronos, and his subsequent 
phases as the reverse of a supernal deity ; which perhaps are 
not unconnected with his relegation to the nocturnal heavens 
merely. The fact that Kronos was a hidden, a dark, a veiled 
god may refer to his relegation to the under, the hidden world or 
hemisphere. 

Plouton is said in the commentary of Olympiodorus on the 
Gorgias to wear a helmet that covers the face (the AtSo9 Kvvet] (?) 
of the Iliad, v. 845) on account of the dark invisible kingdom over 
which he presides. The Japanese too have their gods of the 
Unseen ; and the conception is also Chinese. But the myths of 
his two, or indeed of his three, periods — for he was affected by 
Egyptian ideas about the West — m.ust be kept apart, and not all 
ancient or modern mythologists have succeeded in so doing. Cast 
down he was, no doubt, but the gods die hard, and his primeval 
phase may live for ever — may endure in omne volubilis aevum. 

The Roman hill of the Capitol was at first the Mount of Saturn, 
where the Capitolium was, in its most restricted sense, the temple 
of Jupiter ; and there v/as, according to Dionysius of Halicar- 
nassus, a complete assimilation between the Capitol and Mount 
Kronios, at the foot of which were celebrated the Olympian 
games ; and Mount Kronios, the omphalos of the holy Elidian 
city, was the primary focus of the Capitolian form of worship.^ 
Other points of no mean import are that the Chaldeans considered 
Saturn the most significant of the planets, and drew from it the 
greater number of important auguries. The Greeks called it both 
Kronos and Helios, which last is as certain as it is strange,^ for in 
a resume of the astronomy of Eudoxus in a papyrus at the Louvre 
Saturn clearly is called 6 tov r^Xlov acrrrip. Here Helios cannot 
possibly be tjie Sun. On the other hand, i;^s to the planet Jupit er 
that the name of .41lUia.Mazda^ descended as the Pahlavi Auhar- 
mazhd.^ All these are traces of the transfer, bestowal, or assump- 

* Dion. Haliiar., i, 34 ; ii, i. 

2 Diod. Sic, ii, 30, 31. •' West : Pahlavi Texts, iii, 91. 



and Ft ah.} Fallen Gods. 785 



tion, of the terminology of a more ancient worship on the newer 
one of " the planets." 

The rise of one god often seems as puzzling as the decline and 
fall off of another ; and it is frequently a mere matter of chance. 
The case of the Assyrian Asshur is a good one to show what luck 
does for a god. He, with his dual feminine Sheruya, formed one 
of the numerous pairs of deities into which the Babylonian and 
Assyrian primordial entity divided. He was at first merely the 
local god of the town of Aushar or Asshur (now Kalah-sherkkat) 
which becoming the first focus of national Assyrian life, Asshur 
succeeded to the position of the great god of the Assyrian nation. 
Every local or village-god of the same standing all over the East 
had just as good a start as Asshur. His supremacy grew so 
manifest that it almost approached a monotheism, and he was thus 
naturally made the father of all gods, and succeeded without 
question or thought of question, to all the pride and privilege of 
the Supreme Spirit first evolved from Chaos, to whom he put an end, 
or rather whose entity he carried on under another name. In the 
same way Tyr was cast into the cold shade by the glories of Woden. 
This is the Doom of the Gods. 

The ancient god of Fire of the Accads also lost his importance, 
and at length quite vanished, being swallowed up in Rammanu, a 
god one or two generations younger than Asshur, according to what 
genealogical tree we accept. Ishtar, too, the famous Ishtar, who 
was of the immediate family of the elder Rammanu, became in 
many sanctuaries of Babylon and Chaldea a goddess two genera- 
tions younger than herself, as the daughter of Sin and not of the 
earlier Anu.^ It will thus be seen, too, that the tendency ever is to 
be off with the old god and on with the new, to take up with the 
new generation : a radical and a therefore ineradicable bent not 
alone of mankind, but of all Nature. 

According to Martialis Capella (ii, 40) the Sabine god Sum- 
manus was supposed to be the same divinity as Pluto (see p. 489) 
If there be accuracy in this, it must be recorded as another 
instance of a fallen deity. Yet another instance of a god 
who has failed in or retired from his supernal business, or at all 
events of an infernal counterpart, is the Vediovis, or Vedius, or 
Vejovis, or pleonastic Vedijovis of the Etruscans. O. Muller^ makes 

' Orig. de n.list., i, 524. " Etrusker, ii, 59. 



786 The Night of the Gods. \Kronos 

these names a compound with the bad negative prefix Ve-, and the 
divinity was a dreaded, an evil, a subterranean one. Another 
fallen god — their name is Legion ! — is Old Ophion the serpent- 
god, the first master of the heavens, cast with his companions into 
Tartaros by Kronos himself The defeat of the " Old Serpent who 
is the Calumniator and Satan," who is cast down and shut up in 
the abyss, does not appear in the Old Testament, but in the 
traditions of the Hebrews ; and it is to be found also in chapters 
xii and xx of Revelations. 

The term Asura is applied in the Rig Veda 26 times to Indra, 
Agni and other divinities in the sense of " mighty one," although 
Deva is generally the word for a god. But in the Brahmanas it 
has become the name of the demons with whom the Devas are at 
war. The Avestan form of Asura is Ahura, and that, of course, is 
the name of the most high god, while the Deos (Avestan form of 
Devas) are the black demons. One of the endless illustrations of 
that axiom of comparative religious science : One man's god is 
another man's devil, all the world over. 

The tossing of Hephaistos out of heaven by Zeus, and the 
hanging of Hera herself in chains out of heaven^ are clearly 
incidents of the " war in heaven " ; and of the falling of gods ; of 
their facile descent to Avernus. And it is merely a hollow old 
superstition of the poets that the gods know all, yet have suffered 
nothing. 

One of the most famous and mysterious of the fallen gods is the 
Egyptian Set. 

Set was the elder brother and slayer of Osiris (a Cain and Abel 
incident). His worship had a great vogue as one of the great gods 
of Abydos under several sovereigns of the i8th and 19th dynasties ; 
but a violent reaction took effect later [this is vague], for the 
figures of Set were destroyed or mutilated with a care zvluch makes 
them extremely rare in our miisemns. The symbolical animal of 
Set is a carnivorous quadruped with a long and slightly bulging 
snout, and straight, long, erect, blunt-topped ears. These marks 
are often exaggerated [as ifj to distinguish it from the fine- 
nosed jackal with pointed ears.^ Set was brother and consort 
of Nephthys. When Horus vanquished Set he did not kill, 

1 Iliad, i, 587, 590. 

^ See note by Dr. Budge, p. 789. 



and Ptah^ Fallen Gods. 787 

but only emasculated him.^ The giant serpent Apophis was a 
symbol of (fallen ?) Set, but another legend made Set the first 
victor over the serpent, another link with the Hebrew Genesis, and 
a stela in the Leyden museum shows him piercing it with a dart. 
" It was not till the decline of the Empire," says M. Renouf,- " that 
this deity came to be regarded as an evil demon, that his name was 
effaced from the monuments, and other names substituted for his 
in the ritual." 

Brugsch" seems to say that Egyptian astronomical texts associate 
Set (as Plutarch did) with the Great Bear. This would give the 
unfallen Set a high Northern origin. 

He is found engraved on the belly of a scarab wearing the 

sekhet V/ or hat of the N. and S. ; written near is Nubti, " lord of 

the S." a Nubian name of Set (p. 462). He is also seen on the 
base of an enamelled hedgehog, again with the sekhet, and standing 
on a serpent which he is strangling with the right hand, while in the 
left he holds a hatchet.^ He is paralleled with the Theban Mentu. 
The PereuiJiru identified Set with Bes, and Bes is a good god. In 
the white-ink (i8th dynasty?) Tenena papyrus in the Louvre (3074) 
Deveria said^ that Set takes_thej)lacejif Thotlvand is caJled Setes. 
The third of the five complementary annual days was the birthday 
of Set. The five were consecrated to Osiris, Aroeris, Set, Isis and 
Nephthys ; so Set is here clearly unfallen. Set was son of Nut the 
heavens-goddess. Before the downfall of Set " he was the warrior- 
god par excellence and the mythic animal which represents him 

here ^vl was from a very ancient epoch the symbol of valour. 

Later it was execrated as the symbol of evil."" This fall of Set if 
duly studied would I feel certain afford a valuable historic clue to 
the changes in the mythology of Egypt. He had many different 

names : Sutekh for one (?) 1 g^ • -"^"^ Set is written 



' De R., Not. Soiii., 137, 141, 142. 

- Relig. of And. Egypt, 119. 

^ Astron. Inschr., 82, 121. 

^ Pierret: Did., 373. 

'" Cat., 1881, p. 116. 

•> De Rou^je, iVolicc (Ls iMonumctits (1883), p. 21. 



or 



788 The Night of the Gods. \^I<ronos 

It is clear from all this that there are three leading facts here. 
I. Set was a god of Abdu (Abydos) and Nubia, and not of Thebes 
or Memphis; 2. He had two if not three phases; as a good god, as 
the fighter with Osiris and Horus, and as a fallen evil god ; 3. It 
has been customary to mix up all these matters so that confusion 
alone has been the result- 
In some exorcising texts (Louvre 3235, 3237, 3239) "Set of the 
plagues " is vituperated as the asp, the evildoing snake, in whose 
mouth is burning venom, whose visage is affrighting — (Set) the 
assassin of his brother (Osiris).^ 

Brugsch considered that Set's Greek name o( .Tv(f)Q)v came from 

Tebha A f~[] *K\ '^xl a name ('or title ?) given to Set by inscrip- 
tions in the Edfu temple. 

The head of Set is always that " of a nondescript animal, 
somewhat resembling an ass."- 

Set's animal is seen in the ran of the Hyksos monarch Salatis 



(Set Shalati 



HI 



and also in a title of the Kinsf of 




Upper Egypt Rasquenen, who was a contemporary of the Hyksos. 
This title means " life-dispensing favourite of Set." A 0. Z' ^ 
Apap Apapi or Apepa (Aphophis) a Hyksos monarch '^ ' '^ 
of the 17th dynasty, demanded the cession of a well 
from Rasquenen which led to the eighty years' war of 
independence which ended in the downfall of the 
Hyksos. Could this expulsion or extinction of the Hyksos have 
also been the downfall of the Set whom they adopted ? (But the 

syllable Set, with the figure of the god %|| , occurs of course in the 

ranu of subsequent monarchs, notably Seti I, " favourite of Ptah," 
and Meneptah (Seti II) of the i8th dynasty which succeeded the 

Hyksos.) I know not whether the rod user | which appears in 

the names of monarchs, is to be connected at all with Set. It is 
well worthy of notice that both these Setis are connected by their 
other names with Ptah. M. Pierrot says^ that " The Cartouche of 
King Seti was defaced because the name of the god Set, which 

' Deveria : Ca/., iSSi, pji. 172, 173, 174. 
'^ Babelon's Manual, p. 294. 
^ Did. pp. 323, 506. 



and Ptah?\ Fallen Gods. 789 



entered into it, had come to be abhorred, his worship abolished 
and his images destroyed." 

The Phoenician god Baal took rank among the Egyptian gods 

from the 19th dynasty as J ^^ J^ or J ^_^ ^ . (Pierret, Diet., 
83.) This seems an assimilation or a parallel to Set, if not another 
instance of the worldwide truth that one man's god is another 
man's devil. 



[Set has nothing to do with the jackal. What the Set animal is one knows 
not, only it is not a jackal. — E. A. W. B.] 



790 The Night of the Gods. \I\ronos 



Polar versus Solar Worship. 

[In one or two of the sections, especially that on Polar I'ersus Solar 
Worship, the paragraphs are in places almost entirely disconnected or only 
connected remotely. They are in fact notes which would have been pieced 
together in a continuous argument if Mr. O'Neill had lived to complete his final 
revision of the work. I have pinned all these together and placed them con- 
secutively in the order indicated in his numbers. Though the sense has not 
been made so clear as it would have been if connecting links had been added, 
they ought still to be printed, as in most cases they are of themselves valuable. 
—J. F. Hewitt, 25 Scpfeviber, 1895.] 

1MAY be expected to find space for a brief mention of 
the counter-claims of Polar and of Solar worship as regards 
Ptah. It is well known that the priests of Thebes put the reign 
of Ra (who may perhaps be taken to have by then become a sun- 
god) before that of Ptah, while the priests of Memphis, who were 
followed by Manetho, put Ptah first, at the origin of things.^ 
That he was " at the origin of things " is considerably proved by 
his name Ptah, which, whether in Egyptian or in Hebrew means 
" to open," and his connection with the Universe-Egg and its 
opening is fully dealt with at pp. 761, 769. The " White Wall " of 
Memphis is familiar to us all. M. de Rouge mentions " Heri, son 
of Kaankh, priest of Ptah and of all the gods of the White Wall at 
Memphis.''- The Ethiopian Piankhi who captured Memphis, " the 
city of the White Wall," there offered great sacrifices to Ptah. It 
was the ancient capital of the Pharaohs, the city of Ptah and his 
bull Apis (Hapi). There can be no doubt that Ptah was the 
supreme god at Memphis, and my suggestion would be that there, 
wittingly or not, esoterically or not, a Heavens-worship antagonistic 
to that of Thebes survived, " Ptah, the supreme god of Memphis," 
says M. de Rouge,^ " perhaps long maintained himself in a higher 
sphere (dans une sphere plus elevee) " than the Sun-god " for he is 
not found identified with the sun (except in the type of the 
infernal divinity, Ptah-Sekar-Osiris'') whilst elsewhere he seems to 

^ F. Lenormant : Orig. de r Hist., i, 448. 
"^ Notice des Monuments (Louvre), 1883, p. 124. 
■'' Notice Soiiiniaire des Montiineuts [l^owvve), 1872, pp. I20, 125. 
■• An exception which seems to be unproved. — I. O'N. (See also remarks on I'tah- 
Sekar-Osiiis-Tanen, p. 792.) 



and Pi ah. ^ Polar versus Solar Worship. 791 

be even indicated as the father of the Sun." Some of his titles 
were " Lord of Justice " (which agrees with what has in this 
Treatise been said about the polar judge) and "king of the worlds." 
The white triangle on the forehead of Ptah's incarnation, the Apis 
bull, seems to refer to the primeval triad so often met with in 
these pages. 

Hapi was "the second life of Ptah " and sometimes " the son of 
Ptah." Some of the sacred marks can be made out on a Hapi-bull 
in the Louvre.^ It was spotted, with black head, and a triangular 
white " blaze " on the forehead, and at times a white crescent on the 
chest. On a stela (Louvre S. 1907) King Pimai, 22nd dynasty, 
adores a human Hapi with a bull's head. After death Hapi (like 
every human Egyptian) became an Osiris (Osar-hapi, Serapis) ; 
but the bull is also seen on monuments bearing the mummy of 
Osiris and galloping towards the mountain of the dead. 

Ptah's " habitual form is that of a man with shaven head " [which 
gives an enormous antiquity and significance to the religious 
tonsure ; and Ptah's son, the Memphian Imhotep — a parallel to the 
Theban Khons and the Greek Asklepios — was also shaven^] 
" wrapped up as a mummy. The features are usually very fine, for 
Ptah was surnamed ' the handsome-faced god.' " 

A liturgical papyrus text (Louvre 3176 S.) contains a " sort of 
litany of Ptah-Socaris " recited by the superior officiant. It 
contains 17 invocations to Ptah and 18 to Socaris.'' The following 
notes and comments on the " Ptah-Sekar-Osiris " theories seem to 
me to prove that there is no firm basis for the theory. 

" The third character of Ptah, the infernal character, in which 
he " [why Jie alone, when all three arc named ?] " bears the names 
of Ptah-Sekar-Osiris. In this type, which appears on some stela?, 
and more habitually in the funereal rituals, he has an adult body 
swathed like a mummy, with a hawk's-head bearing the solar disk." 
[It would seem that it is not solar, that it is not a disk, and that the 
hawk's head is not Ptah's.] " It appears to identify Ptah in the 
hells " [where he is not] " with the sun " [which may be safely 
denied] "and with Osiris." (De Rouge: Not. Sovi., 126.) 

" A 3rd form of Osiris identifies him with Ptah under the name of 
Ptah-Sekar-Osiris. Osiris here takes a hawk's head wearing the solar 



' Ncticc Sommaire (1879), pp. 137, 57, 66. 

- Not. Sotit., p. 127. ^ Deveiia : Cat., 1S81, p. 167. 

VOL. II. P 



792 The Night of the Gods. \Kronos 

disk, and seems identified with the infernal Sun " [De Rouge ahvays 
had the Sun in his eyes] (p. 137). 

" Ptah is a mummy, because as Ptah-Sekar-Osiris he symboHses 
the inert form of Osiris, who is about to transform himself into the 
rising Sun." (Pierret, Diet. 459.) " Sekar, Sekar-Osiris, Ptah- 
Sekar-Osiris, and even Ptah-Sekar-Osiris-Tanen, is a sort of deifica- 
tion of the mortal coil (depouille)." [This seems difficult or incon- 
sistent.] " It is the name of Osiris laid in his coffin. ' His soul 
rests in the repose of Sekar.' P.-S.-O. symbolises at the same time 
a transitory state, near to resurrection, since he is sometimes a 
hawk,"&c. (P. P. 517.) 

The fact is no one has come to any clear conclusion whatever 
about the matter. 

Sanskrit not only calls the Sun Siiryaand Siirya (masculine and 
feminine) but also Svar, which is neuter ; that is, supposing the sun 
to be meant ; but it may turn out that originally Surya and Surya 
were a dual pair of central deities. Pushan loves his sister Surya. 

It is thus suggested that the predominance of Sun-worship was 
due to a later evolution, and that a considerable proportion of 
mythical facts, now uninterpreted, or referred somewhat unsatis 
factorily to the Sun, can be more simply deduced from the 
adoration of the Polar and other stars. 

The likeness of the O to the Greek % that is the initial of all 
these supreme names of heavens-deities must not escape us. 

Shapt (sh^pt?) ^S: is given as a name of the "solar disk" 
(Pierret's Vocab., 581) ; but shapt ^^ ° ITD is also a dwelling. So 



is Pat' (Brugsch) q1 for " disk." Api, ap \u\ ^"<^ 

**^ ^^^ and [|n[|5Qs are the winged "disk "(Brugsch); and 
aten, ateni [1 ^-vv-^ and (I (1(1 are the "solar disk " (Brugsch\ 

At the same time abt % J \ and O > and ^ are given as 
the " lunar disk," the half-moon ; while the moon is aah |1 ^|-^ z-^^- 
and the god Aah is [1 ■'-^ \ . The moon is also given as aha 
[]-|-''^-x (as before) (] 8 "^ and (1 °^*>^ while the god is 
Ah (J 8 ^ • Why is the word " disk " imported into these terms ? 



and Ptah^^ Polai' verstts Solar Worship. 79' 



Is it to carry out a preconceived theory which neither the Egyptian 
sounds nor glyphs convey ? How is it shown that the word or idea 
of "disk " was in the Egyptian mind ; and, if unshowablc, why is it 
forced into the Engh'sh ? What is intended by perpetually thrust- 
ing the (superfluous) word "disk" upon us? Who began it, and 
why ? 

But the root-origin of "orientation" may be rigidly stated as 
follows : 

Let us first start from the initial fundamental fact that the 
Gods, the 6eot, are the whole host of heaven : stars, planets, moon 
and sun. 

We have next the leading and ever-abiding fact that each one 
of these gods appears, offers itself, to our worshipping gaze on the 
Eastern side of the world. (Of course we speak as dwellers on the 
Northern hemisphere of this Earth.) 

But as to this last point of rising, we must narrow the field by 
another most pregnant religious fact, which is that the most 
Northern stars never disappear in the West, never set ; and there- 
fore never rise in the East. The limit of these is fixed by the 
latitude of the place of observation, that is the temple ; and the 
latitude is, otherwise stated, the height of the polestar above the 
horizon. 

This last portion of the heavens is the Northern land of the 
greater and greatest gods, of the One who sways and of his 
governors. 

As to the Easterly places of rising of the rest of the stars, and 
the times of their rising, it is obvious that, so far as worshippers 
were concerned, these times must have been confined to the night- 
time when alone they are visible to the mass of naked human eyes. On 
to this we must add the obvious fact that the devotees would look 
for the rising of their Star at the earliest possible moment at which 
it was visible. We have next the ruling phenomenon that, as the 
Earth's turning is a Sun-motion, not a heavens-motion, any 
particular star (that rises) appears later every day than it did the 
day before. Combining this fact with the variating duration of 
star- quenching sun or day-light (there is no real night with us at 
midsummer) it will be seen that the periods of visible rising and 
visibility among the hosts of heaven of any particular star are 
much circumscribed in the annual round, and that it disappeared 
altogether from its worshippers for a longer or shorter number 

P 2 



794 The Night of the Gods. \Kronos 



of nights, according as its place is more or less southerly in the 
heavens. 

We can then imagine the watchful priests of the ardent 
worshippers eagerly and with awe looking forward to the actual 
moment of its first visible appearance, on the first annual occasion 
when it showed itself to its adorers. 

Now this shining moment must always be when the sun has 
set on the opposite horizon. 

Amen (Ammon) in Egyptian is said to mean hidden, 
mysterious. (Obiter: It is impossible to conceive such a term as 
originally applied to the Sun.) 

De Rouge said the Egyptian name of the god appears to have 
been pronounced Amun, and signified mystery and adoration.^ 

Movers made Mithra an Assyrian god, discerning in him a 
form of Belus analogous to Hercules ; and he derived from 
Babylon rather than from Persia the worship and mysteries of 
Mithra, such as they were spread over the west after passing 
through Asia Minor.- 

The name of the god Ra is said to mean "maker," " disposer" ; 
that is that he disposed or organised the world of which the 
matter was given him by Ptah i^PcreinJin), ch. xvii). If this be so, 
he was clearly not a solar god by origin. Khnum was also a 
workman or foreman of Ptah's, as is seen from his forming the Egg 
on the potter's wheel from stuff furnished by Ptah. But Khnum's 
task would thus seem to have been cosmically anterior to Ra's. 
The periods of Ra, especially his pre-Solar stage, are not distin- 
guished in any of the explanations of Egyptologists ; and it would 
thus appear that a good deal that belongs to the Cosmic 
creation-god is given indiscriminately to the Sun. For example 

the reading of ( O ^-^ 1^^ Ra-men-Kheper " the Sun 



establishing form " is clearly a confusion of this kind. This, which 
is found on a vast number of scarabs belonging to divers epochs, 
may (if O here be the Sun) mean rather " Kheper the stablisher of 
the Sun " ; and if — which seems greatly more probable — Ra be not 
the Sun but the Cosmic former, it may mean " Ra and Kheper the 

stablishers." In fact the god Khepera O <::r> (I the Becomer, may 

here be meant. Again, in the text of the PcmnJin), ch. xvii, " I 

am Ra, who appeared at the beginning, and who governs what he 

' Nolice Soijuiiaire (I'i'jO)), p. 121. - Plianiz, i; 69, 180-189, 390. 



and Pia/i.~\ Polar 7)ersus Solar IVorship. 795 



has made," it is only by violence that Ra can be made the Sun. 
This Sun-idolatry is carried so far by some interpreters that 
M. Grebaut says^ : " the solar light was the body, the sensible 
manifestation of the divinity." 

"Ra,"says Prof Ebers, ably condensing the theories, "a deity 
who bears 75 different forms, at first appears in the Nu (moisture 
— the primary source of all things) under the name of Turn, or the 
evening Sun." This, of course, is represented as the exoteric view ; 
but even so, it is strange how the cultivated intellect brings 
itself to making the declining sun an emblem of initiality, of 
beginning. Night may precede Day, but how can Evening do so? 
It is flat contradiction. At all events, even " the poor Indian," 
now worked so hard, would surely have taken the morning sun for 
more of a commencer ; as Hamlet puts it, they are " too much i' the 
Sun." But this lending of a glaringly incongruous character to the 
Sun of evening affords a handy type of the natural outcome of the 
artificial forcing applied by the Sun-worshippers to the whole of 
human myth : which for them is always on the sunny side of 
possible and impossible interpretation. They are ever and always 
getting them " outof heaven's benediction unto the warm sun." And 
the putting of the " 75 different forms " all upon one god is the 
result of ignoring or confounding the several phases of his evolution. 
For example, the prima-^val Tum, who is said to be Ra, cannot be 
the Ra who is the sun in later over- myth and sun-worship. Here 
the question must be faced boldly, and it must be said simply 
that Ra is not Ra ; or, to put it more scientifically, that Ra^ Raa 
. . . are not . . . Ra.^ ^a... It is much nearer the truth 
to take the Ra of origin as the All, to Ilav (not that this is pure 
accuracy, either) and to look upon the so-called esoteric and 
exoteric practices of Egyptian theology and worship as not 
manufactured ad hoc (except by myth explainers) — such things 
are not made but grow ; as not contemporaneous or collocal in 
their production, but as totally separate in time, and place ; and 
as wholly antagonistic as their facts tell our common sense that 
they are. They are simply independent religions which fight and 
wrestle for the upper hand and grow while they contest, and in 
their struggles throughout the ages get very much entangled, 
enveloped, developed, maimed, and even lopped ; as the sur\-iving 
remains show- us : and that not alone in the Egyptian faiths, but 

' Ilyjiuie a Ammon-Ra. 



796 The Night of the Gods. {!<', 



rouos 



in every other human religion that has ever pushed forth on this 
earth under the heavens of its gods. 

And the one leading idea, the one dominant note, for inter- 
pretations of Egyptian mythology is the almost patent fact of the 
rise of Sun-worship upon the ruins of another religion, another 
more vast heavens-religion, all the mysteries and facts of which 
Sun-worship drew into itself; and then mangled, distorted, 
devoured and assimilated them, tant bien que mal ; for it is clearly 
possible in a great many leading cases to point out the true, 
straight signification in the Universe of the plain natural fact 
which, when warped into a solar significance, became a puzzle and 
a non-sense — a mystery of religion in point of fact. Not but Sun- 
worship has its own patent, genuine facts too, and plenty of them, 
of a first-rate importance and truthfulness to universal nature ; but 
that it has — as any religion that becomes dominant must by the 
nature of the case do — attracted to itself and absorbed the sur- 
viving essentials of what went before. 

The astounding length to which Sun-interpretations are carried 
in Egypt may be judged from De Rouge's vast assertion that " the 
Sun is the most ancient object of Egyptian worship which we find 
on the monuments,"' and he says the heavens ("celestial space") 
are called the divine mother because the bosom of the nocturnal 
heavens every day brings forth the Sun. To be sure, on the same 
page he recorded that "Ammon became Ammon-Ra (Ammon- 
Sun) " and adds that Ptah "perhaps long maintained himself in a 
more elevated sphere." And surely mid-summer madness can no 
farther go than in making the lion-headed goddess Sekhet (who 
was at first the great paramour of Ptah, and afterwards the 
avenging tormentor of the damned in hell-flames) into " solar 
radiation, in its double action: vivifying and destructive" {ibid., p. 
131 ; Pierret, i?zV/., 503). It is equally surprising to be told that 
Khnum, the architect who helped Ptah at the origin of things, and 
who " is the humid principle, is also identified with the Sun " (De 
R., p. 123). This is simply looking us straight in the face and 
saying black is white. M. Pierret goes one better and says that 
"as a symbol of ardour applying itself to his solar role, Khnum is 
represented with a ram's head " {Diet., 374). 

I have tabulated a icw of the Egyptian gods who are averred to 
be the Sun : — 

' AV. So/n. (1S76;, 120. 



and PtaJi?\ Polar vei^sus Solar JVorsliip. 797 

Sun = Rd. 
Rising S. = Hones. Setting S. = Tuin at Au 251. 

Sun is Azu [1 (? afu) flesh, animal matter. A ram-headed god 

This is the " nocturnal sun," and he is so named because (Th. 
Deveria) he is the type of the mysterious evolutions of 
organic substances between death and return to life (8o)- 
[This may be all right about Aw, but why lug in the Sun ?] 

Sun is hawk-headed Rd with "disk " ^ (210) 

-hawk-headed genii with right arm up and left across breast 
are " spirits of the Earth in adoration before the sun." They 
are Aniein-u. (See hiero.) 235. 

HannakJiis ^^ = or Harcnikhonti " personification of the course 

of the diurnal sun from point of departure to point of arrival. 

Har-em-Khon-ti = Horus of 2 horizons (246). Har-em-Khon 

(Harmachis) = Horus of horizon (395). Harmakhon (Har- 

machis) = good principle (469). 
Har-pa-KJirat = Horus the infant = rising sun. Carries finger to 

mouth "as infants do." (?) 247. [? not god of Silence, but 

" the Word " ! Eh ? !] 

(Hor-Amen = same, or = child-amen. 266.) 
Hathor "^r = " Mother of the Sun," 249. " Of the rising Sun," 249 ; 
Isis J of Horus (280). [Hat-Hor (abode of Horus) must 

be the pregnant Isis] 281. 
Sun is a hawk-headed child sitting between horns of a cow 

(Deukmd/er, iv, 61) 280. 
" Solar horizon " ^. 

Sun (nocturnal) is MeJien (331). Not. So?n., 6^, 103. 
Neith == " mother-generatrix of Sun," t,6^. 
Sekhet (lion-headed tormentor in hell-flames) = " devouring and 

fatal ardour of Sun," 503. Solar radiation. Not. Soin., 131. 
S/m = " light of solar disk," 5 1 1 (really Atlas) (son of Ra, because 

the rising sun is the successor of the day-before's sun. Thus 

he is both rising-sun and sun-light! — 511) Shu = light. Ah^t. 

Soin., 129. 
Set (unfallen) = Solar god, 506. 
Mentn — Solar god of Thebai'd, y:^j. 
Sun is ram-headed man in boat. Not. Soui., 6^. 



798 Tke Night of the Gods. \Kronos 

5?/;/— Ramses II consecrates 2 horses to [probably O. K. this?] 

Not. Soul, 75. 
Sun, rising, infant (Horus) on opening lotus. Not. Sovi., 106, 153 ; 

head of Atum in a lotus. Not. Soin., 128. 
5//// (of night) fills the divine mother (celestial space). Not. Sow., 

120. 
Osiris = infernal Sun doing its nocturnal revolution. Not. So///., 

121. 
Ptah = Sun in the hells = Osiris. Not. Som., 126. 
Sebe/c — solar god (13th dynasty) c/'ocodite-hesn^, 501. tiazvtc's- 

head, completes sun-identification. N'ot. So///., 148. 
S/t// under form of Griffon. Not. So///., 153. 

— ichneumon upright, solar symbol, (7s the " disk " which 

adorns his head shows. N'ot. So///., 153. 
Klu//)/// = solar ardour (ram-headed) 374 = Sun. Not. So///., 123. 
A//1//1/-, "special attributions not well known" is a solar god. 

(= Shu) Not. So///., 129. 
According to Brugsch^ the ritual of the Hapi bull had become 
official under the fourth king of the first and the first king of the 
second dynasties. This is admitted by Mr. Le Page Renouf," but 
he thinks the great development of this bull-worship was later. 
The name Ra begins to be added to the royal names of kings 
(Nebka-ra, Noferka-ra) in the third dynasty. 

[Prof. A. C. Haddon stated at the Folklore Society on 17th 
December, 1889, that there is no Sun-worship in the Torres Straits 
islands. The Sun, if anything, is rather evil than good ; while rain 
and the winds which bring rain are their best natural friends. The 
constellations are important as their times of rising give them the 
proper dates for sowings and plantings. Their " spirits " seem to 
go to the West, and in one legend some dead men who change 
into fruit-bats or flying foxes, go Northwards.] 

There is one portion of the assumed Sun-symbolism in Egypt 
which seems very difficult of acceptation. The serpent Apep (?) 

or Mehen ^ U, which belongs to the lower hemisphere is said 

to " symbolise the sinuosities of the course of the nocturnal sun." 
" Nocturnal sun " is in itself an absurdity even if it means the 
moon ; and the course of the sun, day or night, is not a sinuosity 
in any sense. Osiris is said to represent the " nocturnal sun." The 
' Hist, of Egypt, i, 56, 59, 60. * Hibberi Lcc, 237. 



and Ptah.\ Polar versus Solar Worship. 799 



sun in the lower hemisphere, that is when concealed by the earth, 
is no doubt meant ; but what a loose method of thought was the 
cause or the result of foisting everything in mythology on the Sun. 
Funereal scenes on the monuments are said, again, to " refer to the 
nocturnal course of the sun in the subterranean regions." Where 
the sun is there cannot be night, and the idea of the underworld is 
darkness ; so that these two ideas seem to me to be diametrically 
opposed. I cannot realise the conception of the staters of this 
theory. Do they, perhaps, mean a dark sun, a sun that becomes 
dark on going under? (Pierret : Diet., 331, 395, 492.) 

De Rouge says^ that Hathor as Nub in the form of a spotted 
cow [the Hapi bull was spotted] received the dead in the West, 
that is to say at the tomb [or rather at the entrance of the lower 
hemisphere]. " She then seems to identify herself with the noc- 
turnal heavens." " The nocturnal heavens were considered to be 
the abode of souls." It is not easy to define precisely what De 
Rouge intended here by the phrase " le ciel nocturne." 

There is one very striking piece of Egyptian symbolism 
regarding which (though it is not my present business here) 
I should like to record a suggestion. The Greeks, seeing Har- 
pa-khrat, "which means Horus the infant, carrying his finger to 
his mouth, as little babies do, mistook the meaning of the gesture,"- 
and made of Har-pa-khrat Harpocrates the god of silence. If the 
contemporary Greeks were all abroad, we may be also somewhat 
out in our reckoning in saying that pointing the finger to the 
mouth is here a sign of infancy. What a baby does is not to 
point its finger to its mouth, but to plunge it into it, for purposes 
of suction. Does "the infant Horus" do this? The determinative 
of words relating to speech is a figure pointing the hand to the 

mouth S(\ . It is also said to determine names of foods, and 

words relating to tasting and feeling. In the case of Horus the 
gesture may perhaps refer to the birth of The Word, the X0709, the 
word of truth, the ma khcru ^ \ 

The importance of the Word was great in Egypt. The soul 
gained its victories in the underworld with the help of holy words 
taught it by the Rituals. I sis and Nephthys spoke sacred words 
which restored the soul to life. Thoth was " lord of the divine 
Word." 

' Notice Soinniairc (1S76), 133, 53. ' Fieiret : Did., p. 247. 



8oo The Night of the Gods. \_Kronos 

Qui discum audire quam philosophum malunt — who like better 
listening to the quoits than the philosopher (Cicero: De Orat.,\\, 

5,21). 

Amenophis IV who proscribed the worship of Amen to 
substitute that of " the solar disk" [this in itself is a piece of non- 
sense — the substitution of an object, a symbol, for a god] caused 
the name of Amen to be everywhere defaced, even in the 
cartouches of kings which employed that name to write the king's 
name. 

" For Khunaten and his heresy of the disk in Thebes, see 
Brugsch, Hist, of Egypt, i, 442. It had little or no effect on myth." 
Lang's M. R. and R., ii, 95. 

Amenophis IV, under the guidance of his mother Tail, favoured 
sun-worship apparently ; or at all events a cult which had for its 
emblem a " disk " whose " rays " ended in hands. He hammered 
and defaced on the monuments then existing the names of all the 
deities except Ra. Even in the ranu (cartouches) of his ancestors 
he knocked out the name of Amen. But he and she were fair- 
skinned foreigners, not Egyptians ; his memory was accursed, and 
his name was effaced from the list of kings ; so that if he were a 
sun-worshipper he was denied and renounced by the nation. 

There seems to be no proof positive as to Amenhotep IV 
having been a sun-worshipper. Such statements are continually 
made as that he " made a kind of religious revolution by introduc- 
ing the exclusive worship of the solar disk."^ This phrase 
" worship of the solar disk" is wholly inadmissible : worship of the 
sun is understandable, but making a god of the " solar disk " is 
mere gibberish. The one undoubted fact is that he defaced the 
name of Amen, especially at Thebes. He docs not seem to have 
done any damage at Memphis. And it seems quite within the 
possibilities that he may have been an adherent of the old heavens- 
worship, of which the O, the Universe-heavens and its omphalos 
was the symbol. It may be due to a great defect in the power of 
conception, but I confess I cannot comprehend how it is managed 
to connect this symbol O and its central dot or spot with the sun. 
What is the solar significance of the spot ? Is the spot the sun 
(and in that case what becomes of the " disk " ?) ; or is it on the 
sun, and if so why ? 

Elsewhere De Rouge^ said that Amenhotep IV " would suffer 

• Ue Rouge, Nolice 6. - Notice Soiniiinirc (1879), p. 18. 



and Ptah.^ Polar verstts Solar Worship. 80 r 

no other worship than that of the Sun represented under the form 
of a radiating disk. Hands issuing from each ray bore to devout 
mortals the sign of hfe." Now hands issue from the Universe- 
wheel, as I have shown elsewhere. I shall just add a very true 
remark of De Rouge's {ibid., p. 34J " the history of these gods, or 
Egyptian mythology, is one of the least advanced portions of the 
science." 

The Latin D which means 500 is not the letter D, for then it 
ought to have meant 10, as it did actually indicate the proper 
name Decimus. It is said to be one half of the Etruscan symbol O.^ 

O or • as insignia of Gods. 

with 2 ostrich feathers — hat of Hathor. {Also o^ Me rsker ; 

also Fish of Hathor.) 
-Isis — "disk" between cow-horns (P. P. 280). 
-Ala — on her head. 

-Mentre — " disk" and 2 long feathers over hawk-head (337). 
-jMncvis bull of Ra — 2 feathers of Ammon over solar " disk." 
-FisJi of Hathor " disk " and horns of Hathor (or feathers, as 

above) 447. 
-Rd-tau'i (? consort of Mentu) — " disk " and horns of Hathor, 

479- 
-Sebck — "disk" and ram's-horns over his crocodile-head (501). 

-Sckhct — " disk " over her lion-head. (? -= Bast, Menhit^ 

Ouadji.) 
Thoth — his ibis-head has " disk " and 2 horns over it. 

= son of Ra (?) [see "child of heaven, born of Nut," 121]. 



O = Anna. (197.) 

on heads of two arau. {Notice, p. 129.) 
Ra, hawk-headed, on Q head. {Notice, p. 129.) 

O as Light. 
/K determinative of light. 

rOi said to be " the solar horizon " (Pierret, 38). " Sun emerging 

from horizon" (146). See Notice, 132. 
LQi barque supporting solar disk (146). 

^ Freund and Thicl. 



ra e is ,/^y, 



802 The AUght of the Gods. \_Krouos 

Amenophis IV proscribed cult of Ammon to substitute worship 
of "solar disk" — smashed everywhere name of Ammon and 
cartouches containing his name (P. P. 323). 
.™ ^E7 = New Moon. Moon = aah. 

as Heavens. 

im F=^' ^°'^'" points of heaven. 

rCh said to be "the solar horizon " (Pierret 38). 

^Os the O flanked by the uraei of N. and S. (wearing caps of 
N. and S.) seems to me to mean the Universe with "the 
North" (and the South) "hung out over the void" (P. P. 

187)- 
® (^ " region beyond the tomb " (? below the earth) 207 " lower 
hemisphere" 251 (in Book's name). 

O as Time (division of), 
j^ O at a certain epoch mean year. 

Q is the determinative of the seasons. 

o 

hours of day = a " disk "-topped goddess (P. P. 259.) 

„ of night = a star-topped „ „ „ 

i^SSt^^ Winged Sphere ("disk"). 

-called hout or houd ^-^^ (^87). 

r often engraved on the back of the ichneumon. "| 275 
"1 „ „ „ „ Hapibull. J 54 

[In this position it is replaced by the beetle -f hawk -f 
vulturc or winged-beetle and winged vulture 54.] 
-The 2 wings of the houd are often replaced? by the 2 Eyes, 

or by the 2 jackals (400). 
-always occupies the top cornice of a pylone £^\ (from i8th 

dynasty? 61) (462). 
-on stelae it occupies the summit (526). 

Suidas said that Priapus was among the Egyptians called 
Horus, the Spring sun-god, "his wings announce the swiftness 
of his motion ; the disk he holds represents the rotundity of 
the Universe. Pie is thought to be the same as the sun" 
(Suidas s.v. Priapos). 

Jao, the Gnostic sun-god, seems to have the same attributes 
in fig. 26 of Chifflet's Rcciieil. 



and Ptah:\ The White Wall. 80 



a 



\ 



The White Wall. 

THE whole history of Memphis is associated with that vast 
sanctuary the temple of Ptah, which included within its 
precincts the temples of the other gods, and was surrounded by 
the famous White Wall which must have comm.anded the city 
like a huge castle. Thence was Memphis, as well as the nome 
around it, called the city of the White Wall and Ha-Ptah-ka, or 
House of the ka (or double^) of Ptah, of the Opener. Ha-Ptah 

X and Ha-Ptah-ka I , , \ — are given as the sacred 

name of Memphis by Brugsch." 

De Rouge' says White Wall T '■ \ referred to the citadel, which 

was the most ancient portion of Memphis. This then ought to 
have been the oldest name of the place ; and if so would fall well 
in with what has been said about the Grecian Thebes (p. 497). 
The province in which Memphis was situated was called the White 

Wall nome : ][ - F JxL and not the Memphis nome. The name of 

the town itself, around the White Wall, was in Coptic Memfi and 

Menf, its present name. The Egyptian was Mennefer 1 with 

the addition of the group A pyramid-town which M. de Rouge 

thought might have been the ancient name. If so it might have 
meant Mouutaiu-town in the sacred mythological sense. Dr. Ebers* 
says Memphis itself was a corruption (Coptic Menfi or Memfi — 
Assyrian Mimpi^) of the popular name Men-nefer, " good place, or 
haven of the good." 

As to Mennefer meaning Good-port, it has occurred to mc that 
the sacred meaning might be that of the French Port-de-Salut. 
But why should not Men here mean stability ? ^^ is merely 
phonetic : mc-Ji. Men, stability, would be the same word that 

from the 22nd dynasty'^ the obelisk jl, was employed to write 
ideally even in the name of Amen. If this could by any means be 

1 Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge. - Geog., i, 23P, 240. 

^ Monnaies des nomes. "• Bnedckei's Lower Egypt, 359, 360. 

5 Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge. " Pierret : Diet., 383. 



8o4 The Night of the Gods. \Kronos 

accepted, we should have the idea of Ptah's tat and his stability 
in the very name of his own town. 

The word men "^^^^ with the determinant f=^ means the 
heavens. Here we must look to the idea of stability also, the 
" firmament " in fact. 

Teta r ^ n or Thetat (^ 1 ^ j , ( Athothis) the fabulous (?) 
second king of the first dynasty, is said to have built the " King's 
tower," and also the " royal palace," in Memphis.' This extremely 
early mention of a "Tower" and a "Palace," combined with the 
fact that the Mount Barkal Memorial stone of Piankhi mentions 
Memphis as the " seat of the god Shu from the beginning of 
things,"^ — Shu being an Atlas — encourages the suggestion that 
this Tower and Palace are celestial, like all those that occupy us 
throughout this Inquiry. 



[There is also a king Atetha f t| -^ M °^ ^^^ same dynasty, 
who may be the same personage.] 

Was the White Wall originally the actual wall at Memphis, 
covered with figures of the gods, or of the constellations ? If not — 
and even if so — I ask whether " white " should not be here taken 
in the sense of shining (the Egyptian word het means both) and 
whether the gods of this shining luait do not essentially mean the 
starry host of the firviament, the gods of whom Ptah, the Polar 
deity, the Lord of the heavens and King of the Worlds, was the 
highest. 

The headdress of the Northern Egyptian gods (^ was white 

and conical. 

Agni, bright fire, is the great holy white god of the Vedas, and 
Heimdal, as a Norse fire-god, is the whitest of the Asas.'' Balder 
was so bright that shining rays issued from his whole body ; he 
was the whitest of the Ases, and the whitest of all plants (which 
recalls the Avestan white haoma) was compared to his brow and 
known by that name.* See also what is stated on this subject of 
" white" and " bright," at p. 586. 

The Celtic word for silver (old Irish argef) is an Italic loan- 
word (Latin argentum ; Oscan aragetud ; Armenian arcath, 

1 Bragsch, Hist., i, 57. Bivd., Low. Egypt, 360. " Brugsch, ii, 420. 

^ Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology, 18S9, ]i. 403. 
* Rhys's tJib. Lects., 529. 



and Ptali:\ The White Wall. ' 805 

ap'yvpo'i). This word is from the Celtindic root m'g. meaning 
white and bright.^ 

It would seem that apjupo'^ comes from or with apyo<; ; and 
the Egyptian name for silver (it was scarce) is white gold. Argent 
in heraldry is white. The Sanskrit rajata means white and silver, 
and must be a near relative of raja or rajan a king ; adiraja = 
primc-Eval king. raj = to shine. The root is said to be arg; to 
shine. Everything points in the direction of Argos and Argus 
being one and the same, the white, shining, myriad-eyed heavens. 
This is all the explanation we want of Atlas being whitebrowed 
XevKop.eTcoiro'i, excelling in astrology, and being the inventor of the 
sphere. Caput inter nubila condit. It seems also to make clear 
the ivory shoulder of Pelops. (See further as to Argos on p. f.) 

The Egg which Chaos produces in the Orphic Cosmogony is 
shining and silver-white,^ and those epithets must refer to the 
heavens-vault. 

The primeval divine being of Korean myth, Dan Kun, the 
sandal-tree prince, descended from heaven, and took up his abode 
at the foot of a sandal-wood tree on the Ever-white mountains." 
Here apparently we have not only the universe-axis, but the white 
{z'.e. brilliant) vault of heaven. 

On the death of the Babylonian, says Dr. Wallis Budge, his 
soul went to " the land of the Silver Sky,"* or of the " shining sky " ; 
or else to the " land of no return." This last seems to be a replica 
of the Egyptian region of the second death, from which there was 
no redemption. 

It is passing strange that the same idea of the white wall has 
independently struck Prof Rhys as to the Irish god Nuada, the 
" Celtic Zeus or Mars-Jupiter." There was Nuada Argetlam 
(Silverhand), Nuada Derg (Red),^ Nuada Necht (a Neptune?) 
and Nuada Finnfail, that is Nuada of the White Fal. One attested 
signification of fal was wall or enclosure, and Nuada Finnfail 
" might be interpreted to mean Nuada of the White Wall, which 
might be regarded as referring, to the sky or heavens."" " Should 

1^ Dr. J. Taylor's On^. of the Aryans, 1889, p. 142. Mr. E. R. Wharton's Etyma 
Latina. - Lobeck : Aglaophatiiiis, p. 473. 

3 Griffis's Corea, p. 308. •• Baby I. Life and Hist., 142, 154. 

^ The two divine terms argetlam and derg here throw a supreme and most archaic 
meaning into the lam derg Erinn, the red hand of Ireland, which James I picked and 
stole for his Ulster baronets. 

•> Hibbert Lectures, 18S6, pp. 123, 577, 168, 206, 124, 153, 154. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



8o6 The AHght of the Gods. [Kronos 

Nuada Finnfail prove to mean Nuada of the White Fence, one 
would have to admit the probabiHty of an allusion in the epithet 
to a pellucid prison like Merlin's." 

Nuada equals the Welsh Nudh or Lludh. Erinn is called the 
island of Pal, Inis Fail, which puts it into the category of all the 
divine islands, which are practically figurative of the Earth's 
insulation in heavens-space. An islet in Wexford now known as 
Beggery Island, is really Beg Eire that is Little Erin ; it was also 
anciently known as Inis Fail. Ireland was also called Mag Fail, 
Plain or Field of Pal, which is a straight parallel to the /lara, plain, 
in Japanese Shinto mythology where Japan is called the Reed- 
Plain Middle-Land (Ashi-Hara no Naka-tsu-Kuni), where the 
reed ashi is the Axis and hara, plain, the expanse of the heavens. 
Ath Finnfail, the ford of the white wall, would thus, too, answer 
to the heavens-bridge of this Inquiry. 

Vortigern {i.e. Supreme King), whom Prof, Rhys equates with 
Kronos, goes to Gwynwas or Gwas Gwyn, the white mansion, the 
abode of the happy dead. 



and PUiJi.\ Aroos, Argo, and the Argci. 807 



Argos, Argo, and the Argei. 

HOMER called Argos the many-fired, TroXvTrvpov, that is the 
many-starred. There was Hera Argeia, and Juno both 
Argeia and Argia. Argeia was the mother of Argos. The names 
Argos Hippium (Pegasus etc.?) and Argos Dipsion (St-v/rio?, arid 
— applied only to Argos) must be reserved for the present. 

The ship Argo, made by Argos, would clearly be the heavens- 
boat which occupies us so much in this Inquiry, and not merely 
the Argo navis constellation of our spheres ; and the argo-nauta;, 
apfyo-vavraL, are those who sail in that boat, the gods and the souls 
of the dead (alias Charon's passengers) who sail in search of the 
golden fleece of the starry heavens, the fleece suspended, like the 
Veil which this Inqui)y makes one of its chief divisions, on the 
(beech) tree of the Universe in the field of Mars, that is the 
Universe again. 

The Argo is further identified with the heavens by its mast 
which is an oak of the Dodona forest of Zeus, that is the Universe- 
tree, and gives oracles. The Argonauts set sail in it, too, from the 
cape of Alaguesldi in ThcssdXy, which is nothing but the Magnetic 
North pole in the heavens of the theoi, the sky-gods. 

The ares (old form of aries), the fabulous talking ram that 
furnished the xp^<^onaWov 8epa<i, is curiously enough alone nameless 
among all the named personages and places of the legend. One 
conclusion therefore is that his proper name was the common 
name of his type, and identical with 'A/a?;?, Alars. This would 
indeed be a striking result of these investigations ; and still more 
so would it be, if instead of the Greek kpl6<;, which is not " in it," 
to use the sporting phrase, we take the ap<i or aprjv, the Lamb. The 
animal was immolated to Zeus the father of Ares, and afterwards 
ascended to the heavens as a constellation. This would give us 
the primitive sacred animal of 'Ap?;? as that which bears his name. 

The dragon that watches the Fleece, and the wild brazen-hoofed 
flame-breathing bulls that surround it, are variants of all the 
celestial guardians, whom to catalogue is long. 

The name Argos of the dog of Ulysses compels us to see a 
heavens-dog in this animal. One of the dogs of Acteon (Lumin- 
VOL. 11. Q 



The Night of the Gods. [Kroiios 



OLis?) was also called Argos, and was probably stolen by Ulysses. 
Hermes is a flute (that is, an Axis) god, and plays Argos, the 
heavens, into a deep sleep ; which is merely a Universe-harmony 
mytli. 

The Argei (earlier Argeo and Argea) were a portion of ancient 
Rome where certain most archaic sacrifices were made. The origin 
of the name was lost to Varro {L.L. v. 8, 14) who said : Argeos 
dictos putant a principibus qui cum Hercule Argivo venere Romam 
et in Saturnia subsederunt. Festus said the quarter was so-called 
because certain illustrious men of the Argives were there buried 
(was it to the N. of the city, one wonders ?) Argei loca Romae 
appellantur quod in his sepulti essent quidam Argivorum illustres 
viri. Livy (i, 21) says that Numa instituted many sacrifices [they 
are naturally attributed to him as the supreme deity, see p. 719] 
and the places destined to their celebrations were called Argei by 
the pontiffs — Argeos pontifices vocant. 

This brings us to the strange human dummies made of rushes 
and called Argei, which are also mentioned at p. t. and which 
were thrown by the Vestals in the presence of the pontiffs and 
magistrates every year to the number of 23 (which may be an error ; 
xxiij for xxiiij) on the ides of May from the wooden-post or pile 
bridge, pons sublicius, into the Tiber. The number 24 (= 2 x 12) 
would refer to the signs of the Zodiac (see also the heading Rags 
in the Appendix). These were said by Dionysius of Halicarnassus 
(i, 19) to take the place of actual human sacrifices. And as 
sacrifices by drowning they must have been to the heavens-waters 
deities. Varro said : Argei ab Argis ; Argei fiunt e scirpis simu- 
lacra hominum xxiij ; ca quotannis de Ponte Sublicio a sacerdoti- 
bus publice dejici solent in Tiberim {L.L., vii, 3,90). And Festus : 
Argeos vocabant scirpeas effigies, quse per virgines Vestales annis 
singulis jacicbantur in Tiberim. Varro also cited from Ennius, 
" libaque fictores, Argeos. et tutulatos " [I must not be led aside 
by the sacrificial cake libum or libus, which must have been 
originally connected with the great god Liber, norby tutulus which 
had to do with Tutunus.] 

I think we can come to no other conclusion but that these 
Argei referred originally to the natives of Argos, of the shining 
heavens, to whom the sacrifices were made. 

+ See Index to References Lefore Index. 



and Ptali.'\ Danae. 809 



Danae. 

DANAfi, daughter of Akrisios, " King" of Argos, was grand- 
daughter of Abas, 1 2th King of Argos. The buckler of 
Abas, dedicated by Danaos to Here, or by /Eneas {^-En. iii) in the 
town of Ambracia, was, hke the Indian chakra, the terror of his 
enemies. Abas was son of Poseidon or of Belos, which last would 
make him, as his name might, a Semitic Father-god, but a-/3a9 
would also be motionless or inaccessible. The myth which makes 
him a centaur fighting against the Lapithai shows him to have 
been a central deity. Hesiod put him at the head of 24 (= 12 x 
2). For the Lacedemonians he was a great diviner. Abaster and 
Abatos, the horses of Pluto, and the xA.baton of Rhodes, are to be 
connected with Abas, perhaps ; as well as the Abazii or silent 
festivals of Dionusios, son of Kapreos, King of Asia. 

Danae was shut up quite young by her father in a brazen 
tower. She is thus an Axis-goddess, and Zeus's golden-rain is \r 
the heaven's-river, Danae's son was Perseus (see p. 411), who is 
exposed with his mother, according to a Moses-myth, in an old 
boat or a coffer. Danae like Daphne, is also a tree (the Alex- 
andrine laurel). 

Danaos, also son of Belos (6 apyalo<i), was brother of Ramasses 
or of Aiguptos, who (note the Moses-myth) came from Egypt to 
found Argos. Danaos reigns 50 years and has 50 daughters ; flees, 
that is, becomes a fallen god. In his flight he goes to Rhodes 
(Rodos), which I derive from the same root as rodon, a rose-wheel 
(Irish roth ; Welsh rliod, a wheel). The house of Danaos is said 
to issue from lo, who was of Argos. The 50 Danaides marry the 
50 sons of Aiguptos, and kill them the first night. (The Lynceus 
myth would just now take us too far.) Pelasgos, " King " of 
Argos, favours the 50 nymphs (as in the tragedy of /Eschylus, who 
differs from other poets). The Tantalos-punishment of the 
Danaides, who in Tartaros perpetually fill a sieve-bottomed barrel, 
contains a reference to the perennial circulation of the Universe- 
waters. 

But we must go behind Danaos and Danae, to the god-name 
Dan, Zan (Zanos).^ Den, Zen (Zenos) = Zeus; and Zand ( = 

1 This gave the Italian Zane, Zanni, and our Zany ; because perhaps of the divine 
nature cf half-witttdness. 

Q 2 



8io The Night of the Gods. [^Kronos 

Juno) his consort. Dan being the source of the Jordan (lor-dan) ^ 
makes it a heavens-river Hke the Chinese Hoang-ho. Note Dan- 
laan in ii Samuel xxiv, 6. To Dani-El (the prophet, or not) was 
attributed the invention of geomancy. 

The Danai of havaov ^'Apyo'i were thus clearly a supreme 
heavens-race, the celestial prototypes of the Danai-Greeks, or 
Danaidai. Nor must we forget the Suvukt] or coin given to Charon ; 
and I shall decidedly hazard the suggestion that we have in this 
syllable dan- the true divine origin of the word dance, the existing 
etymologies of which are unbearable and unintelligible. 

The transition is now irresistible to the Irish tri dee Dana, the 
Three Gods of Destiny. Prof Rhys says the name of the goddess 
Danu " has nothing to do with them " ; but I wonder whether this 
statement might not be reconsidered. It differs from Keating,^ as 
Prof. Rhys points out. Danu or Donu gave Danann, or Donann, 
or Donand in the genitive case ; but Danann and Donand were 
also nominative, and gave a genitive Donainne. Danu was tJie 
Irish supreme goddess par excellence (Irish goddess = dea ; 
genitive de, dee, dei, dea, dae). The Irish pantheon are thus called 
the Tuatha (tribes) de (of the goddess) Danann ; which I maintain 
to be a straight celestial parallel to the Aavai or AavatSai of the 
Argos-heavens ; while the tuath (tribe) Dea or Dei (of the 
goddess), otherwise the fir (men) Dea, are an Irish race, another 
and terrestrial reproduction of the AavatSai-Greeks. In Welsh 
Danu becomes Don and her " tribes " the Children of Don. 
Arionrhod, Silver-wheel, the Heavens, is a daughter of Don ; but 
she is also in the Welsh triads a daughter of Beli, who must be the 
Belos (?>. Bel) that we also have in the family-tree of the Aavai 

(Manu has a genitive Manann or Manand which is also a nomi- 
native.) 



' HU>. Lects., 395, " Ibid., 89 to 91, 663. 



and Ptah^ Scb-Kronos. 8 1 1 



Seb-Kronos. 

THE Greeks assimilated Seb to Kronos, but Seb was the 
male Earth, the spouse of Nut the heavens-goddess. Thus, 
sex apart, and earth to earth, Seb was parallel to Rhea. But 
there are points about Seb which somewhat justify the Greeks. 
He was considered to have reigned before Osiris ; he was the 

father and also the erpa □ of the gods ; his name was written 
^ a ° 

^\ 1 Seb (^^ and also <^ the Q.g<g, sa — son). His images are 
very rare, though he is often painted in temples or on mummy- 
cofifins. He appears erect, with the '^;:^ on his head in the right 

bottom of a coffin of Sotimes (Louvre) ; but he is generally seen, 
supine, ithyphallic and covered (earthlike) with foliage, below the 
heavens arched over him ^f^. By one account the Egg of the 
universe was laid by Seb ; the major myth is of course that which 
assigns it to Ptah and Khnum. Seb-Kronos is given high rank 
in Lord Lytton's mysterious tale The Ring of Amasis, and 

Aahmcs H (26th dynasty) had the goose in his ran '-"=^[[1 ' D ^ 



] 2 



The Night of the Gods. 



\The 



CHAPTER VI, 



Th( 



The Scvcji Kabeiroi ... 
The Kabeiroi GeneniUy 
The Three Kabeiroi 
The T%vo Kabeiroi 
The Dioscures 
The Corybantes 
The Curetes ... 
The Dactyles ... 
The Telchines... 
The ArvaHan Brother 



Kabeiroi. 



PAGE. 
8l2 
822 
828 
836 

841 
843 
845 

847 
848 



[The reader of " The Seven Kabeiroi " is supposed to have read " The 
Number Seven," p. 955.] 



T 



The Seven Kabeiroi. 

"^HE numerous points connected with Ptah and with the 
Number Seven which have here been touched on would 
be left sadly incomplete if all mention of the Cabires or 
Ka/:^tt/3ot of Herodotus (ii, 51 ; iii, 37) were omitted. For Hero- 
dotus made them the seven sons of Ptah, whom he and the Greeks, 
however, called Hephaistos ; perhaps because of an alternative 
name of Memphis: Het-Ra-Ptati, " house of the Ra of Ptah." The 
aira^ Xeyo/xevov, YlaTaiKol, which he represents to be the Phoenician 
name of the Phoenician figure-heads that resembled the pygmy 
Memphian images of Ptah and the Cabires, insulted and burnt by 
the great, but insane, Cambyses, might almost have rather reached 
the Greek from the Egyptian, so much does the word resemble 
a derivative from Ptah. This etymology is obvious even super- 
ficially, and I see that Bunsen, or the late Dr. Birch {Egypfs Place, 



Kabeiroi?\ 



The Seven Kabciroi. 



8i 



&c., i, 45) had already made the suggestion. I here give rough 
drawings from Sir Gardner Wilkinson^ of some of the figures from 
Memphis which no doubt are similar to those Cambyses and Hero- 
dotus saw ; and I think there can be no doubt whatever of their 




being of an extremely archaic, almost savage, character and origin 
far, far prior to the stiff orthodox representation of Ptah of the 
genuine Egyptian type, which I have given from the same source 
(plate 25) ; at pp. 214, 217 (under Tat of Ptah) (see p. 814) ; and 

to the fact that the eyes are the mystic hieroglyphic ufa ^^% 
eye (which is not so clear as it might be in the small scale draw- 
ing). This is what is now called " the eye of the Northern and 
Southern Horus"; but it is proposed to claim for it here a Ptahic 
significance. I give here one of these Eyes from a 
bas-relief of the great temple of Dendera. It is a 
single one, drawn along in a barque (^Description de 
I'Egypte, planches iv, 22, 2) and I connect it (pp. 467, 
496, 512) with the All-seeing E}-e of heaven, the Polar 
Star. [It is the Eye of Horus, and nothing else. E. A. W. B.] 

To return to the Cabires. Crcuzer said that the pataikoi, who 
ordinarily had the form of dwarfs or pigmies, also frequently took 

' Ancient Ei^yptiaiis {2y.<\ seiits), I'lates 24A, 41. 




814 



The Night of fhc Cods. 



[Th. 



big-bellied and even markedly spherical forms. And he suggested 
further that they may have thus gradually undergone a complete 
transformation into those vases or vase-gods, surmounted by a 





TT^v ( !-'T T 7^''"^' ^ ^-^' 



head, and called Canopes perhaps from the mystic vase with that 
name in the city of Canopus near Alexandria, where remarkable 
traces of the worship of the Cabires have been found. An ancient 
mistaking of the still extant Coptic name of the city-Kahennub, 
or "golden soil " — seems answerable for the localisation of much of 
this mythicism. An ancient fable says that, just as Canopus was 
the pilot of Osiris his fleet, so Canobus, so revered in Lower Egypt, 
was the pilot who took Menclaus and Helen to that country ; and 
dying there, his head was put upon a vase covered with characters, 
and pricked with minute points or holes, in which vase, fire, and 
water, struggled for the mastery. The head on the vase is some- 
times female, and hands are added at the sides, as if to emphasize 
the personification of the Sphere-god.^ Creuzer also brought 
together the spherical vases and the Egg of the Universe ; but 
it is singular that though always approaching it, he nowhere hit 
off the exact point of these analogies of his, which seems to be 



' A'c'//£-. de FAnl., ii, 311. 



Kabciroi?\ The Seven Kabeiroi. <S 1 5 

that the spherical vases represent the Sphere of the Universe, 
where, as in the Canobus myth, the two first principles of life, 
heat and moisture — fire and water — struggle into fructification. 
Nor will this view be discordant with the fact that Canopus is also 
the most brilliant star of the ship constellation Argo ; and the 
minute prickings upon the vase would clearly represent the hosts 
of heaven. 

Another development of the hoddy-doddy dwarf conception 
was in the direction of a more human-looking pygmy armed with 
the lance,^ which we have here so often seen as the symbol of the 
heaven's axis. M. Babelon says " The Phoenician pataeci, images 
of the god Pumai (a word from which pygmy and Pygmalion are 
derived) were only copies of the Egyptian gods Bes or the embryo 
Ptah " (p. 264), and " the type most frequently copied by the 
Phoenicians is the grotesque god Bes or the embryo god Ptah, 
whom they turned into the god Pygm?eus, called Patrecus by 
Herodotus " (p. 279). Elsewhere we have mention of " the god 
Bss, of Egyptian origin, the god Pygmaeus " (p. 259). Again : " the 
god Pygmffius, who is made up, as we have seen, of Bes and 
Izdubar together" (p. 276). 

The name oi Bes J ' ^ oi" J | ^^ ^^ *-*^^ ^'^ ^^^ twelfth 
epoch. He is usually called Typhon, said E. de Rouge (^Notice 
Sommaire (1879) p. 62). A warlike and squat dwarf wearing, 
like Hercules, a lionskin. Has eyes of a bull, and is constantly 
connected with Hapi. Monstrous god, represented dancing (p. 84). 
Little known, very small, very squat little man, with extremely 
developed muscles. Ears seem borrowed from the bull. Hair falls 
in curls on neck like a lion's mane. In baser epoch, in arms of a 
mother of the same race. Two types : one a warrior-god with 
shield, brandishing sword or pulling bow. The tongue, hanging 
forth, adds bestial ferocity. Hatted with a bunch of ostrich- 
feathers. He is also seen as a soldier of ordinary proportions 
wearing the conical white hat of the North. He is rare on ancient 
monuments, but is found for all that from " a very high antiquity." 
Second type : musical and a dancer. Plays on harp or cymbals. 
Egyptians gave him no discoverable function. Acts as guardian 
of a pylon in the Peremhrti, ch. 145. Strangles captives. Images 

' Tischbein on Greek Vases, ii, 7. Relig. de PAnt., ii, 311. 
- IJab^^lcm's ylA?;/?^;?/ (enlai<rcd bv F.vetts), 18S9. 



8i6 The Night of the Gods. [The 

placed on bed-heads and on women's toilet-tools. " Represented 
in adoration before the rising sun." [It is impossible to say what 
De Rouge here interpreted as " the rising Sun."] Strikingly like 
the attendants of the Assyrian winged man-bulls. " One of the 
legends of Bes make him come from Taneter, i.e., Somali-land." 
[But ta-nuter — divine-land also.] Warlike character and taste for 
music recall centaurs of Greece. His bronze images are rare ; they 
are common in wood, stone, and baked clay, which seems to indi- 
cate great archaism. 

Bes received other names, and occurs in groups in which his 
marks are mingled with those of other gods. With the attributes 
of Amen " he composes a pantheistic divinity " [an idea difficult to 
the precisian]. Sometimes he is double-headed [that is dual — a 
most primitive notion] as in the end-pictures of some funereal 
rituals. He often wears on the head a naos in which is a Hapi 
bull. In the symbolic group known as " Horus on the crocodiles " 
and the "old man growing young," the monstrous head of Bes is 

always in the arch of the little Stela | 1 [and is presumably the 

old-man god, while the child-Horus (?) is the new generation].^ 
M. Pierret adds that the PeremJiru identifies Bes with Set, and that 
he is Set on the stelae just mentioned : a theory to which one does 
not see one's way. He has been compared, says M. Pierret {Diet.), 
with " the archaic type of the winged Gorgon and the female form 
of Siva." His head-dress may be palm-leaves. 

I think we must first put aside, for separate use if necessary, 
the Typhon -f- Set view of Bes. Next let us discard almost 
altogether the dwarf theory, unless, indeed, in the magical sense 
in which Vishnu became the swelling dwarf Vamana ; for the main 
idea imparted by the images is well described by our term " brute 
force," and he is rightly compared to H erakles. These images too 
are proofs positive of an extremely archaic pre-artistic type super- 
stitiously adhered to. His dancing makes him a supreme heavens- 
god, and so he is correctly connected with the Centaurs. His 
r"2lations to the Hapi bull bring him nearer to Ptah ; and his 
Northern head-dress and dual heads would also be correct for a 
supreme central heavens-god. His warrior qualities make him 
like Ares, also a supreme central deity. His beneficent employ- 
ments indicate a good and not an evil god. 

' Notice Soiniiiaire {\%']()), p. 143-145. 



Kabeiroi?\ The Seven Kabeiroi. 817 

Brugsch gives Bes a sacred animal also called bes j '^^ vvhich 

enters as a syllable into the proper names of the 26th dynasty. 

I think too it may be conceded me that we have in the Jinni 
Shaibar, in Galland's Arabian Nights tale of Prince Ahmed and 
the Peri Banu, another instance of a Cabire. He was but a foot 
and a half high ; was humped before and behind ; had an immense 
pig-eyed head covered with a pointed bonnet ; a bushy beard 
thirty feet long ; and carried an iron bar of five hundredw^eight on 
his shoulder. He was also, like the Grecian Ares, of a temper- 
ament so violent that nothing could stay his avenging hand.^ 
Pot-bellied dwarfs are also found on the moneys of the island of 
Cossura.- 

After all that has been said in this Treatise about the central 
fire of the Universe, we need not be surprised to find that the 
Cabires, the sons of Hephaistos, were also considered as fire- 
powers or fire-gods. 

[The protrusion of the tongue, as seen in the Egyptian images 
I have here figured, is still a gesture of honour among some savage 
tribes, and even, as Hue's Travels abundantly show, among the 
Mongols and the Lamas of Thibet. The following 
specimen of tongue-protrusion is taken from a figure 
of Vishnu in Moor's Hindu Pantheon (plate 26).] 
A further proof of the utterly far-back origin of the 
worship of the Cabires is the fact of their having been 
mysterious to everyone of the ancients who wrote upon 
them or came across them, including of course Cambyses and 
Herodotus themselves. It was said that their true names w^ere 
declared only to the initiated, which would give us a close parallel 
to what is stated elsewhere as to Mithra. One may be permitted 
to wonder whether these " true names " were known even to the 
adepts. The other names by which they were known are but 
adjectival ; mere vague indications of high qualities. Francois 
Lenormant, whom they much exercised, gives the reading Kabirim 
for their Phoenician name, which would thus simply mean the 
Great, the Powerful,^ as Bochart long ago pointed out. That the 
Phoenician Kabirim were seven, and that they were the " sons " or 

' I have elsewhere (pp. 126, 304, 758) pointed out other heaven -worship analogies in 
this tale, and in that which fellows it in Galland, which has the Princess Paiizade for 
heroine. 

2 Neumann : N'miii iuediti\\ (iv, 10-14). ^ Orig. de mist. 542. 




8i8 The NigJit of the Gods. [The 



the " brothers " of an Eighth, who was either Siidduq (the Just) or 
Eshmun (the Eighth) — the Phoenician yEsculapius — or the two 
rolled into one, is clear enough from Sanchoniathon and from 
Isidore's Life by Damascius. Abd-Eshmun, servant of Eshmun, 
is a pious personal Semitic name.^ 

Eshmun is found in Coptic as shmun, and at Carthage as 
Ashmun (by Quatremere). He was worshipped at colonial 
Carthage as well as at Berytus (Beyrout) where he had a famous 
temple.- 

I draw attention to the curious datum of the Seven Rishis as 
Eight in the Vayu-Purana, p. t- 

The Welsh for week, wythnos, means eight-night ; the German 
says acht Tage ; there were eight (7+0 Irish Maini ; eight 
officers of Arthur's court act as w^atchmen, dividing the year between 
them (Seven of these being subordinate to one) ; and Woden's 
Ring Draupnir (= dropper) dropped eight others like itself 
every ninth night.'^ We have thus 7 + 1=8, and 8+1=9, 
which it is well to bear in mind. The Greeks called the Cabires 
civaKTe^, Rulers ; Varro calls them dei magni et potes, and they 
were also named dii potentes, and sometimes dii socii, or the 
associated gods. Creuzer concluded that without any doubt they 
were the Eight great Egyptian gods with, and including Ptah at 
their head : and it was matter of ancient notoriety that the 
Egyptian god whose name the Greeks rendered as Hephaistos — 
that is, Ptah — and also their own Asklepios (probably Ptah's son 
Imhotep) were indifferently named as the god of Memphis. 
Ammianus Marcellinus {H/st. Liv. xxii) so calls /Esculapius. 

Pausanias (x, 32), speaking of the temple of Asklepios near 
Tithorea, says he was there called 'Apxay^ra^ the primaeval leader. 

In explaining the Phoenician and Canaanite Siiduq by The Just, 
we must take "just " in its original sense of straight, right, upright, 
even, balanced ; and then Sudiiq clearly becomes an admirable 
epithet for the central, immovable, impartial, greatest deity of the 
heavens. In fact Creuzer equated Suduq and Ptah (Hephaistos).^ 
[Haoshyanga the grandson of Gayomanth, the first man-god of 
Zoroastrianism, was called Peshdad, the Just, or the Law (Avestan, 

' Kelig. of the Semites, 1889, p. 68. 

^ Damascius ap. Phot. Cod. 242. 

•■< Rhys's Hib. Lects., 360, 364, 367, 368, 372. 

■» Relig. de VAvt., ii, 124, 242, 285, 1094. 

t See Index to References before Index. 



Kabeiroi?\ The Seven Kabeiroi. 819 



Paradhata). He is given the introduction of iiie-vvorship, which 
simply means he was a central fire-god.^] 

As to Eshmun, the Eighth, too, we must discard the idea of 
primacy, in the first, and look at the octarchy as ranking the other 
way up, as an ascending, not a descending series ; the last being in 
this case the first. 

Creuzer suggested that both in Phoenicia and in Egypt the 
Seven Cabires were " the seven planets " : in itself a loose and 
unscientific phrase when one reflects that it includes the Sun 
and the Moon. Schelling took a similar line.^ But if this were 
ever true, it must have been at a comparatively late date, when the 
names of the great gods had been ascribed to certain of the planets, 
and can never have been (as I endeavour to show under the heading 
of " The Number Seven ") in the youth of the human world. 

My suggestion would be that in the Seven Cabires, we have the 
Seven Rishis, the stars of Ursa Major, the seven Khnumu, "Q y 
uniters or architects, who assisted Ptah in his labours, otherwise 
the seven Thesasu. 

Khnum as the fabricator of gods and of men is shown making 
a human figure or the Egg on a potter's wheel. \\\ 

Khufu (Cheops) is called khnum, builder, of the great pyramid, 
in one of its chambers (Col. Campbell's) in the red-paint marks of 
the masons on the stones. 

I think we can still detect other corroborations of this theory. 
The Cabirian mysteries were celebrated at night, and the initiated 
executed a circular ritualistic dance, to the sound of the sacred 
hymns, round the neophyte clothed in the purple, veiled, and seated 
on a throne. This ceremony was called Qpovwai^ or dpoviayid^ (as 
one of the Orphic hymns was called OpoviaixoC) and in it we might 
discern a connection with the course, the dance, of the Seven round 
the Pole in the Vedas, which I have already so abundantly 
illustrated. These initiations were also phallic orgies, according to 
Herodotus, and there is plenty of evidence, as I have from time to 
time incidentally indicated, of the connection between the Axis 
and the phallic symbolism. 

Mariners prayed to the Cabires in bad weather : and of old 
sailed their ships by the Great Bear, and even by the Little Bear, 
if we may trust Aratos, who wrote his Greek astronomical poem 

' West's Pahlavi 7'exts, iii, 57. 

- Creuzer and Guiijniaut : Rcli^'. tic t Ant., ii, 2S5, 1074. 



820 The Night of the Gods. \The 

Phenomena about three centuries before our era. He said both 
Bears were called by the name afia^a, a chariot. Also that the 
Greek navigators whom Homer calls e\iK(07ra<; were guided by the 
Great Bear, 'EX1V77, rather than by the pole-star, which, or the Little 
Bear, the Phcenicians used. This may have been a result of the 
greater skill of the Phoenician mariners ; or the differing practice 
may have originally arisen out of worship. Aratos distinctly 
recorded that Ursa Minor served as a guide to the Phoenician pilots 
of Carthage. {^PJicsnom. v. 39 ; Cicero : Nat. Deor. ii, 41.) 

Thales, wrote K. O. Miiller,^ recommended his countrymen to 
copy the Phoenicians and steer by Ursa Minor ; which was called 
the Phoenician constellation, and also the Dog's-tail. Marcianus 
Capella^ says the Egyptian paintings showed a ship with seven 
pilots, all alike and brothers. The Phoenicians put the Kabirim as 
figure-heads upon their ships, as we have seen, and also upon their 
coins ; they were thus, therefore, perhaps the greatest gods of this 
greatly seafaring race, and Sanchoniathon even gave the construction 
of rafts and ships to their " descendants." Another fragmentary 
myth will have it that Dardanos, who invented rafts, bore the 
Cabires, the divine protectors of navigation, on a raft to Sam.othrace, 
which was from him also called Dardania. Captain Conder points 
out in his Syrian Stone-Lore that a Phoenician terra-cotta model of 
a galley from Amathus is steered by a pataikos with an enormous 
head ; this galley has the symbolic central supernal eye on its prow. 
This ship's-eye is thus common to the Chinese and the Phoenicians ; 
and it survives upon the Neapolitan and the Chinese prows, which, 
as to height, resemble those of the Phcenicians. M. Leon Henzey 
also says^ that Egyptologists suspect a connection between the 
words pataikos and Ptah, and he refuses certainty to the theory 
which makes the pataikoi images of the Phoenician god Bes. 
Pigmy figures attributed to Ptah-Sokaris are often found about 
Memphis. 

On a medal of Trajan (Farncse Museum) a Cabirean god is 
shown wearing a bonnet terminating in a point, and holding a 
branch, as well as an astrologer's square^ ; and we have seen that 
the Chinese made Ursa Major the Regulators. In the Medici 
lararinni is or was a bronze statue of a Cabirean god standing on 
one foot — which may, like the Eg}'ptian Ptah's single leg, be an 

' RIylhol. ch. ix, appx. ^ Satyricon, L, ii. 

^ Catal. des Figurines Antiques (18S2), p. 75. •* Noel : Diet, de la Fable. 



Kabeiroi.~\ The Seven Kabeiroi. 821 

allusion to the universe-axis — and wearing a bonnet of conical 
form ; his eyes are scarcely open, which may be an occult reference 
to the closed eyes of Kronos (II or El) which have been already 
adduced from Sanchoniathon. Capt. Conder, having described the 
gyrations of the dervvishes at the white monastery of the Malawiyeh 
(Mevlei) at Tripoli in Syria, says : We could not doubt that the 
ancient dance we witnessed was that of the Cabiri, the seven " great 
ones " or planetary gods, revolving round the green centre of the 
terrestrial globe {Heth and Aloab, pp. 72, loi). I could scarcely 
desire a better confirmation of my own theory : only I go farther 
back than planet-worship. He also (p. 142) speaks of the seven 
altars raised at various sites to the seven chief gods, the Cabiri, 
whom he says (p. 210) the seven black stones at Uruk typified. 



82 2 The Night of the Gods. \The 



The Kabeiroi Generally, 

IT must not be thought that we are devoting too much time to 
the Cabires. Their worship was widespread in Phoenicia, 
Greece, and Egypt ; and it must be our business presently to 
connect or identify them with a great number of archaic fraternities 
of godhoods and priesthoods, such as the 

Abbadires, Dioscures, 

Anaces (Anaktes), Piotes, 

ArvaHan Brothers, Eleusinian mysteries, 

Atrides, HeracUdes, 

Cercopes, Lares, 

Cobales, Penates, 

Goes, Sahi, 

Corybantes, Satrapes, 

Curetes, Telchines, and 

Dactyles, Tripatores. 

The images of the Cabires have been found on the coins of 
Phoenicia (TripoH), Thessalonica, Smyrna, Hephaistia in Lemnos, 
and in the island of Imbros. There seems to be a general con- 
sensus that, as Bottiger and Movers agreed, the Cabirean cult was 
brought to the Asiatic islands of Samothrace, Lemnos and Imbros 
by the Phoenicians. But it also flourished in the towns of the 
Troad, notably and archaically at Pergamos itself. 

Berytus (Beyrout) is signalised as a prominent Phoenician 
sanctuary of theirs. Vestiges of Cabires worship have also been 
discovered in the Asiatic island of Thasos, which neighbours on 
Samothrace ; in Crete, as we should have expected from the 
ancient Cretan worship of Kronos, or II, which also came from 
Phoenicia ; in Boeotia, in the province of Messenia, and especially 
at Athens. It spread westwards, and became characteristic and of 
first importance in ancient Italy. The Greeks appear to have 
detected it in Celtic countries,^ and traces of it were recognised by 
the ancients— orso they thought — in the British Islands.^ Its priests 
were also called Cabjres, for the priest ever seeks to identify 
himself with his god, and is so identified wholly or in part by the 
worshippers. That there were Cabirean games, too, was pointed 

^ Diodorus, iv, 56. ' Sliabo, iv. 19S, Cas. 



KabeiroiP] The Kabeiroi Generally. 823 



out by Eckhel/ who alleged a medal found in Lemnos with the 
legend Ka/Seipetd Hvdta ^i. In degenerate times the Roman 
emperors courted the honorary title of Cabires on their coins, and 
Antoninus, Marcus Aurclius, Commodus, Lucius Verus, and even 
Faustina have so been found on the coins of the once Phoenician 
Tripoli.^ 

But the most celebrated sanctuary of the Cabires was that 
founded in all probability by the Tyrians in Samothrace, an island 
whose history is in its every epoch steeped and dyed in myth. It 
may perhaps be suggested that the Tyrrhene Pelasgians are not 
unconnected with the god Tyr. Wherever they are to be found, 
said K. O. Muller, there too is found the Cabiric religion.^ Hero- 
dotus said (ii, 51) that the archaic Pelasgoi established the orgies 
of Samothrace ; and the Pelasgoi — it is common property- 
worshipped from all time the potent starry hosts of heaven, whom 
they called deoi, which Plato (Crat. 397C) connected with Oeoi 
and the movement of the heavenly bodies, Herodotus (ii, 52) with 
the ordinance and government of the universe (Oevre^), while 
others have brought it from dedofiac, to look upon, to keep watch, 
to control ; and there is, too, the obvious verb deco, to scud along. 
Any of these derivations, all of them, are suitable to the divine 
powers of the firmament ; nor must we forget a term which is very 
possibly closely allied — dvco, to be divinely frenzied, to burn 
incense, to sacrifice. These Oeot were also called /jieydXot, ')(pr]a7oi, 
SvvaToi, the mighty or lofty ones ; the pure or the oracular or the 
beneficent ; the powerful ; the last of which epithets is a straight 
translation of Kabirim.* The inscription Deo Cabiro on a coin^ 
seems to give Cabirus its adjectival sense. K. O. Muller thought 
the worship of the Kabeiroi must be referred to Thebes (see p. 497) 
as its metropolis. 

A short excursus on the deoi will not, I hope, be here quite 
thrown away, ©eou became deolo in the Ionic dialect, and Oiotaa, 
for Oeovaa, was " a running " (from Oeco). The dictionaries used to 
derive deo<; from " 6eco, to set, to make," but if they had only 
brought it from the same verb in its more primitive sense of " to 
run, to race, to send along," they would have exactly hit off the 

* £>oc/r. Ntimonim, ii, 78. - Cieuzer and Guigniaut, ii, 325, 1084. 

^ Mythol. chap. vii. ■* Cieuzer and Guigniaut, ii. 289, 10S9. 
^ K. O. Muller, Mythol. chap. vii. 

VOL. II. R 



824 ^^^^ Night of the Gods. {The 

perpetual (apparent) motions of the heavenly host of the Qeoi 
K. O. Muller^ makes the name (Beta equal to Brightness. 

I fancy it would be no easy task wholly to disprove the 
originally more or less close relation of all the words here 
mentioned. Take Oka, a show, compare it with Qea a goddess, and 
the latter becomes the self-manifested ; just as Qeaw, to show 
oneself, in its highest application referred to the gorgeous self- 
display of the supreme heavens. And that is probably why 
6ecopia, the act of gazing [at the 6eoi, at the heavens] came to 
mean the annual or octennial (?) solemn embassy to Delos in the 
state ship decopU, in which the Athenians sent their Oewpoi, their 
gazers and their priests, to consult the oracle. These theoroi or 
speirers were sent octennially by the Corcyroeans to Delphos 
(Pans. x,.9) and also by the Achaians {ibid. i8), to bring back a 
branch of the sacred laurel at which Apollo had made atonement. 
This explains, too, decopla coming even to mean the sacred public 
ritualistic functions and games ; 6edpiov, a holy place, a temple 
where the Oewpoi met ; and diarpov, a theatre. 

Then we have, always in the same connection, Odco {Oeew, an 
Ionic verb) to see with wonder ; Oavpud^w, to wonder, to revere ; 
and 6(ovfia (6av/ia) a miracle ; 

6v(o, to sacrifice, to burn incense, to be divinely frenzied {0ulco) ; 
Ovaao), to shake, to move ; Ouaca, a sacrifice, a feast, a holy-day ; 
6uo^, a victim, a sacrifice ; Ova, sacrificial cakes ; Oval, victim-augurs ; 
and doivrj, also a sacrifice, a feast. 

The goddess Bvwva (or -rj) was mother (Semele) or grand- 
mother of Bacchus ; Ovd^co was to celebrate the orgies of Bacchus ; 
6vLd<;, a bacchante ; Olaoro'^ a company of dancers, of bacchana- 
lians ; and 6vpao<; the spear twined with ivy and vine-leaves in 
Bacchic processions. 

^6(i)Ko<i or 6o)Ko<i, a throne, was doubtless originally the seat of 
the gods. 

This brings us along to deocre^r]^, a god-worshipper, which is 
manifestly a pleonasm, for the second half of the word comes from 
(Tej3oy (o-e/3t^co, (re^op^at) to worship [the heavens ?] ; ae/3a<i means 
reverence, shame, a sacred thing (wherein it parallels taboo) ; 
ae/3aapi6<; is religion ; aejSaa-pLa a thing worshipped, and ae^aoro^ 
means adorable, Augustus. 

1 MythoL Appx. 



Kabeii'oi.^ The Kabeii'oi GeneTally. 825 



And this new line carries us back again by a loop to 2a/3o?, 
l^a^jSoq, '%a(3d^io<^, names or surnames of Bacchus and of Zeus ; to 
aa^ol the initiated in the mysteries of 'Sd/Bo^;, whose cry was evoT 
'ta/3oi, like the AllaJi ! of the Moslem dervishes ; nor must we 
omit Ptolemy's Sa^aloi /Scofiot or Saba^an altars on a Medean hill 
near the Caspian. It is useless to shut the eyes to the likeness of 
these words to the witches' sabbat, and to Sabaoth, the hosts (of 
the heavens), or to try and explain Sabaean from the Syriac tsaba, 
washing, as Littre does the French Sabeen, Sabeisme, Sabien, and 
Sabisme ; adding that it is by an abuse and an error that Sabeisme 
is applied to the adoration of the stars. I should much rather, 
then, err with Voltaire, who wrote to Catherine II on loth August, 
1773 : Je me borne a lever les mains vers I'Etoile du Nord, je suis 
de la religion dea Sabeens : ils adoraient une etoile. I am glad to 
hail the aid of Sir G. Birdwood, who says^ Sabaism is so term.ed 
from the Hebrew tsebaoth, armies, applied particularly to the hosts 
of heaven, astral and angelic ; and it means " the worship of the 
7 planets and 12 signs of the zodiac and of the stellar bodies 
generally." (See what is elsewhere said (pp. 160, 510) about the 
modern Subbas who call themselves Mandoyo.) [The reader is 
requested here to be careful to refer to what is said about Thebes at 
P- 497-1 

At Samothrace the images of the Cabires were jealously guarded 
with mysterious care, and Pausanias (iv, i) cites three successive 
reformers of the mysteries of Demeter and the Cabires ; although 
their Latin axamehta, or axis-hymns remained in later times all 
but unintelligible to the priest who chanted them.- 

The name Abadir for the swaddled stone with which Rhea 
deceived Saturn^ clearly proves a Semitic origin for that stone- 
myth ; for ab-adir means Glorious Father, and is thus at once an 
alias for Jupiter and the title of the holy stone or Greek betylos. 
It also shows that we should read into the myth, as the earliest 
names we can now find, those Phcenician ones of Amma, II, Ba'al, 
and Beth-iil, instead of Rhea, Saturn, Jupiter, and Betylos. This 
is confirmed for us by St. Augustine (Ep. 17) who mentions the 
African Abbadires as divinities that were baitulia or holy stones ; 

' Soc. oi K\\.% Journal, i8 Mar., 1887. 

^ Quinctillian : hist. Oral, i, 6, 40. See what is said as to the axamenta of the 
Salii under the head of " Dancing." 
^ Priscianus : L.L., p. 647, Putsch. 

R 2 



826 The Night of the Gods. [The 

and explains their name as " powerful fathers." This has induced 
Munter^ to suggest that the Abbadires of Carthage were the same 
as the Cabires of Phoenicia : which would be giving the Cabires, 
from another quarter, the very high antiquity which has been here 
claimed for them. The priests of the Abbadires were called 
Enc-addires. 

The priest who presided, at all events at the initiation mysteries 
of the Cabires, was called the Ko?;? or Ko/t;?, which Bochart derived 
from the Hebrew Cohen, a priest. Schelling also explained it from 
the Hebrew as being a purifier or a prophet ; but Freret and 
Welcker made Greek of it, the former saying it meant an auditor.