Glossary: Mihraj

Medieval Islamic texts used the word Mihraj or similar forms like Mihrjan to describe the king of the Zabag empire in the East Indies. Mihraj may be a corruption of the Indian Maharaja "Great King."

Writers of the time described the Mihraj's influence as extending over vast territories from the Indies to East Africa. Some of these claims are substantiated by physical evidence such as the written records of the kingdoms of Champa and Cambodia, and land grants in South and East India. According to the texts, Zabag and its southern neighbor Wakwak competed for the highly lucrative East African trade.

Income from the mercantile trade made the Mihraj very wealthy at that time. In the One Thousand and One Nights and other Arabic literature the Mihraj along with the legendary Solomon are held as ideals of royal wealth. Sindbad visits the Mihraj on the "Isle of Mares" in one of most well-known of his voyages.

In the sea of Champa is the empire of Mihraj, the king of the islands, who rules over an empire without limit and has innumerable troops. Even the most rapid vessels could not complete in two years a tour round the isles which are under his possesssion. The territories of this king produce all sorts of spices and aromatics, and no other sovereign of the world gets as much wealth from the soil.

-- Mas'udi, AD 943

Despite the wealth of the Mihraj, his capital is described as a 'town' in Muslim literature. His palace is located on the water's edge in an estuary, and from his patio he daily threw gold bars into the water to propitiate the sea. At low tide, the pile of gold was exposed for all to see, and when the king died the gold was distributed to all the people of the land. The greatness of the king was judged by the amount of gold so accumulated. In the capital, fisher folk living in their boats or homes over the water were exempted from taxes. The Mihraj was the model of the Fisher King, the "Lord of the Net."

The rural setting of his kingdom is detailed by Abu Zaid who states that "patches of settlement succeed each other without interruption" and further mention an "uninterrupted and regular succession of villages."

A very trustworthy man affirms that when the cocks crow at daybreak, as in our country, they call out to each other throughout the whole extent of a hundred parasangs [~500 kilometers]...In effect, there are no uninhabited places in this country and no ruins. He who comes into the country when he is on a journey, if he is mounted he may go wherever he pleases; if he is tired or if his mount has difficulty in carrying on, then he may stop wherever he wishes.

-- Abu Zaid, 10th century

Policy of Attraction

During the heyday of Zabag between about 800 CE to 1300 CE, the Mihraj maintained an "open door" policy, as mentioned above by Abu Zaid. Merchants were encouraged to enter and stay in the country. Idrisi states that in particular the merchants of China favored trading in the islands of Zabag:

It is said that when the states of affairs of China became troubled by rebellions and when tyranny and confusion became excessive in India, the inhabitants of China transferred their trade to Zabag and the other islands dependent on it, entered into relations with it, and familiarized themselves with its inhabitants bcause of their justice, the goodness of their conduct, the pleasantness fo their customs, and their facility in business. It is because of this that this island is so heavily populated and so often frequented by strangers.

-- Idrisi, 12th century

Later during the Ming dynasty, the kingdom of Lusung, Zabag's successor, continued this policy and when the Spanish arrived in Luzon there existed merchant communities from China and Japan on land granted by the Lusung king. The large Chinese trading community of the Manila Bay was known as the Parian.

Lusung is situated in the southern seas not far from Chang-chou (in Fukien)...In the past, thousands of Fukienese merchants lived there for a long period without returning home, because the land was near and rich. They even had children and grandchildren.

-- Ming-shi (Dynastic annals of the Ming Dynasty)

Not long after reaching the pinnacle of its power, Zabag was threatened by its powerful neighbor to the South. In the late 10th century, an attack by Wakwak prompted the Mihraj to send an embassy to the Sung dynasty requesting assistance. Such a policy of attraction appears to have been a necessary strategy for the Mihraj, whose trading empire was also under attack in the far West.

Indeed both Wakwak and Zabag faced problems with their ancient East African spice routes due to the expansion of Islam. Wakwak for its part decided on massive military action. An expedition in the 10th century of fleet of one thousand ships was sent to the African Zanj coast and to Qanbalu, which by this time was nearly completely in Muslim hands. Arab merchants from Oman were taking over the trade.

Ibn Lakis has imparted to me some extraordinary pieces of information concerning them. It is thus that in 334 AH (945-6 CE) they came upon Qanbalu in a thousand ships and fought them with the utmost vigor, without however achieving their end, as Qanbalu is surrounded by a strong defensive wall around which stretches the water-filled estuary of the sea, so that Qanbalu is at the center of this estuary, like a fortified citadel."

-- Kitab aja'ib al-Hind of Buzurg ibn Shahriyar (955 CE)

The vast Wakwak fleet traveled for one year to attack Qanbalu, Sofala and other Zanj settlements that were then dominated by Muslim traders. Such a costly expedition demonstrates the gravity of the situation to the Wakwak rulers. Certainly the Mihraj must have felt the same way.

However, our thesis is that the Mihraj practiced a policy of attraction. His military might at the time was spent in protecting his home kingdom from Wakwak. He sent ambassadors to India and Tibet, made grants for temples there and some Zabag (Suvarnadvipa) kings are even said to have personally traveled to South Asia.

Further west in Europe, the overtures of the Mihraj may be seen in the letters and ambassadors of "Prester John." There was nothing unusual in the Mihraj patronizing at the same time Buddhism, Christianity (Nestorianism), Hinduism, Jainism, animism, etc. This was not an uncommon practice among the medieval kings of the Indies.

Later, Lusung continued this policy of attraction when the Portuguese arrived on the scene. By this time the ancient eastern routes in Africa had been lost, but Lusung still managed to monopolize the restricted trade with China. And it was still an important source of gold.

King of the Mountain

Chinese texts describing the king of Zabag (Sanfotsi) state that each ruler had images of themselves made in gold (anitos?). These images were consecrated to a "Buddha" called the "Hill of Gold and Silver" after the death of the ruler.

The Southeast Asian concept of the "King of the Mountain" likely derives originally from the mountain custodians of indigenous customary law. The custodian/guardian/king was also often placed as priest of a sacred plot, terrace or temple on the mountain.

The territory divided by the rivers flowing from the mountain were formed into districts under the ultimate influence of the king who ruled the entire banua. In the cosmic version of this kingship, the mountain becomes the axis mundi and the king a type of universal ruler. The territories under the king now include all those 'beneath the sky.'

In the Pinatubo model, the districts around the mountain are eight in number divided by eight major rivers, which including Pinatubo itself gives a total of nine districts. Using the "Mt. Meru" concept, the cosmic mountain also consists of levels, which we can equate with mountain terraces, often given as seven in number -- the 'seven heavens.'

Both the districts and levels can be viewed as if looking down from the sky in the symbolic form known as the mandala.


'Tantric' gold belt from pre-Hispanic gold collection of Philippine Central Bank. The triangles of the buckle represent the tiered mountain with six rows of dots/bindus decreasing by one as they ascend from the base of six dots. (Source: Laszlo Legeza's "Tantric elements in pre-Hispanic Philippine Gold Art," Arts of Asia, Jul-Aug 1988, p. 131)


Triangular gold pendant of the 'Sri Yantra' type also from the Central Bank, with dot-triangles arranged in three rows starting from a base of three triangles and decreasing by one with each ascending row. (Source: Laszlo Legeza's "Tantric elements in pre-Hispanic Philippine Gold Art," Arts of Asia, Jul-Aug 1988, p. 131)


The mandala was one of a series of animistic objects that symbolized or represented the cosmic mountain. These could be amulets, talimans, symbols, relics made of sacred materials from the mountain, even fire from the mountain itself. The objects were seen to have a life and even a mind and voice of their own. They are linked with the spiritual concept of the quest, both an inner and outer journey.



Medieval Philippine gold sash finial with mandala design, from Butuan on the island of Mindanao. (Source: pupuplatter.blogspot.com)



Gold waistcloth finial in "Mt. Meru" pattern from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. When viewed from above the ornament appears as a series of concentric circles. Finials of this type were illustrated in the 16th century Boxer Codex.(Source: pupuplatter.blogspot.com)



The world divided into eight "climes" from Yamakoti/Kangdez.



World divided into "trines" from Yamakoti/Kangdez.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Glossary: Fairy kingdoms of Europe

In Parzival, the genealogy of the Angevin dynasty and King Arthur traces their lineage back to the land of Feimurgan, aka Morgan le Fay.

Such a peculiar assertion resonates also with some earlier literature. Morgan is called the sister of Arthur in Chretien's Erec et Enide written in the 12th century. Earlier, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the creator of the modern Arthurian legend, calls Arthur's sister Anna, which may be a veiled hint at Morgan (Morgen).

In Vita Merlini, also claimed by Geoffrey of Monmouth he describes Morgan as a ruler of Avalon who comes to take the injured Arthur back to that island. Here she will use her healing powers to mend his wounds, and here he will stay to return to Britain one day.

In Parzival there is more than enough reason to suspect that the land of Feimurgan is the same as that of Prester John. Cundrie, for example, is a sorceress like Morgan le Fay and Alcina, Morgan's sister in the latter Italian romances.

By the mid-14th century, Avalon was often located in the Indies or the far East. Roman d'Ogier le Danois has the hero Ogier the Dane marrying Morgan le Fay in Avalon which is in the extreme Orient near Paradise. The Danish version locates it explicitely in the Indies. In Le Batard de Bouillon (1350 AD), Avalon is said to be beyond the Erythraen Sea (Indian Ocean) where Arthur and Morgan dwell.

Robert de Boron, of the late 12th and early 13th centuries, states that the Holy Grail was taken to Avalon. In latter Arthurian romances, the Holy Grail is often said to reside with Prester John or the Swan Knight on a mountain in the far Indies.


Mysterious genealogies

The fairy descent of the Angevins and Arthur seems strange enough especially when one considers the efforts of the royal dynasties at this time to tidy up their official genealogies.

Benoit de Sainte-Maure and John de Marmoutier's history and genealogy of the Angevins along with literary works like Roman de Brut appear designed to convey a sense of respectability to the newly-installed Angevins of England (Plantagenets).

There is nothing that would lead us to conclude that early Europeans disregarded the histories of Arthur as fiction. Indeed, latter kings like Henry VII even openly claimed descent from the ancient British king.

The discrepancy of the "official" genealogies with those of the romances has suggested to some that suppression of history had taken place.

Also peculiar is how the farthest Indies and the historical incidences regarding Prester John's communications at this time get caught up in the literature in this part of northern Europe.

Legitimization of Norman invasion

One could look at Geoffrey of Monmouth's work as possibly an attempt to use old Celtic legends and apply them to the Norman overlords of England at that time, and specifically to William the Conqueror.

Like Geoffrey's Arthur who crosses the channel from Brittany to free England from Roman domination, William crosses the same channel to free the Celtic peoples from Anglo-Saxon oppression. William himself was a descendant of Judith, Princess of Britanny and could seemingly claim to be a Celtic hero, despite his Viking background.

However, this does not explain the fairy descent which is never imputed on the Normans.

When they invade England, William of Poitiers states that the people of Brittany, Anjou, Le Mans and Poitiers formed the left flank of the Norman force. They were under the command of Count Brian of Brittany.

Among this group were knights with the appellation l'estrange "the foreigner" attached to their names. This is during a period when surnames were practically unknown. Eventually, the appellation did become a surname for people brought across the channel from Brittany and Anjou to settle in England.

Henry I, in order to counter-balance the power of Norman elites in England brought more of these people from the same locations of Brittany and Anjou. Orderic-Vitalis states that the newcomers were 'de infimo genere,' or of shady descent.

That the fairy connection could lie with these "foreigners" makes sense as Brittany and Anjou are the locations connected with Arthur and the Angevins respectively.

Interestingly, Arthur's fabled victories are in some sources said to have led to an empire that encompassed parts of Scandinavia, Britain and France, seemingly an allusion to the real conquests of the Normans.


What is a fairy?

Aside from the fairy as a mythical forest creature, early researchers like David MacRitchie and W.Y. Evans Wentz have suggested that the fairy also indicated an ethnic type at one time.

Fairies were seen as shorter than Celtic people, but at times very short or very tall, or having the magical ability to become very short or tall.

Despite being known as "fair folk," the fairies are mostly described as brown or dark-skinned. The Brownies and Duine Sith are examples of brown fairies. The Corrigan were described as black-skinned fairies. In the Vulgate Merlin, Morgan le Fay is described as 'very brown of face.'

The words duine "brown" and dubh "black" are used commonly in the most ancient Celtic myths to describe the fairies. Cundrie and Malcreatiure of Parzival are also described as having dark skin.

Evans-Wentz with regard to some vitrified forts and ancient houses assigned to the Piskies and Picts states:

In the district in which they are, the fringe of coast from St. Ives round by Zennor, Morvah, Pendeen, and St. Just nearly to Sennen, are found to this day a strange and separate people of Mongol type, like the Bigaudens of Pont l'Abbe and Penmarc'h in the Breton Cornouailles, one of those 'fragments of forgotten peoples' of the 'sunset bound of Lyonesse' of whom Tennyson tells. They are a little 'stuggy' dark folk, and until comparatively modern times were recognized as different from their Celtic neighbours, and were commonly believed to be largely wizards and witches.

From the European perspective, the fairy physical appearance varied from the otherworldly beauty of the fairy nobles to the repulsive appearance ascribed to the Nains. Malcreatiure's appearance in Parzival appears to stupefy the locals and it is explained that in the Indies there was "a great many of these people with distorted faces, and they bore strange, wild marks."


Arthur as Fairy King

Evans-Wentz, following Sir John Rhys, makes Arthur a king of the Fay, without necessarily giving Arthur any historical reality.

Many good reasons are given for Arthur as fairy king but none so explicit as the Parzival genealogy were he descends from Mazadan and the fairy Terdelaschoye in the land of Feimurgân.

No information is given on the paternal ancestor Mazadan other than he was lured to Feimurgân and stayed on there. However, Arthur's father Uther Pendragon is said also to rule at Annwn, the Celtic Underworld, and often synonomous with Avalon.

Of course, Arthur's sister, a full sister according to Chretien and half-sister in latter tradition, is Morgan le Fay, the fairy Morgan. Many of the knights in Arthur's service have powers that are usually associated with fairies in other literature.

Also impressively the near-dead Arthur returns to Avalon, land of the fairies, guided by his fairy sister until his eventual return.

The idea of supernatural descent is not unusual, but really comes as a surprise in this period and location of history, especially in that it involves the "other." In previous centuries, the Merovingian dynasty was said to be fathered by one Quinotaur a 'beast of Neptune' that encountered the Salian queen as she bathed in the sea.

This tale might be related to a series of "swan knight" stories that held sway in the northern Germanic countries in succeeding centuries. In Beowulf, Scild "the son of the skiff" comes over the sea sleeping in a boat without rudder or sail. He is raised by the locals and eventually becomes king. When near death, Scild asks to be placed in a boat that is guided into the sea by swans.

In other forms of this myth, and in particular the Lohengrin cycle, the swan knight appears as a hero who comes by boat guided by a swan to rescue and marry a princess or duchess. However, he makes her promise that she never ask about his origin and descent, which in all versions his wife is unable to do. The swan knight, on the breaking of the oath, then returns to the sea on the same swan-driven boat never to be seen again. However, he leaves descendants who adopt the swan on their standards.

The fairy descent of the house of Anjou and Arthur is of a more serious type not encountered since the Quinotaur incident some seven centuries earlier. Later this reputation stuck mostly to the Plantagenets, although the house of Bouillon also gets attached to the swan knight tale.

The "Melusine" tradition of fairy descent was so instilled in European thought that Richard the Lion-Hearted was stated to have said his family came from the "sons of demons."


A Melusine of fairy descent with bat-like wings and fish/dragon lower body. The husband of the Melusine must not view here when she bathes her children or she flies away, a restriction similar to that in the Swan Knight relationship. (Holzschnitt aus dem frühesten Druck des Romans; Basel, undatiert, ca. 1474, http://pr-server.unibe.ch/unipress/heft100/beitrag12.html)


Prester John, the Indias and northern Europe

What do Prester John and the Indies have to do with royal families in northern France and Britain?

Von Eschenbach is the first to explicitely mention Ind with regard to the Grail cycle. However, it must be said that Arthurian romances start with the introduction of the completely foreign and distant Avalon, not found in previous literature.

And the development of the Grail and Arthurian cycles takes place in the same two centuries that Prester John historically is said to have been making initial contacts with the Pope and the European kings.

Not only do we hear of historical visits of patriarchs and ambassadors from the Indies to Rome and Byzantinum, but in Parzival and other works there is mention of journeys by Europeans to the East. For example, Feirefiz's migration to the kingdom of Tribalibot near the Ganges.

Such new contacts could easily be understood in context of the conquest of Jerusalem by Godefrey of Bouillon, supposed descendant of the Swan Knight and leader of the First Crusade.

Hypothetically, we might assume that contacts with the Indies and back would travel through the Shi'a corridors in connection with the Sayabiga either to Sind or to the Crusader forts of the Holy Land. From Sind, the journey would proceed to South India and from thence to points East. From the Holy Land, one could venture to points throughout Europe and Byzantinum. The pact between the Templars and the Assassins might also explain how both east and west cooperated in allowing such travel to take place, albeit on a limited basis.

Latter Italian romances such as Ariosto's Orlando Furioso locate the fairy isles quite clearly in the East Indies. In this tale about the love of Orlando, a knight of the Holy Roman Empire, for Angelica, the daughter of the Great Khan of Cathay, a side story involves the island of Alcina, Morgan le Fay's sister.

Somewhere beyond Cathay (North China) and Mangiana (Manzi, South China) lay the islands ruled by three sisters -- the irresistably beautiful and wicked Alcina and Morgan, and their equally beautiful but virtuous and heroic sister Logistilla. A more specific setting for a tradition that had lasted for centuries.

In analyzing fairy descent, we can say that it was definitely related to the "other" but in both positive and negative ways. The fairies could have either very appealing good looks like the still handsome and youthful-looking thousand-year-old King Mider. Or they could appear with the shocking visage of Malcreatiure.

While the Plantagenets always drew suspicion of conspiracy with the Devil, Godefrey and Baldwin claimed descent from the Swan Knight, while the Tudor kings claimed Arthur as their progenitor.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Ariosto, Ludovico. Orlando Furioso, Oxford University Press, 1999.

Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, Courier Dover Publications, 2003.

Le Strange Records 1100-1310, s.v. "Roland le Strange," http://www.asiawrite.co.nz/lestrange/library/records/chap01.html, s.v. "Observations on the Le Stranges," http://www.asiawrite.co.nz/lestrange/library/observations.html

Maddox, Donald and Sara Sturm-Maddox. Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, University of Georgia Press, 1996.

MacRitchie, David. Ancient and Modern Britons: A Retrospect, 2 Vols. 1884; rpt. Introduction by William Preston. Los Angeles: Preston, 1985, 1986.

___. The Testimony of Tradition, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited, 1890.

Glossary: Conjunctions and Astrology

In Moorish Spain universities arose in cities like Toledo, dominated by Moor and Jewish scholars, with great emphasis on the fields of astronomy and astrology.

By the 12th century, European Christians also attended these centers of learning and began translating Arabic works, including some of the lost Greek works preserved only in Arabic. Gerard of Cremona translated Ptolemy's Almagest in Toledo, which was the world's foremost translation center of Arabic works into Latin.

So it should come as no surprise that Wolfram von Eschenbach claimed that the bard Kyot had translated Arabic texts that he obtained from the "heathen" known as Flegatanis.

The heathen Flegetanis could tell us how all stars set and rise again...With his own eyes, the heathen Flegetanis saw and told of hidden secrets, that he was shy to speak of, in the constellations. He declared the Grail, whose name he read in the stars..."

-- Parzival

In Parzival itself, Cundrie the prophetess from near the Ganges recites the names of the stars in Latino-Arabic revealing that such knowledge as found in Toledo was possessed by von Eschenbach himself.

Conjunctions of stars and planets signaled the advent of new cycles and holy messengers according to the Muslim astrologer Albumasar. First translated by Joannis Hispalensis (John of Seville) in the mid-12th century, his works al-Madkhal al-kabir (Introductorium maius) and Dalalat al-ashkhas al-ulwiyya (De magnis coniunctionibus et annorunt revolutionibus) had great influence on Western thinking.

In particular, Albumasar introduced the idea that the great religions or philosophies were all revealed after special conjunctions of Jupiter with one of the six planets. He also created an Islamicized version of the 'three Hermes' legend found in the Greco-Egyptian Hermetic tradition.

According to Albumasar, various incarnations of Hermes visit the earth to introduce new religions or philosophies. In the west, the first Hermes was Idris known in the Old Testament as Enoch. The second was Budhasaf of Babylon and the third Aris (Horus) of Egypt. Interestingly all these prophets were said, by either Albumasar or his followers, to have originated in, or to have learned their arts in the Indies (al-Hind) or China.

An eastern connection is not surprising when you consider that Albumasar hailed from Balkh in Afghanistan and was probably familiar with medieval Zoroastrian millennarianism.

Roger Bacon and Pierre d'Ailly, following Albumasar, propounded that five prophets corresponding to five of the six planets had already appeared on earth during conjunctions with Jupiter. Each had introduced a major world religious or philosophical system.

The last (false) prophet in their view, the Antichrist, would come with the grand conjunction of Jupiter and the Moon.

Indian tradition also links the last age with a conjunct Jupiter-Moon but in reference to the savior king Kalki rather than the Antichrist.

At this time the Lord will incarnate in a brahmin family in the village known as Sambhala, and will be known as Kalki. With unrivalled majesty he will soar across the sky, destroying millions of brigands in ruler's disguise. Then will the Satyayuga [Age of Truth] commence -- an age of righteousness and holiness. Satyayuga will begin when the Sun, Moon and Jupiter rise together in the same house with Pushya asterism in the ascendant.

-- Bhagavata Purana 12:2

Albumasar popularized as well the concept that regular conjunctions of the two slowest-moving planets -- Saturn and Jupiter -- heralded grand world events, both good and bad. Beginning in about the 14th century, these Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions were of great interest to Europeans particularly in light of the frequent plagues that ravaged the continent. People from royalty to the peasantry payed close attention to publications of conjunction-linked prophecies by astrologers like Cristoforo Landino, Marsilio Ficino and Roger Bacon.

By far the most famous of these prophets was Michel de Nostradamus of Provence, France. In his writings, he may have referred to the last prophetic conjunction of Jupiter with the Moon when he mentions "the sixth bright celestial splendor" (C1:Q80).

Frequently Nostradamus tells of a king or other significant person of the East quite reminiscent of the Zoroastrian prophecies of the savior king from Kangdez. And he mentions a king linked with line of Hermes:

Long awaited he will never return
In Europe, he will appear in Asia:
One of the league issued from the great Hermes,
And he will grow over all the Kings of the East.

-- Les centuries C10:Q75

Given the state of affairs in European astrology at the time, this could certainly be a reference to the Hermes of the sixth Jupiter conjunction described by Bacon and d'Ailly.

Astrological conjunctions throughout the world

Astrological conjunctions also appear at the beginning of new epochs in India, China, Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica.

In India, China and Mesopotamia, all planets are said to have been aligned in the same location at the start of the great age. The sexagenary cycles of China and India appear to originate from the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction cycle. As discussed earlier in the blog, such cycles may also have influenced the Mayan calendar.

The conjunction of the Sun with the Moon, Venus, the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius is widely observed in many cultures. The ancient Polynesians saw conjunctions as signs and omens, and the navigator Hawai`iloa was advised to sail toward an auspicious conjunction involving Jupiter during his discovery voyage to Hawai`i.

Many Austronesian peoples looked for auspicious times for battles and other events in the conjunction of the Moon with certain fixed stars or planets.

According to Chinese accounts like the P'ing-chou k'o-t'an, the inhabitants of Sanfotsi were expert astronomers, and especially skilled in the prediction of eclipses.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

McCluskey, Stephen C. Astronomies and Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 4, Spagyric..., Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 412.

Selin, Helaine and Sun Xiaochun. Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Astronomy, Springer, 2000.

Glossary: Elixir

The elixir that promotes health, rejuvenates, prolongs life or even grants immortality is included among the forms of what Stephen Oppenheimer calls "edible immortality."

On Penglai, the Chinese isle of immortals, everything from the water to the plants and fruits promote longevity and well-being. In the Churning of the Milky Ocean myth as related in the Mahabharata the ashes and runoff created by the fiery holocaust on Mt. Mandara produces, among other things, a jar of the elixir of immortality.

Apparently the light-colored ash flowing into the sea turns the ocean into a milky or white color. In the Milky Ocean, therefore, there is a Svetadvipa or "White Island" where everything is white. Also on Penglai it is sometimes said that all the plants and animals are white. This may refer symbolically to the milk-colored volcanic substances that are said to have the "power of the Elixir" and which blanket the entire region after an eruption.

In the Zoroastrian literature, the White Haoma of the Varkash (Vourukasha) Sea is also said to be prepared as the ambrosia of the immortals.

Both the Indian and Persian literature link the Soma and Haoma respectively with the ocean. The Khorda Avesta (5:8) calls the Vourukasha, the "deep sea of salt waters." Tides and ocean currents are also apparently mentioned as having action upon this ocean:

Ahura Mazda answered It is even so as thou hast said, O righteous Zarathustra! I, Ahura Mazda, send the waters from the sea Vouru-kasha down with the wind and with the clouds.

I, Ahura Mazda, make them stream down to the corpses; I, Ahura Mazda, make them stream down to the Dakhmas; I, Ahura Mazda, make them stream down to the unclean remains; I, Ahura Mazda, make them stream down to the bones; then I, Ahura Mazda, make them flow back unseen; I, Ahura Mazda, make them flow back to the sea Pûitika.

'The waters stand there boiling, boiling up in the heart of, the sea Pûitika, and, when cleansed there, they run back again from the sea Pûitika to the sea Vouru-kasha, towards the well-watered tree, whereon grow the seeds of my plants of every kind [by hundreds, by thousands, by hundreds of thousands].

-- Vendidad 2:17-19

During the medieval period, Albumasar apparently develops these old Iranian concepts into a theory of tides in his work Great Introduction to Astrology. Albumasar's theory was adopted by Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, William of Auvergne, Albert the Great and others. The influence of the Moon on tides and the ocean is interesting in connection with the elixir as "Soma" is also a Sanskrit name for the Moon.

Oppenheimer has shown in Eden in the East how the waxing and waning of the Moon was seen in very ancient times as a sign of the immortality of the lunar deity. He feels that myths connected with the Moon and immortality were diffused by Austro-Asiatic peoples.

Iranian cosmology places the cosmic mountain at the farthest shore of the Varkash Sea to the East. From this mountain flow all the world's water after purifying the "underworld."

Waters from rivers and streams flow first into the sea where they apparenly eventually make their way east to west following the prevailing winds over the ocean. At the Western horizon they fall into "hell" where they wash away all impurities. From hell they make their way back into the cosmic mountain where initially they appear like "quicksilver" (Rivayats 1:91), and then flow into the Varkash Sea. From there, they again travel from East to West. It is this motion that causes the ebb and flow of the tide according to early tradition.

In the Varkash Sea is the White Haoma tree and also the Tree of Many Seeds. The trees are protected by a great fish known as the Kar and the Simurgh bird, which is portrayed usually with a dog or human head. The White Haoma is explicitely tied to the "Water of Life."


The Simurgh Bird that protects the Tree of Many Seeds

The Soma of Indic tradition also appears not to have been so much a single plant as the life-force of plants in the waters: "...in appearance like the sun, he [Soma] runs through the lakes, the seven streams and heaven" (Rgveda 9:52:2).

Production of both Soma and Haoma may be seen as partly a ritual reenactment of the great cataclysmic event that produced the original pot of elixir. The Soma pounded from medicinal herbs was mixed or "clothed" in milk possibly to resemble the ash-colored ocean of milk.

Even in the Rgvedic production of Soma, there appears to be an allusion to the primordial event -- a pit known as uparava, one arm-length in depth is dug in the earth to mix the juice pounded with sacred stones from the Soma herbs. The pit is reminiscent of the underworld association of the "waters of life" in mythologies from Sumer to Hawai`i.

Iranian myth mentions a three-legged "ass," apparently a whale since it is said to be the source of ambergris (Bundahishn 11:12), that purifies the fluids of the earth that return to the Varkash Sea.

Also in the midst of the sea is the great bull Sarsaok with flames shooting up out of its back. In some sources, it is said that this bull is slain in the last days and its marrow used to make the White Haoma of immortality. It is from the flames of this bull's back that the sacred Zoroastrian temple fires were brought.

Obviously, the flaming Sarsaok bull can be equated with the White Haoma tree and again with the cosmic/volcanic mountain. Also the three-legged ass or whale may also refer to the purifying fire's shooting up from the bull's back and protecting the elixir.

The word for ass is kar, and the great fish that guards the Tree of Many Seeds is known as the Kar Mahi or "ass-like fish." Thus the Kar and Kar Mahi may be the same -- a large fish or whale that resembles a three-legged ass.

Guarding of the sacred trees may refer to their fiery nature, as the Kar is also the purifier of the waters. In a similar sense, the Hebrew Bible speaks of the flaming sword that guarded the way of Eden.

Haoma's whiteness again bespeaks of the whitish ash of the volcanic eruption. In the Ayurvedic tradition of India, the incineration of plants and metals into bhasma or ash plays an important role in the making of medicines. We can look at the metals here as standing also for the great quantities of earth incinerated during the eruption. Bhasma smeared on the body of the god Siva or on the bodies of ascetics symbolizes purity through the fire of austerity, and the immortality thus gained.


Ascetics known as Nagasadhus, smeared with ash, gather for a dip in the Ganges River during the Kumbhamela pilgrimage. According to legend, some of the elixir produced during the churning of the milk ocean dropped here from the pot of Dhanvantari. (Source: http://spirit-of-india.com/SpiritualJourneys/index.html)

In the latter practice of alchemy, the ingredients of plants, metals, water and fire used to produce the elixir attempt to recreate some of the chemistry caused by the natural cataclysmic event.

Al-Balkhi and his followers placed the palace of the immortals, Kangdez, and the Varkash Sea in the same location as the Indian Yamakoti.

Quests for the Elixir

Both the Muslim and Greek geographers compressed the known world from East to West to fit into their worldviews. Ptolemy in his Geography, sought to extend the distance from the Happy Isles to Cattigara to 180 degrees.

Quite interestingly, in most of the known distances in Geography, such as those between Rome and Alexandria, between the latter and Babylon, etc., the real degree of longitude was about 3/4 of Ptolemy's longitude degree. If Ptolemy simply wanted to create fictional lands, he could have easily represented a fully-inhabited globe. However, mariners of his day would have ridiculed such a representation since they had no knowledge of any ability to circumnavigate the earth.

For Ptolemy then only half of the globe was inhabitable and he sought to fit the known world into that 180 degrees.

The Hindu astronomers appeared to have shrunk the real degree of longtitude to one-half in order to represent the known world as extending around the globe. Thus, the distance from Lanka to Romaka is given as 90 degrees when it is just slightly over 45 degrees. If we look at the real distance of the Hindu quadrants, they would represent nearly the division of the world into eight rather than four parts.

Kangdez's location was very much similar to that of the medieval Christian Garden of Eden. From this location was said to come eastern spices like aloeswood, cinnamon, cassia and ginger in both Christian and Muslim tradition. Indeed such association for these spices hails back to the Book of Enoch and the Old Testament where the mount of God appears as topped with fire and smoke.

This mountain, the omphalos, was the fountain also of the underground "waters of life" -- the Sumerian Abzu.

Many Austronesian myths locate the "water of life" in paradise, which often is also the land of the ancestors, the land of the dead. The Samoans knew of Bulotu, a blessed land whose lord has a home made of the bones of dead chiefs. Spirits come here to bathe in the water of life and regain strength. The Fijians know of the same place called Burotu or Murotu where a speaking tree is found near the waters of life.

A "river of living water" found in the mythology of San Cristoval refreshes the souls of the dead and grants immortality to the devout. In the Philippines, many indigenous peoples take ritual baths in rivers and streams to rejuvenate the body, using bundles of sacred herbs, leaves or grasses dipped in the water to baptize each other.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Glossary: Yamakoti

The ancient Indian astronomers placed the location of Yamakoti in the East precisely one quarter of the world's circumference from Lanka/Ujjain, the Indian meridian.

The 11th century Muslim geographer/astronomer al-Biruni makes the following statements about Yamakoti:

Yamakoti is, according to Yakub and al-Fazari, the country where is the city Tara within the sea. I have not found the slightest trace of this name in Indian literature. As koti means castle and Yama is the angel of death, the word reminds me of Kangdez, which according to the Persians had been built by Kai Kaus or Jam in the most remote East, behind the sea...Abu Mashar al-Balkhi based his geographical canon on Kangdez as 0 degrees longitude.

The city of Tara is also called Nara in other literature such as the Hudud al-Alam. It could refer to the Tantric goddess Tara, whose name means "star" and who is, among other things, the goddess of the sea and seafarers.

Tara's connection with mariners is particularly strong in her association with the sea goddess Ratu Kidul of Java, and Kuanyin, the Chinese goddess of mariners.

We have mentioned Kangdez before in reference to Zoroastrian prophecies of the King of the East. It was considered the center of the world and the hiding place of the savior kings. Similar concepts were adopted into Shi'ite Islam.

The geographers who used Kangdez as the prime meridian belonged to what is known as the al-Balkhi school, after Abu Mashar al-Balkhi, known in Latin as Albumasar. During the Middle Ages, Albumasar was the most renowned of Muslim astronomer/astrologers in Europe. His theories of historical cycles linked with the planets influenced many European astrologers including Nostradamus whose key work "Revolutions" was based on such concepts.

While other Muslim geographers used Ptolemy's meridan of the "Happy Isles" off West Africa, or the Indian meridian of Ujjain, the al-Balkhi school placed the meridian in the far East. His followers saw Kangdez as one and the same as the Indian Yamakoti. In addition to Kangdez, the city Tara/Nara was placed in Yamakoti at the equator.

In al-Qanun al-Masudi, al-Biruni writes that Tara was 90 degrees east of Lanka/Ujjain basically agreeing with the Indian texts about the position of Yamakoti. Again Yamakoti was the same distance from Lanka/Ujjain as the latter was from Romaka.

The city of Romaka has been variously identified as Alexandria, Constantinople and Rome. Biruni equates it with the city or capital of Rum i.e., Constantinople which is practically at the same meridian as Alexandria. It should be said however that al-Biruni did not accept the equation of Lanka's longitude with that of Ujjain. He thought instead that it referred to the isle of Langabalus, the island of cloves (lavang), which may refer to the Nicobar/Andaman chain.

If we accept the Ujjain meridian, the longitude for Yamakoti would be at around 120-122 degrees East longitude.

Not much was written about Yamakoti other than it possessing walls and ramparts of gold, but Kangdez is another matter. The immortals lived here and a great fortress was hidden here within a mountain. It is associated with the Varkash Sea, in the deepest part of which is produced the Haoma (Soma), the elixir.

This reminds us of the Churning of the Milky Ocean tale in the Mahabharata where the burnt runoff of flaming Mount Mandara flows into the sea:

The friction of the trees started fire after fire, covering the mountain with flames like a black monsoon cloud with lightening streaks...many juices of herbs and manifold resins of the trees flowed into the water of the ocean. And with the milk of these juices that had the power of the Elixir, and with the exudation of the molten gold, the God attained immortality. The water of the ocean now turned into milk, and from this milk butter floated up, mingled with the finest of essences.

The general location of the prime meridian of Kang-dez and Yamakoti would agree with Chinese myths of the three isles of the blest including Penglai, shaped like cauldrons in a manner that reminds us of the Hermetic Krater. They were located somewhere in the "Eastern Sea" but in a location where the Sun rose at the horizon i.e, in the equatorial parts. The Formosan speakers of Taiwan have legends of a homeland to the south or southeast of Taiwan also associated with the Sun (or the multiple superfluous Suns).

Even though the Indians used Lanka as their own meridian, they usually named Yamakoti first when listing the four quadrants of the globe.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

King, David A. World-Maps for Finding the Direction and Distance to Mecca: Innovation and Tradition in Islamic..., Brill Academic Publishers, 1999.

Minorsky, V. Hudud al-`Alam. the Regions of the World: A Persian Geography 372 A.H.--982 A.D., London: C.E. Bosworth, 1970.

Sachau, Edward C. Alberuni's India Vol I: An Account of the Religion, Philosophy, Literature, Geography, Chronolog..., Routledge, 2001.

Glossary: Exploration, Ancient Sea

Early proponents of diffusionism have suggested the existence of ancient sun-worshipping argonauts who explored the equatorial regions. W.J. Perry in his book The children of the sun; a study in the early history of civilization, for example, proposed that such intrepid explorers left megaliths at each new location they discovered.

More recently, the late Thor Heyerdahl suggested that these navigators followed the Sun on its westward journey near the equator. Seeing the Sun vanish in the western horizon at evening and then reappear in the East at morning, they could rest assured they would eventually return home. Some have suggested that ancient tales of visiting and returning from the Underworld were in reality coded references to early circumnavigation of the globe.

Indeed, the knowledge of a round globe and the assurance that by traveling continuously in any direction, one would eventually return to known territory was essential in generating the "Age of Exploration."

There are however recorded seafaring traditions some preserved to this day that give us glimpses of how ancient explorers could venture over open sea for hundreds or thousands of miles without needing to circle the globe.

Navigators of the Pacific used cognitive maps for regions that were known to them. Most important of the memorized locations was what Harold Gatty called the "home center." When Tupaia constructed his map for Captain James Cook, he was able to point "to the part of heaven, where each isle was situated" according to Forster, an obvious reference to zenith stars.

However, a zenith star at any particular moment in the diurnal day can also indicate the longitude of a destination. For example, at the start of the solar year, indicated for example by the heliacal rising or setting of a fixed star, the celestial bodies at sunset will be positioned over specific geographical locations in both latitude and longitude.


At a certain time, the zenith star can indicate both the latitude and longitude of a place. As an example, the bearing of this star on the horizon can be estimated by the distance, parallel to the horizon, of the zenith star from the local meridian. The same distance is then used from the corresponding point of the compass.


This relationship will not last long due to the constant spinning of the earth on its axis. However, that location at that particular point in time, what we know as azimuth and elevation, can continue to be associated with the star and the geographical location. The azimuth and elevation at that moment can be a reference to the star and thus we will call it an "etak star" from the Micronesian system of navigational references.

At the same time during the succeeding heliacal rising or setting, the star will again be at about the same azimuth and elevation. The existing slight error is not cumulative and tends to cancel out, so this is a reliable way of correlating geography with the fixed stars both in terms of latitude and longitude.

As long as the observer is in the same geographical location the etak star for any other location will always be the same.


As the zenith star moves into a new position due to the diurnal spinning of the globe, the reference azimuth and elevation, or etak star, marks the place in the sky corresponding to the destination. While the observer remains in the same location, the etak star for the destination will always remain the same.

If the observer, however, moves toward or away from the etak star, the location of the latter will change. Moving toward the etak star, the position in the sky moves closer to the zenith, while moving away drives the etak star closer to the horizon.
Upon reaching the destination, the etak star should be directly overhead in the zenith.


The etak star moves closer toward the zenith as the ship moves closer to the destination.


For navigators trained from childhood to memorize the relative positions of the stars, keeping track of an etak star should not present a difficult task. Even amateur stargazers can rather quickly orient themselves using the polar stars, their general knowledge of the rising/setting points of constellations, the seasonal rising/setting point of the Sun, etc.

When traveling to a destination, the navigator must only be able to reposition the etak star proportionally to the distance traveled. This is what is done using the Micronesian etak system. Depending on the winds and currents, an etak represents a division of the total distance per a unit of time, usually a solar day.

The etak distance is thus relative and in certain conditions the distance covered in a day might be more than 100 miles while in another it is less than 20 miles. By maintaining orientation, the navigator perceives not only the distance covered but the relative change in position in all directions.

There exists some documented evidence of the use of zenith stars for the purpose of obtaining bearings by both the Tongans and Tikopians. Unfortunately few details are given. Even more mysterious are fuzzy references suggesting such usage in traditions concering the Hawai'i-Tahiti voyages. There are many other notices of vague, uncertain usage of zenith or other high stars in the Pacific (Lewis, p. 289ff).

Steering toward an etak star or the related bearing on the horizon is not the same as steering toward the corresponding zenith star. As J.P. Frankel notes, the longitude indicated by zenith stars changes by about one degree every four minutes. However, the etak star bearing changes only according to the change of position of the observer. At most this will usually be no more than a few degrees in an entire day.

And since any error in judgement will be random and thus non-cumulative, they tend to cancel out with each position-fixing. That would mean that longer journeys with more readings would tend to be more accurate in terms of position-fixing than short ones!

Exploring unknown territory

When the navigator ventures into new regions, they could use the home center system to always find their way back to known territory without necessarily needing to circumnavigate the globe.

Even in areas with strong prevailing winds, there are always seasonal wind shifts and current patterns that allow explorers to confidently undertake circular journeys using the etak stars of unknown regions as their guide. The journey of the Hokule`a, a recreation of the ancient Polynesian journeys from Tahiti to Hawai`i and back, demonstrates this clearly.

Some general knowledge about ocean currents could also have helped equatorial ocean exploration. For example, currents traveling just below the equator tend to move in the opposite direction as those just above the equator.

By sailing or even paddling against the wind in periods of light winds, one can explore the nature of currents in unknown regions knowing the breeze will be at your back during the return journey.

Micronesian seafarers of the Caroline Islands were able to chart confusing currents stretching some 1,900 miles east-to-west and 840 miles north-to-south, from Kapingamarangi to the Marianas.

Ancient bearing star

He defined the days of the year by constellations,
He founded the Nebiru station to determine the stars' limits,
That none may go too far or too short,
The stations of Enlil and Ea, he placed by his own,
Having opened the gates on both sides,
And strengthened the locks on the right and left,
In the center he placed the zenith.

These passages are from the Mesopotamian tale of Marduk's slaying of the dragon Tiamat, and his creation of the heavens from the dragon's body.

We have already suggested in the blog that Nebiru may have been both a bearing and zenith star, the "star of the crossing" to the Underworld gateway. The station of Nebiru may have been the etak star of Spica used to set the heavenly bands by which the Mesopotamians divided the equatorial "way of Anu." The gates mentioned above are those through which the Sun rises at twin-peaked Mt. Mashu in the East.

During the latter half of the fourth millennium, at the heliacal setting of Sirius, the star Spica would serve as an excellent zenith and etak star for the dual peaks of Pinatubo and Arayat.

Spica was associated much later in Greco-Roman times with Isis Pelagia, the patroness of mariners. In such a sense, what star would be more suited as a patron goddess for seafarers than the etak star of one's home port?

When the Roman empire adopted Christianity, Isis Pelagia apparently became Maria Pelagia, or the medieval Maris Stella or Stella Maris "Star of the Sea."

Late European representations of the Virgin Mary often show her holding a sheaf (spica) of wheat in her hand similar to the image for the constellation Virgo, or decorated with sheaves. Some paintings show a single star on her robe, which has been interpreted by some as representing Spica (alpha Virginis).

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Chaucer, Geoffrey. Romancing the Goddess: Three Middle English Romances about Women, University of Illinois Press, 1998, p. 195.

Finney, Ben. Voyage of Rediscovery, University of California Press, 1994.

Lewis, David. We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific, University of Hawai`i Press, 1994.

Dog Star (Glossary)

The dog star has through the ages been associated with Sirius and/or less frequently the planet Venus.

The name of Sirius probably is derived from the Egyptian word seir meaning "prince," and related also to Hebrew sar. Another possibility is that the word comes from the Greek form for Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld.

The star is the brightest in the heavens and was called Kasista "Leader" by the ancient Akkadians. The Persians knew it likewise as Tistar "Chieftain" or Zeeb "Leader."

It was pictured in cultures throughout the world as a dog or wolf situated in the southern sky and associated with the hot or "dog days" of summer.

Sirius is also often connected with the image of a hunter. Among the Sumerians, Ninurta, the hunter, and husband of the dog goddess Bau (Gula), was linked with Sirius, while his wife had Venus associations. Later, when Inanna absorbs Bau's attributes she is likewise viewed as a huntress with links both to Venus and Sirius.

In Greek myth, Sirius formed the head of the hunter Orion's dog, the constellation Canis Major. According to Monier-Williams, the dog star was known among Hindus as Lubdhaka and Mrgavyadha both meaning "hunter" and referring to the god Siva or Rudra.

Another association of Sirius connects the star with the Milky Way, known often as the "Way of Souls" or the "Way of the Dog/Wolf." In this sense, Sirius is viewed as one or more dogs or wolves guarding the path taken by departed souls.

In ancient Egypt, the heliacal rising of Sirius was central to the yearly calendar. Sirius and Orion are personified respectively by the deities Sopdet and Sah, who are in turn manifestations of Isis and Osiris. Sopdet and Sah beget Sopdu, who is the manifestation of Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, and the patron deity of Egyptian royalty. Sopdet is sometimes portrayed as a large dog, or as riding side-saddle on a dog (during the Roman period).

When the Sun and Moon conjoined at the start of the Egyptian New Year a festival known as the "sacred marriage" was celebrated. This may relate to the Pyramid Texts which state that Pharaoh unites with Isis in a form of hieros gamos bringing forth Horus-Sopdu. In another passage, the royal-divine union is said to beget the Morning Star, and thus may connect Venus with Horus.

Among the Sumerians, the sacred marriage took place between the priest-king and Inanna, the latter probably represented by the Lukur priestess, who was in turn linked with the daughters of dog-headed Bau. Inanna again has as her planet Venus and Sirius as one of her fixed stars. The king during this ritual stands for Dumuzi, the husband of Inanna, and every year near the rising of Sirius in the summer, the Kelabim or dog priests of Dumuzi (Tammuz) held rites for the god.

Adonis had similar rites, and Carl Kerenyi believes that the orgia festivals celebrated in honor of Dionysos were also linked with the Sirius cycle.

Further to the east we find numerous myths of the marriage of a dog to a goddess or queen in the totemic histories of numerous peoples. Especially in Central Asia, South China, Southeast Asia and the Pacific the concept of part-dog or wolf ancestry is prevalent. From Assam in the West to Mongolia in the North and Java in the South, eastward to New Guinea and other Pacific isles in Oceania and northward again to the Ryukus and Bering Sea, the sacred dog-human marriage motif is found.

David Gordon White in Myths of the Dog-Man discusses the motif found among the Chinese, Hmong-Mien and Southeast Asian peoples of a heavenly dog who comes to earth following catastrophic floods bringing the gift of rice agriculture. These resemble closely the Kapampangan tales of Tala who rescues the flooded inhabitants of Central Luzon by teaching them riziculture. White mentions a "tradition, dating from the Shang dynasty, that connects a dog with the ancient rice god Shang-ti, and a Ch'in and Han period sacrifice called the lei (a term for which the Chinese characters are "dog," "rice," and "head") that involved the offerings of dog's flesh and rice, by which a dismembered Shang-ti was ritually reintegrated and resurrected."

Shang-ti becomes associated with T'ien (Heaven) during the Zhou (Chou) dynasty and the Shih-chi states that the god in the form of the "Ti-Dog" was the ancestor of the Hou Chih and T'ai peoples.

Although Sirius (known as the Heavenly Wolf in China) is not mentioned in these legends, the idea of a heavenly dog coming after the summer floods indeed could represent a link with the dog Star. The heliacal rising of Sirius during the summer heralds the flooding season in the monsoon climate region. The descent of Sirius or Venus from Heaven in the form of a dog bringing agriculture and uniting in divine marriage all fit in the Sirius myth pattern. The flooding of the Nile after the rising of Sirius was essential to good harvests in ancient Egypt.

The image of Phan Hu descending from Heaven and swimming across the flooded earth with a rice plant in his mouth, to later marry the Chinese emperor's daughter and father the Yao people is an ideal form of the Eastern myth.

While various explanations have been given for the canine attributes bestowed to the star Sirius, the link with a culture-bearing ancestor is the one proposed here. In this sense, the heliacal rising of Sirius would herald the advent of the canine hero linked in this case with the cataclysmic eruption of the cosmic mountain.

In ancient symbology, this involved the Sun and Moon, not simply conjunct as in the Egyptian New Year festival, but in solar eclipse represented by the Crescent Sun. Venus in inferior conjunction or transit is represented as a star in the center or next to the Crescent Sun. These celestial bodies should be placed above or emerging from a mountain, hill, mound, stupa, triangle, pyramid, person's head or some other symbol of the cosmic axis.

In some cases, one can also see to the left of these symbols another star or stellar symbol that should be taken as representing Sirius. Left in this case means to the south as ideally the celestial configuration should be in the West, the direction of Pinatubo.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Kerenyi, Carl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, Princeton University Press, 1996.

McGahey, Robert. The Orphic Moment: Shaman to Poet-Thinker in Plato, Nietzsche, and Mallarme, SUNY Press, 1994.

Sasaki, Chris. Constellations: Stars & Stories, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2003, p. 32ff.

Shaw, Ian. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2002.

White, David Gordon. Myths of the Dog-Man, University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Glossary: Sacred King

James George Frazer popularized the idea of the sacred king in his seminal work The Golden Bough.

Frazer formed different categories of sacred kings such as magician or shaman-kings, priest-kings, divine kings, etc. and even suggested an evolutionary process of development from one type to another.

Others have attempted to divide sacred kings into major categories based on various defining characteristics. The most important of these are: The sacred king as an incarnate god or divine being; the king as an icon of gods or divinity; the sacred king as the agent or representative of God or other divine beings; the king as a sacred sacrifice; the sacred king as herald of a new age or cycle, the messianic or world-conquering king, and the king simply as the holder of supernatural powers especially control over the weather and agriculture. In many cases these types may be combined in actual instances of sacred kingship.

There is much to be said about the intimate connections between sacred kingship and the aspects of the agricultural calendar -- the interaction between Heaven (and the celestial clock) and Earth.

In almost every example of sacred kingship, among the king's primary roles include participation in some form of agricultural or fertility ritual linked with the local calendar, usually the celestial calendar that marks the growing seasons.

Linkage with sky time would naturally bring an association of the king with cycles and ages of greater duration than the solar year. These cycles like the agricultural season involved waxing/growing and waning/dying phases.

The expression of the Chinese philosopher Mengzi (Mencius) that 'every 500 years a sage appears," ("wubainian you shengren zhi xing") was modifed by Hu Shi to wubainian bi you wangzhe xing "every five centuries a king appears." This sage or king was a type of savior whose appearance may have been linked with a particular conjunction of planets (according to David Pankenier).

With the beginning and end of each age, and particularly the so-called "golden age," the birth or ascension of the sacred king is often associated with special supernatural signs. In Buddhist lore, the Cakkavatti (Sanskrit Cakravartin) combines various aspects of the sacred kingship.

When a Cakkavatti comes to fore, a magical "discus" or "wheel" known as the Cakkaratana suddenly appears in the sky. The Cakkaratana takes the king throughout the world forcing the four quarters of the earth to submit to the world conqueror.

A total of seven treasures including the Cakkaratana appear at the advent of the Cakkavatti. These match closely with some of the fourteen treasures that appear in the classical Churning of the Milky Ocean story:

Cakkavatti's treasures	Treasures during Churning of Milk Ocean
The elephant Hatthiratana	The elephant Airavata
The horse Assaratana	The horse Uchaihsravas
The Veluriya gem	The Kustubha gem
The Royal Wife	Lakhsmi, the wife of Visnu
The Advisor	Dhanvantra, the Divine Physician
The Treasurer	Parijata, wish-fulfilling tree?

We may view the treasures yielded by the cataclysmic churning event as signs of the advent of a new golden age following a period of great destruction. Very similar treasures accompany the new Cakkavatti, also heralded by supernatural signs, who undertakes a dharmic world conquest i.e., he establishes a right path of living and social order.

Also among the treasures from the Milky Ocean are the newly-born Sun and Moon. This links up with worldwide myths of multiple Suns (and Moons) connected with the ages of the Earth.

These Suns usually rise from the cosmic mountain at the advent of each age. Ho Ting-jui researched this myth extensively and found a surprising diversity of the motif among the Austronesian speakers of Taiwan. He found 33 variants from eight out of 12 Formosan ethnic groups. Ho classifies the multiple Sun myths into three types and associates them them with other myths involving the origin of the Moon, the origin of rituals, the origin of beads, the golden age and the raising of the sky to its present level.

In some cases, these ages are related to the different stages of heaven as among the Yami of Taiwan. Near Pinatubo, the Kapampangans use the term banua "sky, heaven" to refer to an era or age, or to (celestial) time itself.

Not surprisingly the coming of the sacred king of the golden age is also tied to the rising of celestial bodies. Venus as the bright morning star is particularly identified with the new era sacred king in sources as diverse as the New Testament and the myths of Mesoamerica. The rising, setting and rising again of the linked star or planet is often related to rebirth of the sacred king.

In areas were rebirth did not form part of the sacred doctrine, this concept often mutated into the idea of the "sleeping king" or the "once and future king" as found in medieval Europe. In these myths, the king does not die but only sleeps in some hidden cave or castle until the time that he awakes to usher in a new dawn.

Each new era is also correlated with the advent of summer and the helical rising of Sirius, the Dog Star. That this event is also timed in numerous myths with destructive floods gives an indication of monsoon climate origin, were the flooding season occurs in summer. This is also indicated by numerous forms of this myth that mention the Sun at the local zenith when shadows disappear, something that can only happen in the tropical latitudes.

At the dawn of the age the Sun and Moon must explosively break a hole through the top of cosmic mountain through which they will traverse the lower, middle and upper worlds. The sacred king of the era is often described as the custodian of this mountain. From here comes the mandate of Heaven and Earth. And here also the site of what is so often described as the divine war or the 'war in heaven.'

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Cakkavatti Sihanada Suttanta.

Del Re, Arundel. Creation myths of the Formosan Natives, Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, n.d.

Jensen, Lionel M. Manufacturing Confucianism, Duke University Press, 1998, p. 371.

Metevelis, Peter J. Myth in History: Volume 2 of Mythological Essay, iUniverse, 2002 (discussion of Ho Ting-jui's Ph.D. thesis).

__. "The Dog Star and the Multiple Suns motif: an Asian contribution to European mythology," Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 64; 2005, p. 133.

Pankenier, David W. "The Cosmo-political Background of Heaven's Mandate," Early China 20 (1995): 121-176.

Article: More on the single origin of agriculture

I'm forwarding this message posted by Torsten Pedersen on the Cybalist discussion group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist). I suspect Torsten is discussing a single origin of "Old World" agriculture here following Carl Sauer.

From: "tgpedersen"
Date: Wed Jan 4, 2006 3:08 am
Subject: More on the single origin of agriculture


I apologize for the long quotes. There was no way I could cut
further in them.

From
Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench, Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (eds.)
'The peopling of East Asia'

George van Driem
Tibeto-Burman vs. Indo-Chinese: implications for population
geneticists, archaeologists and prehistorians


"
Three arguments support the identification of Sìchua:n as the Tibeto-
Burman homeland.
The first is the centre of gravity argument based on the present and
historically attested geographical distribution of TB language
communities. Sichuan encompasses the area where the upper courses of
the Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong and Yangtze run parallel to each
other within a corridor just 500 km in breadth.
The second argument is that archaeologists identify the Indian
Eastern Neolithic, associated with the indigenous TB populations of
northeastern India and the Indo-Burmese borderlands, as a Neolithic
cultural complex which originated in Sichuan and spread into Assam
and the surrounding hill tracts of Arunachal Pradesh, the Meghalaya,
Tripura, the Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Chittagong before the
third millennium BC (Dani 1960; Sharma 1967, 1981, 1989; Thapar
1985; Wheeler 1959).
Archaeologists have estimated the Indian Eastern Neolithic to date
from between 10,000 and 5,000 BC (Sharma 1989; Thapar 1985). If
these estimates are taken at face value, it would mean that
northeastern India had shouldered adzes at least three millennia
before they appeared in Southeast Asia.
Whilst some archaeologists may give younger estimates for the Indian
Eastern Neolithic, a solid stratigraphy and calibrated radiocarbon
dates are still unavailable for this major South Asian cultural
assemblage.
The Indian Eastern Neolithic appears intrusively in the northeast of
the Subcontinent and represents a tradition wholly distinct from the
other Neolithic assemblages attested in India.
Assuming that the Indian Eastern Neolithic was borne to the
Subcontinent by ancient Tibeto-Burmans, then if the younger
estimates for this cultural assemblage can be substantiated by solid
dating, the linguistic fracturing of subgroups would have to have
occurred earlier in Sichuan before the migrations, as I had
suggested previously (1998, 2001).
The third argument for a TB homeland in Sichuan is that
archaeologists have argued that southwestern China would be a
potentially promising place to look for the precursors of the
Neolithic civilisations which later took root in the Yellow River
Valley (Chang 1965, 1977, 1986, 1992; Cheng 1957).
The Dàdìwa:n culture in Ga:nsù and Shanxi:, and the contiguous and
contemporaneous Peílígang-Císha:n assemblage along the middle course
of the Yellow River share common patterns of habitation and burial,
and employed common technologies, such as hand-formed tripod pottery
with short firing times, highly worked chipped stone tools and non-
perforated semi-polished stone axes.
The Dàdìwa:n and Péilígang-Císha:n assemblages, despite several
points of divergence, were closely related cultural complexes, and
the people behind these civilisations shared the same preference for
settlements on plains along the river or on high terraces at
confluences.
"

Me: Note 'settlements on plains along the river'

"
Whereas the Sichuan Neolithic represented the continuation of local
Mesolithic cultural traditions, the first Neolithic agriculturalists
of the Dàdìwa:n and Péilígang-Císha:n cultures may tentatively
be identified with innovators who migrated from Sichuan to the
fertile loess plains of the Yellow River basin. The technological
gap between the earlier local microlithic cultures and the highly
advanced Neolithic civilisations which subsequently come into flower
in the Yellow River basin remains striking. Yet a weakness in this
third argument lies in the archaeological state of the art.
Just as it is difficult to argue for a possible precursor in Sichuan
in face of a lack of compelling archaeological evidence, neither can
the inadequate state of the art in Neolithic archaeology in
southwestern China serve as an argument for the absence of such a
precursor. Moreover, agricultural dispersals and linguistic
intrusions may be distinct issues altogether.
The concentration within a contiguous geographical region of all
major high-order TB subgroups other than Tujia: and Sinitic
constitutes a linguistic argument for an early TB linguistic
intrusion into the area that today is northern China.
If the Dàdìwa:n culture in Ga:nsù and Shanxi:, and the contiguous
Péilígang-Císha:n assemblage along the middle course of the Yellow
River are indeed primary Neolithic civilisations, then the eccentric
location of Sinitic and Tujia: may even trace the route of the early
migration out of the TB homeland to the affluent and more
technologically advanced agricultural societies
in the Yellow River basin. In other words, since the linguistic
evidence puts the TB heartland in southwestern China
and northeastern India, an archaeological precursor in Sichuan for
the Dàdìwa:n and Péilígang-Císha:n cultures would fit the hypothesis
that the displacement of Sinitic to northern China was the result of
an early TB archaeological dispersal.
The absence of any such precursor in Sichuan would fit a theory of
early migration from the northern end of the ancient TB dialect
continuum to the affluent areas of pre-TB agricultural civilisations
along the Yellow River. I collectively refer to the ancient TB
populations, who either bore with them from Sichuan to the
loess plateau the technologies of polished stone tools and cord-
marked pottery or were enticed to the loess plateau by the affluence
of the technologically more advanced agricultural civilisations
there, as 'Northern Tibeto-Burmans'. I identify these Northern
Tibeto-Burmans as the likely linguistic ancestors of the Sino-Bodic
groups. Subsequent technological developments were both innovated
and introduced comparatively rapidly in the North, whereas
relatively egalitarian small-scale agricultural societies persisted
in southwestern China until the Bronze Age. This hypothesis places
the split between Northern and Southern TB in the seventh millennium
BC, just before the dawn of the Dàdìwa:n and Péilígang-Císha:n
civilisations. I identify the spread of Bodic groups from Ga:nsù
with the dispersal of the Majia:yáo and Yangsháo Neolithic cultures
and the cultivars broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and
foxtail millet (Setaria italica), first domesticated on the North
China Plain, into the Himalayan region in the third millennium BC.
Sino-Bodic would have split up into Sinitic and Bodic before this
date.

An alternative proposal to a TB homeland in Sichuan would be to
identify the earliest
Neolithic cultures along the Yellow River basin and on the North
China Plain with the TB homeland.
However, if the TB homeland were to have lain in the Yellow River
basin,
then we would be hard pressed to find a plausible archaeological
correlate for the spread of
Brahmaputran language communities, which once extended beyond Assam
and the Meghalaya and
formerly covered much of the area that is now Bangladesh and West
Bengal.
Furthermore, it must be kept in mind that the early Neolithic
civilisation on the Yellow River is
distinct from the cultural assemblages of the middle Yangtze basin,
the succeeding stages of which
ultimately spread as far afield as Oceania in the course of
millennia.
Both the Yellow River and the middle Yangtze civilisations represent
ancient agricultural
societies as old as those of the Fertile Crescent.
"

So it's Tibeto-Butman (in Sichuan) > Sinitic.
Here comes the next step

"
An intriguing theory involving a remote linguistic relationship with
TB is the Sino-Austronesian theory proposed by Laurent Sagart (1994,
2001 and this volume) connecting TB with AN. Because Sagart
initially recognised possible Sino-Austronesian correspondences
in Chinese material more than in TB, he was originally inclined to
identify the Sino-Austronesian unity with the Lóngsha:n cultural
horizon. However, there is an alternative way of viewing the Sino-
Austronesian evidence and the archaeological record.
The Lóngsha:n coastal interaction ensued upon a northward expansion
of PAN or Austro-Tai culture from its ancient homeland in southern
and southeastern China, and this northward expansion of early
Austronesians would have brought them into contact with early
Northern Tibeto-Burmans. The ensuing contact situations between AN
and the Sino-Bodic branch of TB could have involved the ancient
exchange of vocabulary between the two language families.
The way to test this would be to determine whether items shared by
AN and TB are indeed limited to the Sino-Bodic branch of TB,
including rice terms such as
Malay beras and Tibetan hbras,
a correspondence already pointed out by Hendrik Kern in 1889.
"

There was that *(H-)bh/p-/r/l- word again!
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Op.html
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Opr.html
(in case somewhere someone hadn't heard about them ;-)





"
The Lóngsha:n interaction sphere is an obvious candidate in terms of
time and place for early contacts between ancient Austronesians and
ancient Tibeto-Burmans, particularly the Dàwènkou Neolithic of
Shandong with its well-established ties both with the other coastal
cultures of the Lóngsha:n interaction sphere as well as with the
ancient Northern TB Yangsháo Neolithic civilisation.
"

In other words Tibeto-Burman (in Sichuan) > Sino-Bodic (in Northern
China) > (loans?) Austronesian.

I've wondered a long time what the r-suffix of my *(H-)bh/p- and
*(H-)bh/p-r/l- was about. Voilà Sagart to the rescue:

Laurent Sagart:
Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian

"
-ar- distributed action; distributed object
This infix was inserted between the root initial and the first vowel
of a stem. Attached to verbs of action it indicated that the action
was distributed in time (occurring over several discrete occasions),
or in space (involving several agcnts/patients/locations);
attached to nouns it indicated a referent distributed in space,
that is having double or multiple structure.
The reflex of this infix in the AN languages is -ar-, marking verbs
of distributed action and nouns of distributed object, including
names of paired or multiple body parts.
"
Aha. 'having double or multiple structure', 'names of paired or
multiple body parts'

"
Infixation is often, but not always, in the first of two
reduplicated syllables:

Paiwan k-ar-akim 'to search everywhere' (kim 'search')
k-ar-apkap-an 'sole of foot'
Puyuma D-ar-ukap 'palm of hand'
Bunun d-al-apa 'sole of foot'
(PAN *dapa 'palm of hand')
Amis p-ar-okpok 'to gallop'
t-ar-odo' 'fingers, toes'
k-ar-ot 'harrow'
Tagalog d-al-akdak 'sowing of rice seeds or seedlings
for transplanting'
(dakdak 'driving in of sharp end
of stakes into soil')
k-al-aykay 'rake'
Malay ketap 'to bite teeth':
k-er-etap 'to bite teeth repeatedly'

Other AN languages show an infix -aR- with similar functions (not
illustrated here).
According to the sound correspondences presented above, both -r-
and -R- correspond to OC -r-.
Although no living TB language has -r- infixation as a living
process, paired nouns and verbs with what appears to be an infix -r-
show up here and there, with similar semantics as in Chinese:

Burm. pok 'a drop (of liquid)':
prok 'speckled, spotted'
pwak 'to boil up and break, as
boiling liquid':
prwak 'ibid.'
khwe2 'curve, coil' :
khrwe2- 'to surround, attend'
Kachin hpun 'of pimples, to appear on the body' :
hprun 'pimples, on the body;
to appear on the body, of pimples'
Chepang -r- pop, prop 'the lungs'
brok 'be partly white, grey, streaked'
(of hair); compare
TB bok 'white'.

I first identified the Chinese -r- distributed action/object infix
from minimal pairs in Old Chinese (Sagart 1993).
Later on, I described some infixed pairs in modern dialects
where the infix showed up as the regular modern reflex -1-,
preceded either with a schwa or with a full or partial copy of the
syllable's rime (Sagart 1994, 2001).
Here are some examples of infixed nouns and verbs from Yimeng,
a Jin dialect of Inner Mongolia, where the infixed string is -&?1-
(Li 1991):

p-&?l-ai3 'to swing, oscillate'
p-&?l-&n1 'to run on all sides'
xu-&?l-a4 'to scribble'
t-&?l-&u1 'cluster(s) of fruit hanging from branches'
khu-&?l-u3 'wheel(s) of a car'
"

But there's my r-suffix! Check
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Opr.html
for senses like 'speckled, spotted', 'to boil up and break, as
boiling liquid', 'pimples', 'partly white, grey, streaked', and even
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/bHA.html (light),
with
TB bok 'white'.


Now, since all those cognates of *(H-)bh/p-r/l- in IE and
AfroAsiatic that designate a cultivar (eg. Latin far) do _not_ mean
rice, it might be wiser to identify the path of those words as going
directly westwards from the millet-growers of Sichuan, instead of
taking the detour over Austronesian, as I've done earlier.

End of story. Now that was that problem solved.

But isn't it tempting to analyse out *beR- in (eg.) Proto-
Austronesian *beRek "pig" and *beRas "rice", as standing for
something agriculture-related, whatever that is (river?)?


Torsten

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

Glossary: Turtle

Archaeological findings suggest the turtle was important to the material and religious culture in Asia and the Pacific from very early times.

The Hoabinhian people included the turtle in their diet. Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in China and Thailand provide evidence of the importance of tortoise shell in the making of cultural implements.

At locations like Khok Phanom Di in Thailand, turtle shell breastplates and other ornaments finely carved from turtle carapaces adorned burials.

At Jiahu and in the Dawenkou culture of China, turtle shells figured prominently in burials. The shells were usually found near the waist area in Dawenkou burials. They appeared to be used mostly as rattles with the plastron and carapace tied together and pebbles placed inside.

Tortoise shell was used during the Shang dynasty for purposes of divination. The species identified for use as "oracle bones" is Testudo emys found only in Southeast Asia.

The species found most often in earlier burials was Chinemys reevesii, a type today associated with South China, although probably due to the warm Kuroshio Current it can also be found as far north as the islands of Kyushu and Honshu in Japan. Li Liu states in The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States that:

No remains of Chinemys reevesii have ever been reported from the northwestern part of China including the Wei River valley, except for the Kangjia specimens. These phenonmena suggest that the climatic conditions of ancient northwestern China may not have provided a suitable semi-tropical or tropical climate...and it is likely that the turtle shells from Kangjia were obtained, directly or indirectly, from southern or southeastern regions where the animal lived.

The turtle sacrifice was important in many Austronesian lands including Bali, where it survives to this day, Micronesia and Polynesia. Turtles in many Polynesian cultures were associated with the chiefly class.

In Fiji, indigenous chants are used to call turtles. Women sing the turtles to the surface in this ritual which celebrates a tale in which a princess and her daughter change into turtles to escape kidnappers. Here and elsewhere the turtle frequently figures as an ancestral spirit of totem in Austronesian cultures.

Often the turtle is also seen as a fertility symbol and in the Bisayan islands of the Philippines and other regions, turtle eggs are still eaten as aphrodisiacs and fertility boosters.

Chinese legends of blessed islands floating on the backs of giant turtles may be linked with the massive sea turtles of the Pacific. In Bali and various parts of Polynesia and Oceania, the concept of islands floating on the backs of turtles is also present. The idea of mobile "swimming" islands is widespread in this region and may hearken back to the rapidly-rising sea levels of the Sundaland flood periods.

In Bali, the Bedawang Nala "Big Turtle" statue is found at shrines symbolizing a cosmic turtle that supports the earth.


The Bedawang Nala supporting two large snakes on its back that act as pillars of the earth, and also the Black Stone, the lid to the Underworld, as found at Padmasana shrines in Bali.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Higham, Charles. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia: From 10,000 B.C. to the Fall of Angkor, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Liu, Li. The Chinese Neolithic: Trajectories to Early States, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Peregrine, Peter N. and Melvin Ember (eds). Encyclopedia of Prehistory: Published in Conjunction with the Human Relations Area Files, Springer, 2001.

Glossary: Mountain of Fire

The symbol of the Mountain of Fire is connected through the ages, and in many cultures, with immortality and "Paradise."

In ancient China, the oldest form of this myth is likely found in the battle between two gods, usually the fire and water gods, that causes the great mountain, the earth's pillar, to collapse. The goddess Nu Gua, of the Dong Yi peoples in Shandong, sacrifices a turtle and uses the legs of the sacrifice to prop up the sky.

Mount Penglai, one of the three blessed islands, was the oldest version of the cosmic mountain -- the home of the immortals, destination of the dead and source of the fruits of immortality.

Penglai was vaguely located in the seas east of Shandong. Nusantao traders and migrants working their way up the Chinese coast may have brought stories of their own sacred volcano that gave rise to the myth in Shandong.

For practical purposes, Mount Penglai was localized to Mount Tai, or Taishan, in Shandong Province. It was on Taishan that 72 emperors performed the Feng sacrifice proclaiming the success of the empire to Heaven. By the first century CE, the Chinese also began to believe that the dead went to Taishan as well as Penglai.

However, the lure of Penglai never totally faded. The 4th century BCE kings Wei, Xuan of Qi and Zhao of Yan all sent failed expeditions to find Penglai and the two other blessed isles of the East. The First Qin Emperor sent a mission in 219 BCE and Han Wudi in 130 BCE but again without success. The legend goes that the three islands drifted about on the backs of giant turtles and eluded the explorers. The turtle under Mt. Penglai reminds us both of Nu Gua's sacrifice and of the turtle used to support Mt. Mandara in the Indian Churning of the Milky Ocean tale.

Starting around the middle of the second century BCE, immortality becomes more associated with the Kunlun range in eastern Turkestan and the "Queen Mother of the West." Here also was shifted the "Mountain of Fire" originally associated with Nu Gua. In a sense, the Queen Mother of the West becomes the new Nu Gua and her yang counterpart the King Father of the East would represent Fu Hsi, the husband of Nu Gua (and founder of the Dong Yi lineage). To attain immortality at Mt. Kunlun, one must invariably cross the supreme obstacle of the Mountain of Fire.

The Book of Enoch also describes a Mountain of Fire during the patriarch's angelic journeys through the world.

"And from there I went to another place on earth and he showed me a mountain of fire that burned day and night."

-- I Enoch 24:1

On the mountain was the throne of God and the Tree of Life. In another passage the "Garden of Righteousness" and the Tree of Knowledge are mentioned. The descriptions place the mountain both in the east and the south far beyond the lands of cinnamon and aloeswood.

"The fruit [of the Tree of Life] shall be given to the elect for life, towards the north it will be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord [in Jerusalem], the eternal King."

-- I Enoch 25:5

"And thence I went over the summits of all these mountains, far towards the east of the earth, and passed above the Erythraean sea and went far from it, and passed over the angel Zotiel. And I came to the Garden of Righteousness."

-- I Enoch 32:2

In Ezekiel 28, the fiery holy mountain of God is also equated with the Garden of Eden. It was here that the two trees -- of life and knowledge -- were located (Genesis 2).

In the Book of Jubilees, which like the Book of Enoch was eventually banned by the western church it states:

"And he knew that the Garden of Eden is the holy of holies, and the dwelling of the Lord, and Mount Sinai the centre of the desert, and Mount Zion -the centre of the navel of the earth: these three were created as holy places facing each other."

-- Book of Jubilees 19-20

"And he knew that a blessed portion and a blessing had come to Shem and his sons unto the generations for ever -the whole land of Eden and the whole land of the Red Sea, and the whole land of the east and India, and on the Red Sea and the mountains thereof, and all the land of Bashan, and all the land of Lebanon and the islands of Kaftur, and all the mountains of Sanir and 'Amana, and the mountains of Asshur in the north, and all the land of Elam, Asshur, and Babel, and Susan and Ma'edai, and all the mountains of Ararat, and all the region beyond the sea, which is beyond the mountains of Asshur towards the north, a blessed and spacious land, and all that is in it is very good. And for Ham came forth the second portion, beyond the Gihon towards the south to the right of the Garden, and it extends towards the south and it extends to all the mountains of fire..."

-- Book of Jubilees 21-22

Shem's territory, according to this source, started in the extreme East in the Garden of Eden and then extends westward through all the lands of the "Red Sea" (Indian Ocean) and the lands of the East and India, and then through the Persian Gulf to Lebanon and Ararat and east again to include Mesopotamia.

Curiously both the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees formed an important core of the literature of the Essene sect of Qumram. Among Christians, Enoch in particular is directly quoted in the canonical Epistle of Jude, and many verses from the New Testament appear to owe their origin to this work.

However, in the second century CE, the rabbis began attacking the Book of Enoch, and it was banned among Christians along with the Book of Jubilees by the Council of Laodicea in the fourth century. Only the Ethiopian Orthodox Church accepted these works as part of their official canon.

The geography of Enoch and Jubilees and their location of Eden in the extreme East still managed to survive into medieval times as shown by early maps of this period.


The Kalacakra Mandala is a model of the universe or the cosmic mountain. The outermost circle is, in fact, known as me-ri "the mountain of fire."

When Muslim traders began coming into the Southeast Asian region they noticed an active volcano near the kingdom of Zabag.

"...near Zabag is a mountain called the Mountain of Fire, which cannot be approached. Smoke escapes by day and fire by night and from its foot comes a spring of cold, fresh water and a spring of hot water.

-- Akbar al-Sin (9th century)

The geographer al-Masudi, referring to the islands of Zabag, repeats the description of a mountain giving off smoke by day and fire by night. This resembles the story in Exodus describing a pillar of cloud or smoke by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Such phenomenon is a common feature of many volcanoes that give off large amounts of water vapor, which is visible in the day but masks the fiery aspects of the volcanic plume. At night, the vapor becomes invisible and the plume appears fiery instead.

Idrisi in the 12th century mentions a "Hill of Fire" near or in Mayt (Chinese Mait "Mindoro").

Along the way in India, the Muslim travelers may have heard the myth of the great Mt. Mandara taken to churn the far eastern Ocean of Milk on the back of a great cosmic turtle. The mountain became enveloped in flames due to friction caused by the churning and one of the many by-products of this event was the elixir of immortality.

Regards,
Paul Kekai Manansala
Sacramento

References

Allan, Sarah. The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, SUNY Press, 1991.

Beer, Robert. The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, Chicago: Serindia Publications, Inc, 2004.

Eberhard, Wolfram. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, London: Routledge, 1988.

Ling, Shun-Sheng. Turtle sacrifice in China and Oceania, Taipei: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Monograph No. 20 (in Chinese), 1972.

Luttikhuizen, Gerald P. Paradise Interpreted: Representations of Biblical Paradise in Judaism and Christianity Brill Academic Publishers, 1999.

Strassberg, Richard E. A Chinese Bestiary, University of California Press, 2002.