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According to the first accounts of the Guadalupan apparition, during a walk from his village to the city on December 9, 1531, Juan Diego saw a vision of a Virgin at the Hill of Tepeyac. Speaking in Nahuatl, Guadalupe said to build an abbey on the site, but when Juan Diego spoke to the Spanish bishop, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, the prelate asked for a miraculous sign. So the Virgin told Juan Diego to gather flowers from the hill, even though it was winter, when normally nothing bloomed. He found Spanish roses, gathered them on his tilma, and presented these to the bishop. When the roses fell from it an icon of the Guadalupe remained imprinted on the cloth.
Documentation
A number of primary historical documents are used to support this apparition account, including: the Nahuatl-language Huei tlamahuiçoltica or Nican mopohua ("here it is recounted"), a tract about the Virgin which contains the aforementioned story, and which was printed in 1649; a Spanish-language book about the apparitions titled Imagen de la Virgen María ("Image of the Virgin Mary"), printed in 1648; a seventeenth-century engraving by Samuel Stradanus which used the Virgin's image to advertise indulgences; and the Codex Escalada, a pictographic account of the Virgin on Tepeyac, printed on deerskin and said to date back to 1548.
The apparition account is also strengthened by a document called the Informaciones Jurídicas of 1666, a collection of oral interviews gathered near Juan Diego's hometown of Cuautitlan. In the "Informaciones Jurídicas," various witnesses affirmed, in interview format, basic details about Saint Juan Diego and the Guadalupan apparition story.
Some historians and clerics, including the U.S. priest-historian Fr.Stafford Poole, the famous Mexican historian Joaquín García Icazbalceta, and former abbot of the Basilica of Guadalupe, Guillermo Schulenburg, have expressed doubts about the historicity of the apparition accounts. Schulenburg in particular caused a stir with his 1996 interview with the Catholic magazine Ixthus, when he said that Juan Diego was "a symbol, not a reality."
One problem with the apparition tradition is that Juan Diego is said to have met the Virgin in 1531, while the earliest account about their meeting was published in 1648. When discussing the 117-year gap between the apparition and written accounts describing it, apparition believers point to the Codex Escalada, a recently-discovered document which illustrates the Tepeyac apparition and which dates to 1548. The document, a painting on deerskin which illustrates the apparition and discusses Juan Diego's death, was used to shore up Juan Diego's 1990s canonization process. Critics, including Stafford Poole and David A. Brading, find the document suspicious -- partly because of when it was discovered, and partly because it contains the handiwork of both Antonio Valeriano (a man many apparition partisans believe to be the true author of the Nican mopohua) and the signature of Bernardino de Sahagún, the Franciscan missionary and anthropologist. Brading said that within the context of the Christian tradition, it was rather like finding a picture of St. Paul's vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, drawn by St. Luke and signed by St. Peter.
Believers in the Codex counter that the Codex has been vetted by scientific tests which prove it is an authentic 16th-century document. Zumárraga was silent on the topic of the apparition: there is no mention of Juan Diego nor the Virgin in any of his writings. In a catechism written the year before his death he stated: “The Redeemer of the world doesn’t want any more miracles, because they are no longer necessary.” Furthermore, in 1531 Zumárraga was not Mexico's Archbishop but merely Bishop-elect: he would not be consecrated until 1533.
Guillermo Schulenburg, the Basílica's abbot for over 30 years, declared in 1996 Juan Diego as a symbol and myth, a constructed character made to conquer the hearts of the native people and seize their religiosity in order to redirect it to the Vatican's will. He also commisioned a serious study, "out of sheer love for truth", which demonstrates the Lady of Guadalupe as a man-made painting, with no supernatural elements whatsoever. There is ample evidence of a 16th century shrine to Guadalupe at Tepeyac: however skeptics contend that this shrine was dedicated to the Spanish icon Our Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura.
Symbol of Mexico
Guadalupe's first major use as a nationalistic symbol was in the writing of Miguel Sánchez, the author of the first Spanish language apparition account. Sanchez identified Guadalupe as Revelation's Woman of the Apocalypse, and said that
"this New World has been won and conquered by the hand of the Virgin Mary...[who had] prepared, disposed, and contrived her exquisite likeness in this her Mexican land, which was conquered for such a glorious purpose, won that there should appear so Mexican an image."
In 1810 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla initiated the bid for Mexican independence with his Grito de Dolores, yelling words to the effect of "Death to the Spaniards and long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!" When Hidalgo's mestizo-indigenous army attacked Guanajuato and Valladolid, they placed "the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was the insignia of their enterprise, on sticks or on reeds painted different colors" and "they all wore a print of the Virgin on their hats." Royalists responded by putting Guadalupe's image on the soles of their shoes.
When Hidalgo died, leadership of the revolution fell to a mestizo priest named Jose Maria Morelos who led insurgent troops in the Mexican south. Morelos was also a Guadalupan partisan: he made the Virgin the seal of his Congress of Chilpancingo, stating "New Spain puts less faith in its own efforts than in the power of God and the intercession of its Blessed Mother, who appeared within the precincts of Tepeyac as the miraculous image of Guadalupe that had come to comfort us, defend us, visibly be our protection."
He inscribed the Virgin's feast day, December 12, into the Chilpancingo constitution, and declared that Guadalupe was the power behind his military victories. One of Morelos' officers, a man named Felix Fernandez who would later become the first Mexican president, even changed his name to Guadalupe Victoria. Simón Bolívar, noticed the Guadalupan theme in these uprisings, and shortly before Morelos' death in 1815 wrote: "...the leaders of the independence struggle have put fanaticism to use by proclaiming the famous Virgin of Guadalupe as the queen of the patriots, praying to her in times of hardship and displaying her on their flags...the veneration for this image in Mexico far exceeds the greatest reverence that the shrewdest prophet might inspire."
In 1914, Emiliano Zapata's peasant army rose out of the south against the government of Porfirio Diaz. Though Zapata's rebel forces were primarily interested in land reform --"tierra y libertad" (land and liberty) was the slogan of the uprising -- when Zapata's peasant troops penetrated Mexico City, they carried Guadalupan banners. Nobel laureate Octavio Paz wrote in 1974 that "Mexican people, after more than two centuries of experiments, have faith only in the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery"
The Virgin of Guadalupe has also symbolized the Mexican nation since Mexico's War of Independence. Both Miguel Hidalgo and Emiliano Zapata's armies traveled underneath Guadalupan flags. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once said that "...one may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe."
More recently, the contemporary Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) named their "mobile city" in honor of the Virgin: it is called Guadalupe Tepeyac. EZLN spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos wrote a humorous letter in 1995 describing the EZLN bickering over what to do with a Guadalupe statue they had received as a gift.
In 1994, the mexican sculptor Eduardo Leal de la Gala make a tree dimension version in wood of the Lady of Guadalupe for the Cultural Center of the Mexican Embassy in Paris, France.
Mestizo culture and Mexican identity
Guadalupe is often considered a mixture of the cultures which blend to form Mexico, both racially and religiously Guadalupe is sometimes called the "first mestiza" or "the first Mexican". In the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Mary O'Connor writes that Guadalupe "bring[s] together people of distinct cultural heritages, while at the same time affirming their distinctness."
One theory is that the Virgin of Guadalupe was presented to the Aztecs as a sort of "Christianized" Tonantzin, necessary for the clergymen to convert the Indians to their True Faith. As Jacques Lafaye wrote in Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe, "...as the Christians built their first churches with the rubble and the columns of the ancient pagan temples, so they often borrowed pagan customs for their own cult purposes." An alternate view is that Guadalupe-Tonantzin gave the native Americans a hidden method to continue worshipping their own goddess in a Christianized form; similar patterns of syncretic worship can be seen throughout the Catholic Americas (e.g. Vodun, Santería). Guadalupan religious syncretism is both lauded and disparaged as demonic.
Some theologians also associate the Virgin of Guadalupe with a special relationship between the indigenous peoples of the American continents and the Catholic Church. This perspective developed as the scriptural terms of truths "hid ... from the wise and prudent" but "revealed...unto babes" (Matthew 11:25), but later developed into the "spiritual mestizaje of the Americas", and the "option for the poor" provided by Liberation theology.
The author Judy King asserts that Guadalupe is a "common denominator" uniting Mexicans. Writing that Mexico is composed of a vast patchwork of differences -- linguistic, ethnic, and class-based -- King says "The Virgin of Guadalupe is the rubber band that binds this disparate nation into a whole."
This sentiment was echoed by two celebrants interviewed in the New York Times at the Virgin's feast day in 1998: "We say that we are more Guadalupanos than Mexicans," said the Jesuit Brother Joel Magallan. "We say that because our Lady Guadalupe is our symbol, our identity." David Solanas, another feast-goer, agreed, saying "We have faith in her. She's like the mama of all the Mexicans."
The origin of the name "Guadalupe" is controversial. According to a sixteenth-century report the Virgin identified herself as Guadalupe when she appeared to Juan Diego's uncle, Juan Bernardino. It has also been suggested that "Guadalupe" is a corruption of a Nahuatl name "Coatlaxopeuh", which has been translated as "Who Crushes the Serpent. In this interpretation, the serpent referred to is Quetzalcoatl, one of the chief Aztec gods, whom the Virgin Mary "crushed" by inspiring the conversion of indigenous people to Catholicism. However, many historians believe that the 1533 Guadalupan shrine was dedicated to the Spanish Lady of Guadalupe in Extremadura -- not to the Mexican Virgin venerated today. Thus, while the name "Guadalupe" would have had certain connotations to Nahuatl speakers, as noted above, its ultimate origins would be the Arabic-Latin term "Wadī Lupum", meaning "Valley of the Wolf".
María Guadalupe, or just Lupe, is a common female and male name among Mexican people or those with Mexican heritage.
Controversies
As early as 1556 Francisco de Bustamante, head of the Colony's Franciscans, delivered a sermon disparaging the holy origins of the painting: “The devotion that has been growing in a chapel dedicated to Our Lady, called of Guadalupe, in this city is greatly harmful for the natives, because it makes them believe that the image painted by Marcos the Indian is in any way miraculous.”
In 1611 the Dominican Martin de Leon, fourth viceroy of Mexico, denounced the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a disguised worship of the Aztec goddess Tonantzin.The missionary and anthropologist Bernardino de Sahagún held the same opinion: he wrote that the shrine at Tepeyac was extremely popular but worrisome because people called the Virgin of Guadalupe Tonantzin. Sahagún said that the worshippers claimed that Tonantzin was the proper Nahuatl for "Mother of God" -- but he disagreed, saying that "Mother of God" in Nahuatl would be "Dios y Nantzin."
In 2002, art restoration expert José Sol Rosales examined the icon with a stereomicroscope and identified calcium sulfate, pine soot, white, blue, and green "tierras" (soil), reds made from carmine and other pigments, as well as gold. Rosales said he found the work consistent with 16th century materials and methods.
Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop of Mexico, commissioned a 1999 study to test the tilma's age. The researcher, Leoncio Garza-Valdés, had previously worked with the Shroud of Turin. Upon inspection Garza-Valdés found three distinct layers in the painting, at least one of which was signed and dated. He also said that the original painting showed striking similarities to the original Lady of Guadalupe found in Extremadura Spain, and that the second painting showed another Virgin with indigenous features. Finally, Garza-Valdés indicated that the fabric on which the icon is painted is made of conventional hemp and linen, not agave fibers as is popularly believed. The photographs of these putative overpaintings were not available in the Garza-Valdés 2002 publication, however. Gilberto Aguirre a San Antonio optometrist and colleague of Garza-Valdés who also took part in the 1999 study, examined the same photographs and stated that, while agreeing the painting had been tampered with, he disagreed with Garza-Valdes' conclusions. Gilberto Aguirre claims the conditions for conducting the study were inadequate. No control of the lighting and the fact that the painting was shot through an acrylic plate scientifically invalidates any results. He also questions Garza-Valdés' claim of ultraviolet light revealing two underlying images because according to Aguirre, ultraviolet light can't penetrate sub-surfaces. The team did take Infrared pictures but those didn't show additional images underneath the present one.
Similar Marian apparitions have been reported in many cities and towns throughout Mexico; in the Mexican town of Tlaltenango in the state of Morelos, a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe is claimed to have miraculously appeared in the inside of a box that two unknown travelers left in a hostel. The owners of the hostel called the local priest after noticing enticing aromas of flowers and sandalwood coming out of the box. The image has been venerated on September 8 since its finding in 1720, and is accepted as valid apparition by the local Catholic authorities.
It is important to note that at least 300 apparition of the Virgin Mary are reported every year to local church authorities, most of them seen in burnmarks in pieces of toast and Tortillas. In one of the most recent cases, believers have seen a vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe in a humidity stain in the Mexico City metro. This apparition is called the "Virgin of the Subway."
Religious theories regarding the image
Artistic symbolism
The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is often read as a coded image. Miguel Sanchez, the author of the 1648 tract Imagen de la Virgen María, described the Virgin's image as the Woman of the Apocalypse from the New Testament's Revelation 12:1: "arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Mateo de la Cruz, writing twelve years after Sánchez, "argued that the Guadalupe possessed all the iconographical attributes of Mary in her Immaculate Conception". Likewise, a 1738 sermon preached by Miguel Picazo argued that the Guadalupe was the "best representation" of the Immaculate Conception.
Many writers, including Patricia Harrington and Virgil Elizondo, describe the image as containing coded messages for the indigenous people of Mexico.
"The Aztecs...had an elaborate, coherent symbolic system for making sense of their lives. When this was destroyed by the Spaniards, something new was needed to fill the void and make sense of New Spain...the image of Guadalupe served that purpose."
Her blue-green mantle was described as the color once reserved for the divine couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl; her belt is read as a sign of pregnancy; and a cross-shaped image symbolizing the cosmos and called nahui-ollin is said to be inscribed beneath the image's sash.
Yet another interpretation of the image is offered by the historian William B. Taylor, who recounted that Guadalupe has also been "acclaimed goddess of the maguey [agave]" and pulque was drunk on her feast day. A 1772 report described the rays of light around Guadalupe as maguey spines.
Alleged miraculous properties
Some consider it miraculous that the tilma, supposing it's still the original, maintains its structural integrity after nearly 500 years, since a replica of the image was once made, using the same colors and the same material for the tilma, and it lasted only about 15 years before it disintegrated.In addition to withstanding the elements, the tilma resisted a 1791 ammonia spill that made a considerable hole, which was then completely repaired in two weeks with no external help. In 1921, an anarchist placed an offering of flowers next to the image. A bomb hidden within the flowers exploded and destroyed the shrine. However, the image suffered no damage.
Photographers and ophthalmologists have claimed to locate images reflected in the eyes of the Virgin.In 1929 and 1951 photographers found a figure reflected in the Virgin's eyes; upon inspection they said that the reflection was tripled in what is called the Purkinje effect. This effect is commonly found in human eyes.The ophthalmologist Dr. Jose Aston Tonsmann later enlarged the image of the Virgin's eyes by 2500x magnification and said he saw not only the aforementioned single figure, but rather images of all the witnesses present when the tilma was shown to the Bishop in 1531. Tonsmann also reported seeing a small family -- mother, father, and a group of children -- in the center of the Virgin's eyes.
In response to the eye miracles, Joe Nickell and John F. Fischer wrote in Skeptical Inquirer that images seen in the Virgin's eyes could be the result of the human tendency to form familiar shapes from random patterns, much like a psychologist's inkblots -- a phenomenon known as religious pareidolia.
Richard Kuhn, who received the 1938 Nobel Chemistry prize, is said to have analyzed a sample of the fabric in 1936 and said the tint on the fabric was not from a known mineral, vegetable, or animal source.
In 1979 Philip Serna Callahan studied the icon with infrared light and stated that portions of the face, hands, robe, and mantle had been painted in one step, with no sketches or corrections and no paintbrush strokes.
Catholic devotions
With the Brief Non est equidem of May 25, 1754, Pope Benedict XIV declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of what was then called New Spain, corresponding to Spanish Central and Northern America, and approved liturgical texts for the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours in her honour. Pope Leo XIII granted new texts in 1891 and authorized coronation of the image in 1895. Pope Saint Pius X proclaimed her patron of Latin America in 1910. In 1935 Pope Pius XI proclaimed her patron of the Philippines and had a monument in her honor erected in the Vatican Gardens. In 1966 Pope Paul VI sent a Golden Rose to the shrine.
Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in the course of his first journey outside Italy as Pope from 26 to January 31, 1979, and again when he beatified Juan Diego there on 6 May 1990. In 1992 he dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe a chapel within St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. At the request of the Special Assembly for the Americas of the Synod of Bishops, he named Our Lady of Guadalupe patron of the Americas on January 22, 1999 (with the result that her liturgical celebration had, throughout the Americas, the rank of Solemnity), and visited the shrine again on the following day. On July 31, 2002, he canonized Juan Diego, and later that year included in the General Calendar of the Roman Rite, as optional memorials, the liturgical celebrations of Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (December 9) and Our Lady of Guadalupe (12 December).
Replicas of the tilma can be found in thousands of churches throughout the world, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome, and numerous parishes bear her name.
One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. [1]
Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gravestones spread over the cemetery are material documents marking the social and political history of Sind.
Imperial mausoleums are divided into two major groups, those from the Samma (1352–1520) and Tarkhan (1556–1592) periods. The tomb of the Samma king, Jam Nizam al-Din (reigned 1461–1509), is an impressive square structure built of sandstone and decorated with floral and geometric medallions. Similar to this is the mausoleum of Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d. 1651), a two-story stone building with majestic cupolas and balconies. In contrast to the syncretic architecture of these two monuments, which integrate Hindu and Islamic motifs, are mausoleums that clearly show the Central Asian roots of the later dynasty. An example is the tomb of Jan Beg Tarkhan (d. 1600), a typical octagonal brick structure whose dome is covered in blue and turquoise glazed tiles. Today, Makli Hill is a United Nations World Heritage Site that is visited by both pilgrims and tourists.
A couple of unidentified wildflowers bathed in golden light deep in the forest,
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An abstract bokehlicious image of a tree branch silhouette purposely placed out of focus to bring out the smooth and silky F/2.8 round bokeh sought out during Christmastime from the holiday lights that were arbitrarily arranged throughout the foliage of the trees at the University of Incarnate Word located in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
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Anubis is among the most ancient and important deities of the Egyptian pantheon: he presided over mummification and burial rites and was the Lord of the Necropolis. He was represented, in Egyptian iconography, as a jackal or as a man with the head of a jackal.
This statue offers eloquent testimony to a syncretic divine figure, Anubis, who in the Roman context was assimilated to Mercury: the god with its jackal’s head, with a small solar disc on a crescent moon between its ears, wears a short tunic, a cloak and shoes, and holds the caduceus in his hand, in his function as the ferryman of the dead to the Underworld (“psychopomp”).
The statue, discovered in Anzio on land belonging to the Pamphilj family in 1749, was donated to Pope Benedict XIV and was transferred to the Gregorian Egyptian Museum in 1839.
Source: Museum WEB Site
Parian marble sculpture
F. 155 cm.; W. 50 cm.; D. 28 cm.
Late 1st - early 2nd century AD
From Azio, Villa Pamphilj
Vatican City State, Vatican Museums, Museo Gregoriano Egizio, inv. no. 22840.
Glasswork made to look like a jellyfish.
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A succulent reaching for the sky as best as it can do.
This ornamental succulent was once declared dead until out of nowhere it began to grow again in its container. I nurtured it back to good health and now it's flourishing. I really thought that ti was gone for good.
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Sophia (meaning "wisdom" in Greek) is a major theme, along with Knowledge (Greek "gnosis"), among many of the early Christian knowledge-heresies grouped by the Christian heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikos, "learned." Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions. In Gnostic tradition, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy of Jesus Christ (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamōth and as Prunikos. In the Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have fallen from grace when she created another being of some kind, without God's approval, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world...
...taken while walking down the ramp of Hagia Sophia...
Istanbul,Turkey...
The ExxonMobil Building on Bell St. in Houston, Texas, USA
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History and origin of Halloween
The term Halloween is an abbreviated word from the phrases "All Hallows Eve" or "All Hallows Evening" which means, All Hallows Eve.
The celebration has its roots in the ancient pagan Celtic Samhaim festival, where it was believed that the deceased walked among the living and that is why communication ceremonies were held with the dead helping them find their way to eternal rest.
Over the years, this celebration became Christianized and in its beginnings, the festival took place in the United Kingdom, Ireland and north-western France.
Because halloween is celebrated?
In the United States and Canada the tradition came from the hands of the Irish in 1840, who originally celebrated less spectacularly than today.
In 1912, Elizabeth Krebs, with her talent, gave it the character of celebration, costumes and festivity, to which we are currently accustomed. In 1921, the holiday became popular with teenagers due to a parade in Minnesota, making it popular.
Between the 1970s and 1980s, Halloween was acquiring a universal character due to different events involved with the cinema and television series.
When is Halloween celebrated in Mexico?
Halloween, also called Halloween Night or Halloween, is a celebration of Anglo-Saxon origin that is celebrated every year on October 31.
Are Halloween and Day of the Dead the same?
They are not the same, although there are several coincidences. In essence, the main difference is that they have different cultural and geographical beginnings.
Halloween is a syncretic festival, between a Celtic pagan tradition called Samaín and the Christian liturgical era dedicated to remembering the dead (saints, martyrs and the faithful departed), to celebrate the harvest season, it was the end of summer and the new year Celtic, and takes place on October 31.
The Day of the Dead in Mexico is also a syncretic celebration that has two origins, pre-Hispanic and Christian.
It became a tradition on November 2, since for the Catholic Church the ritual of the eve of all saints is performed, or of the deceased saints, and the holiday is to remember and pray for those people who have died and may be in purgatory.
Why are pumpkins put on Halloween?
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, pumpkins' relationship to Halloween dates back to an ancient Irish myth, as a blacksmith named Stingy Jack tricked the Devil for money multiple times.
When he died, God did not allow him to enter heaven and the Devil denied him entry to hell, in this way Jack was forced to prowl the Earth for eternity, lighting his way with an ember that the Devil gave him and that he put in a hollow turnip.
Of course, no one wants to meet him, so people in Ireland started carving demonic faces on turnips to chase away Jack's soul. With the wave of Irish immigrants in the United States, they began to carve the now famous jack-o'-lanterns in pumpkins (because they are more frequent in that country).
At first, people put a piece of burning charcoal into turnips, later it was replaced by a candle. Nowadays, people also use flashlights or candles.
What do you do on Halloween?
Although the festivities have become widespread, each country has very particular details that characterize its celebration. In Mexico, children leave the house in their best costumes to ask for sweets from house to house under the legend "sweet or trick." This action is carried out on October 31, 1, and sometimes until November 2.
Meanwhile, at home an altar with candles, marigold flowers, photos of deceased loved ones, and their favorite foods and drinks, who return for one night to visit their loved ones, stands up.
Historia y origen de Halloween
El término Halloween es una palabra abreviada de las frases "All Hallows Eve" o "All Hallows Evening" que significa, All Hallows Eve.
La celebración tiene sus raíces en el antiguo festival pagano celta Samhaim, donde se creía que los difuntos caminaban entre los vivos y es por eso que se realizaban ceremonias de comunicación con los muertos ayudándolos a encontrar su camino hacia el descanso eterno.
Con el paso de los años, esta celebración se cristianizó y en sus inicios, el festival tuvo lugar en el Reino Unido, Irlanda y el noroeste de Francia.
¿Porque se celebra halloween?
En los Estados Unidos y Canadá, la tradición vino de manos de los irlandeses en 1840, quienes originalmente celebraron de manera menos espectacular que en la actualidad.
En 1912, Elizabeth Krebs, con su talento, le dio el carácter de fiesta, vestuario y festividad, al que estamos acostumbrados actualmente. En 1921, la festividad se hizo popular entre los adolescentes debido a un desfile en Minnesota, lo que la hizo popular.
Entre los años setenta y ochenta, Halloween fue adquiriendo un carácter universal debido a diferentes eventos relacionados con el cine y las series de televisión.
¿Cuándo se celebra Halloween en México?
Halloween, también llamado Halloween Night o Halloween, es una celebración de origen anglosajón que se celebra cada año el 31 de octubre.
¿Halloween y el Día de Muertos son lo mismo?
No son iguales, aunque hay varias coincidencias. En esencia, la principal diferencia es que tienen diferentes orígenes culturales y geográficos.
Halloween es una fiesta sincrética, entre una tradición pagana celta llamada Samaín y la era litúrgica cristiana dedicada al recuerdo de los muertos (santos, mártires y fieles difuntos), para celebrar la época de la cosecha, era el final del verano y el año nuevo celta. , y tiene lugar el 31 de octubre.
El Día de Muertos en México es también una celebración sincrética que tiene dos orígenes, prehispánico y cristiano.
Se convirtió en tradición el 2 de noviembre, ya que para la Iglesia Católica se realiza el ritual de la víspera de todos los santos, o de los santos difuntos, y la festividad es para recordar y rezar por aquellas personas que han fallecido y puedan estar en el purgatorio.
¿Por qué se ponen calabazas en Halloween?
Según la Enciclopedia Británica, la relación de las calabazas con Halloween se remonta a un antiguo mito irlandés, cuando un herrero llamado Stingy Jack engañó al diablo por dinero varias veces.
Cuando murió, Dios no le permitió entrar al cielo y el Diablo le negó la entrada al infierno, de esta manera Jack se vio obligado a merodear la Tierra por la eternidad, alumbrando su camino con una brasa que el Diablo le dio y que puso en. un nabo hueco.
Por supuesto, nadie quiere conocerlo, por lo que la gente en Irlanda comenzó a tallar rostros demoníacos en nabos para ahuyentar el alma de Jack. Con la ola de inmigrantes irlandeses en Estados Unidos, empezaron a tallar las ahora famosas Jack-o'-lanterns en calabazas (porque son más frecuentes en ese país).
Al principio, la gente ponía un trozo de carbón ardiendo en nabos, luego fue reemplazado por una vela. Hoy en día, la gente también usa linternas o velas.
¿Qué haces en Halloween?
Aunque las fiestas se han generalizado, cada país tiene detalles muy particulares que caracterizan su celebración. En México, los niños salen de casa con sus mejores disfraces para pedir dulces de casa en casa bajo la leyenda "dulce o truco". Esta acción se lleva a cabo el 31 de octubre, 1 y, en ocasiones, hasta el 2 de noviembre.
Mientras tanto, en casa se levanta un altar con velas, flores de caléndula, fotos de seres queridos fallecidos y sus comidas y bebidas favoritas, que regresan por una noche para visitar a sus seres queridos.
This position would be especially logical if one believed that the fluids themselves were being recycled to nourish body tissues.The future has always been surprising. The body is loaded with 100% optimism. It’s just like you don’t have any timeTaoist alchemy and Kundalini yoga, in their respective ways, are religious traditions based on an imperative of rational, yet creative,experimentation with the relationship of the internal body to objects in the outside world, and the relationship of human physical energy with the abstracted realms of religious symbolism and ontological beliefs. Both systems present a picture which is not entirely comprehensive by the methods and assumptions of modern science. Yet these types of traditions may have something useful to teach us, if we can analyze their beliefs and practices within the historical and cultural context in an effort to understand them as they were, and as they are, within their individual cultural framework. Scientific methods such as neurobiology can give us some insight into the basic underlying causes of human experience, yet will never be able to fully explain the phenomenological idiosyncrasies of religious ritual. With this in mind, we can apply the knowledge of modern science to the study of ancient religious in a responsible and realistic way. Taoist and Tantric sexual practices conserve and utilize the precious energy within the genital fluids. The vital forces energies that sustain life are ojas and prana. One particular type of prana is kundalini or shakti. The Taoist equivalent is ching. By murmuring this energy, life is enriched and preserved. By squandering it, health suffers and death results, Yogys believe kundalini energy is coiled up like a serpent at the base of the spine to the pineal gland in the brain, and enlightenment is attained. The kundalini energy flows through the chakras, energy centers in your subtle body related to the endocrine glands. The endocrine glands are fed by your body’s central heating system, the sexual center. If that center is weak, you entire system is weak. If that center is functioning optimally, the body can survive indefinitely. Taoist and Tantric techniques strengthen the sexual chakra. Their methods conserve its precious fluids and also pump these nourishing fluids back into the body, directing them to the endocrine glands. This technique stimulates the production of ojas and soma. The only caution about Taoist and Tantric sexual practices is the following: because of the tradition of patriarchal oppression, many of theses practices are designed solely for the male to attain immortality, often at the expense of young, ignorant, inexperienced girls, whose vitality {shakti } is drained from their bodies. The male is cautioned to never let semen leave his body, to practice coitus reservatus, stopping short of ejaculation. Yet he is advised to bring his partner to orgasm repeatedly. With his sperm held in check and his vital energy pumping back into his system continually, he invigorates and rejuvenates his body. Also pumping the energy and fluids of the female into his body at the time of her climax, he obtains her vitality as well. Practitioners are advised to engage in this female-draining activity a dozen or more times a day with several 14-to 19 year old virgins. Innocent females are victims of this crime against their health, driving them to early grave.
On other hand, when both partners ate fully knowledgeable and experienced in Taoist or Tantric sexual practices, a mutually beneficial, enriching, elevating relationship can growth is only possible with mutual respect, love, honesty, commitment, and trust. When partners recognize and worship each other as divines beings, there can be an exchange of divine energy in both body and Spirit.How does this move in the body? If we cannot see it, does it really exist? Science is only just getting a few tests going that prove energy is in the body and around it. Is it real what the Ancient wisdoms teach us? Can it guide us to oneness and conscious awakening?
It has been a long road for those in the energy field of health getting the message across to the general population that energy is everywhere, particularly in the body. With proof, barriers seem a lot easier to free up. Oriental medicine and Ayurvedic medicine are the clearest and longest standing observational sciences that describe and fully believe that energy exists as long as 5000 years ago. Both have movement medicine in the forms of Yoga and Qigong.
As I already discussed in the previous article Bring the energy home, there is a cycle called the Microcosmic cycle which when experienced connects the front and back energy meridians. Also called the Governing and Conception channels, in Oriental medicine a further 12 major channels exist that run up and down the body through the limbs, arms and legs (6 Yin and 6 Yang).These energies connect to the sun (yang) and moon (yin) influences. Predominantly yang energy in the morning and more yin energies in the afternoon, changing again after midnight. Then more yang energies developing until we awake and the body starts to function optimally again in the awakened state.The logograph 氣 is read with two Chinese pronunciations, the usual qì 氣 "air; vital energy" and the rare archaic xì 氣 "to present food" (later disambiguated with 餼). Pronunciations of 氣 in modern varieties of Chinese with standardized IPA equivalents include: Standard Chinese qì /t͡ɕʰi⁵¹/, Wu Chinese qi /t͡ɕʰi³⁴/, Southern Min khì /kʰi²¹/, Eastern Min ké /kʰɛi²¹³/, Standard Cantonese hei3 /hei̯³³/, and Hakka Chinese hi /hi⁵⁵/. Pronunciations of 氣 in Sino-Xenic borrowings include: Japanese ki, Korean gi, and Vietnamese khi. Reconstructions of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 氣 standardized to IPA transcription include: /kʰe̯iH/ (Bernard Karlgren), /kʰĭəiH/ (Wang Li), /kʰiəiH/ (Li Rong), /kʰɨjH/ (Edwin Pulleyblank), and /kʰɨiH/ (Zhengzhang Shangfang). Reconstructions of the Old Chinese pronunciation of 氣 standardized to IPA transcription include: /*kʰɯds/ (Zhengzhang Shangfang) and /*C.qʰəp-s/ (William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart). The etymology of qì interconnects with Kharia kʰis "anger", Sora kissa "move with great effort", Khmer kʰɛs "strive after; endeavor", and Gyalrongic kʰɐs "anger".The earliest texts that speak of qi give some indications of how the concept developed. In the Analects of Confucius qi could mean "breath". Combining it with the Chinese word for blood (making 血氣, xue–qi, blood and breath), the concept could be used to account for motivational characteristics:
The [morally] noble man guards himself against 3 things. When he is young, his xue–qi has not yet stabilized, so he guards himself against sexual passion. When he reaches his prime, his xue–qi is not easily subdued, so he guards himself against combativeness. When he reaches old age, his xue–qi is already depleted, so he guards himself against acquisitiveness.— Confucius, Analects, 16:7
The philosopher Mozi used the word qi to refer to noxious vapors that would in eventually arise from a corpse were it not buried at a sufficient depth. He reported that early civilized humans learned how to live in houses to protect their qi from the moisture that troubled them when they lived in caves. He also associated maintaining one's qi with providing oneself with adequate nutrition. In regard to another kind of qi, he recorded how some people performed a kind of prognostication by observing qi (clouds) in the sky. Mencius described a kind of qi that might be characterized as an individual's vital energies. This qi was necessary to activity and it could be controlled by a well-integrated willpower.page needed] When properly nurtured, this qi was said to be capable of extending beyond the human body to reach throughout the universe. It could also be augmented by means of careful exercise of one's moral capacities.[14] On the other hand, the qi of an individual could be degraded by adverse external forces that succeed in operating on that individual. Living things were not the only things believed to have qi. Zhuangzi indicated that wind is the qi of the Earth.Moreover, cosmic yin and yang "are the greatest of qi".He described qi as "issuing forth" and creating profound effects.[15] He also said "Human beings are born [because of] the accumulation of qi. When it accumulates there is life. When it dissipates there is death... There is one qi that connects and pervades everything in the world." Another passage traces life to intercourse between Heaven and Earth: "The highest Yin is the most restrained. The highest Yang is the most exuberant. The restrained comes forth from Heaven. The exuberant issues forth from Earth. The two intertwine and penetrate forming a harmony, and [as a result] things are born." The Guanzi essay Neiye (Inward Training) is the oldest received writing on the subject of the cultivation of vapor [qi] and meditation techniques. The essay was probably composed at the Jixia Academy in Qi in the late fourth century B.C. Xun Zi, another Confucian scholar of the Jixia Academy, followed in later years. At 9:69/127, Xun Zi says, "Fire and water have qi but do not have life. Grasses and trees have life but do not have perceptivity. Fowl and beasts have perceptivity but do not have yi (sense of right and wrong, duty, justice). Men have qi, life, perceptivity, and yi." Chinese people at such an early time had no concept of radiant energy, but they were aware that one can be heated by a campfire from a distance away from the fire. They accounted for this phenomenon by claiming "qi" radiated from fire. At 18:62/122, he also uses "qi" to refer to the vital forces of the body that decline with advanced age. Among the animals, the gibbon and the crane were considered experts at inhaling the qi. The Confucian scholar Dong Zhongshu (ca. 150 BC) wrote in Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals:[17] "The gibbon resembles a macaque, but he is larger, and his color is black. His forearms being long, he lives eight hundred years, because he is expert in controlling his breathing." ("猿似猴。大而黑。長前臂。所以壽八百。好引氣也。") Later, the syncretic text assembled under the direction of Liu An, the Huai Nan Zi, or "Masters of Huainan", has a passage that presages most of what is given greater detail by the Neo-Confucians: Heaven (seen here as the ultimate source of all being) falls (duo 墮, i.e., descends into proto-immanence) as the formless. Fleeting, fluttering, penetrating, amorphous it is, and so it is called the Supreme Luminary. The dao begins in the Void Brightening. The Void Brightening produces the universe (yu–zhou). The universe produces qi. Qi has bounds. The clear, yang [qi] was ethereal and so formed heaven. The heavy, turbid [qi] was congealed and impeded and so formed earth. The conjunction of the clear, yang [qi] was fluid and easy. The conjunction of the heavy, turbid [qi] was strained and difficult. So heaven was formed first and earth was made fast later. The pervading essence (xi–jing) of heaven and earth becomes yin and yang. The concentrated (zhuan) essences of yin and yang become the four seasons. The dispersed (san) essences of the four seasons become the myriad creatures. The hot qi of yang in accumulating produces fire. The essence (jing) of the fire-qi becomes the sun. The cold qi of yin in accumulating produces water. The essence of the water-qi becomes the moon. The essences produced by coitus (yin) of the sun and moon become the stars and celestial markpoints (chen, planets).— Huai-nan-zi, 3:1a/19 Characters In Yoga they talk of Ida and Pingala channels and a central channel called Sushumna with very many Nadis connecting our energy back to our Chakras. This Kundalini shakti energy moving systematically when ready to the top most Chakra Sahasara and then connects to the Supreme shiva and universe.
This energy is also affected by our emotions, the food we eat, and how we move this energy i.e. with Qigong and Yoga and how well we relax. Learning these skills help develop and refine this energy and maintain a storage where we can then start to develop longevity and preserve our inherited energy from our family.We are also affected energetically by our environment, particularly magnetic waves, microwaves sonic waves, radio waves, TV signals, mobile phones and so on. The long term effect has not been fully understood, our body’s energy is at the mercy of these frequencies unless we learn energy techniques to take control of these movements and redirect the flow. Managing our bodies and its needs sometimes can feel overwhelming but with the correct help and attitude we can soon feel the benefits of repeated Qi flow and awakened consciousness.
Yoga also uses movement to connect ourselves to the universe. We can learn so much from these practices about our bodies and how to get into a flow that benefits mind, body, and spirit. My experience when studying Kundalini Yoga was a very powerful one. Kundalini is known as the mother Yoga and when followed by its principles and ancient wisdom, allows for natural movement of the Kundalini. This is a simple but effective Yoga, often postures being held and breath sequences and Bhandas used to help move energy. Meditations and Mantras with Mudras further help reconnect the spirit and open us to the universal oneness. Both Qigong and Yoga have deep understanding of our energetic connections and make use of techniques and principles that guide us safely back to our spiritual home and beyond. Having studied and experienced both of these models extensively, I feel privileged to have great teachers and the opportunity to pass onto others these great energy healersIn Hindu philosophy including yoga, Indian medicine, and martial arts, Prana (प्राण, prāṇa; the Sanskrit word for "life force" or "vital principle")[1] comprises all cosmic energy, permeating the Universe on all levels. Prana is often referred to as the "life force" or "life energy".[not verified in body] It also includes energies present in inanimate objects.[not verified in body] In the Hindu literature, prana is sometimes described as originating from the Sun and connecting the elements of the Universe. This life energy has been vividly invoked and described in the ancient Vedas and Upanishads.[not verified in body. In living beings, this universal energy is considered responsible for all bodily functions through five types of prana, collectively known as the five vāyus. Ayurveda, tantra and Tibetan medicine all describe praṇā vāyu as the basic vāyu from which all the other vāyus arise. Indologist Georg Feuerstein explains, "The Chinese call it chi, the Polynesians mana, the Amerindians orenda, and the ancient Germans od. It is an all-pervasive 'organic' The ancient concept of prana is described in many early Hindu texts, including Upanishads and Vedas. One of the earliest references to prana is from the 3,000-year-old Chandogya Upanishad, but many other Upanishads also make use of the concept, including the Katha, Mundaka and Prasna Upanishads. The concept is elaborated upon in great detail in the practices and literature of haṭha yoga, tantra,and Ayurveda. Prana is typically divided into multiple constituent parts, in particular when concerned with the human body. While not all early sources agree on the names or number of these subdivisions, the most common list from the Mahabharata, the Upanishads, Ayurvedic and Yogic sources includes five, often divided into further subcategories.This list includes: Prana (inward moving energy), apana (outward moving energy), vyana (circulation of energy), udana (energy of the head and throat), and samana (digestion and assimilation).[citation needed] Early mention of specific pranas often emphasized prāṇa, apāna and vyāna as "the three breaths". This can be seen in the proto-yogic traditions of the Vratyas among others.[6]:104 Texts like the Vaikānasasmārta utilized the five pranas as an internalization of the five sacrificial fires of a panchagni homa ceremony.[6]:111–112 Vāyus
Poren Huang (Chinese: 黃柏仁, born 1970), a Taiwanese sculptor, was born in Taichung, located in central Taiwan. His grandfather and parents engaged in wood carving business.During the 1970s, Poren Huang's father, Mingde Huang, had a successful wood carving industry and huge export volume. As a major wood carving factory in Taiwan,the factory employed more than 100 craftsmen to produce wood handicrafts during peak seasons. Mingde Huang expected his son Poren Huang to inherit the family business, but Poren Huang preferred artistic creation to wood handicraft production, resulting in years of differences between the father and son. In 2005, Poren Huang fully expressed his ideas through his series of works, The Dog's Notes. Although he and his father held different viewpoints, he highly values family interaction. He focused on mending his family relationship before pursuing his personal ambition, and some of his works in The Dog's Notes strongly convey enlightenment and morality.After World War II, with the recovery of the global economy, prosperity and focus on human rights, the hard work of the previous generation is often reciprocated with the disregard, self-centeredness, mockery and impiety of the next generation. In The Dog's Notes, Poren Huang added the quality of loyalty and kindness to purify the human heart and create positive influence.Using the dog as a creative starting point, each piece of work is suggestive of the "human". About 10% to 90% of the works borrow from the dog to explore various human behaviors. Modern people generally feel kindly toward dogs because of their ability to soothe. Therefore, Poren Huang uses the dog as his creative theme to convey positive traits such as self-confidence, courage, loyalty or innocence, and to provoke in people deeper thoughts as they come in contact with his work. Many people are first attracted by the amusing forms; however, after a period of contact and interaction with the pieces, they seem to sense the deeper significance and remain inspired by positive ideas and thoughts. There are primarily two types of animals that appear in The Dog's Notes, the dog and the panda. They share a common characteristic of being humanized. These animals do not appear completely animal-like under Poren Huang's sculpting, but instead, they appear to have the scent of a human. That is why viewers tend to stand in front of the artwork and stare for quite a long time, unwittingly; perhaps it is because they did not get an affirmative answer as to whether the artwork is human or animal? When the dog and the panda enter the human's environment, they naturally learn to cohabitate with humans. They lose the wild nature of being wild animals, and become more humanized. People are the same way. Poren Huang wishes that humans can be more inspired by the dogs, and to learn the positive characters found in dogs, such as innocence, loyalty, kindness, bravery, and being passionate. Much like the Chinese proverb, "The son does not despise the mother for being ugly, and the dog does not blame the owner for being poor"; the dog will not despite the owner, and will not leave the owner, instead he will spend the rest of his life by his owner's side. Humans, on the other hand are different. They might look down on others or alienate others. They might even become disrespectful toward parents. The selfishness of humans causes wars and unrest in the world. Therefore, Poren Huang is not just creating artworks of animals, but instead, he is making his sculptures more humanized, so that the viewers can naturally reflect and be inspired. In addition, Poren Huang's humanized works of art also have a little bit of the "Oriental Literati" essence. Although these artworks will have various emotions, but they are never too intense, and are never over the top. Just like Ang Lee, Xi Jinping, Yo-Yo Ma, Jeremy Lin, as well as other generally well-known Chinese, whose personalities are perhaps the same way, which is gentle and refined, and with the modesty of a gentleman. Much like the Eastern literai who are well read of poetry and literature, their emotions are not easily shown; they are more restrained, and are full of character and depth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poren_Huang
Francois Gachon is an advertising agent of the By Chance agency and a watercolourist graduated from the school of applied arts, he painted this subtle body that I have inlaid in the photo. Poren Huang considered this collage to be very artistic.The wallpaper is a painting by Paul Gauguin named Delightful Land... Te nave nave nave nave fenua, 1892
Almost infinitely recyclable, glass can be shaped to form anything from the ordinary to the artistic as this glasswork consisting of a jellyfish's tentacles showcases.
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One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. [1]
Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gravestones spread over the cemetery are material documents marking the social and political history of Sind.
Imperial mausoleums are divided into two major groups, those from the Samma (1352–1520) and Tarkhan (1556–1592) periods. The tomb of the Samma king, Jam Nizam al-Din (reigned 1461–1509), is an impressive square structure built of sandstone and decorated with floral and geometric medallions. Similar to this is the mausoleum of Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d. 1651), a two-story stone building with majestic cupolas and balconies. In contrast to the syncretic architecture of these two monuments, which integrate Hindu and Islamic motifs, are mausoleums that clearly show the Central Asian roots of the later dynasty. An example is the tomb of Jan Beg Tarkhan (d. 1600), a typical octagonal brick structure whose dome is covered in blue and turquoise glazed tiles. Today, Makli Hill is a United Nations World Heritage Site that is visited by both pilgrims and tourists.
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A sunflower in a shady spot during the morning hours.
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Here's a view 'through' a fishing double outrigger - freshly in from a night's catch - on the shore of Pura Batu Bolong just to the south of Senggigi on Lombok. The Hindu Temple for which the beach is named is said to have been founded by Dang Hyang Dwi Jendra. He's a famous Hindu missionary from East Java who proseletised also on Bali and East of Bali on Lombok and possibly even further in the early fifteenth-century (CE). A worker of miracles whose life is still told today by Hindus in this area. There's also a fascinating syncretic Hindu-Muslim tradition about him here. But my Indonesian isn't up to understanding all the different nuances. In any case, a Muslim holy place is on a hill just across the road from the Hindu temple.The latter juts out into the Lombok Strait just to my left. It's famous for a hole in the rocks through which you can comfortably squeeze. It is said you will have a Great Spiritual Life if you make that passage.
Dwi Jendra must've moved about these isles on outriggers much like this one, and his views would not have been very different. In the distance you can just see a peninsula belonging to the grounds of the Senggigi Beach Hotel. Pretty they are and there are nice reefs for snorkeling... and lots of surfers flock to these waves.
My trip out of Lombok is on a propeller flight less scenic but certainly quicker and more comfortable than to what Dwi Jendra was accustomed!
What a dreamy world we live in...
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A kaleidoscope of color, a plethora of bokeh, and an arboretum of abstractness.
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Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός gnostikos, "having knowledge", from γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) is a modern name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems, originating in Jewish Christian milieux in the first and second century AD. These systems believed that the material world is created by an emanation or 'works' of a lower god (demiurge), trapping the divine spark within the human body. This divine spark could be liberated by gnosis, spiritual knowledge acquired through direct experience. Some of the core teachings include the following:
All matter is evil, and the non-material, spirit-realm is good.
There is an unknowable God, who gave rise to many lesser spirit beings called Aeons.
The creator of the (material) universe is not the supreme god, but an inferior spirit (the Demiurge).
Gnosticism does not deal with "sin," only ignorance.
To achieve salvation, one needs gnosis (knowledge).
The Gnostic ideas and systems flourished in the Mediterranean world in the second century AD, in conjunction with and influenced by the early Christian movements and Middle Platonism. After the second century, a decline set in. In the Persian Empire, Gnosticism in the form of Manicheism spread as far as China, while Mandaeism is still alive in Iraq.
A major question in scholarly research is the qualification of Gnosticism, based on the study of its texts, as either an interreligious phenomenon or as an independent religion.
Gnosis refers to knowledge based on personal experience or perception. In a religious context, gnosis is mystical or esoteric knowledge based on direct participation with the divine. In most Gnostic systems, the sufficient cause of salvation is this "knowledge of" ("acquaintance with") the divine. It is an inward "knowing", comparable to that encouraged by Plotinus (neoplatonism), and differs from proto-orthodox Christian views.[1] Gnostics are "those who are oriented toward knowledge and understanding – or perception and learning – as a particular modality for living".
The usual meaning of gnostikos in Classical Greek texts is "learned" or "intellectual", such as used by Plato in the comparison of "practical" (praktikos) and "intellectual" (gnostikos). Plato's use of "learned" is fairly typical of Classical texts.
By the Hellenistic period, it began to also be associated with Greco-Roman mysteries, becoming synonymous with the Greek term musterion. The adjective is not used in the New Testament, but Clement of Alexandria[note 3] speaks of the "learned" (gnostikos) Christian in complimentary terms. The use of gnostikos in relation to heresy originates with interpreters of Irenaeus. Some scholars[note consider that Irenaeus sometimes uses gnostikos to simply mean "intellectual",[note 5] whereas his mention of "the intellectual sect" is a specific designation.
The term "Gnosticism" does not appear in ancient sources,[note 10] and was first coined in the 17th century by Henry More in a commentary on the seven letters of the Book of Revelation, where More used the term "Gnosticisme" to describe the heresy in Thyatira. The term Gnosticism was derived from the use of the Greek adjective gnostikos (Greek γνωστικός, "learned", "intellectual") by St. Irenaeus (c. 185 AD) to describe the school of Valentinus as he legomene gnostike haeresis "the heresy called Learned (gnostic)."
Origins
The earliest origins of Gnosticism are obscure and still disputed. The proto-orthodox Christian groups called Gnostics a heresy of Christianity,] but according to the modern scholars the theology's origin is closely related to Jewish sectarian milieus and early Christian sects. Scholars debate Gnosticism's origins as having roots in Neoplatonism and Buddhism, due to similarities in beliefs, but ultimately, its origins are currently unknown. As Christianity developed and became more popular, so did Gnosticism, with both proto-orthodox Christian and Gnostic Christian groups often existing in the same places. The Gnostic belief was widespread within Christianity until the proto-orthodox Christian communities expelled the group in the second and third centuries (C.E.). Gnosticism became the first group to be declared heretical.
Some scholars prefer to speak of "gnosis" when referring to first-century ideas that later developed into gnosticism, and to reserve the term "gnosticism" for the synthesis of these ideas into a coherent movement in the second century.No gnostic texts have been discovered that pre-date Christianity,and "pre-Christian Gnosticism as such is hardly attested in a way to settle the debate once and for all."
Jewish Christian origins
Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish Christian origins, originating in the late first century AD in non rabbinical Jewish sects and early Christian sects.
Many heads of gnostic schools were identified as Jewish Christians by Church Fathers, and Hebrew words and names of God were applied in some gnostic systems. The cosmogonic speculations among Christian Gnostics had partial origins in Maaseh Bereshit and Maaseh Merkabah. This thesis is most notably put forward by Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006). Scholem detected Jewish gnosis in the imagery of the merkavah, which can also be found in "Christian" Gnostic documents, for example the being "caught away" to the third heaven mentioned by Paul the Apostle. Quispel sees Gnosticism as an independent Jewish development, tracing its origins to Alexandrian Jews, to which group Valentinus was also connected.
Many of the Nag Hammadi texts make reference to Judaism, in some cases with a violent rejection of the Jewish God. Gershom Scholem once described Gnosticism as "the Greatest case of metaphysical anti-Semitism". Professor Steven Bayme said gnosticism would be better characterized as anti-Judaism. Recent research into the origins of Gnosticism shows a strong Jewish influence, particularly from Hekhalot literature.
Within early Christianity, the teachings of Paul and John may have been a starting point for Gnostic ideas, with a growing emphasis on the opposition between flesh and spirit, the value of charisma, and the disqualification of the Jewish law. The mortal body belonged to the world of inferior, worldly powers (the archons), and only the spirit or soul could be saved. The term gnostikos may have acquired a deeper significance here.
Alexandria was of central importance for the birth of Gnosticism. The Christian ecclesia (i. e. congregation, church) was of Jewish–Christian origin, but also attracted Greek members, and various strand of thought were available, such as "Judaic apocalypticism, speculation on divine wisdom, Greek philosophy, and Hellenistic mystery religions."
Regarding the angel Christology of some early Christians, Darrell Hannah notes:
[Some] early Christians understood the pre-incarnate Christ, ontologically, as an angel. This "true" angel Christology took many forms and may have appeared as early as the late First Century, if indeed this is the view opposed in the early chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Elchasaites, or at least Christians influenced by them, paired the male Christ with the female Holy Spirit, envisioning both as two gigantic angels. Some Valentinian Gnostics supposed that Christ took on an angelic nature and that he might be the Saviour of angels. The author of the Testament of Solomon held Christ to be a particularly effective "thwarting" angel in the exorcism of demons. The author of De Centesima and Epiphanius’ "Ebionites" held Christ to have been the highest and most important of the first created archangels, a view similar in many respects to Hermas’ equation of Christ with Michael. Finally, a possible exegetical tradition behind the Ascension of Isaiah and attested by Origen's Hebrew master, may witness to yet another angel Christology, as well as an angel Pneumatology.
The pseudepigraphical Christian text Ascension of Isaiah identifies Jesus with angel Christology:
[The Lord Christ is commissioned by the Father] And I heard the voice of the Most High, the father of my LORD as he said to my LORD Christ who will be called Jesus, ‘Go out and descend through all the heavens...
The Shepherd of Hermas is a Christian literary work considered as canonical scripture by some of the early Church fathers such as Irenaeus. Jesus is identified with angel Christology in parable 5, when the author mentions a Son of God, as a virtuous man filled with a Holy "pre-existent spirit".
Neoplatonic influences
See also: Platonic Academy, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism and Christianity
In the 1880s Gnostic connections with neo-Platonism were proposed.Ugo Bianchi, who organised the Congress of Messina of 1966 on the origins of Gnosticism, also argued for Orphic and Platonic origins.Gnostics borrowed significant ideas and terms from Platonism, using Greek philosophical concepts throughout their text, including such concepts as hypostasis (reality, existence), ousia (essence, substance, being), and demiurge (creator God). Both Sethian Gnostics and Valentinian Gnostics seem to have been influenced by Plato, Middle Platonism, and Neo-Pythagoreanism academies or schools of thought. Both schools attempted "an effort towards conciliation, even affiliation" with late antique philosophy, and were rebuffed by some Neoplatonists, including Plotinus.
Persian origins or influences
Early research into the origins of Gnosticism proposed Persian origins or influences, spreading to Europe and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931) most famously situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.
Carsten Colpe (b. 1929) has analyzed and criticised the Iranian hypothesis of Reitzenstein, showing that many of his hypotheses are untenable. Nevertheless, Geo Widengren (1907–1996) argued for the origin of (Mandaean) Gnosticism in Mazdean (Zoroastrianism) Zurvanism, in conjunction with ideas from the Aramaic Mesopotamian world.
Buddhist parallels
In 1966, at the Congress of Median, Buddhologist Edward Conze noted phenomenological commonalities between Mahayana Buddhism and Gnosticism, in his paper Buddhism and Gnosis, following an early suggestion put forward by Isaac Jacob Schmidt. The influence of Buddhism in any sense on either the gnostikos Valentinus (c. 170) or the Nag Hammadi texts (3rd century) is not supported by modern scholarship, although Elaine Pagels (1979) called it a "possibility".
Characteristics
Cosmology
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The Syrian–Egyptian traditions postulate a remote, supreme Godhead, the Monad. From this highest divinity emanate lower divine beings, known as Aeons. The Demiurge, one of those Aeons, creates the physical world. Divine elements "fall" into the material realm, and are locked within human beings. This divine element returns to the divine realm when Gnosis, esoteric or intuitive knowledge of the divine element within, is obtained.
Dualism and monism
Gnostic systems postulate a dualism between God and the world, varying from the "radical dualist" systems of Manichaeism to the "mitigated dualism" of classic gnostic movements. Radical dualism, or absolute dualism, posits two co-equal divine forces, while in mitigated dualism one of the two principles is in some way inferior to the other. In qualified monism the second entity may be divine or semi-divine. Valentinian Gnosticism is a form of monism, expressed in terms previously used in a dualistic manner.
Moral and ritual practice
Gnostics tended toward asceticism, especially in their sexual and dietary practice. In other areas of morality, Gnostics were less rigorously ascetic, and took a more moderate approach to correct behaviour. In normative early Christianity the Church administered and prescribed the correct behaviour for Christians, while in Gnosticism it was the internalised motivation that was important. Ritualistic behaviour was not important unless it was based on a personal, internal motivation. Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora describes a general asceticism, based on the moral inclination of the individual.
Concepts
Monad
In many Gnostic systems, God is known as the Monad, the One. God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons. According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc.
The Sethian cosmogony as most famously contained in the Apocryphon ("Secret book") of John describes an unknown God, very similar to the orthodox apophatic theology, but different from the orthodox teachings that this God is the creator of heaven and earth. Orthodox theologians often attempt to define God through a series of explicit positive statements: he is omniscient, omnipotent, and truly benevolent. The Sethian hidden transcendent God is, by contrast, defined through negative theology: he is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable; commonly, "he" is seen as being hermaphroditic, a potent symbol for being, as it were, "all-containing". In the Apocryphon of John, this god is good in that it bestows goodness. After the apophatic statements, the process of the Divine in action is used to describe the effect of such a god.
Pleroma
Pleroma (Greek πλήρωμα, "fullness") refers to the totality of God's powers. The heavenly pleroma is the center of divine life, a region of light "above" (the term is not to be understood spatially) our world, occupied by spiritual beings such as aeons (eternal beings) and sometimes archons. Jesus is interpreted as an intermediary aeon who was sent from the pleroma, with whose aid humanity can recover the lost knowledge of the divine origins of humanity. The term is thus a central element of Gnostic cosmology.
Pleroma is also used in the general Greek language, and is used by the Greek Orthodox church in this general form, since the word appears in the Epistle to the Colossians. Proponents of the view that Paul was actually a gnostic, such as Elaine Pagels, view the reference in Colossians as a term that has to be interpreted in a gnostic sense.
Emanation
The Supreme Light or Consciousness descends through a series of stages, gradations, worlds, or hypostases, becoming progressively more material and embodied. In time it will turn around to return to the One (epistrophe), retracing its steps through spiritual knowledge and contemplation.
Aeon
In many Gnostic systems, the aeons are the various emanations of the superior God or Monad. From this first being, also an æon, a series of different emanations occur, beginning in certain Gnostic texts with the hermaphroditic Barbelo, from which successive pairs of aeons emanate, often in male–female pairings called syzygies. The numbers of these pairings varied from text to text, though some identify their number as being thirty. The aeons as a totality constitute the pleroma, the "region of light". The lowest regions of the pleroma are closest to the darkness; that is, the physical world.
Two of the most commonly paired æons were Christ and Sophia (Greek: "Wisdom"); the latter refers to Christ as her "consort" in A Valentinian Exposition.
Sophia
In Gnostic tradition, the term Sophia (Σoφíα, Greek for "wisdom") refers to the final and lowest emanation of God. In most if not all versions of the gnostic myth, Sophia births the demiurge, who in turn brings about the creation of materiality. The positive or negative depiction of materiality thus resides a great deal on mythic depictions of Sophia's actions. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamoth (this is a feature of Ptolemy's version of the Valentinian gnostic myth). Jewish Gnosticism with a focus on Sophia was active by 90 AD.[citation needed]
Sophia, emanating without her partner, resulted in the production of the Demiurge (Greek: lit. "public builder"),[50] who is also referred to as Yaldabaoth and variations thereof in some Gnostic texts.[43] This creature is concealed outside the pleroma;[43] in isolation, and thinking itself alone, it creates materiality and a host of co-actors, referred to as archons. The demiurge is responsible for the creation of mankind; trapping elements of the pleroma stolen from Sophia inside human bodies.[43][51] In response, the Godhead emanates two savior aeons, Christ and the Holy Spirit; Christ then embodies itself in the form of Jesus, in order to be able to teach man how to achieve gnosis, by which they may return to the pleroma.[52]
Demiurge[edit]
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge; however, cf. Mithraic Zervan Akarana[53]
Main article: Demiurge
The term demiurge derives from the Latinized form of the Greek term dēmiourgos, δημιουργός, literally "public or skilled worker".[note 20] This figure is also called "Yaldabaoth",[43] Samael (Aramaic: sæmʻa-ʼel, "blind god"), or "Saklas" (Syriac: sækla, "the foolish one"), who is sometimes ignorant of the superior god, and sometimes opposed to it; thus in the latter case he is correspondingly malevolent. Other names or identifications are Ahriman, El, Satan, and Yahweh.
The demiurge creates the physical universe and the physical aspect of humanity.[55] The demiurge typically creates a group of co-actors named archons who preside over the material realm and, in some cases, present obstacles to the soul seeking ascent from it.[43] The inferiority of the demiurge's creation may be compared to the technical inferiority of a work of art, painting, sculpture, etc. to the thing the art represents. In other cases it takes on a more ascetic tendency to view material existence negatively, which then becomes more extreme when materiality, including the human body, is perceived as evil and constrictive, a deliberate prison for its inhabitants.
Moral judgements of the demiurge vary from group to group within the broad category of Gnosticism, viewing materiality as being inherently evil, or as merely flawed and as good as its passive constituent matter allows.[56]
Archon[edit]
Main article: Archon (Gnosticism)
In late antiquity some variants of Gnosticism used the term archon to refer to several servants of the demiurge.[51] In this context they may be seen as having the roles of the angels and demons of the Old Testament.[citation needed]
According to Origen's Contra Celsum, a sect called the Ophites posited the existence of seven archons, beginning with Iadabaoth or Ialdabaoth, who created the six that follow: Iao, Sabaoth, Adonaios, Elaios, Astaphanos, and Horaios.[57] Similarly to the Mithraic Kronos and Vedic Narasimha, a form of Vishnu, Ialdabaoth had a head of a lion.[43][58][59]
Other concepts[edit]
Other Gnostic concepts are:[60]
sarkic – earthly, hidebound, ignorant, uninitiated. The lowest level of human thought; the fleshly, instinctive level of thinking.
hylic – lowest order of the three types of human. Unable to be saved since their thinking is entirely material, incapable of understanding the gnosis.
psychic – "soulful", partially initiated. Matter-dwelling spirits
pneumatic – "spiritual", fully initiated, immaterial souls escaping the doom of the material world via gnosis.
kenoma – the visible or manifest cosmos, "lower" than the pleroma
charisma – gift, or energy, bestowed by pneumatics through oral teaching and personal encounters
logos – the divine ordering principle of the cosmos; personified as Christ. See also Odic force.
hypostasis – literally "that which stands beneath" the inner reality, emanation (appearance) of God, known to psychics
ousia – essence of God, known to pneumatics. Specific individual things or being.
Jesus as Gnostic saviour[edit]
Jesus is identified by some Gnostics as an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnōsis to the earth,[61][52] while others adamantly denied that the supreme being came in the flesh, claiming Jesus to be merely a human who attained divinity through gnosis and taught his disciples to do the same.[citation needed] Among the Mandaeans, Jesus was considered a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist.[62] Still other traditions identify Mani and Seth – third son of Adam and Eve – as salvific figures.
Development[edit]
Three periods can be discerned in the development of Gnosticism:[63]
Late first century and early second century: development of Gnostic ideas, contemporaneous with the writing of the New Testament;
mid-second century to early third century: high point of the classical Gnostic teachers and their systems, "who claimed that their systems represented the inner truth revealed by Jesus";[63]
end of second century to fourth century: reaction by the proto-orthodox church and condemnation as heresy, and subsequent decline.
During the first period, three types of tradition developed:[63]
Genesis was reinterpreted in Jewish milieus, viewing Jahweh as a jealous God who enslaved people; freedom was to be obtained from this jealous God;
A wisdom tradition developed, in which Jesus' sayings were interpreted as pointers to an esoteric wisdom, in which the soul could be divinized through identification with wisdom.[63][note 21] Some of Jesus' sayings may have been incorporated into the gospels to put a limit on this development. The conflicts described in 1 Corinthians may have been inspired by a clash between this wisdom tradition and Paul's gospel of crucifixion and arising;[63]
A mythical story developed about the descent of a heavenly creature to reveal the Divine world as the true home of human beings.[63] Jewish Christianity saw the Messiah, or Christ, as "an eternal aspect of God's hidden nature, his "spirit" and "truth", who revealed himself throughout sacred history".[25]
The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths,[65] and the Persian Empire. It continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but decline also set in during the third century, due to a growing aversion from the Catholic Church, and the economic and cultural deterioration of the Roman Empire.[66] Conversion to Islam, and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few Mandaean communities still exist. Gnostic and pseudo-gnostic ideas became influential in some of the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups.
Relation with early Christianity[edit]
Dillon notes that Gnosticism raises questions about the development of early Christianity.[67]
Orthodoxy and heresy[edit]
See also: Diversity in early Christian theology
The Christian heresiologists, most notably Irenaeus, regarded Gnosticism as a Christian heresy. Modern scholarship notes that early Christianity was very diverse, and Christian orthodoxy only settled in the 4th century, when the Roman Empire declined and Gnosticism lost its influence.[68][66][69][67] Gnostics and proto-orthodox Christians shared some terminology. Initially, they were hard to distinguish from each other.[70]
According to Walter Bauer, "heresies" may well have been the original form of Christianity in many regions.[71] This theme was further developed by Elaine Pagels,[72] who argues that "the proto-orthodox church found itself in debates with gnostic Christians that helped them to stabilize their own beliefs."[67] According to Gilles Quispel, Catholicism arose in response to Gnosticism, establishing safeguards in the form of the monarchic episcopate, the creed, and the canon of holy books.[73]
Historical Jesus[edit]
See also: Jesus in comparative mythology and Christ myth theory
The Gnostic movements may contain information about the historical Jesus, since some texts preserve sayings which show similarities with canonical sayings.[74] Especially the Gospel of Thomas has a significant amount of parallel sayings.[74] Yet, a striking difference is that the canonical sayings center on the coming endtime, while the Thomas-sayings center on a kingdom of heaven that is already here, and not a future event.[75] According to Helmut Koester, this is because the Thomas-sayings are older, implying that in the earliest forms of Christianity Jesus was regarded as a wisdom-teacher.[75] An alternative hypothesis states that the Thomas authors wrote in the second century, changing existing sayings and eliminating the apocalyptic concerns.[75] According to April DeConick, such a change occurred when the endtime did not come, and the Thomasine tradition turned toward a "new theology of mysticism" and a "theological commitment to a fully-present kingdom of heaven here and now, where their church had attained Adam and Eve's divine status before the Fall."[75]
Johannine literature[edit]
The prologue of the Gospel of John describes the incarnated Logos, the light that came to earth, in the person of Jesus.[76] The Apocryphon of John contains a scheme of three descendants from the heavenly realm, the third one being Jesus, just as in the Gospel of John. The similarities probably point to a relationship between gnostic ideas and the Johannine community.[76] According to Raymond Brown, the Gospel of John shows "the development of certain gnostic ideas, especially Christ as heavenly revealer, the emphasis on light versus darkness, and anti-Jewish animus."[76] The Johannine material reveals debates about the redeemer myth.[63] The Johannine letters show that there were different interpretations of the gospel story, and the Johannine images may have contributed to second-century Gnostic ideas about Jesus as a redeemer who descended from heaven.[63] According to DeConick, the Gospel of John shows a "transitional system from early Christianity to gnostic beliefs in a God who transcends our world."[76] According to DeConick, John may show a bifurcation of the idea of the Jewish God into Jesus' Father in Heaven and the Jews' father, "the Father of the Devil" (most translations say "of [your] father the Devil"), which may have developed into the gnostic idea of the Monad and the Demiurge.[76]
Paul and Gnosticism[edit]
Tertullian calls Paul "the apostle of the heretics",[77] because Paul's writings were attractive to gnostics, and interpreted in a gnostic way, while Jewish Christians found him to stray from the Jewish roots of Christianity.[78] In I Corinthians Paul refers to some church members as "having knowledge" (Greek: τὸν ἔχοντα γνῶσιν, ton echonta gnosin).[79] James Dunn claims that in some cases, Paul affirmed views that were closer to gnosticism than to proto-orthodox Christianity.[80]
According to Clement of Alexandria, the disciples of Valentinus said that Valentinus was a student of a certain Theudas, who was a student of Paul,[80] and Elaine Pagels notes that Paul's epistles were interpreted by Valentinus in a gnostic way, and Paul could be considered a proto-gnostic as well as a proto-Catholic.[60] Many Nag Hammadi texts, including, for example, the Prayer of Paul and the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul, consider Paul to be "the great apostle".[80] The fact that he claimed to have received his gospel directly by revelation from God appealed to the gnostics, who claimed gnosis from the risen Christ.[81] The Naassenes, Cainites, and Valentinians referred to Paul's epistles.[82] Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy have expanded upon this idea of Paul as a gnostic teacher;[83] although their premise that Jesus was invented by early Christians based on an alleged Greco-Roman mystery cult has been dismissed by scholars.[84][note 22] However, his revelation was different from the gnostic revelations.[85]
Major movements[edit]
Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism[edit]
Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism includes Sethianism, Valentinianism, Basilideans, Thomasine traditions, and Serpent Gnostics, as well as a number of other minor groups and writers.[86] Hermeticism is also a western Gnostic tradition,[66] though it differs in some respects from these other groups.[87] The Syrian–Egyptian school derives much of its outlook from Platonist influences. It depicts creation in a series of emanations from a primal monadic source, finally resulting in the creation of the material universe. These schools tend to view evil in terms of matter that is markedly inferior to goodness and lacking spiritual insight and goodness rather than as an equal force.
Many of these movements used texts related to Christianity, with some identifying themselves as specifically Christian, though quite different from the Orthodox or Roman Catholic forms. Jesus and several of his apostles, such as Thomas the Apostle, claimed as the founder of the Thomasine form of Gnosticism, figure in many Gnostic texts. Mary Magdalene is respected as a Gnostic leader, and is considered superior to the twelve apostles by some gnostic texts, such as the Gospel of Mary. John the Evangelist is claimed as a Gnostic by some Gnostic interpreters,[88] as is even St. Paul.[60] Most of the literature from this category is known to us through the Nag Hammadi Library.
Sethite-Barbeloite[edit]
Main article: Sethianism
Sethianism was one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd to 3rd centuries, and the prototype of Gnosticism as condemned by Irenaeus.[89] Sethianism attributed its gnosis to Seth, third son of Adam and Eve and Norea, wife of Noah, who also plays a role in Mandeanism and Manicheanism. Their main text is the Apocryphon of John, which does not contain Christian elements,[89] and is an amalgam of two earlier myths.[90] Earlier texts such as Apocalypse of Adam show signs of being pre-Christian and focus on the Seth, third son of Adam and Eve.[91] Later Sethian texts continue to interact with Platonism. Sethian texts such as Zostrianos and Allogenes draw on the imagery of older Sethian texts, but utilize "a large fund of philosophical conceptuality derived from contemporary Platonism, (that is, late middle Platonism) with no traces of Christian content."[31][note 23]
According to John D. Turner, German and American scholarship views Sethianism as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon", while British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of heterodox Christian speculation".[92] Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement, and that the term refers rather to a set of mythological themes which occur in various texts.[93]
According to Smith, Sethianism may have begun as a pre-Christian tradition, possibly a syncretic cult that incorporated elements of Christianity and Platonism as it grew.[94] According to Temporini, Vogt, and Haase, early Sethians may be identical to or related to the Nazarenes (sect), the Ophites, or the sectarian group called heretics by Philo.[91]
According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism, and originated in the second century as a fusion of a Jewish baptizing group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites,[95] named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth".[96] At the end of the second century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected the docetian view of the Sethians on Christ.[97] In the early third century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, as Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism while losing interest in their own origins.[98] In the late third century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and Sethianism became alienated from Platonism. In the early- to mid-fourth century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups such as the Archontics, Audians, Borborites, and Phibionites, and perhaps Stratiotici, and Secundians.[99][31] Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.[99]
Samaritan Baptist sects[edit]
According to Magris, Samaritan Baptist sects were an offshoot of John the Baptist.[100] One offshoot was in turn headed by Dositheus, Simon Magus, and Menander. It was in this milieu that the idea emerged that the world was created by ignorant angels. Their baptismal ritual removed the consequences of sin, and led to a regeneration by which natural death, which was caused by these angels, was overcome.[100] The Samaritan leaders were viewed as "the embodiment of God's power, spirit, or wisdom, and as the redeemer and revealer of 'true knowledge'".[100]
The Simonians were centered on Simon Magus, the magician baptised by Philip and rebuked by Peter in Acts 8, who became in early Christianity the archetypal false teacher. The ascription by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others of a connection between schools in their time and the individual in Acts 8 may be as legendary as the stories attached to him in various apocryphal books. Justin Martyr identifies Menander of Antioch as Simon Magus' pupil. According to Hippolytus, Simonianism is an earlier form of the Valentinian doctrine.[101]
The Basilidians or Basilideans were founded by Basilides of Alexandria in the second century. Basilides claimed to have been taught his doctrines by Glaucus, a disciple of St. Peter, but could also have been a pupil of Menander.[102] Basilidianism survived until the end of the 4th century as Epiphanius knew of Basilidians living in the Nile Delta. It was, however, almost exclusively limited to Egypt, though according to Sulpicius Severus it seems to have found an entrance into Spain through a certain Mark from Memphis. St. Jerome states that the Priscillianists were infected with it.
Valentinianism[edit]
Main article: Valentinianism
Valentinianism was named after its founder Valentinus (c. 100 – 180), who was a candidate for bishop of Rome but started his own group when another was chosen.[103] Valentinianism flourished after the middle of the 2nd century. The school was popular, spreading to Northwest Africa and Egypt, and through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east,[104] and Valentinus is specifically named as gnostikos by Irenaeus. It was an intellectually vibrant tradition,[105] with an elaborate and philosophically "dense" form of Gnosticism. Valentinus' students elaborated on his teachings and materials, and several varieties of their central myth are known.
Valentinian Gnosticism may have been monistic rather than dualistic.[note 24] In the Valentinian myths, the creation of a flawed materiality is not due to any moral failing on the part of the Demiurge, but due to the fact that he is less perfect than the superior entities from which he emanated.[108] Valentinians treat physical reality with less contempt than other Gnostic groups, and conceive of materiality not as a separate substance from the divine, but as attributable to an error of perception which becomes symbolized mythopoetically as the act of material creation.[108]
The followers of Valentinius attempted to systematically decode the Epistles, claiming that most Christians made the mistake of reading the Epistles literally rather than allegorically. Valentinians understood the conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Romans to be a coded reference to the differences between Psychics (people who are partly spiritual but have not yet achieved separation from carnality) and Pneumatics (totally spiritual people). The Valentinians argued that such codes were intrinsic in gnosticism, secrecy being important to ensuring proper progression to true inner understanding.[note 25]
According to Bentley Layton "Classical Gnosticism" and "The School of Thomas" antedated and influenced the development of Valentinus, whom Layton called "the great [Gnostic] reformer" and "the focal point" of Gnostic development. While in Alexandria, where he was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the Gnostic teacher Basilides, and may have been influenced by him.[109] Simone Petrement, while arguing for a Christian origin of Gnosticism, places Valentinus after Basilides, but before the Sethians. According to Petrement, Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded as a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil.[110]
Thomasine traditions[edit]
The Thomasine Traditions refers to a group of texts which are attributed to the apostle Thomas.[111][note 26] Karen L. King notes that "Thomasine Gnosticism" as a separate category is being criticised, and may "not stand the test of scholarly scrutiny".[112]
Marcion[edit]
Marcion was a Church leader from Sinope (present-day Turkey), who preached in Rome around 150 CE,[113] but was expelled and started his own congregation, which spread throughout the Mediterranean. He rejected the Old Testament, and followed a limited Christian canon, which included only a redacted version of Luke, and ten edited letters of Paul.[114] Some scholars do not consider him to be a gnostic,[115][note 27] but his teachings clearly resemble some Gnostic teachings.[113] He preached a radical difference between the God of the Old Testament, the Demiurge, the "evil creator of the material universe", and the highest God, the "loving, spiritual God who is the father of Jesus", who had sent Jesus to the earth to free mankind from the tyranny of the Jewish Law.[113][2] Like the Gnostics, Marcion argued that Jesus was essentially a divine spirit appearing to men in the shape of a human form, and not someone in a true physical body.[116] Marcion held that the heavenly Father (the father of Jesus Christ) was an utterly alien god; he had no part in making the world, nor any connection with it.[116]
Hermeticism[edit]
Hermeticism is closely related to Gnosticism, but its orientation is more positive.[66][87]
Other Gnostic groups[edit]
Serpent Gnostics. The Naassenes, Ophites and the Serpentarians gave prominence to snake symbolism, and snake handling played a role in their ceremonies.[113]
Cerinthus (c. 100), the founder of a heretical school with gnostic elements. Like a Gnostic, Cerinthus depicted Christ as a heavenly spirit separate from the man Jesus, and he cited the demiurge as creating the material world. Unlike the Gnostics, Cerinthus taught Christians to observe the Jewish law; his demiurge was holy, not lowly; and he taught the Second Coming. His gnosis was a secret teaching attributed to an apostle. Some scholars believe that the First Epistle of John was written as a response to Cerinthus.[117]
The Cainites are so-named since Hippolytus of Rome claims that they worshiped Cain, as well as Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. There is little evidence concerning the nature of this group. Hippolytus claims that they believed that indulgence in sin was the key to salvation because since the body is evil, one must defile it through immoral activity (see libertinism). The name Cainite is used as the name of a religious movement, and not in the usual Biblical sense of people descended from Cain.
The Carpocratians, a libertine sect following only the Gospel according to the Hebrews
The school of Justin, which combined gnostic elements with the ancient Greek religion.
The Borborites, a libertine Gnostic sect, said to be descended from the Nicolaitans[118]
Persian Gnosticism[edit]
The Persian Schools, which appeared in the western Persian province of Babylonia (in particular, within the Sassanid province of Asuristan), and whose writings were originally produced in the Aramaic dialects spoken in Babylonia at the time, are representative of what is believed to be among the oldest of the Gnostic thought forms. These movements are considered by most to be religions in their own right, and are not emanations from Christianity or Judaism.
Manichaeism[edit]
Manicheanism priests writing at their desks, with panel inscription in Sogdian. Manuscript from Khocho, Tarim Basin.
Main article: Manichaeism
Manichaeism was founded by the Prophet Mani (216–276). Mani's father was a member of the Jewish-Christian sect of the Elcesaites, a subgroup of the Gnostic Ebionites. At ages 12 and 24, Mani had visionary experiences of a "heavenly twin" of his, calling him to leave his father's sect and preach the true message of Christ. In 240–41, Mani travelled to the Indo-Greek Kingdom of the Sakhas in modern-day Afghanistan, where he studied Hinduism and its various extant philosophies. Returning in 242, he joined the court of Shapur I, to whom he dedicated his only work written in Persian, known as the Shabuhragan. The original writings were written in Syriac Aramaic, in a unique Manichaean script.
Manichaeism conceives of two coexistent realms of light and darkness that become embroiled in conflict. Certain elements of the light became entrapped within darkness, and the purpose of material creation is to engage in the slow process of extraction of these individual elements. In the end the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness. Manicheanism inherits this dualistic mythology from Zurvanist Zoroastrianism,[119] in which the eternal spirit Ahura Mazda is opposed by his antithesis, Angra Mainyu. This dualistic teaching embodied an elaborate cosmological myth that included the defeat of a primal man by the powers of darkness that devoured and imprisoned the particles of light.[120]
According to Kurt Rudolph, the decline of Manichaeism that occurred in Persia in the 5th century was too late to prevent the spread of the movement into the east and the west.[121] In the west, the teachings of the school moved into Syria, Northern Arabia, Egypt and North Africa.[note 28] There is evidence for Manicheans in Rome and Dalmatia in the 4th century, and also in Gaul and Spain. From Syria it progressed still farther, into Palestine, Asia Minor and Armenia. The influence of Manicheanism was attacked by imperial elects and polemical writings, but the religion remained prevalent until the 6th century, and still exerted influence in the emergence of the Paulicians, Bogomils and Cathari in the Middle Ages, until it was ultimately stamped out by the Catholic Church.[121]
In the east, Rudolph relates, Manicheanism was able to bloom, because the religious monopoly position previously held by Christianity and Zoroastrianism had been broken by nascent Islam. In the early years of the Arab conquest, Manicheanism again found followers in Persia (mostly amongst educated circles), but flourished most in Central Asia, to which it had spread through Iran. Here, in 762, Manicheanism became the state religion of the Uyghur Empire.[121]
Mandaeanism[edit]
Main article: Mandaeanism
Mandaean house of worship in Nasiriya, Iraq
The Mandaeans are Semites and speak a dialect of Eastern Aramaic known as Mandaic. Their religion has been practised primarily around the lower Karun, Euphrates and Tigris and the rivers that surround the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, part of southern Iraq and Khuzestan Province in Iran. Mandaeanism is still practiced in small numbers, in parts of southern Iraq and the Iranian province of Khuzestan, and there are thought to be between 60,000 and 70,000 Mandaeans worldwide.[124]
The name of the group derives from the term Mandā d-Heyyi, which roughly means "Knowledge of Life". Although the exact chronological origins of this movement are not known, John the Baptist eventually came to be a key figure in the religion, as an emphasis on baptism is part of their core beliefs. As with Manichaeism, despite certain ties with Christianity,[125] Mandaeans do not believe in Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed. Their beliefs and practices likewise have little overlap with the religions that manifested from those religious figures and the two should not be confused. Significant amounts of original Mandaean Scripture, written in Mandaean Aramaic, survive in the modern era. The primary source text is known as the Genzā Rabbā and has portions identified by some scholars as being copied as early as the 3rd century. There is also the Qolastā, or Canonical Book of Prayer and The Book of John the Baptist (sidra ḏ-iahia).
Middle Ages[edit]
After its demise in the Mediterranean world, Gnosticism lived on in the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, and resurfaced in the western world. The Paulicians, an Adoptionist group which flourished between 650 and 872 in Armenia and the Eastern Themes of the Byzantine Empire, were accused by orthodox medieval sources of being Gnostic and quasi Manichaean Christian. The Bogomils, emerged in Bulgaria between 927 and 970 and spread throughout Europe. It was as synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church reform movement.
The Cathars (Cathari, Albigenses or Albigensians) were also accused by their enemies of the traits of Gnosticism; though whether or not the Cathari possessed direct historical influence from ancient Gnosticism is disputed. If their critics are reliable the basic conceptions of Gnostic cosmology are to be found in Cathar beliefs (most distinctly in their notion of a lesser, Satanic, creator god), though they did not apparently place any special relevance upon knowledge (gnosis) as an effective salvific force.[verification needed]
Islam[edit]
The message of the Islamic prophet Muhammad shows close similarities to many Gnostic ideas. The Quran, like Gnostic cosmology, makes a sharp distinction between this world and the afterlife. The notion of four rivers in heaven, as mentioned in the Quran, separating this world from the other , also appears frequently in Mandaean literature. God is commonly thought of as being beyond human comprehension. In some Islamic schools of thought, somehow identifiable with the Gnostic Monad.[126][127] However, according to Islam and unlike most Gnostic sects, not rejection of this world, but performing good deeds leads to the heaven. And according to the Islamic belief in strict Oneness of God, there was no room for a lower deity; such as the demiurge.[128] According to Islam, both good and evil come from one God, a position especially opposed by the Manichaeans. Ibn al-Muqaffa depicted the Islamic deity as a demonic entity who "fights with humans and boasts about His victories" and "sitting on a throne, from which He can descend". It would be impossible that both light and darkness were created from one source, since they were regarded as two different eternal principles.[129] Muslim theologists countered this accusation by the example of a repeating sinner, who says: "I laid, and I repent";[130] this would prove that good can also result out of evil.
Islam also integrated traces of an entity given authority over the lower world in some early writings: Iblis is regarded by some Sufis as the owner of this world, and humans must avoid the treasures of this world, since they would belong to him.[131] In the Isma'ili Shia work Umm al Kitab, Azazil's role resembles whose of the Gnostic demiurge.[132] Like the demiurge, he is endowed with the ability to create his own world and seeks to imprison humans in the material world, but here, his power is limited and depends on the higher God.[133] Such Gnostic anthropogenic can be found frequently among Isma'ili traditions.[134] However, Ismailism were often criticised as non-Islamic. Ghazali characterized them as a group who are outwardly Shias but were actually adherence of a dualistic and philosophical religion. Further traces of Gnostic ideas can be found in Sufi anthropogenic.[135] Like the gnostic conception of human beings imprisoned in matter, Sufi-traditions acknowledges the human soul is an accomplice of the material world and subject to bodily desires similar to the way archontic spheres envelop the pneuma.[136] The Ruh must therefore gain victory over the lower and material-bound psyche, to overcome his animal nature. A human being captured by his animal desires, mistakenly claims autonomy and independence from the "higher God", thus resembling the lower deity in classical gnostic traditions. However, since the goal is not to abandon the created world, but just to free oneself from ones own lower desires, it can be disputed whether this can still be Gnostic, but rather a completion of the message of Muhammad.[129] It seems that Gnostic ideas were an influential part of early Islamic development but later lost its influence. However the Gnostic light metaphorics and the idea of unity of existence still prevailed in later Islamic thought.[127]
Kabbalah[edit]
Gnostic ideas found a Jewish variation in the mystical study of Kabbalah. Many core Gnostic ideas reappear in Kabbalah, where they are used for dramatically reinterpreting earlier Jewish sources according to this new system.[137] The Kabbalists originated in 13th-century Provence,[note 29] which was at that time also the center of the Gnostic Cathars. While some scholars in the middle of the 20th century tried to assume an influence between the Cathar "gnostics" and the origins of the Kabbalah, this assumption has proved to be an incorrect generalization not substantiated by any original texts.[139] On the other hand, other scholars, such as Scholem, have postulated that there was originally a "Jewish gnosticism", which influenced the early origins of gnosticism.[140]
Kabbalah does not employ the terminology or labels of non-Jewish Gnosticism, but grounds the same or similar concepts in the language of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible).[141] The 13th-century Zohar ("Splendor"), a foundational text in Kabbalah, is written in the style of a Jewish Aramaic Midrash, clarifying the five books of the Torah with a new Kabbalistic system that uses completely Jewish terms.[142]
Modern times[edit]
Main article: Gnosticism in modern times
The Mandaeans are an ancient Gnostic sect that have survived to this day and are found today in Iraq.[143] Their namesake owes to their following John the Baptist and in that country, they have about five thousand followers.[143] A number of ecclesiastical bodies that think of themselves as Gnostic have set up or re-founded since World War II, including the Ecclesia Gnostica, Apostolic Johannite Church, Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the Gnostic Church of France, the Thomasine Church, the Alexandrian Gnostic Church, the North American College of Gnostic Bishops,[144] and the Universal Gnosticism of Samael Aun Weor.[145]
A number of 19th-century thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer,[146] Albert Pike and Madame Blavatsky studied Gnostic thought extensively and were influenced by it, and even figures like Herman Melville and W. B. Yeats were more tangentially influenced.[147] Jules Doinel "re-established" a Gnostic church in France in 1890, which altered its form as it passed through various direct successors (Fabre des Essarts as Tau Synésius and Joanny Bricaud as Tau Jean II most notably), and, though small, is still active today.[148]
Early 20th-century thinkers who heavily studied and were influenced by Gnosticism include Carl Jung (who supported Gnosticism), Eric Voegelin (who opposed it), Jorge Luis Borges (who included it in many of his short stories), and Aleister Crowley, with figures such as Hermann Hesse being more moderately influenced. René Guénon founded the gnostic review, La Gnose in 1909, before moving to a more Perennialist position, and founding his Traditionalist School. Gnostic Thelemite organizations, such as Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and Ordo Templi Orientis, trace themselves to Crowley's thought.
The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi library after 1945 has had a huge effect on Gnosticism since World War II. Intellectuals who were heavily influenced by Gnosticism in this period include Lawrence Durrell, Hans Jonas, Philip K. Dick and Harold Bloom, with Albert Camus and Allen Ginsberg being more moderately influenced.[147] Celia Green has written on Gnostic Christianity in relation to her own philosophy.[149]
Alfred North Whitehead was aware of the existence of the newly discovered Gnostic scrolls. Accordingly, Michel Weber has proposed a Gnostic interpretation of his late metaphysics.[150]
Sources[edit]
Heresiologists[edit]
Prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945 Gnosticism was known primarily through the works of heresiologists, Church Fathers who opposed those movements. These writings had an antagonistic bias towards gnostic teachings, and were incomplete. Several heresiological writers, such as Hippolytus, made little effort to exactly record the nature of the sects they reported on, or transcribe their sacred texts. Reconstructions of incomplete Gnostic texts were attempted in modern times, but research on Gnosticism was coloured by the orthodox views of those heresiologists.
Justin Martyr (c. 100/114 – c. 162/168) wrote the First Apology, addressed to Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, which criticising Simon Magus, Menander and Marcion. Since this time, both Simon and Menander have been considered as 'proto-Gnostic'.[151] Irenaeus (died c. 202) wrote Against Heresies (c. 180–185), which identifies Simon Magus from Flavia Neapolis in Samaria as the inceptor of Gnosticism. From Samaria he charted an apparent spread of the teachings of Simon through the ancient "knowers" into the teachings of Valentinus and other, contemporary Gnostic sects.[note 30] Hippolytus (170–235) wrote the ten-volume Refutation Against all Heresies, of which eight have been unearthed. It also focuses on the connection between pre-Socratic (and therefore Pre-Incantation of Christ) ideas and the false beliefs of early gnostic heretical leaders. Thirty-three of the groups he reported on are considered Gnostic by modern scholars, including 'the foreigners' and 'the Seth people'. Hippolytus further presents individual teachers such as Simon, Valentinus, Secundus, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Marcus and Colorbasus. Tertullian (c. 155–230) from Carthage wrote Adversus Valentinianos ('Against the Valentinians'), c. 206, as well as five books around 207–208 chronicling and refuting the teachings of Marcion.
Gnostic texts[edit]
See also: Gnostic texts and Nag Hammadi library
Prior to the discovery at Nag Hammadi, a limited number of texts were available to students of Gnosticism. Reconstructions were attempted from the records of the heresiologists, but these were necessarily coloured by the motivation behind the source accounts.
The Nag Hammadi library [note 31] is a collection of Gnostic texts discovered in 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Upper Egypt. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman.[152] The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato's Republic. These codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367.[153] Though the original language of composition was probably Greek, the various codices contained in the collection were written in Coptic. A 1st- or 2nd-century date of composition for the lost Greek originals has been proposed, though this is disputed; the manuscripts themselves date from the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Nag Hammadi texts demonstrated the fluidity of early Christian scripture and early Christianity itself.[note 32]
Academic studies[edit]
Development[edit]
Prior to the discovery of Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic movements were largely perceived through the lens of the early church heresiologists. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694–1755) proposed that Gnosticism developed on its own in Greece and Mesopotamia, spreading to the west and incorporating Jewish elements. According to Mosheim, Jewish thought took Gnostic elements and used them against Greek philosophy.[33] J. Horn and Ernest Anton Lewald proposed Persian and Zoroastrian origins, while Jacques Matter described Gnosticism as an intrusion of eastern cosmological and theosophical speculation into Christianity.[33]
In the 1880s Gnosticism was placed within Greek philosophy, especially neo-Platonism.[29] Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who belonged to the School of the History of Dogma and proposed a Kirchengeschichtliches Ursprungsmodell, saw gnosticism as an internal development within the church under the influence of Greek philosophy.[29][155] According to Harnack, Gnosticism was the "acute Hellenization of Christianity."[29]
The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule ("history of religions school", 19th century) had a profound influence on the study of Gnosticism.[29] The Religionsgeschichtliche Schule saw Gnosticism as a pre-Christian phenomenon, and Christian gnosis as only one, and even marginal instance of this phenomenon.[29] According to Wilhelm Bousset (1865–1920), Gnosticism was a form of Iranian and Mesopotamian syncretism,[29] and Eduard Norden (1868–1941) also proposed pre-Christian origins,[29] while Richard August Reitzenstein (1861–1931), and Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) also situated the origins of Gnosticism in Persia.[29] Hans Heinrich Schaeder (1896–1957) and Hans Leisegang saw Gnosticism as an amalgam of eastern thought in a Greek form.[29]
Hans Jonas (1903–1993) took an intermediate approach, using both the comparative approach of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule and the existentialist hermeneutics of Bultmann. Jonas emphasized the duality between God and the world, and concluded that Gnosticism cannot be derived from Platonism.[19]
Contemporary scholarship largely agrees that Gnosticism has Jewish or Judeo-Christian origins;[19] this theses is most notably put forward by Gershom G. Scholem (1897–1982) and Gilles Quispel (1916–2006).[156]
The study of Gnosticism and of early Alexandrian Christianity received a strong impetus from the discovery of the Coptic Nag Hammadi Library in 1945.[157][158] A great number of translations have been published, and the works of Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, especially The Gnostic Gospels, which detailed the suppression of some of the writings found at Nag Hammadi by early bishops of the Christian church, has popularized Gnosticism in mainstream culture,[web 3][web 4] but also incited strong responses and condemnations from clergical writers.[159]
Definitions of Gnosticism[edit]
According to Matthew J. Dillon, six trends can be discerned in the definitions of Gnosticism:[160]
Typologies, "a catalogue of shared characteristics that are used to classify a group of objects together."[160]
Traditional approaches, viewing Gnosticism as a Christian heresy[161]
Phenomenological approaches, most notably Hans Jonas[162]
Restricting Gnosticism, "identifying which groups were explicitly called gnostics",[163] or which groups were clearly sectarian[163]
Deconstructing Gnosticism, abandoning the category of "Gnosticism"[164]
Psychology and cognitive science of religion, approaching Gnosticism as a psychological phenomena[165]
Typologies[edit]
The 1966 Messina conference on the origins of gnosis and Gnosticism proposed to designate
... a particular group of systems of the second century after Christ" as gnosticism, and to use gnosis to define a conception of knowledge that transcends the times, which was described as "knowledge of divine mysteries for an élite.[166]
This definition has now been abandoned.[160] It created a religion, "Gnosticism", from the "gnosis" which was a widespread element of ancient religions,[note 33] suggesting a homogeneous conception of gnosis by these Gnostic religions, which did not exist at the time.[167]
According to Dillon, the texts from Nag Hammadi made clear that this definition was limited, and that they are "better classified by movements (such as Valentinian), mythological similarity (Sethian), or similar tropes (presence of a Demiurge)."[160] Dillon further notes that the Messian-definition "also excluded pre-Christian Gnosticism and later developments, such as the Mandaeans and the Manichaeans."[160]
Hans Jonas discerned two main currents of Gnosticism, namely Syrian-Egyptian, and Persian, which includes Manicheanism and Mandaeanism.[19] Among the Syrian-Egyptian schools and the movements they spawned are a typically more Monist view. Persian Gnosticism possesses more dualist tendencies, reflecting a strong influence from the beliefs of the Persian Zurvanist Zoroastrians. Those of the medieval Cathars, Bogomils, and Carpocratians seem to include elements of both categories.
Gilles Quispel divided Syrian-Egyptian Gnosticism further into Jewish Gnosticism (the Apocryphon of John)[89] and Christian Gnosis (Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus). This "Christian Gnosticism" was Christocentric, and influenced by Christian writings such as the Gospel of John and the Pauline epistles.[168] Other authors speak rather of "Gnostic Christians", noting that Gnostics were a prominent substream in the early church.[169]
Traditional approaches – Gnosticism as Christian heresy[edit]
The best known example of this approach is Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930), who stated that "Gnosticism is the acute Hellenization of Christianity."[161] According to Dillon, "many scholars today continue in the vein of Harnack in reading gnosticism as a late and contaminated version of Christianity", notably Darrell Block, who criticises Elaine Pagels for her view that early Christianity was wildly diverse.[162]
Phenomenological approaches[edit]
Hans Jonas (1903–1993) t
Anubis is among the most ancient and important deities of the Egyptian pantheon: he presided over mummification and burial rites and was the Lord of the Necropolis. He was represented, in Egyptian iconography, as a jackal or as a man with the head of a jackal.
This statue offers eloquent testimony to a syncretic divine figure, Anubis, who in the Roman context was assimilated to Mercury: the god with its jackal’s head, with a small solar disc on a crescent moon between its ears, wears a short tunic, a cloak and shoes, and holds the caduceus in his hand, in his function as the ferryman of the dead to the Underworld (“psychopomp”).
The statue, discovered in Anzio on land belonging to the Pamphilj family in 1749, was donated to Pope Benedict XIV and was transferred to the Gregorian Egyptian Museum in 1839.
Source: Museum WEB Site
Parian marble sculpture
F. 155 cm.; W. 50 cm.; D. 28 cm.
Late 1st - early 2nd century AD
From Azio, Villa Pamphilj
Vatican City State, Vatican Museums, Museo Gregoriano Egizio, inv. no. 22840.
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Serapis was an ancient Egyptian solar deity whose cult grew in popularity and influence during the late 3rd century BCE, after the Greek ruler Ptolemy Soter built a new temple to the god in Alexandria (as a means to unify the Greek and Egyptian subjects of the Ptolemaic Kingdom). Serapis was a syncretic deity derived from the worship of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis. Later, when Egypt was part of the Roman empire, Serapis became associated with Jupiter (the Greek Zeus) and was depicted with many of that god's features - usually a thick beard and a crown of curly hair. Worship of Serapis continued across the ancient Mediterranean until the rise of Christianity in the 4th century.
There's little information about this head, but it may have once been attached to a large cult statue of the god. It's difficult to see around the back of the head, since it's in a display case against a wall, but it may be less finished on the rear, which would mean it was meant to sit in a niche and only be seen from the front (not sure about the rear, though, so don't quote me!).
Roman, ca. 150-200 CE.
Art Institute of Chicago, anonymous loan
Shiva, meaning "The Auspicious One"), also known as Mahadeva ("Great God"), is a popular Hindu deity. Shiva is regarded as one of the primary forms of God. He is the Supreme God within Shaivism, one of the three most influential denominations in contemporary Hinduism. He is one of the five primary forms of God in the Smarta tradition, and "the Destroyer" or "the Transformer" among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.
Shiva has many benevolent and fearsome forms. At the highest level Shiva is limitless, transcendent, unchanging and formless. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash, as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya and in fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also regarded as the patron god of yoga and arts.
The main iconographical attributes of Shiva are the third eye on his forehead, the snake Vasuki around his neck, the crescent moon adorning, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the trishula as his weapon and the damaru as his instrument.
Shiva is usually worshiped in the aniconic form of Lingam. Temples of Lord Shiva are called shivalayam.
ETYMOLOGY & OTHER NAMES
The Sanskrit word Shiva (Devanagari: शिव, śiva) comes from Shri Rudram Chamakam of Taittiriya Samhita (TS 4.5, 4.7) of Krishna Yajurveda. The root word śi means auspicious. In simple English transliteration it is written either as Shiva or Siva. The adjective śiva, is used as an attributive epithet not particularly of Rudra, but of several other Vedic deities.
The other popular names associated with Shiva are Mahadev, Mahesh, Maheshwar, Shankar, Shambhu, Rudra, Har, Trilochan, Devendra (meaning Chief of the gods) and Trilokinath (meaning Lord of the three realms).
The Sanskrit word śaiva means "relating to the God Shiva", and this term is the Sanskrit name both for one of the principal sects of Hinduism and for a member of that sect. It is used as an adjective to characterize certain beliefs and practices, such as Shaivism. He is the oldest worshipped Lord of India.
The Tamil word Sivan, Tamil: சிவன் ("Fair Skinned") could have been derived from the word sivappu. The word 'sivappu' means "red" in Tamil language but while addressing a person's skin texture in Tamil the word 'Sivappu' is used for being Fair Skinned.
Adi Sankara, in his interpretation of the name Shiva, the 27th and 600th name of Vishnu sahasranama, the thousand names of Vishnu interprets Shiva to have multiple meanings: "The Pure One", or "the One who is not affected by three Gunas of Prakrti (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas)" or "the One who purifies everyone by the very utterance of His name."Swami Chinmayananda, in his translation of Vishnu sahasranama, further elaborates on that verse: Shiva means "the One who is eternally pure" or "the One who can never have any contamination of the imperfection of Rajas and Tamas".
Shiva's role as the primary deity of Shaivism is reflected in his epithets Mahādeva ("Great God"; mahā "Great" and deva "god"), Maheśvara ("Great Lord"; mahā "great" and īśvara "lord"), and Parameśvara ("Supreme Lord").
There are at least eight different versions of the Shiva Sahasranama, devotional hymns (stotras) listing many names of Shiva. The version appearing in Book 13 (Anuśāsanaparvan) of the Mahabharata is considered the kernel of this tradition. Shiva also has Dasha-Sahasranamas (10,000 names) that are found in the Mahanyasa. The Shri Rudram Chamakam, also known as the Śatarudriya, is a devotional hymn to Shiva hailing him by many names.
The worship of Shiva is a pan-Hindu tradition, practiced widely across all of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
ASSIMILATION OF TRADITIONS
The figure of Shiva as we know him today was built up over time, with the ideas of many regional sects being amalgamated into a single figure. How the persona of Shiva converged as a composite deity is not well documented. According to Vijay Nath:
Visnu and Siva [...] began to absorb countless local cults and deities within their folds. The latter were either taken to represent the multiple facets of the same god or else were supposed to denote different forms and appellations by which the god came to be known and worshipped. [...] Siva became identified with countless local cults by the sheer suffixing of Isa or Isvara to the name of the local deity, e.g., Bhutesvara, Hatakesvara, Chandesvara."
Axel Michaels the Indologist suggests that Shaivism, like Vaishnavism, implies a unity which cannot be clearly found either in religious practice or in philosophical and esoteric doctrine. Furthermore, practice and doctrine must be kept separate.
An example of assimilation took place in Maharashtra, where a regional deity named Khandoba is a patron deity of farming and herding castes. The foremost center of worship of Khandoba in Maharashtra is in Jejuri. Khandoba has been assimilated as a form of Shiva himself, in which case he is worshipped in the form of a lingam. Khandoba's varied associations also include an identification with Surya and Karttikeya.
INDUS VALLEY ORIGINS
Many Indus valley seals show animals but one seal that has attracted attention shows a figure, either horned or wearing a horned headdress and possibly ithyphallic figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators of Mohenjo-daro Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra. Sir John Marshall and others have claimed that this figure is a prototype of Shiva and have described the figure as having three faces seated in a "yoga posture" with the knees out and feet joined.
This claim has been criticised, with some academics like Gavin Flood and John Keay characterizing them as unfounded. Writing in 1997 Doris Srinivasan said that "Not too many recent studies continue to call the seal's figure a 'Proto-Siva'", rejecting thereby Marshall's package of proto-Siva features, including that of three heads. She interprets what John Marshall interpreted as facial as not human but more bovine, possibly a divine buffalo-man. According to Iravatham Mahadevan symbols 47 and 48 of his Indus script glossary The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977), representing seated human-like figures, could describe Hindu deity Murugan, popularly known as Shiva and Parvati's son.
INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS
Shiva's rise to a major position in the pantheon was facilitated by his identification with a host of Vedic deities, including Purusha, Rudra, Agni, Indra, Prajāpati, Vāyu, and others.
RUDRA
Shiva as we know him today shares many features with the Vedic god Rudra, and both Shiva and Rudra are viewed as the same personality in Hindu scriptures. The two names are used synonymously. Rudra, the god of the roaring storm, is usually portrayed in accordance with the element he represents as a fierce, destructive deity.
The oldest surviving text of Hinduism is the Rig Veda, which is dated to between 1700 and 1100 BCE based on linguistic and philological evidence. A god named Rudra is mentioned in the Rig Veda. The name Rudra is still used as a name for Shiva. In RV 2.33, he is described as the "Father of the Rudras", a group of storm gods. Furthermore, the Rudram, one of the most sacred hymns of Hinduism found both in the Rig and the Yajur Vedas and addressed to Rudra, invokes him as Shiva in several instances, but the term Shiva is used as an epithet for the gods Indra, Mitra and Agni many times. Since Shiva means pure, the epithet is possibly used to describe a quality of these gods rather than to identify any of them with the God Shiva.
The identification of Shiva with the older god Rudhra is not universally accepted, as Axel Michaels explains:
Rudra is called "The Archer" (Sanskrit: Śarva), and the arrow is an essential attribute of Rudra. This name appears in the Shiva Sahasranama, and R. K. Sharma notes that it is used as a name of Shiva often in later languages.
The word is derived from the Sanskrit root śarv-, which means "to injure" or "to kill", and Sharma uses that general sense in his interpretive translation of the name Śarva as "One who can kill the forces of darkness". The names Dhanvin ("Bowman") and Bāṇahasta ("Archer", literally "Armed with arrows in his hands") also refer to archery.
AGNI
Rudra and Agni have a close relationship. The identification between Agni and Rudra in the Vedic literature was an important factor in the process of Rudra's gradual development into the later character as Rudra-Shiva. The identification of Agni with Rudra is explicitly noted in the Nirukta, an important early text on etymology, which says, "Agni is also called Rudra." The interconnections between the two deities are complex, and according to Stella Kramrisch:
The fire myth of Rudra-Śiva plays on the whole gamut of fire, valuing all its potentialities and phases, from conflagration to illumination.
In the Śatarudrīya, some epithets of Rudra, such as Sasipañjara ("Of golden red hue as of flame") and Tivaṣīmati ("Flaming bright"), suggest a fusing of the two deities. Agni is said to be a bull, and Lord Shiva possesses a bull as his vehicle, Nandi. The horns of Agni, who is sometimes characterized as a bull, are mentioned. In medieval sculpture, both Agni and the form of Shiva known as Bhairava have flaming hair as a special feature.
INDRA
According to Wendy Doniger, the Puranic Shiva is a continuation of the Vedic Indra. Doniger gives several reasons for his hypothesis. Both are associated with mountains, rivers, male fertility, fierceness, fearlessness, warfare, transgression of established mores, the Aum sound, the Supreme Self. In the Rig Veda the term śiva is used to refer to Indra. (2.20.3, 6.45.17, and 8.93.3.) Indra, like Shiva, is likened to a bull. In the Rig Veda, Rudra is the father of the Maruts, but he is never associated with their warlike exploits as is Indra.
The Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion, and the Indo-Iranian religion. According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the contact zone between the Zeravshan River (present-day Uzbekistan) and (present-day) Iran. It was "a syncretic mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements", which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the Bactria–Margiana Culture. At least 383 non-Indo-European words were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra and the ritual drink Soma. According to Anthony,
Many of the qualities of Indo-Iranian god of might/victory, Verethraghna, were transferred to the adopted god Indra, who became the central deity of the developing Old Indic culture. Indra was the subject of 250 hymns, a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with Soma, a stimulant drug (perhaps derived from Ephedra) probably borrowed from the BMAC religion. His rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers.
LATER VEDIC LITERATURE
Rudra's transformation from an ambiguously characterized deity to a supreme being began in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (400-200 BCE), which founded the tradition of Rudra-Shiva worship. Here they are identified as the creators of the cosmos and liberators of souls from the birth-rebirth cycle. The period of 200 BCE to 100 CE also marks the beginning of the Shaiva tradition focused on the worship of Shiva, with references to Shaiva ascetics in Patanjali's Mahabhasya and in the Mahabharata.
Early historical paintings at the Bhimbetka rock shelters, depict Shiva dancing, Shiva's trident, and his mount Nandi but no other Vedic gods.
PURANIC LITERATURE
The Shiva Puranas, particularly the Shiva Purana and the Linga Purana, discuss the various forms of Shiva and the cosmology associated with him.
TANTRIC LITERATURE
The Tantras, composed between the 8th and 11th centuries, regard themselves as Sruti. Among these the Shaiva Agamas, are said to have been revealed by Shiva himself and are foundational texts for Shaiva Siddhanta.
POSITION WITHIN HINDUISM
SHAIVISM
Shaivism (Sanskrit: शैव पंथ, śaiva paṁtha) (Kannada: ಶೈವ ಪಂಥ) (Tamil: சைவ சமயம்) is the oldest of the four major sects of Hinduism, the others being Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. Followers of Shaivism, called "Shaivas", and also "Saivas" or "Saivites", revere Shiva as the Supreme Being. Shaivas believe that Shiva is All and in all, the creator, preserver, destroyer, revealer and concealer of all that is. The tantric Shaiva tradition consists of the Kapalikas, Kashmir Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta. The Shiva MahaPurana is one of the purāṇas, a genre of Hindu religious texts, dedicated to Shiva. Shaivism is widespread throughout India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, mostly. Areas notable for the practice of Shaivism include parts of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
PANCHAYATANA PUJA
Panchayatana puja is the system of worship ('puja') in the Smarta sampradaya of Hinduism. It is said to have been introduced by Adi Shankara, the 8th century CE Hindu philosopher. It consists of the worship of five deities: Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesha. Depending on the tradition followed by Smarta households, one of these deities is kept in the center and the other four surround it. Worship is offered to all the deities. The five are represented by small murtis, or by five kinds of stones, or by five marks drawn on the floor.
TRIMURTI
The Trimurti is a concept in Hinduism in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahmā the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver and Śhiva the destroyer or transformer. These three deities have been called "the Hindu triad" or the "Great Trinity", often addressed as "Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara."
ICONOGRAPHY AND PROPERTIES
ATTRIBUTES
Shiva's form: Shiva has a trident in the right lower arm, and a crescent moon on his head. He is said to be fair like camphor or like an ice clad mountain. He wears five serpents and a garland of skulls as ornaments. Shiva is usually depicted facing the south. His trident, like almost all other forms in Hinduism, can be understood as the symbolism of the unity of three worlds that a human faces - his inside world, his immediate world, and the broader overall world. At the base of the trident, all three forks unite.
Third eye: (Trilochana) Shiva is often depicted with a third eye, with which he burned Desire (Kāma) to ashes, called "Tryambakam" (Sanskrit: त्र्यम्बकम् ), which occurs in many scriptural sources. In classical Sanskrit, the word ambaka denotes "an eye", and in the Mahabharata, Shiva is depicted as three-eyed, so this name is sometimes translated as "having three eyes". However, in Vedic Sanskrit, the word ambā or ambikā means "mother", and this early meaning of the word is the basis for the translation "three mothers". These three mother-goddesses who are collectively called the Ambikās. Other related translations have been based on the idea that the name actually refers to the oblations given to Rudra, which according to some traditions were shared with the goddess Ambikā. It has been mentioned that when Shiva loses his temper, his third eye opens which can destroy most things to ashes.
Crescent moon: (The epithets "Chandrasekhara/Chandramouli")- Shiva bears on his head the crescent moon. The epithet Candraśekhara (Sanskrit: चन्द्रशेखर "Having the moon as his crest" - candra = "moon"; śekhara = "crest, crown") refers to this feature. The placement of the moon on his head as a standard iconographic feature dates to the period when Rudra rose to prominence and became the major deity Rudra-Shiva. The origin of this linkage may be due to the identification of the moon with Soma, and there is a hymn in the Rig Veda where Soma and Rudra are jointly implored, and in later literature, Soma and Rudra came to be identified with one another, as were Soma and the moon. The crescent moon is shown on the side of the Lord's head as an ornament. The waxing and waning phenomenon of the moon symbolizes the time cycle through which creation evolves from the beginning to the end.
Ashes: (The epithet "Bhasmaanga Raaga") - Shiva smears his body with ashes (bhasma). The ashes are said to represent the end of all material existence. Some forms of Shiva, such as Bhairava, are associated with a very old Indian tradition of cremation-ground asceticism that was practiced by some groups who were outside the fold of brahmanic orthodoxy. These practices associated with cremation grounds are also mentioned in the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism. One epithet for Shiva is "inhabitant of the cremation ground" (Sanskrit: śmaśānavāsin, also spelled Shmashanavasin), referring to this connection.
Matted hair: (The epithet "Jataajoota Dhari/Kapardina") - Shiva's distinctive hair style is noted in the epithets Jaṭin, "the one with matted hair", and Kapardin, "endowed with matted hair" or "wearing his hair wound in a braid in a shell-like (kaparda) fashion". A kaparda is a cowrie shell, or a braid of hair in the form of a shell, or, more generally, hair that is shaggy or curly. His hair is said to be like molten gold in color or being yellowish-white.
Blue throat: The epithet Nīlakaṇtha (Sanskrit नीलकण्ठ; nīla = "blue", kaṇtha = "throat"). Since Shiva drank the Halahala poison churned up from the Samudra Manthan to eliminate its destructive capacity. Shocked by his act, Goddess Parvati strangled his neck and hence managed to stop it in his neck itself and prevent it from spreading all over the universe, supposed to be in Shiva's stomach. However the poison was so potent that it changed the color of his neck to blue. (See Maha Shivaratri.)
Sacred Ganges: (The epithet "Gangadhara") Bearer of Ganga. Ganges river flows from the matted hair of Shiva. The Gaṅgā (Ganges), one of the major rivers of the country, is said to have made her abode in Shiva's hair. The flow of the Ganges also represents the nectar of immortality.
Tiger skin: (The epithet "Krittivasana").He is often shown seated upon a tiger skin, an honour reserved for the most accomplished of Hindu ascetics, the Brahmarishis.
Serpents: (The epithet "Nagendra Haara" or 'Vasoki"). Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake.
Deer: His holding deer on one hand indicates that He has removed the Chanchalata of the mind (i.e., attained maturity and firmness in thought process). A deer jumps from one place to another swiftly, similar to the mind moving from one thought to another.
Trident: (Trishula): Shiva's particular weapon is the trident. His Trisul that is held in His right hand represents the three Gunas— Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. That is the emblem of sovereignty. He rules the world through these three Gunas. The Damaru in His left hand represents the Sabda Brahman. It represents OM from which all languages are formed. It is He who formed the Sanskrit language out of the Damaru sound.
Drum: A small drum shaped like an hourglass is known as a damaru (ḍamaru). This is one of the attributes of Shiva in his famous dancing representation known as Nataraja. A specific hand gesture (mudra) called ḍamaru-hasta (Sanskrit for "ḍamaru-hand") is used to hold the drum. This drum is particularly used as an emblem by members of the Kāpālika sect.
Axe: (Parashu):The parashu is the weapon of Lord Shiva who gave it to Parashurama, sixth Avatar of Vishnu, whose name means "Rama with the axe" and also taught him its mastery.
Nandī: (The epithet "Nandi Vaahana").Nandī, also known as Nandin, is the name of the bull that serves as Shiva's mount (Sanskrit: vāhana). Shiva's association with cattle is reflected in his name Paśupati, or Pashupati (Sanskrit: पशुपति), translated by Sharma as "lord of cattle" and by Kramrisch as "lord of animals", who notes that it is particularly used as an epithet of Rudra. Rishabha or the bull represents Dharma Devata. Lord Siva rides on the bull. Bull is his vehicle. This denotes that Lord Siva is the protector of Dharma, is an embodiment of Dharma or righteousness.
Gaṇa: The Gaṇas (Devanagari: गण) are attendants of Shiva and live in Kailash. They are often referred to as the bhutaganas, or ghostly hosts, on account of their nature. Generally benign, except when their lord is transgressed against, they are often invoked to intercede with the lord on behalf of the devotee. Ganesha was chosen as their leader by Shiva, hence Ganesha's title gaṇa-īśa or gaṇa-pati, "lord of the gaṇas".
Mount Kailāsa: Mount Kailash in the Himalayas is his traditional abode. In Hindu mythology, Mount Kailāsa is conceived as resembling a Linga, representing the center of the universe.
Varanasi: Varanasi (Benares) is considered to be the city specially loved by Shiva, and is one of the holiest places of pilgrimage in India. It is referred to, in religious contexts, as Kashi.
LINGAM
Apart from anthropomorphic images of Shiva, the worship of Shiva in the form of a lingam, or linga, is also important. These are depicted in various forms. One common form is the shape of a vertical rounded column. Shiva means auspiciousness, and linga means a sign or a symbol. Hence, the Shivalinga is regarded as a "symbol of the great God of the universe who is all-auspiciousness". Shiva also means "one in whom the whole creation sleeps after dissolution". Linga also means the same thing—a place where created objects get dissolved during the disintegration of the created universe. Since, according to Hinduism, it is the same god that creates, sustains and withdraws the universe, the Shivalinga represents symbolically God Himself. Some scholars, such as Monier Monier-Williams and Wendy Doniger, also view linga as a phallic symbol, although this interpretation is disputed by others, including Christopher Isherwood, Vivekananda, Swami Sivananda, and S.N. Balagangadhara.
JYOTIRLINGA
The worship of the Shiva-Linga originated from the famous hymn in the Atharva-Veda Samhitâ sung in praise of the Yupa-Stambha, the sacrificial post. In that hymn, a description is found of the beginningless and endless Stambha or Skambha, and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. Just as the Yajna (sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes, and flames, the Soma plant, and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the Vedic sacrifice gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of Shiva's body, his tawny matted hair, his blue throat, and the riding on the bull of the Shiva, the Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Shiva-Linga. In the text Linga Purana, the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories, meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the superiority of Shiva as Mahadeva.
The sacred of all Shiva linga is worshipped as Jyotir linga. Jyoti means Radiance, apart from relating Shiva linga as a phallus symbol, there are also arguments that Shiva linga means 'mark' or a 'sign'. Jyotirlinga means "The Radiant sign of The Almighty". The Jyotirlingas are mentioned in Shiva Purana.
SHAKTI
Shiva forms a Tantric couple with Shakti [Tamil : சக்தி ], the embodiment of energy, dynamism, and the motivating force behind all action and existence in the material universe. Shiva is her transcendent masculine aspect, providing the divine ground of all being. Shakti manifests in several female deities. Sati and Parvati are the main consorts of Shiva. She is also referred to as Uma, Durga (Parvata), Kali and Chandika. Kali is the manifestation of Shakti in her dreadful aspect. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kāla, the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" (as in "time has come"). Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Shākta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatārini (literally "redeemer of the universe"). Kālī is represented as the consort of Lord Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing or dancing. Shiva is the masculine force, the power of peace, while Shakti translates to power, and is considered as the feminine force. In the Vaishnava tradition, these realities are portrayed as Vishnu and Laxmi, or Radha and Krishna. These are differences in formulation rather than a fundamental difference in the principles. Both Shiva and Shakti have various forms. Shiva has forms like Yogi Raj (the common image of Himself meditating in the Himalayas), Rudra (a wrathful form) and Natarajar (Shiva's dance are the Lasya - the gentle form of dance, associated with the creation of the world, and the Tandava - the violent and dangerous dance, associated with the destruction of weary worldviews – weary perspectives and lifestyles).
THE FIVE MANTRAS
Five is a sacred number for Shiva. One of his most important mantras has five syllables (namaḥ śivāya).
Shiva's body is said to consist of five mantras, called the pañcabrahmans. As forms of God, each of these have their own names and distinct iconography:
Sadyojāta
Vāmadeva
Aghora
Tatpuruṣha
Īsāna
These are represented as the five faces of Shiva and are associated in various texts with the five elements, the five senses, the five organs of perception, and the five organs of action. Doctrinal differences and, possibly, errors in transmission, have resulted in some differences between texts in details of how these five forms are linked with various attributes. The overall meaning of these associations is summarized by Stella Kramrisch:
Through these transcendent categories, Śiva, the ultimate reality, becomes the efficient and material cause of all that exists.
According to the Pañcabrahma Upanishad:
One should know all things of the phenomenal world as of a fivefold character, for the reason that the eternal verity of Śiva is of the character of the fivefold Brahman. (Pañcabrahma Upanishad 31)
FORMES AND ROLES
According to Gavin Flood, "Shiva is a god of ambiguity and paradox," whose attributes include opposing themes.[168] The ambivalent nature of this deity is apparent in some of his names and the stories told about him.
DESTROYER AND BENEFACTOR
In the Yajurveda, two contrary sets of attributes for both malignant or terrific (Sanskrit: rudra) and benign or auspicious (Sanskrit: śiva) forms can be found, leading Chakravarti to conclude that "all the basic elements which created the complex Rudra-Śiva sect of later ages are to be found here". In the Mahabharata, Shiva is depicted as "the standard of invincibility, might, and terror", as well as a figure of honor, delight, and brilliance. The duality of Shiva's fearful and auspicious attributes appears in contrasted names.
The name Rudra (Sanskrit: रुद्र) reflects his fearsome aspects. According to traditional etymologies, the Sanskrit name Rudra is derived from the root rud-, which means "to cry, howl". Stella Kramrisch notes a different etymology connected with the adjectival form raudra, which means "wild, of rudra nature", and translates the name Rudra as "the wild one" or "the fierce god". R. K. Sharma follows this alternate etymology and translates the name as "terrible". Hara (Sanskrit: हर) is an important name that occurs three times in the Anushasanaparvan version of the Shiva sahasranama, where it is translated in different ways each time it occurs, following a commentorial tradition of not repeating an interpretation. Sharma translates the three as "one who captivates", "one who consolidates", and "one who destroys". Kramrisch translates it as "the ravisher". Another of Shiva's fearsome forms is as Kāla (Sanskrit: काल), "time", and as Mahākāla (Sanskrit: महाकाल), "great time", which ultimately destroys all things. Bhairava (Sanskrit: भैरव), "terrible" or "frightful", is a fierce form associated with annihilation.
In contrast, the name Śaṇkara (Sanskrit: शङ्कर), "beneficent" or "conferring happiness" reflects his benign form. This name was adopted by the great Vedanta philosopher Śaṇkara (c. 788 - 820 CE), who is also known as Shankaracharya. The name Śambhu (Sanskrit: शम्भु), "causing happiness", also reflects this benign aspect.
ASCETIC AND HOUSEHOLDER
He is depicted as both an ascetic yogi and as a householder, roles which have been traditionally mutually exclusive in Hindu society.[185] When depicted as a yogi, he may be shown sitting and meditating. His epithet Mahāyogi ("the great Yogi: Mahā = "great", Yogi = "one who practices Yoga") refers to his association with yoga. While Vedic religion was conceived mainly in terms of sacrifice, it was during the Epic period that the concepts of tapas, yoga, and asceticism became more important, and the depiction of Shiva as an ascetic sitting in philosophical isolation reflects these later concepts. Shiva is also depicted as a corpse below Goddess Kali, it represents that Shiva is a corpse without Shakti. He remains inert. While Shiva is the static form, Mahakali or Shakti is the dynamic aspect without whom Shiva is powerless.
As a family man and householder, he has a wife, Parvati and two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya. His epithet Umāpati ("The husband of Umā") refers to this idea, and Sharma notes that two other variants of this name that mean the same thing, Umākānta and Umādhava, also appear in the sahasranama. Umā in epic literature is known by many names, including the benign Pārvatī. She is identified with Devi, the Divine Mother; Shakti (divine energy) as well as goddesses like Tripura Sundari, Durga, Kamakshi and Meenakshi. The consorts of Shiva are the source of his creative energy. They represent the dynamic extension of Shiva onto this universe. His son Ganesha is worshipped throughout India and Nepal as the Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles. Kartikeya is worshipped in Southern India (especially in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka) by the names Subrahmanya, Subrahmanyan, Shanmughan, Swaminathan and Murugan, and in Northern India by the names Skanda, Kumara, or Karttikeya.
Some regional deities are also identified as Shiva's children. As one story goes, Shiva is enticed by the beauty and charm of Mohini, Vishnu's female avatar, and procreates with her. As a result of this union, Shasta - identified with regional deities Ayyappa and Ayyanar - is born. Shiva is also mentioned in some scriptures or folktales to have had daughters like the serpent-goddess Manasa and Ashokasundari. Even the demon Andhaka is sometimes considered a child of Shiva.
NATARAJA
he depiction of Shiva as Nataraja (Tamil: நடராஜா,Kannada: ನಟರಾಜ, Telugu: నటరాజు, Sanskrit: naṭarāja, "Lord of Dance") is popular. The names Nartaka ("dancer") and Nityanarta ("eternal dancer") appear in the Shiva Sahasranama. His association with dance and also with music is prominent in the Puranic period. In addition to the specific iconographic form known as Nataraja, various other types of dancing forms (Sanskrit: nṛtyamūrti) are found in all parts of India, with many well-defined varieties in Tamil Nadu in particular. The two most common forms of the dance are the Tandava, which later came to denote the powerful and masculine dance as Kala-Mahakala associated with the destruction of the world. When it requires the world or universe to be destroyed, Lord Śiva does it by the tāṇḍavanṛtya. and Lasya, which is graceful and delicate and expresses emotions on a gentle level and is considered the feminine dance attributed to the goddess Parvati. Lasya is regarded as the female counterpart of Tandava. The Tandava-Lasya dances are associated with the destruction-creation of the world.
DAKSHINAMURTHY
Dakshinamurthy, or Dakṣiṇāmūrti (Tamil:தட்சிணாமூர்த்தி, Telugu: దక్షిణామూర్తి, Sanskrit: दक्षिणामूर्ति), literally describes a form (mūrti) of Shiva facing south (dakṣiṇa). This form represents Shiva in his aspect as a teacher of yoga, music, and wisdom and giving exposition on the shastras. This iconographic form for depicting Shiva in Indian art is mostly from Tamil Nadu. Elements of this motif can include Shiva seated upon a deer-throne and surrounded by sages who are receiving his instruction.
ARDANARISHVARA
An iconographic representation of Shiva called (Ardhanārīśvara) shows him with one half of the body as male and the other half as female. According to Ellen Goldberg, the traditional Sanskrit name for this form (Ardhanārīśvara) is best translated as "the lord who is half woman", not as "half-man, half-woman". According to legend, Lord Shiva is pleased by the difficult austerites performed by the goddess Parvati, grants her the left half of his body. This form of Shiva is quite similar to the Yin-Yang philosophy of Eastern Asia, though Ardhanārīśvara appears to be more ancient.
TRIRUPANTAKA
Shiva is often depicted as an archer in the act of destroying the triple fortresses, Tripura, of the Asuras. Shiva's name Tripurantaka (Sanskrit: त्रिपुरान्तक, Tripurāntaka), "ender of Tripura", refers to this important story.[216] In this aspect, Shiva is depicted with four arms wielding a bow and arrow, but different from the Pinakapani murti. He holds an axe and a deer on the upper pair of his arms. In the lower pair of the arms, he holds a bow and an arrow respectively. After destroying Tripura, Tripurantaka Shiva smeared his forehead with three strokes of Ashes. This has become a prominent symbol of Shiva and is practiced even today by Shaivites.
OTHER FORMS, AVATARS IDENTIFICATIONS
Shiva, like some other Hindu deities, is said to have several incarnations, known as Avatars. Although Puranic scriptures contain occasional references to "ansh" avatars of Shiva, the idea is not universally accepted in Saivism. The Linga Purana speaks of twenty-eight forms of Shiva which are sometimes seen as avatars. According to the Svetasvatara Upanishad, he has four avatars.
In the Hanuman Chalisa, Hanuman is identified as the eleventh avatar of Shiva and this belief is universal. Hanuman is popularly known as “Rudraavtaar” “Rudra” being a name of “Shiva”. Rama– the Vishnu avatar is considered by some to be the eleventh avatar of Rudra (Shiva).
Other traditions regard the sage Durvasa, the sage Agastya, the philosopher Adi Shankara, as avatars of Shiva. Other forms of Shiva include Virabhadra and Sharabha.
FESTIVALS
Maha Shivratri is a festival celebrated every year on the 13th night or the 14th day of the new moon in the Shukla Paksha of the month of Maagha or Phalguna in the Hindu calendar. This festival is of utmost importance to the devotees of Lord Shiva. Mahashivaratri marks the night when Lord Shiva performed the 'Tandava' and it is the day that Lord Shiva was married to Parvati. The holiday is often celebrated with special prayers and rituals offered up to Shiva, notably the Abhishek. This ritual, practiced throughout the night, is often performed every three hours with water, milk, yogurt, and honey. Bel (aegle marmelos) leaves are often offered up to the Hindu god, as it is considered necessary for a successful life. The offering of the leaves are considered so important that it is believed that someone who offers them without any intentions will be rewarded greatly.
BEYOND HINDUISM
BUDDHISM
Shiva is mentioned in Buddhist Tantra. Shiva as Upaya and Shakti as Prajna. In cosmologies of buddhist tantra, Shiva is depicted as active, skillful, and more passive.
SIKHISM
The Japuji Sahib of the Guru Granth Sahib says, "The Guru is Shiva, the Guru is Vishnu and Brahma; the Guru is Paarvati and Lakhshmi." In the same chapter, it also says, "Shiva speaks, the Siddhas speak."
In Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh have mentioned two avtars of Rudra: Dattatreya Avtar and Parasnath Avtar.
OTHERS
The worship of Lord Shiva became popular in Central Asia through the Hephthalite (White Hun) Dynasty, and Kushan Empire. Shaivism was also popular in Sogdiana and Eastern Turkestan as found from the wall painting from Penjikent on the river Zervashan. In this depiction, Shiva is portrayed with a sacred halo and a sacred thread ("Yajnopavita"). He is clad in tiger skin while his attendants are wearing Sodgian dress. In Eastern Turkestan in the Taklamakan Desert. There is a depiction of his four-legged seated cross-legged n a cushioned seat supported by two bulls. Another panel form Dandan-Uilip shows Shiva in His Trimurti form with His Shakti kneeling on her right thigh. It is also noted that Zoroastrian wind god Vayu-Vata took on the iconographic appearance of Shiva.
Kirant people, a Mongol tribe from Nepal, worship a form of Shiva as one of their major deity, identifying him as the lord of animals. It is also said that the physical form of Shiva as a yogi is derived from Kirants as it is mentioned in Mundhum that Shiva took human form as a child of Kirant. He is also said to give Kirants visions in form of a male deer.
In Indonesia, Shiva is also worshiped as Batara Guru. His other name is "Sang Hyang Jagadnata" (king of the universe) and "Sang Hyang Girinata" (king of mountains). In the ancient times, all kingdoms were located on top of mountains. When he was young, before receiving his authority of power, his name was Sang Hyang Manikmaya. He is first of the children who hatched from the eggs laid by Manuk Patiaraja, wife of god Mulajadi na Bolon. This avatar is also worshiped in Malaysia. Shiva's other form in Indonesian Hindu worship is "Maharaja Dewa" (Mahadeva). Both the forms are closely identified with the Sun in local forms of Hinduism or Kebatinan, and even in the genie lore of Muslims. Mostly Shiva is worshipped in the form of a lingam or the phallus.
WIKIPEDIA
A costumed Chichimeca Concheros dancer is taking a break in front of a Day of the Dead display on 5 de Mayo in Centro Querétaro.
The Concheros dance, also known as the dance of the Chichimecas, Aztecas and Mexicas, is an important traditional dance and ceremony which has been performed in Mexico since early in the colonial period.
The dance presents syncretic features both pre-Hispanic and Christian. The dance has strong visual markers of its pre-Hispanic roots with feathered regalia, indigenous dance steps and indigenous instruments such as drums.
However, the name Concheros comes from a type of lute made with an armadillo shell, showing Spanish influence.
The dance in its current form was the adaptation of the old “mitote” dance to Catholicism as a means of preserving some aspects of indigenous rite.
The dance remained a purely religious ceremony until the mid 20th century when political and social changes in Mexico gave it cultural significance as a folk dance.
Dancers clothing can range from completely covered to nearly nude. Dancers dress as lavishly as economy permits.
Regalia include various elements such as animal parts, painted scenes related to religion, history, war, hunting and agriculture.
The most traditional outfits are made from natural elements, but are often include commercial fabric.
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Mystic harp playing
an endless hypnotic repeating sweet melody
intense incense flavour
green leaves covered floor
in a syncretic church.
Un'arpa mistica che suona
ripetendo senza fine una melodia ipnotica
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in una chiesina sincretica.
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The Khajuraho Group of Monuments is a group of Hindu and Jain temples in Madhya Pradesh, India, about 175 kilometres southeast of Jhansi. They are one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India. The temples are famous for their nagara-style architectural symbolism and their erotic sculptures.
Most Khajuraho temples were built between 950 and 1050 by the Chandela dynasty. Historical records note that the Khajuraho temple site had 85 temples by 12th century, spread over 20 square kilometers. Of these, only about 20 temples have survived, spread over 6 square kilometers. Of the various surviving temples, the Kandariya Mahadeva Temple is decorated with a profusion of sculptures with intricate details, symbolism and expressiveness of ancient Indian art.
The Khajuraho group of temples were built together but were dedicated to two religions - namely Hinduism and Jainism - suggesting a tradition of acceptance and respect for diverse religious views among Hindus and Jains.
LOCATION
Khajuraho group of monuments are located in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in Chhatarpur district, about 620 kilometres southeast of New Delhi. The temples are in a small town also known as Khajuraho, with a population of about 20,000 people (2001 Census).
Khajuraho is served by Civil Aerodrome Khajuraho (IATA Code: HJR), with services to Delhi, Agra, Varanasi and Mumbai. The site is also linked by Indian Railways service, with the railway station located approximately six kilometres from the monuments entrance.
The monuments are about 10 kilometres off the east-west National Highway 75, and about 50 kilometres from the city of Chhatarpur, that is connected to Bhopal - the state capital - by the SW-NE running National Highway 86.
HISTORY
The Khajuraho group of monuments was built during the rule of the Rajput Chandela dynasty. The building activity started almost immediately after the rise of their power, throughout their kingdom to be later known as Bundelkhand. Most temples were built during the reigns of the Hindu kings Yashovarman and Dhanga. Yashovarman's legacy is best exhibited by Lakshmana temple. Vishvanatha temple best highlights King Dhanga's reign. The largest and currently most famous surviving temple is Kandariya Mahadeva built in the reign of King Ganda from 1017-1029 CE. The temple inscriptions suggest many of the currently surviving temples were complete between 970 to 1030 CE, with further temples completed during the following decades.
The Khajuraho temples were built about 35 miles from the medieval city of Mahoba, the capital of the Chandela dynasty, in the Kalinjar region. In ancient and medieval literature, their kingdom has been referred to as Jijhoti, Jejahoti, Chih-chi-to and Jejakabhukti.
Khajuraho was mentioned by Abu Rihan-al-Biruni, the Persian historian who accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni in his raid of Kalinjar in 1022 CE; he mentions Khajuraho as the capital of Jajahuti. The raid was unsuccessful, and a peace accord was reached when the Hindu king agreed to pay a ransom to Mahmud of Ghazni to end the attack and leave.
Khajuraho temples were in active use through the end of 12th century. This changed in the 13th century, after the army of Delhi Sultanate, under the command of the Muslim Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aibak, attacked and seized the Chandela kingdom. About a century later, Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveller in his memoirs about his stay in India from 1335 to 1342 CE, mentioned visiting Khajuraho temples, calling them “Kajarra” as follows:
...near (Khajuraho) temples, which contain idols that have been mutilated by the Moslems, live a number of yogis whose matted locks have grown as long as their bodies. And on account of extreme asceticism they are all yellow in colour. Many Moslems attend these men in order to take lessons (yoga) from them.
— Ibn Battuta, about 1335 CE, Riḥlat Ibn Baṭūṭah, Translated by Arthur Cotterell
Central Indian region, where Khajuraho temples are, remained in the control of many different Muslim dynasties from 13th century through the 18th century. In this period, some temples were desecrated, followed by a long period when they were left in neglect. In 1495 CE, for example, Sikandar Lodi’s campaign of temple destruction included Khajuraho. The remoteness and isolation of Khajuraho protected the Hindu and Jain temples from continued destruction by Muslims. Over the centuries, vegetation and forests overgrew, took over the temples.
In the 1830s, local Hindus guided a British surveyor, T.S. Burt, to the temples and they were thus rediscovered by the global audience. Alexander Cunningham later reported, few years after the rediscovery, that the temples were secretly in use by yogis and thousands of Hindus would arrive for pilgrimage during Shivaratri celebrated annually in February or March based on a lunar calendar. In 1852, Maisey prepared earliest drawings of the Khajuraho temples.
NOMENCLATURE
The name Khajuraho, or Kharjuravāhaka, is derived from ancient Sanskrit (kharjura, खर्जूर means date palm, and vāhaka, वाहक means "one who carries" or bearer). Local legends state that the temples had two golden date-palm trees as their gate (missing when they were rediscovered). Desai states that Kharjuravāhaka also means scorpion bearer, which is another symbolic name for deity Shiva (who wears snakes and scorpion garlands in his fierce form).
Cunningham’s nomenclature and systematic documentation work in 1850s and 1860s have been widely adopted and continue to be in use. He grouped the temples into the Western group around Lakshmana, Eastern group around Javeri, and Southern group around Duladeva.
Khajuraho is one of the four holy sites linked to deity Shiva (the other three are Kedarnath, Kashi and Gaya). Its origin and design is a subject of scholarly studies. Shobita Punja has proposed that the temple’s origin reflect the Hindu mythology in which Khajuraho is the place where Shiva got married; with Raghuvamsha verse 5.53, Matangeshvara honoring ‘’Matanga’’, or god of love.
DESCRIPTION
The temple site is within Vindhya mountain range in central India. An ancient local legend held that Hindu deity Shiva and other gods enjoyed visiting the dramatic hill formation in Kalinjar area. The center of this region is Khajuraho, set midst local hills and rivers. The temple complex reflects the ancient Hindu tradition of building temples where gods love to play.
The temples are clustered near water, another typical feature of Hindu temples. The current water bodies include Sib Sagar, Khajur Sagar (also called Ninora Tal) and Khudar Nadi (river). The local legends state that the temple complex had 64 water bodies, of which 56 have been physically identified by archeologists so far.
All temples, except one (Chaturbhuja) face sunrise - another symbolic feature that is predominant in Hindu temples. The relative layout of temples integrate masculine and feminine deities and symbols highlight the interdependence. The art work symbolically highlight the four goals of life considered necessary and proper in Hinduism - dharma, kama, artha and moksha.
Of the surviving temples, 6 are dedicated to Shiva and his consorts, 8 to Vishnu and his affinities, 1 to Ganesha, 1 to Sun god, 3 to Jain Tirthanks. For some ruins, there is insufficient evidence to assign the temple to specific deities with confidence.
An overall examination of site suggests that the Hindu symbolic mandala design principle of square and circles is present each temple plan and design. Further, the territory is laid out in three triangles that converge to form a pentagon. Scholars suggest that this reflects the Hindu symbolism for three realms or trilokinatha, and five cosmic substances or panchbhuteshvara. The temple site highlights Shiva, the one who destroys and recycles life, thereby controlling the cosmic dance of time, evolution and dissolution. The temples have a rich display of intricately carved statues. While they are famous for their erotic sculpture, sexual themes cover less than 10% of the temple sculpture. Further, most erotic scene panels are neither prominent nor emphasized at the expense of the rest, rather they are in proportional balance with the non-sexual images. The viewer has to look closely to find them, or be directed by a guide. The arts cover numerous aspects of human life and values considered important in Hindu pantheon. Further, the images are arranged in a configuration to express central ideas of Hinduism. All three ideas from Āgamas are richly expressed in Khajuraho temples - Avyakta, Vyaktavyakta and Vyakta.
The Beejamandal temple is under excavation. It has been identified with the Vaidyanath temple mentioned in the Grahpati Kokalla inscription.
Of all temples, the Matangeshvara temple remains an active site of worship. It is another square grid temple, with a large 2.5 metres high and 1.1 metres diameter lingam, placed on a 7.6 metres diameter platform.
The most visited temple, Kandariya Mahadev, has an area of about 6,500 square feet and a shikhara (spire) that rises 116 feet. Jain templesThe Jain temples are located on east-southeast region of Khajuraho monuments. Chausath jogini temple features 64 jogini, while Ghantai temple features bells sculptured on its pillars.
ARCHITECTURE OF THE TEMPLES
Khajuraho temples, like almost all Hindu temple designs, follow a grid geometrical design called vastu-purusha-mandala. This design plan has three important components - Mandala means circle, Purusha is universal essence at the core of Hindu tradition, while Vastu means the dwelling structure.
The design lays out a Hindu temple in a symmetrical, concentrically layered, self-repeating structure around the core of the temple called garbhagriya, where the abstract principle Purusha and the primary deity of the temple dwell. The shikhara, or spire, of the temple rises above the garbhagriya. This symmetry and structure in design is derived from central beliefs, myths, cardinality and mathematical principles.
The circle of mandala circumscribe the square. The square is considered divine for its perfection and as a symbolic product of knowledge and human thought, while circle is considered earthly, human and observed in everyday life (moon, sun, horizon, water drop, rainbow). Each supports the other. The square is divided into perfect 64 sub-squares called padas.
Most Khajuraho temples deploy the 8x8 padas grid Manduka Vastupurushamandala, with pitha mandala the square grid incorporated in the design of the spires. The primary deity or lingas are located in the grid’s Brahma padas.
The architecture is symbolic and reflects the central Hindu beliefs through its form, structure and arrangement of its parts. The mandapas as well as the arts are arranged in the Khajuraho temples in a symmetric repeating patterns, even though each image or sculpture is distinctive in its own way. The relative placement of the images are not random but together they express ideas, just like connected words form sentences and paragraphs to compose ideas. This fractal pattern that is common in Hindu temples. Various statues and panels have inscriptions. Many of the inscriptions on the temple walls are poems with double meanings, something that the complex structure of Sanskrit allows in creative compositions. All Khajuraho temples, except one, face sunrise, and the entrance for the devotee is this east side.Above the vastu-purusha-mandala of each temple is a superstructure with a dome called Shikhara (or Vimana, Spire). Variations in spire design come from variation in degrees turned for the squares. The temple Shikhara, in some literature, is linked to mount Kailash or Meru, the mythical abode of the gods.In each temple, the central space typically is surrounded by an ambulatory for the pilgrim to walk around and ritually circumambulate the Purusa and the main deity. The pillars, walls and ceilings around the space, as well as outside have highly ornate carvings or images of the four just and necessary pursuits of life - kama, artha, dharma and moksa. This clockwise walk around is called pradakshina. Larger Khajuraho temples also have pillared halls called mandapa. One near the entrance, on the east side, serves as the waiting room for pilgrims and devotees. The mandapas are also arranged by principles of symmetry, grids and mathematical precision. This use of same underlying architectural principle is common in Hindu temples found all over India. Each Khajuraho temple is distinctly carved yet also repeating the central common principles in almost all Hindu temples, one which Susan Lewandowski refers to as “an organism of repeating cells”.
CONSTRUCTION
The temples are grouped into three geographical divisions: western, eastern and southern.
The Khajuraho temples are made of sandstone, with a granite foundation that is almost concealed from view. The builders didn't use mortar: the stones were put together with mortise and tenon joints and they were held in place by gravity. This form of construction requires very precise joints. The columns and architraves were built with megaliths that weighed up to 20 tons. Some repair work in the 19th Century was done with brick and mortar; however these have aged faster than original materials and darkened with time, thereby seeming out of place.
The Khajuraho and Kalinjar region is home to superior quality of sandstone, which can be precision carved. The surviving sculpture reflect fine details such as strands of hair, manicured nails and intricate jewelry.
While recording the television show Lost Worlds (History Channel) at Khajuraho, Alex Evans recreated a stone sculpture under 4 feet that took about 60 days to carve in an attempt to develop a rough idea how much work must have been involved. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehner also conducted experiments to quarry limestone which took 12 quarrymen 22 days to quarry about 400 tons of stone. They concluded that these temples would have required hundreds of highly trained sculptors.
CHRONOLOGY
The Khajuraho group of temples belong to Vaishnavism school of Hinduism, Saivism school of Hinduism and Jainism - nearly a third each. Archaeological studies suggest all three types of temples were under construction at about the same time in late 10th century, and in use simultaneously. Will Durant states that this aspect of Khajuraho temples illustrates the tolerance and respect for different religious viewpoints in the Hindu and Jain traditions. In each group of Khajuraho temples, there were major temples surrounded by smaller temples - a grid style that is observed to varying degrees in Hindu temples in Angkor Wat, Parambaran and South India.
The largest surviving Saiva temple is Khandarya Mahadeva, while the largest surviving Vaishnava group includes Chaturbhuja and Ramachandra.
Kandariya Mahadeva Temple plan is 109 ft in length by 60 ft, and rises 116 ft above ground and 88 ft above its own floor. The central padas are surrounded by three rows of sculptured figures, with over 870 statues, most being half life size (2.5 to 3 feet). The spire is a self repeating fractal structure.
ARTS AND SCULPTURE
The Khajuraho temples feature a variety of art work, of which 10% is sexual or erotic art outside and inside the temples. Some of the temples that have two layers of walls have small erotic carvings on the outside of the inner wall. Some scholars suggest these to be tantric sexual practices. Other scholars state that the erotic arts are part of Hindu tradition of treating kama as an essential and proper part of human life, and its symbolic or explicit display is common in Hindu temples. James McConnachie, in his history of the Kamasutra, describes the sexual-themed Khajuraho sculptures as "the apogee of erotic art": "Twisting, broad-hipped and high breasted nymphs display their generously contoured and bejewelled bodies on exquisitely worked exterior wall panels. These fleshy apsaras run riot across the surface of the stone, putting on make-up, washing their hair, playing games, dancing, and endlessly knotting and unknotting their girdles....Beside the heavenly nymphs are serried ranks of griffins, guardian deities and, most notoriously, extravagantly interlocked maithunas, or lovemaking couples."
The temples have several thousand statues and art works, with Kandarya Mahadeva Temple alone decorated with over 870. Some 10% of these iconographic carvings contain sexual themes and various sexual poses. A common misconception is that, since the old structures with carvings in Khajuraho are temples, the carvings depict sex between deities; however the kama arts represent diverse sexual expressions of different human beings. The vast majority of arts depict various aspects the everyday life, mythical stories as well as symbolic display of various secular and spiritual values important in Hindu tradition. For example, depictions show women putting on makeup, musicians making music, potters, farmers, and other folks in their daily life during the medieval era. These scenes are in the outer padas as is typical in Hindu temples.
There is iconographic symbolism embedded in the arts displayed in Khajuraho temples. Core Hindu values are expressed in multitude of ways. Even the Kama scenes, when seen in combination of sculptures that precede and follow, depict the spiritual themes such as moksha. In the words of Stella Kramrisch,
This state which is “like a man and woman in close embrace” is a symbol of moksa, final release or reunion of two principles, the essence (Purusha) and the nature (Prakriti).
— Stella Kramrisch, 1976
The Khajuraho temples represent one expression of many forms of arts that flourished in Rajput kingdoms of India from 8th through 10th century CE. For example, contemporary with Khajuraho were the publications of poems and drama such as Prabodhacandrodaya, Karpuramanjari, Viddhasalabhanjika and Kavyamimansa. Some of the themes expressed in these literary works are carved as sculpture in Khajuraho temples. Some sculptures at the Khajuraho monuments dedicated to Vishnu include the Vyalas, which are hybrid imaginary animals with lions body, and are found in other Indian temples. Some of these hybrid mythical art work include Vrik Vyala (hybrid of wolf and lion) and Gaja Vyala (hybrid of elephant and lion). These Vyalas may represent syncretic, creative combination of powers innate in the two.
TEMPLE NAME - DEITY - YEAR COMPLETED
Chausath Yogini - Devi, 64 Yoginis - 885
Brahma - Vishnu - 925
Lalgun Mahadev - Shiva - 900
Matangeshwar - Shiva - 1000
Varaha - Vishnu - 950
Lakshmana - Vaikuntha Vishnu - 939
Parshvanath - Parshvanath - 954
Visvanatha - Shiva - 999
Devi Jagadambi - Devi, Parvati - 1023
Chitragupta - Sun, Chitragupta - 1023
Kandariya Mahadeva - Shiva - 1029
Vamana - Vamana - 1062
Adinath Jain Temple - Rishabha - 1027
Javeri - Vishnu - 1090
Chaturbhuja - Vishnu - 1110
Duladeo (Duladeva) - Shiva - 1125
Ghantai - Jain Tirthankara - 960
Vishnu-Garuda - Vishnu - 1000
Ganesha - Shiva - 1000
Hanuman - Hanuman - 922
Mahishasuramardini - Devi - 995
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makli_Hill
One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. [1]
Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gravestones spread over the cemetery are material documents marking the social and political history of Sind.
Imperial mausoleums are divided into two major groups, those from the Samma (1352–1520) and Tarkhan (1556–1592) periods. The tomb of the Samma king, Jam Nizamuddin II (reigned 1461–1509), is an impressive square structure built of sandstone and decorated with floral and geometric medallions. Similar to this is the mausoleum of Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d. 1651), a two-story stone building with majestic cupolas and balconies. In contrast to the syncretic architecture of these two monuments, which integrate Hindu and Islamic motifs, are mausoleums that clearly show the Central Asian roots of the later dynasty. An example is the tomb of Jan Beg Tarkhan (d. 1600), a typical octagonal brick structure whose dome is covered in blue and turquoise glazed tiles. Today, Makli Hill is a United Nations World Heritage Site that is visited by both pilgrims and tourists.
A human touch upon emotive technology.
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makli_Hill
One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. [1]
Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gravestones spread over the cemetery are material documents marking the social and political history of Sind.
Imperial mausoleums are divided into two major groups, those from the Samma (1352–1520) and Tarkhan (1556–1592) periods. The tomb of the Samma king, Jam Nizamuddin II (reigned 1461–1509), is an impressive square structure built of sandstone and decorated with floral and geometric medallions. Similar to this is the mausoleum of Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d. 1651), a two-story stone building with majestic cupolas and balconies. In contrast to the syncretic architecture of these two monuments, which integrate Hindu and Islamic motifs, are mausoleums that clearly show the Central Asian roots of the later dynasty. An example is the tomb of Jan Beg Tarkhan (d. 1600), a typical octagonal brick structure whose dome is covered in blue and turquoise glazed tiles. Today, Makli Hill is a United Nations World Heritage Site that is visited by both pilgrims and tourists.
The reverse of this aureus (gold) coin depicts the bearded head of the god Jupiter Ammon, with his signature horns. The inscription reads IOVI VICTORI - Jupiter Victorious. The Romans considered the revered North African oracle Ammon an embodiment of Jupiter, and referred to this syncretic dual divinity as Jupiter Ammon. This is especially fitting, because the obverse (front) of this coin depicts the North African emperor Septimius Severus.
Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus (ruled 27 BCE-14 CE), the Romans regularly issued coins displaying a portrait of the ruler or one of his family members on the obverse (front). The reverse bore an image of a deity, mythological figure (as is the case here), building, or historical event. The imperial portraits are finely modeled and often represent individuals not seen in surviving sculpture.
Roman, ca. 207 CE, minted in Rome. Gold.
Getty Villa Museum, on loan from Dr. Keith M. Barron
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Taman Sari, or "Water Palace", was a 18th-century palace built by the sultans of Yogya in a syncretic Hindu-Islamic style, following a legend in which a Mataram sultan had a magical experience with Ratu Kidul, the Queen of the South Sea, in her underwater palace, where he learned the values of being a good ruler. Taman Sari, therefore, is built with various references to water and spiritual Hindu references of cosmic balance (Mount Meru, the Sea, the sky, etc.).
The city of Yogyakarta was the result of a dynastic split in the Mataram Sultanate, with the towns of Yogyakarta and Surakarta both being found around 1755 by different members of the same family, proclaiming themselves as sultans. These rulers were descendants from the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit rulers, and although they were nominally Muslim by this time, they still upheld strong Hindu-Islamic syncretic beliefs and traditions at the court. The Hindu influences are still clearly visible in the palaces and mosques of the sultans in Yogyakarta. "Yogya" today is a beautiful and fascinating historical city in Central Java.
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The Last Samurai of The Mountain 山の最後の侍
By Daniel Arrhakis / 大仁得 赤竜 / 丹尼尔·红龙 (2024)
With the music : 木枯 · Seizan Ishigaki composer Nakao Tozan
A new series "Tateyama Impressions" with an inspired Japanese abstract painting dreaming mood.
Mount Tate or Tateyama is a mountain located in the southeastern area of Toyama Prefecture, Japan. It is one of the tallest mountains in the Hida Mountains and one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains.
According to legend, in the year 701, at a mere 16 years of age, Saeki Arinori received a divine message telling him to pioneer the Tateyama mountains.
Arinori was then led into the mountains by a white hawk and a black bear. It is said the hawk was the god Fudo Myoo, and the bear was the god Amida Nyorai.
The ancient Japanese beliefs of Shintoism and the imported beliefs of Buddhism were blended together to form a syncretic Shinto-Buddhist religion, which became the Tateyama faith that spread throughout Japan.
In the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, the demiurge (/ˈdɛmi.ɜːrdʒ/) is an artisan-like figure responsible for fashioning and maintaining the physical universe. The Gnostics adopted the term demiurge. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not necessarily the same as the creator figure in the monotheistic sense, because the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are both considered consequences of something else. Depending on the system, they may be considered either uncreated and eternal or the product of some other entity.
The word demiurge is an English word derived from demiurgus, a Latinised form of the Greek δημιουργός or dēmiurgós. It was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually came to mean "producer", and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus, written c. 360 BC, where the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. The demiurge is also described as a creator in the Platonic (c. 310–90 BC) and Middle Platonic (c. 90 BC – AD 300) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world after the model of the Ideas, but (in most Neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil, while the non-material world is good. According to some strains of Gnosticism, the demiurge is malevolent, as it is linked to the material world. In others, including the teaching of Valentinus, the demiurge is simply ignorant or misguided.
Contents
1Platonism and neoplatonism
1.1Plato and the Timaeus
1.2Middle Platonism
1.3Neoplatonism
1.3.1Henology
1.3.2Iamblichus
2Gnosticism
2.1Mythos
2.2Angels
2.3Yaldabaoth
2.3.1Names
2.4Marcion
2.5Valentinus
2.6The devil
2.7Cathars
3Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
3.1Plotinus
4See also
5References
5.1Notes
5.2Sources
6External links
Platonism and neoplatonism[edit]
Plato and the Timaeus[edit]
Plato, as the speaker Timaeus, refers to the Demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus (28a ff.), c. 360 BC. The main character refers to the Demiurge as the entity who "fashioned and shaped" the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent, and so it desires a world as good as possible. Plato's work Timaeus is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod's cosmology in his Theogony, syncretically reconciling Hesiod to Homer.[1][2][3]
Middle Platonism[edit]
In Numenius's Neo-Pythagorean and Middle Platonist cosmogony, the Demiurge is second God as the nous or thought of intelligibles and sensibles.[4]
Neoplatonism[edit]
Plotinus and the later Platonists worked to clarify the Demiurge. To Plotinus, the second emanation represents an uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge,[5] which, as Demiurge and mind (nous), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism (also called idealism). In order to reconcile Aristotelian with Platonian philosophy,[5] Plotinus metaphorically identified the demiurge (or nous) within the pantheon of the Greek Gods as Zeus.[6]
Henology[edit]
The first and highest aspect of God is described by Plato as the One (Τὸ Ἕν, 'To Hen'), the source, or the Monad.[7] This is the God above the Demiurge, and manifests through the actions of the Demiurge. The Monad emanated the demiurge or Nous (consciousness) from its "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself, causing self-reflection.[8] This self-reflection of the indeterminate vitality was referred to by Plotinus as the "Demiurge" or creator. The second principle is organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dynamis, also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energeia emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous, Demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes the indeterminate vitality into the experience called the material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in The Enneads[9] which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or nous (c.f. pantheism).
Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which orders the force (dynamis) into conscious reality.[10] In this, he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning: a doctrine he learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Numenius, as well as a connection between Hebrew and Platonic cosmology (see also Philo).[11]
The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles:
Arche (Gr. 'beginning') – the source of all things,
Logos (Gr. 'reason/cause') – the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances,
Harmonia (Gr. 'harmony') – numerical ratios in mathematics.
Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the Demiurge on the works of Numenius.[citation needed]
Iamblichus[edit]
See also: Panentheism
Later, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus changed the role of the "One", effectively altering the role of the Demiurge as second cause or dyad, which was one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphyry came into conflict.
The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One,” or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and Demiurge (material realm) coexist via the process of henosis.[12] Iamblichus describes the One as a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect (nous), while among "the many" that follow it there is a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul (psyche).
The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous, the intellective nous, and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle's actus and potentia (actuality and potentiality) of the unmoved mover and Plato's Demiurge.
Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad (pure intellect).
In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intellectualizing gods are followed by a triad of psychic gods.
Gnosticism[edit]
It has been suggested that this section be split out into another article titled Yaldabaoth. (Discuss) (November 2018)
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Gnosticism presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God or Supreme Being and the demiurgic "creator" of the material. Several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in an unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to (or, at least possibly, the problem or cause that gives rise to)[citation needed] the problem of evil.
Mythos[edit]
One Gnostic mythos describes the declination of aspects of the divine into human form. Sophia (Greek: Σοφία, lit. 'wisdom'), the Demiurge's mother and partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or "Fullness," desired to create something apart from the divine totality, without the receipt of divine assent. In this act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and concluded that only he existed, ignorant of the superior levels of reality.
The Demiurge, having received a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm: He frames the seven heavens, as well as all material and animal things, according to forms furnished by his mother; working, however, blindly and ignorant even of the existence of the mother who is the source of all his energy. He is blind to all that is spiritual, but he is king over the other two provinces. The word dēmiurgos properly describes his relation to the material; he is the father of that which is animal like himself.[13]
Thus Sophia's power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source.
Angels[edit]
Psalm 82 begins (verse 1), "God stands in the assembly of El [LXX: assembly of gods], in the midst of the gods he renders judgment", indicating a plurality of gods, although it does not indicate that these gods were co-actors in creation. Philo had inferred from the expression "Let us make man" of the Book of Genesis that God had used other beings as assistants in the creation of man, and he explains in this way why man is capable of vice as well as virtue, ascribing the origin of the latter to God, of the former to his helpers in the work of creation.[14]
The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis.[15] So Irenaeus tells[16] of the system of Simon Magus,[17] of the system of Menander,[18] of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and[19] of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides,[20] we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.
The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome,[21] makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of him. Theodoret,[22] who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis[23] represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.
Yaldabaoth[edit]
A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of the Demiurge.
In the Ophite and Sethian systems, which have many affinities with the teachings of Valentinus, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth").
In the Apocryphon of John c. AD 120–180, the demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:
Now the archon ["ruler"] who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas ["fool"], and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.[24]
He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.[25]
Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", leontoeides, and is said to have the body of a serpent. The demiurge is also[26] described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire". Hippolytus claims that Simon used a similar description.[27]
In Pistis Sophia, Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame, and half darkness.
Under the name of Nebro (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal Gospel of Judas. He is first mentioned in "The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld" as one of the twelve angels to come "into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]". He comes from heaven, and it is said his "face flashed with fire and [his] appearance was defiled with blood". Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six, in turn, create another twelve angels "with each one receiving a portion in the heavens".
Names[edit]
Drawing of the lion-headed figure found at the Mithraeum of C. Valerius Heracles and sons, dedicated 190 CE at Ostia Antica, Italy (CIMRM 312).
The most probable derivation of the name "Yaldabaoth" was that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler. Gieseler believed the name was derived from the Aramaic yaldā bahuth, ילדאבהות, meaning "Son of Chaos". However, Gilles Quispel notes:
Gershom Scholem, the third genius in this field, more specifically the genius of precision, has taught us that some of us were wrong when they believed that Jaldabaoth means "son of chaos", because the Aramaic word bahutha in the sense of chaos only existed in the imagination of the author of a well-known dictionary. This is a pity because this name would suit the demiurge risen from chaos to a nicety. And perhaps the author of the Untitled Document did not know Aramaic and also supposed as we did once, that baoth had something to do with tohuwabohu, one of the few Hebrew words that everybody knows. ... It would seem then that the Orphic view of the demiurge was integrated into Jewish Gnosticism even before the redaction of the myth contained in the original Apocryphon of John. ... Phanes is represented with the mask of a lion's head on his breast, while from his sides the heads of a ram and a buck are budding forth: his body is encircled by a snake. This type was accepted by the Mithras mysteries, to indicate Aion, the new year, and Mithras, whose numerical value is 365. Sometimes he is also identified with Jao Adonai, the creator of the Hebrews. His hieratic attitude indicates Egyptian origin. The same is true of the monstrous figure with the head of a lion, which symbolises Time, Chronos, in Mithraism; Alexandrian origin of this type is probable.[28]
"Samael" literally means "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Hebrew (סמאל). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may, in addition, be evil; its name is also found in Judaism as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This link to Judeo-Christian tradition leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the demiurge is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool".
The angelic name "Ariel" (Hebrew: 'the lion of God')[29] has also been used to refer to the Demiurge and is called his "perfect" name;[30] in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth.[31] The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth",[32][33] and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel".[34]
Marcion[edit]
According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was díkaios, severely just, the latter agathós, or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, in reality, is the Son of the Good God. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.[25]
Valentinus[edit]
It is in the system of Valentinus that the name Dēmiurgos is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.
The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth (he kátō sophía or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual (pneumatikoí), the animal (psychikoí) and the material (hylikoí). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter.[25][35] And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of Sophía the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.[25]
In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united with Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either hylikoí or pneumatikoí.[25]
The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor hyle; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body (hyle) and soul (psyché).[25][36] In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.[25]
The devil[edit]
Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world.[37] According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of spiritual beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a spirit of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.[38]
The Valentinian Heracleon[39] interpreted the devil as the principle of evil, that of hyle (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21,
The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. ... You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.
This vilification of the creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment."[40]
Cathars[edit]
Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism. Quispel writes,
There is a direct link between ancient Gnosticism and Catharism. The Cathars held that the creator of the world, Satanael, had usurped the name of God, but that he had subsequently been unmasked and told that he was not really God.[41]
Neoplatonism and Gnosticism[edit]
Main article: Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Against the Gnostics; or, Against Those that Affirm the Creator of the Cosmos and the Cosmos Itself to be Evil
Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the concept of the Demiurge or creator, though in some Gnostic traditions the creator is from a fallen, ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective, such as that of Valentinius.
Plotinus[edit]
The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato. Plotinus, along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas, was the founder of Neoplatonism.[42] In the ninth tractate of the second of his Enneads, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:
From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realm—the Authentic Existent, the Intellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul—all this is taken over from the Timaeus.
— Ennead 2.9.vi; emphasis added from A. H. Armstrong's introduction to Ennead 2.9
Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth";[43] they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.
Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation: "Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against the Gnostics"). Plotinus argues of the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil.
The majority of scholars tend[44] to understand Plotinus' opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly (specifically Sethian), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus' lifetime. Plotinus specifically points to the Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge.
Though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus' opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Christos Evangeliou has contended[45] that Plotinus' opponents might be better described as simply "Christian Gnostics", arguing that several of Plotinus' criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou thought the definition of the term "Gnostics" was unclear. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity—whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as the Gnostics.
A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads. Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism.[46][47]
John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated[48] that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian Gnosticism, which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.
Emil Cioran also wrote his Le mauvais démiurge ("The Evil Demiurge"), published in 1969, influenced by Gnosticism and Schopenhauerian interpretation of Platonic ontology, as well as that of Plotinus.
See also[edit]
iconReligion portal
Albinus (philosopher)
Azazil
Emil Cioran
Devil in Christianity
Gnosticism
Mara (demon)
Mayasura
Narasimha
Problem of the creator of God
Ptah
Simulated reality
Tenth Intellect (Isma'ilism)
Urizen
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
^ Fontenrose, Joseph (1974). Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origin. Biblo & Tannen Publishers. p. 226. ISBN 978-0-8196-0285-5.
^ Sallis, John (1999). Chorology: On Beginning in Plato's Timaeus. Indiana University Press. p. 86. ISBN 0-253-21308-8.
^ Keightley, Thomas (1838). The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy. Oxford University. p. 44. theogony timaeus.
^ Kahn, Charles (2001). Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing. pp. 124. ISBN 978-0-872205758.
^ Jump up to: a b Karamanolis, George (2006). Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?: Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry. Oxford University Press. p. 240. ISBN 0-19-926456-2.
^ The ordering principle is twofold; there is a principle known as the Demiurge, and there is the Soul of the All; the appellation "Zeus" is sometimes applied to the Demiurge and sometimes to the principle conducting the universe.[citation needed]
^ Wear, Sarah; Dillon, John (2013). Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 15. ISBN 9780754603856.
^ Wallis, Richard T.; Bregman, Jay, eds. (1992). Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. International Society for Neoplatonic Studies. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1337-1.
^ "Matter is therefore a non-existent"; Plotinus, Ennead 2, Tractate 4 Section 16.
^ Schopenhauer wrote of this Neoplatonist philosopher: "With Plotinus there even appears, probably for the first time in Western philosophy, idealism that had long been current in the East even at that time, for it taught (Enneads, iii, lib. vii, c.10) that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time, with the explanation: 'For there is for this universe no other place than the soul or mind' (neque est alter hujus universi locus quam anima), indeed the ideality of time is expressed in the words: 'We should not accept time outside the soul or mind' (oportet autem nequaquam extra animam tempus accipere)." (Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume I, "Fragments for the History of Philosophy", § 7) Similarly, Professor Ludwig Noiré wrote: "For the first time in Western philosophy we find idealism proper in Plotinus (Enneads, iii, 7, 10), where he says, 'The only space or place of the world is the soul', and 'Time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul'." [5] It is worth noting, however, that like Plato but unlike Schopenhauer and other modern philosophers, Plotinus does not worry about whether or how we can get beyond our ideas in order to know external objects.
^ Numenius of Apamea was reported to have asked, "What else is Plato than Moses speaking Greek?" Fr. 8 Des Places.
^ See Theurgy, Iamblichus and henosis Archived 2010-01-09 at the Wayback Machine.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5, 1.
^
It is on this account that Moses says, at the creation of man alone that God said, "Let us make man," which expression shows an assumption of other beings to himself as assistants, in order that God, the governor of all things, might have all the blameless intentions and actions of man, when he does right attributed to him; and that his other assistants might bear the imputation of his contrary actions.
— "Philo: On the Creation, XXIV". www.earlyjewishwritings.com.
^ Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho. c. 67.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 23, 1.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 23, 5.
^ Irenaeus, i. 24, 1.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 25.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 24, 4.
^ Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies. vii. 33.
^ Theodoret, Haer. Fab. ii. 3.
^ Epiphanius, Panarion, 28.
^ "Apocryphon of John," translation by Frederik Wisse in The Nag Hammadi Library. Accessed online at gnosis.org
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Demiurge". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
^ Hipp. Ref. vi. 32, p. 191.
^ Hipp. Ref. vi. 9.
^ Quispel, Gilles (2008). Van Oort, Johannes (ed.). Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica: Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV. p. 64. ISBN 978-90-04-13945-9.
^ Scholem, Gershom (1965). Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition. Jewish Theological Seminary of America. p. 72.
^ Robert McLachlan Wilson (1976). Nag Hammadi and gnosis: Papers read at the First International Congress of Coptology. BRILL. pp. 21–23. Therefore his esoteric name is Jaldabaoth, whereas the perfect call him Ariel, because he has the appearance of a lion.
^ Gustav Davidson (1994). A dictionary of angels: including the fallen angels. Scrollhouse. p. 54.
^ David M Gwynn (2010). Religious Diversity in Late Antiquity. BRILL. p. 448.
^ Campbell Bonner (1949). "An Amulet of the Ophite Gnostics". The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Hesperia Supplements, Vol. 8: 43–46.
^ Gilles Quispel; R. van den Broek; Maarten Jozef Vermaseren (1981). Studies in gnosticism and hellenistic religions. BRILL. pp. 40–41.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 6.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 30, 8.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, i. 5, 4.
^ Heracleon, Frag. 20.
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, iii. 25.
^ Quispel, Gilles and Van Oort, Johannes (2008), p. 143.
^ John D. Turner. Neoplatonism.
^ "For, in sum, a part of their doctrine comes from Plato; all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own have been picked up outside of the truth." Plotinus, "Against the Gnostics", Ennead II, 9, 6.
^ Plotinus, Arthur Hilary Armstrong (trans.) (1966). Plotinus: Enneads II (Loeb Classical Library ed.). Harvard University Press. From this point to the end of ch. 12 Plotinus is attacking a Gnostic myth known to us best at present in the form it took in the system of Valentinus. The Mother, Sophia-Achamoth, produced as a result of the complicated sequence of events which followed the fall of the higher Sophia, and her offspring the Demiurge, the inferier and ignorant maker of the material universe, are Valentinian figures; cp. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1.4 and 5. Valentinius had been in Rome, and there is nothing improbable in the presence of Valentinians there in the time of Plotinus. But the evidence in the Life ch. 16 suggests that the Gnostics in Plotinus's circle belonged rather to the older group called Sethians or Archontics, related to the Ophites or Barbelognostics: they probably called themselves simply 'Gnostics'. Gnostic sects borrowed freely from each other, and it is likely that Valentinius took some of his ideas about Sophia from older Gnostic sources, and that his ideas in turn influenced other Gnostics.
^ Evangeliou, "Plotinus's Anti-Gnostic Polemic and Porphyry's Against the Christians", in Wallis & Bregman, p. 111.
^ From "Introduction to Against the Gnostics", Plotinus' Enneads as translated by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220–222: "The treatise as it stands in the Enneads is a most powerful protest on behalf of Hellenic philosophy against the un-Hellenic heresy (as it was from the Platonist as well as the orthodox Christian point of view) of Gnosticism. There were Gnostics among Plotinus's own friends, whom he had not succeeded in converting (Enneads ch. 10 of this treatise) and he and his pupils devoted considerable time and energy to anti-Gnostic controversy (Life of Plotinus ch. 16). He obviously considered Gnosticism an extremely dangerous influence, likely to pervert the minds even of members of his own circle. It is impossible to attempt to give an account of Gnosticism here. By far the best discussion of what the particular group of Gnostics Plotinus knew believed is M. Puech's admirable contribution to Entretiens Hardt V (Les Sources de Plotin). But it is important for the understanding of this treatise to be clear about the reasons why Plotinus disliked them so intensely and thought their influence so harmful."
^ Armstrong, pp. 220–22: "Short statement of the doctrine of the three hypostasis, the One, Intellect and Soul; there cannot be more or fewer than these three. Criticism of the attempts to multiply the hypostasis, and especially of the idea of two intellects, one which thinks and that other which thinks that it thinks. (ch. 1). The true doctrine of Soul (ch. 2). The law of necessary procession and the eternity of the universe (ch.3). Attack on the Gnostic doctrine of the making of the universe by a fallen soul, and on their despising of the universe and the heavenly bodies (chs. 4–5). The senseless jargon of the Gnostics, their plagiarism from and perversion of Plato, and their insolent arrogance (ch. 6). The true doctrine about Universal Soul and the goodness of the universe which it forms and rules (chs. 7–8). Refutation of objections from the inequalities and injustices of human life (ch. 9). Ridiculous arrogance of the Gnostics who refuse to acknowledge the hierarchy of created gods and spirits and say that they alone are sons of God and superior to the heavens (ch. 9). The absurdities of the Gnostic doctrine of the fall of "Wisdom" (Sophia) and of the generation and activities of the Demiurge, maker of the visible universe (chs. 10–12). False and melodramatic Gnostic teaching about the cosmic spheres and their influence (ch. 13). The blasphemous falsity of the Gnostic claim to control the higher powers by magic and the absurdity of their claim to cure diseases by casting out demons (ch. 14). The false other-worldliness of the Gnostics leads to immorality (ch. 15). The true Platonic other-worldliness, which love and venerates the material universe in all its goodness and beauty as the most perfect possible image of the intelligible, contracted at length with the false, Gnostic, other-worldliness which hates and despises the material universe and its beauties (chs. 16–18)."
^ Turner, "Gnosticism and Platonism", in Wallis & Bregman.
Sources[edit]
This article incorporates text from the entry Demiurgus in A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines by William Smith and Henry Wace (1877), a publication now in the public domain.
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One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. [1]
Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth-century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gravestones spread over the cemetery are material documents marking the social and political history of Sind.
Imperial mausoleums are divided into two major groups, those from the Samma (1352–1520) and Tarkhan (1556–1592) periods. The tomb of the Samma king, Jam Nizam al-Din (reigned 1461–1509), is an impressive square structure built of sandstone and decorated with floral and geometric medallions. Similar to this is the mausoleum of Isa Khan Tarkhan II (d. 1651), a two-story stone building with majestic cupolas and balconies. In contrast to the syncretic architecture of these two monuments, which integrate Hindu and Islamic motifs, are mausoleums that clearly show the Central Asian roots of the later dynasty. An example is the tomb of Jan Beg Tarkhan (d. 1600), a typical octagonal brick structure whose dome is covered in blue and turquoise glazed tiles. Today, Makli Hill is a United Nations World Heritage Site that is visited by both pilgrims and tourists.
Shiva, meaning "The Auspicious One"), also known as Mahadeva ("Great God"), is a popular Hindu deity. Shiva is regarded as one of the primary forms of God. He is the Supreme God within Shaivism, one of the three most influential denominations in contemporary Hinduism. He is one of the five primary forms of God in the Smarta tradition, and "the Destroyer" or "the Transformer" among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine.
Shiva has many benevolent and fearsome forms. At the highest level Shiva is limitless, transcendent, unchanging and formless. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailash, as well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya and in fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also regarded as the patron god of yoga and arts.
The main iconographical attributes of Shiva are the third eye on his forehead, the snake Vasuki around his neck, the crescent moon adorning, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the trishula as his weapon and the damaru as his instrument.
Shiva is usually worshiped in the aniconic form of Lingam. Temples of Lord Shiva are called shivalayam.
ETYMOLOGY & OTHER NAMES
The Sanskrit word Shiva (Devanagari: शिव, śiva) comes from Shri Rudram Chamakam of Taittiriya Samhita (TS 4.5, 4.7) of Krishna Yajurveda. The root word śi means auspicious. In simple English transliteration it is written either as Shiva or Siva. The adjective śiva, is used as an attributive epithet not particularly of Rudra, but of several other Vedic deities.
The other popular names associated with Shiva are Mahadev, Mahesh, Maheshwar, Shankar, Shambhu, Rudra, Har, Trilochan, Devendra (meaning Chief of the gods) and Trilokinath (meaning Lord of the three realms).
The Sanskrit word śaiva means "relating to the God Shiva", and this term is the Sanskrit name both for one of the principal sects of Hinduism and for a member of that sect. It is used as an adjective to characterize certain beliefs and practices, such as Shaivism. He is the oldest worshipped Lord of India.
The Tamil word Sivan, Tamil: சிவன் ("Fair Skinned") could have been derived from the word sivappu. The word 'sivappu' means "red" in Tamil language but while addressing a person's skin texture in Tamil the word 'Sivappu' is used for being Fair Skinned.
Adi Sankara, in his interpretation of the name Shiva, the 27th and 600th name of Vishnu sahasranama, the thousand names of Vishnu interprets Shiva to have multiple meanings: "The Pure One", or "the One who is not affected by three Gunas of Prakrti (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas)" or "the One who purifies everyone by the very utterance of His name."Swami Chinmayananda, in his translation of Vishnu sahasranama, further elaborates on that verse: Shiva means "the One who is eternally pure" or "the One who can never have any contamination of the imperfection of Rajas and Tamas".
Shiva's role as the primary deity of Shaivism is reflected in his epithets Mahādeva ("Great God"; mahā "Great" and deva "god"), Maheśvara ("Great Lord"; mahā "great" and īśvara "lord"), and Parameśvara ("Supreme Lord").
There are at least eight different versions of the Shiva Sahasranama, devotional hymns (stotras) listing many names of Shiva. The version appearing in Book 13 (Anuśāsanaparvan) of the Mahabharata is considered the kernel of this tradition. Shiva also has Dasha-Sahasranamas (10,000 names) that are found in the Mahanyasa. The Shri Rudram Chamakam, also known as the Śatarudriya, is a devotional hymn to Shiva hailing him by many names.
The worship of Shiva is a pan-Hindu tradition, practiced widely across all of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
ASSIMILATION OF TRADITIONS
The figure of Shiva as we know him today was built up over time, with the ideas of many regional sects being amalgamated into a single figure. How the persona of Shiva converged as a composite deity is not well documented. According to Vijay Nath:
Visnu and Siva [...] began to absorb countless local cults and deities within their folds. The latter were either taken to represent the multiple facets of the same god or else were supposed to denote different forms and appellations by which the god came to be known and worshipped. [...] Siva became identified with countless local cults by the sheer suffixing of Isa or Isvara to the name of the local deity, e.g., Bhutesvara, Hatakesvara, Chandesvara."
Axel Michaels the Indologist suggests that Shaivism, like Vaishnavism, implies a unity which cannot be clearly found either in religious practice or in philosophical and esoteric doctrine. Furthermore, practice and doctrine must be kept separate.
An example of assimilation took place in Maharashtra, where a regional deity named Khandoba is a patron deity of farming and herding castes. The foremost center of worship of Khandoba in Maharashtra is in Jejuri. Khandoba has been assimilated as a form of Shiva himself, in which case he is worshipped in the form of a lingam. Khandoba's varied associations also include an identification with Surya and Karttikeya.
INDUS VALLEY ORIGINS
Many Indus valley seals show animals but one seal that has attracted attention shows a figure, either horned or wearing a horned headdress and possibly ithyphallic figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators of Mohenjo-daro Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra. Sir John Marshall and others have claimed that this figure is a prototype of Shiva and have described the figure as having three faces seated in a "yoga posture" with the knees out and feet joined.
This claim has been criticised, with some academics like Gavin Flood and John Keay characterizing them as unfounded. Writing in 1997 Doris Srinivasan said that "Not too many recent studies continue to call the seal's figure a 'Proto-Siva'", rejecting thereby Marshall's package of proto-Siva features, including that of three heads. She interprets what John Marshall interpreted as facial as not human but more bovine, possibly a divine buffalo-man. According to Iravatham Mahadevan symbols 47 and 48 of his Indus script glossary The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977), representing seated human-like figures, could describe Hindu deity Murugan, popularly known as Shiva and Parvati's son.
INDO-EUROPEAN ORIGINS
Shiva's rise to a major position in the pantheon was facilitated by his identification with a host of Vedic deities, including Purusha, Rudra, Agni, Indra, Prajāpati, Vāyu, and others.
RUDRA
Shiva as we know him today shares many features with the Vedic god Rudra, and both Shiva and Rudra are viewed as the same personality in Hindu scriptures. The two names are used synonymously. Rudra, the god of the roaring storm, is usually portrayed in accordance with the element he represents as a fierce, destructive deity.
The oldest surviving text of Hinduism is the Rig Veda, which is dated to between 1700 and 1100 BCE based on linguistic and philological evidence. A god named Rudra is mentioned in the Rig Veda. The name Rudra is still used as a name for Shiva. In RV 2.33, he is described as the "Father of the Rudras", a group of storm gods. Furthermore, the Rudram, one of the most sacred hymns of Hinduism found both in the Rig and the Yajur Vedas and addressed to Rudra, invokes him as Shiva in several instances, but the term Shiva is used as an epithet for the gods Indra, Mitra and Agni many times. Since Shiva means pure, the epithet is possibly used to describe a quality of these gods rather than to identify any of them with the God Shiva.
The identification of Shiva with the older god Rudhra is not universally accepted, as Axel Michaels explains:
Rudra is called "The Archer" (Sanskrit: Śarva), and the arrow is an essential attribute of Rudra. This name appears in the Shiva Sahasranama, and R. K. Sharma notes that it is used as a name of Shiva often in later languages.
The word is derived from the Sanskrit root śarv-, which means "to injure" or "to kill", and Sharma uses that general sense in his interpretive translation of the name Śarva as "One who can kill the forces of darkness". The names Dhanvin ("Bowman") and Bāṇahasta ("Archer", literally "Armed with arrows in his hands") also refer to archery.
AGNI
Rudra and Agni have a close relationship. The identification between Agni and Rudra in the Vedic literature was an important factor in the process of Rudra's gradual development into the later character as Rudra-Shiva. The identification of Agni with Rudra is explicitly noted in the Nirukta, an important early text on etymology, which says, "Agni is also called Rudra." The interconnections between the two deities are complex, and according to Stella Kramrisch:
The fire myth of Rudra-Śiva plays on the whole gamut of fire, valuing all its potentialities and phases, from conflagration to illumination.
In the Śatarudrīya, some epithets of Rudra, such as Sasipañjara ("Of golden red hue as of flame") and Tivaṣīmati ("Flaming bright"), suggest a fusing of the two deities. Agni is said to be a bull, and Lord Shiva possesses a bull as his vehicle, Nandi. The horns of Agni, who is sometimes characterized as a bull, are mentioned. In medieval sculpture, both Agni and the form of Shiva known as Bhairava have flaming hair as a special feature.
INDRA
According to Wendy Doniger, the Puranic Shiva is a continuation of the Vedic Indra. Doniger gives several reasons for his hypothesis. Both are associated with mountains, rivers, male fertility, fierceness, fearlessness, warfare, transgression of established mores, the Aum sound, the Supreme Self. In the Rig Veda the term śiva is used to refer to Indra. (2.20.3, 6.45.17, and 8.93.3.) Indra, like Shiva, is likened to a bull. In the Rig Veda, Rudra is the father of the Maruts, but he is never associated with their warlike exploits as is Indra.
The Vedic beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era were closely related to the hypothesised Proto-Indo-European religion, and the Indo-Iranian religion. According to Anthony, the Old Indic religion probably emerged among Indo-European immigrants in the contact zone between the Zeravshan River (present-day Uzbekistan) and (present-day) Iran. It was "a syncretic mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements", which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the Bactria–Margiana Culture. At least 383 non-Indo-European words were borrowed from this culture, including the god Indra and the ritual drink Soma. According to Anthony,
Many of the qualities of Indo-Iranian god of might/victory, Verethraghna, were transferred to the adopted god Indra, who became the central deity of the developing Old Indic culture. Indra was the subject of 250 hymns, a quarter of the Rig Veda. He was associated more than any other deity with Soma, a stimulant drug (perhaps derived from Ephedra) probably borrowed from the BMAC religion. His rise to prominence was a peculiar trait of the Old Indic speakers.
LATER VEDIC LITERATURE
Rudra's transformation from an ambiguously characterized deity to a supreme being began in the Shvetashvatara Upanishad (400-200 BCE), which founded the tradition of Rudra-Shiva worship. Here they are identified as the creators of the cosmos and liberators of souls from the birth-rebirth cycle. The period of 200 BCE to 100 CE also marks the beginning of the Shaiva tradition focused on the worship of Shiva, with references to Shaiva ascetics in Patanjali's Mahabhasya and in the Mahabharata.
Early historical paintings at the Bhimbetka rock shelters, depict Shiva dancing, Shiva's trident, and his mount Nandi but no other Vedic gods.
PURANIC LITERATURE
The Shiva Puranas, particularly the Shiva Purana and the Linga Purana, discuss the various forms of Shiva and the cosmology associated with him.
TANTRIC LITERATURE
The Tantras, composed between the 8th and 11th centuries, regard themselves as Sruti. Among these the Shaiva Agamas, are said to have been revealed by Shiva himself and are foundational texts for Shaiva Siddhanta.
POSITION WITHIN HINDUISM
SHAIVISM
Shaivism (Sanskrit: शैव पंथ, śaiva paṁtha) (Kannada: ಶೈವ ಪಂಥ) (Tamil: சைவ சமயம்) is the oldest of the four major sects of Hinduism, the others being Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. Followers of Shaivism, called "Shaivas", and also "Saivas" or "Saivites", revere Shiva as the Supreme Being. Shaivas believe that Shiva is All and in all, the creator, preserver, destroyer, revealer and concealer of all that is. The tantric Shaiva tradition consists of the Kapalikas, Kashmir Shaivism and Shaiva Siddhanta. The Shiva MahaPurana is one of the purāṇas, a genre of Hindu religious texts, dedicated to Shiva. Shaivism is widespread throughout India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, mostly. Areas notable for the practice of Shaivism include parts of Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
PANCHAYATANA PUJA
Panchayatana puja is the system of worship ('puja') in the Smarta sampradaya of Hinduism. It is said to have been introduced by Adi Shankara, the 8th century CE Hindu philosopher. It consists of the worship of five deities: Shiva, Vishnu, Devi, Surya and Ganesha. Depending on the tradition followed by Smarta households, one of these deities is kept in the center and the other four surround it. Worship is offered to all the deities. The five are represented by small murtis, or by five kinds of stones, or by five marks drawn on the floor.
TRIMURTI
The Trimurti is a concept in Hinduism in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahmā the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver and Śhiva the destroyer or transformer. These three deities have been called "the Hindu triad" or the "Great Trinity", often addressed as "Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara."
ICONOGRAPHY AND PROPERTIES
ATTRIBUTES
Shiva's form: Shiva has a trident in the right lower arm, and a crescent moon on his head. He is said to be fair like camphor or like an ice clad mountain. He wears five serpents and a garland of skulls as ornaments. Shiva is usually depicted facing the south. His trident, like almost all other forms in Hinduism, can be understood as the symbolism of the unity of three worlds that a human faces - his inside world, his immediate world, and the broader overall world. At the base of the trident, all three forks unite.
Third eye: (Trilochana) Shiva is often depicted with a third eye, with which he burned Desire (Kāma) to ashes, called "Tryambakam" (Sanskrit: त्र्यम्बकम् ), which occurs in many scriptural sources. In classical Sanskrit, the word ambaka denotes "an eye", and in the Mahabharata, Shiva is depicted as three-eyed, so this name is sometimes translated as "having three eyes". However, in Vedic Sanskrit, the word ambā or ambikā means "mother", and this early meaning of the word is the basis for the translation "three mothers". These three mother-goddesses who are collectively called the Ambikās. Other related translations have been based on the idea that the name actually refers to the oblations given to Rudra, which according to some traditions were shared with the goddess Ambikā. It has been mentioned that when Shiva loses his temper, his third eye opens which can destroy most things to ashes.
Crescent moon: (The epithets "Chandrasekhara/Chandramouli")- Shiva bears on his head the crescent moon. The epithet Candraśekhara (Sanskrit: चन्द्रशेखर "Having the moon as his crest" - candra = "moon"; śekhara = "crest, crown") refers to this feature. The placement of the moon on his head as a standard iconographic feature dates to the period when Rudra rose to prominence and became the major deity Rudra-Shiva. The origin of this linkage may be due to the identification of the moon with Soma, and there is a hymn in the Rig Veda where Soma and Rudra are jointly implored, and in later literature, Soma and Rudra came to be identified with one another, as were Soma and the moon. The crescent moon is shown on the side of the Lord's head as an ornament. The waxing and waning phenomenon of the moon symbolizes the time cycle through which creation evolves from the beginning to the end.
Ashes: (The epithet "Bhasmaanga Raaga") - Shiva smears his body with ashes (bhasma). The ashes are said to represent the end of all material existence. Some forms of Shiva, such as Bhairava, are associated with a very old Indian tradition of cremation-ground asceticism that was practiced by some groups who were outside the fold of brahmanic orthodoxy. These practices associated with cremation grounds are also mentioned in the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism. One epithet for Shiva is "inhabitant of the cremation ground" (Sanskrit: śmaśānavāsin, also spelled Shmashanavasin), referring to this connection.
Matted hair: (The epithet "Jataajoota Dhari/Kapardina") - Shiva's distinctive hair style is noted in the epithets Jaṭin, "the one with matted hair", and Kapardin, "endowed with matted hair" or "wearing his hair wound in a braid in a shell-like (kaparda) fashion". A kaparda is a cowrie shell, or a braid of hair in the form of a shell, or, more generally, hair that is shaggy or curly. His hair is said to be like molten gold in color or being yellowish-white.
Blue throat: The epithet Nīlakaṇtha (Sanskrit नीलकण्ठ; nīla = "blue", kaṇtha = "throat"). Since Shiva drank the Halahala poison churned up from the Samudra Manthan to eliminate its destructive capacity. Shocked by his act, Goddess Parvati strangled his neck and hence managed to stop it in his neck itself and prevent it from spreading all over the universe, supposed to be in Shiva's stomach. However the poison was so potent that it changed the color of his neck to blue. (See Maha Shivaratri.)
Sacred Ganges: (The epithet "Gangadhara") Bearer of Ganga. Ganges river flows from the matted hair of Shiva. The Gaṅgā (Ganges), one of the major rivers of the country, is said to have made her abode in Shiva's hair. The flow of the Ganges also represents the nectar of immortality.
Tiger skin: (The epithet "Krittivasana").He is often shown seated upon a tiger skin, an honour reserved for the most accomplished of Hindu ascetics, the Brahmarishis.
Serpents: (The epithet "Nagendra Haara" or 'Vasoki"). Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake.
Deer: His holding deer on one hand indicates that He has removed the Chanchalata of the mind (i.e., attained maturity and firmness in thought process). A deer jumps from one place to another swiftly, similar to the mind moving from one thought to another.
Trident: (Trishula): Shiva's particular weapon is the trident. His Trisul that is held in His right hand represents the three Gunas— Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. That is the emblem of sovereignty. He rules the world through these three Gunas. The Damaru in His left hand represents the Sabda Brahman. It represents OM from which all languages are formed. It is He who formed the Sanskrit language out of the Damaru sound.
Drum: A small drum shaped like an hourglass is known as a damaru (ḍamaru). This is one of the attributes of Shiva in his famous dancing representation known as Nataraja. A specific hand gesture (mudra) called ḍamaru-hasta (Sanskrit for "ḍamaru-hand") is used to hold the drum. This drum is particularly used as an emblem by members of the Kāpālika sect.
Axe: (Parashu):The parashu is the weapon of Lord Shiva who gave it to Parashurama, sixth Avatar of Vishnu, whose name means "Rama with the axe" and also taught him its mastery.
Nandī: (The epithet "Nandi Vaahana").Nandī, also known as Nandin, is the name of the bull that serves as Shiva's mount (Sanskrit: vāhana). Shiva's association with cattle is reflected in his name Paśupati, or Pashupati (Sanskrit: पशुपति), translated by Sharma as "lord of cattle" and by Kramrisch as "lord of animals", who notes that it is particularly used as an epithet of Rudra. Rishabha or the bull represents Dharma Devata. Lord Siva rides on the bull. Bull is his vehicle. This denotes that Lord Siva is the protector of Dharma, is an embodiment of Dharma or righteousness.
Gaṇa: The Gaṇas (Devanagari: गण) are attendants of Shiva and live in Kailash. They are often referred to as the bhutaganas, or ghostly hosts, on account of their nature. Generally benign, except when their lord is transgressed against, they are often invoked to intercede with the lord on behalf of the devotee. Ganesha was chosen as their leader by Shiva, hence Ganesha's title gaṇa-īśa or gaṇa-pati, "lord of the gaṇas".
Mount Kailāsa: Mount Kailash in the Himalayas is his traditional abode. In Hindu mythology, Mount Kailāsa is conceived as resembling a Linga, representing the center of the universe.
Varanasi: Varanasi (Benares) is considered to be the city specially loved by Shiva, and is one of the holiest places of pilgrimage in India. It is referred to, in religious contexts, as Kashi.
LINGAM
Apart from anthropomorphic images of Shiva, the worship of Shiva in the form of a lingam, or linga, is also important. These are depicted in various forms. One common form is the shape of a vertical rounded column. Shiva means auspiciousness, and linga means a sign or a symbol. Hence, the Shivalinga is regarded as a "symbol of the great God of the universe who is all-auspiciousness". Shiva also means "one in whom the whole creation sleeps after dissolution". Linga also means the same thing—a place where created objects get dissolved during the disintegration of the created universe. Since, according to Hinduism, it is the same god that creates, sustains and withdraws the universe, the Shivalinga represents symbolically God Himself. Some scholars, such as Monier Monier-Williams and Wendy Doniger, also view linga as a phallic symbol, although this interpretation is disputed by others, including Christopher Isherwood, Vivekananda, Swami Sivananda, and S.N. Balagangadhara.
JYOTIRLINGA
The worship of the Shiva-Linga originated from the famous hymn in the Atharva-Veda Samhitâ sung in praise of the Yupa-Stambha, the sacrificial post. In that hymn, a description is found of the beginningless and endless Stambha or Skambha, and it is shown that the said Skambha is put in place of the eternal Brahman. Just as the Yajna (sacrificial) fire, its smoke, ashes, and flames, the Soma plant, and the ox that used to carry on its back the wood for the Vedic sacrifice gave place to the conceptions of the brightness of Shiva's body, his tawny matted hair, his blue throat, and the riding on the bull of the Shiva, the Yupa-Skambha gave place in time to the Shiva-Linga. In the text Linga Purana, the same hymn is expanded in the shape of stories, meant to establish the glory of the great Stambha and the superiority of Shiva as Mahadeva.
The sacred of all Shiva linga is worshipped as Jyotir linga. Jyoti means Radiance, apart from relating Shiva linga as a phallus symbol, there are also arguments that Shiva linga means 'mark' or a 'sign'. Jyotirlinga means "The Radiant sign of The Almighty". The Jyotirlingas are mentioned in Shiva Purana.
SHAKTI
Shiva forms a Tantric couple with Shakti [Tamil : சக்தி ], the embodiment of energy, dynamism, and the motivating force behind all action and existence in the material universe. Shiva is her transcendent masculine aspect, providing the divine ground of all being. Shakti manifests in several female deities. Sati and Parvati are the main consorts of Shiva. She is also referred to as Uma, Durga (Parvata), Kali and Chandika. Kali is the manifestation of Shakti in her dreadful aspect. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kāla, the eternal time, Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" (as in "time has come"). Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Shākta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatārini (literally "redeemer of the universe"). Kālī is represented as the consort of Lord Shiva, on whose body she is often seen standing or dancing. Shiva is the masculine force, the power of peace, while Shakti translates to power, and is considered as the feminine force. In the Vaishnava tradition, these realities are portrayed as Vishnu and Laxmi, or Radha and Krishna. These are differences in formulation rather than a fundamental difference in the principles. Both Shiva and Shakti have various forms. Shiva has forms like Yogi Raj (the common image of Himself meditating in the Himalayas), Rudra (a wrathful form) and Natarajar (Shiva's dance are the Lasya - the gentle form of dance, associated with the creation of the world, and the Tandava - the violent and dangerous dance, associated with the destruction of weary worldviews – weary perspectives and lifestyles).
THE FIVE MANTRAS
Five is a sacred number for Shiva. One of his most important mantras has five syllables (namaḥ śivāya).
Shiva's body is said to consist of five mantras, called the pañcabrahmans. As forms of God, each of these have their own names and distinct iconography:
Sadyojāta
Vāmadeva
Aghora
Tatpuruṣha
Īsāna
These are represented as the five faces of Shiva and are associated in various texts with the five elements, the five senses, the five organs of perception, and the five organs of action. Doctrinal differences and, possibly, errors in transmission, have resulted in some differences between texts in details of how these five forms are linked with various attributes. The overall meaning of these associations is summarized by Stella Kramrisch:
Through these transcendent categories, Śiva, the ultimate reality, becomes the efficient and material cause of all that exists.
According to the Pañcabrahma Upanishad:
One should know all things of the phenomenal world as of a fivefold character, for the reason that the eternal verity of Śiva is of the character of the fivefold Brahman. (Pañcabrahma Upanishad 31)
FORMES AND ROLES
According to Gavin Flood, "Shiva is a god of ambiguity and paradox," whose attributes include opposing themes.[168] The ambivalent nature of this deity is apparent in some of his names and the stories told about him.
DESTROYER AND BENEFACTOR
In the Yajurveda, two contrary sets of attributes for both malignant or terrific (Sanskrit: rudra) and benign or auspicious (Sanskrit: śiva) forms can be found, leading Chakravarti to conclude that "all the basic elements which created the complex Rudra-Śiva sect of later ages are to be found here". In the Mahabharata, Shiva is depicted as "the standard of invincibility, might, and terror", as well as a figure of honor, delight, and brilliance. The duality of Shiva's fearful and auspicious attributes appears in contrasted names.
The name Rudra (Sanskrit: रुद्र) reflects his fearsome aspects. According to traditional etymologies, the Sanskrit name Rudra is derived from the root rud-, which means "to cry, howl". Stella Kramrisch notes a different etymology connected with the adjectival form raudra, which means "wild, of rudra nature", and translates the name Rudra as "the wild one" or "the fierce god". R. K. Sharma follows this alternate etymology and translates the name as "terrible". Hara (Sanskrit: हर) is an important name that occurs three times in the Anushasanaparvan version of the Shiva sahasranama, where it is translated in different ways each time it occurs, following a commentorial tradition of not repeating an interpretation. Sharma translates the three as "one who captivates", "one who consolidates", and "one who destroys". Kramrisch translates it as "the ravisher". Another of Shiva's fearsome forms is as Kāla (Sanskrit: काल), "time", and as Mahākāla (Sanskrit: महाकाल), "great time", which ultimately destroys all things. Bhairava (Sanskrit: भैरव), "terrible" or "frightful", is a fierce form associated with annihilation.
In contrast, the name Śaṇkara (Sanskrit: शङ्कर), "beneficent" or "conferring happiness" reflects his benign form. This name was adopted by the great Vedanta philosopher Śaṇkara (c. 788 - 820 CE), who is also known as Shankaracharya. The name Śambhu (Sanskrit: शम्भु), "causing happiness", also reflects this benign aspect.
ASCETIC AND HOUSEHOLDER
He is depicted as both an ascetic yogi and as a householder, roles which have been traditionally mutually exclusive in Hindu society.[185] When depicted as a yogi, he may be shown sitting and meditating. His epithet Mahāyogi ("the great Yogi: Mahā = "great", Yogi = "one who practices Yoga") refers to his association with yoga. While Vedic religion was conceived mainly in terms of sacrifice, it was during the Epic period that the concepts of tapas, yoga, and asceticism became more important, and the depiction of Shiva as an ascetic sitting in philosophical isolation reflects these later concepts. Shiva is also depicted as a corpse below Goddess Kali, it represents that Shiva is a corpse without Shakti. He remains inert. While Shiva is the static form, Mahakali or Shakti is the dynamic aspect without whom Shiva is powerless.
As a family man and householder, he has a wife, Parvati and two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya. His epithet Umāpati ("The husband of Umā") refers to this idea, and Sharma notes that two other variants of this name that mean the same thing, Umākānta and Umādhava, also appear in the sahasranama. Umā in epic literature is known by many names, including the benign Pārvatī. She is identified with Devi, the Divine Mother; Shakti (divine energy) as well as goddesses like Tripura Sundari, Durga, Kamakshi and Meenakshi. The consorts of Shiva are the source of his creative energy. They represent the dynamic extension of Shiva onto this universe. His son Ganesha is worshipped throughout India and Nepal as the Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings and Lord of Obstacles. Kartikeya is worshipped in Southern India (especially in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka) by the names Subrahmanya, Subrahmanyan, Shanmughan, Swaminathan and Murugan, and in Northern India by the names Skanda, Kumara, or Karttikeya.
Some regional deities are also identified as Shiva's children. As one story goes, Shiva is enticed by the beauty and charm of Mohini, Vishnu's female avatar, and procreates with her. As a result of this union, Shasta - identified with regional deities Ayyappa and Ayyanar - is born. Shiva is also mentioned in some scriptures or folktales to have had daughters like the serpent-goddess Manasa and Ashokasundari. Even the demon Andhaka is sometimes considered a child of Shiva.
NATARAJA
he depiction of Shiva as Nataraja (Tamil: நடராஜா,Kannada: ನಟರಾಜ, Telugu: నటరాజు, Sanskrit: naṭarāja, "Lord of Dance") is popular. The names Nartaka ("dancer") and Nityanarta ("eternal dancer") appear in the Shiva Sahasranama. His association with dance and also with music is prominent in the Puranic period. In addition to the specific iconographic form known as Nataraja, various other types of dancing forms (Sanskrit: nṛtyamūrti) are found in all parts of India, with many well-defined varieties in Tamil Nadu in particular. The two most common forms of the dance are the Tandava, which later came to denote the powerful and masculine dance as Kala-Mahakala associated with the destruction of the world. When it requires the world or universe to be destroyed, Lord Śiva does it by the tāṇḍavanṛtya. and Lasya, which is graceful and delicate and expresses emotions on a gentle level and is considered the feminine dance attributed to the goddess Parvati. Lasya is regarded as the female counterpart of Tandava. The Tandava-Lasya dances are associated with the destruction-creation of the world.
DAKSHINAMURTHY
Dakshinamurthy, or Dakṣiṇāmūrti (Tamil:தட்சிணாமூர்த்தி, Telugu: దక్షిణామూర్తి, Sanskrit: दक्षिणामूर्ति), literally describes a form (mūrti) of Shiva facing south (dakṣiṇa). This form represents Shiva in his aspect as a teacher of yoga, music, and wisdom and giving exposition on the shastras. This iconographic form for depicting Shiva in Indian art is mostly from Tamil Nadu. Elements of this motif can include Shiva seated upon a deer-throne and surrounded by sages who are receiving his instruction.
ARDANARISHVARA
An iconographic representation of Shiva called (Ardhanārīśvara) shows him with one half of the body as male and the other half as female. According to Ellen Goldberg, the traditional Sanskrit name for this form (Ardhanārīśvara) is best translated as "the lord who is half woman", not as "half-man, half-woman". According to legend, Lord Shiva is pleased by the difficult austerites performed by the goddess Parvati, grants her the left half of his body. This form of Shiva is quite similar to the Yin-Yang philosophy of Eastern Asia, though Ardhanārīśvara appears to be more ancient.
TRIRUPANTAKA
Shiva is often depicted as an archer in the act of destroying the triple fortresses, Tripura, of the Asuras. Shiva's name Tripurantaka (Sanskrit: त्रिपुरान्तक, Tripurāntaka), "ender of Tripura", refers to this important story.[216] In this aspect, Shiva is depicted with four arms wielding a bow and arrow, but different from the Pinakapani murti. He holds an axe and a deer on the upper pair of his arms. In the lower pair of the arms, he holds a bow and an arrow respectively. After destroying Tripura, Tripurantaka Shiva smeared his forehead with three strokes of Ashes. This has become a prominent symbol of Shiva and is practiced even today by Shaivites.
OTHER FORMS, AVATARS IDENTIFICATIONS
Shiva, like some other Hindu deities, is said to have several incarnations, known as Avatars. Although Puranic scriptures contain occasional references to "ansh" avatars of Shiva, the idea is not universally accepted in Saivism. The Linga Purana speaks of twenty-eight forms of Shiva which are sometimes seen as avatars. According to the Svetasvatara Upanishad, he has four avatars.
In the Hanuman Chalisa, Hanuman is identified as the eleventh avatar of Shiva and this belief is universal. Hanuman is popularly known as “Rudraavtaar” “Rudra” being a name of “Shiva”. Rama– the Vishnu avatar is considered by some to be the eleventh avatar of Rudra (Shiva).
Other traditions regard the sage Durvasa, the sage Agastya, the philosopher Adi Shankara, as avatars of Shiva. Other forms of Shiva include Virabhadra and Sharabha.
FESTIVALS
Maha Shivratri is a festival celebrated every year on the 13th night or the 14th day of the new moon in the Shukla Paksha of the month of Maagha or Phalguna in the Hindu calendar. This festival is of utmost importance to the devotees of Lord Shiva. Mahashivaratri marks the night when Lord Shiva performed the 'Tandava' and it is the day that Lord Shiva was married to Parvati. The holiday is often celebrated with special prayers and rituals offered up to Shiva, notably the Abhishek. This ritual, practiced throughout the night, is often performed every three hours with water, milk, yogurt, and honey. Bel (aegle marmelos) leaves are often offered up to the Hindu god, as it is considered necessary for a successful life. The offering of the leaves are considered so important that it is believed that someone who offers them without any intentions will be rewarded greatly.
BEYOND HINDUISM
BUDDHISM
Shiva is mentioned in Buddhist Tantra. Shiva as Upaya and Shakti as Prajna. In cosmologies of buddhist tantra, Shiva is depicted as active, skillful, and more passive.
SIKHISM
The Japuji Sahib of the Guru Granth Sahib says, "The Guru is Shiva, the Guru is Vishnu and Brahma; the Guru is Paarvati and Lakhshmi." In the same chapter, it also says, "Shiva speaks, the Siddhas speak."
In Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh have mentioned two avtars of Rudra: Dattatreya Avtar and Parasnath Avtar.
OTHERS
The worship of Lord Shiva became popular in Central Asia through the Hephthalite (White Hun) Dynasty, and Kushan Empire. Shaivism was also popular in Sogdiana and Eastern Turkestan as found from the wall painting from Penjikent on the river Zervashan. In this depiction, Shiva is portrayed with a sacred halo and a sacred thread ("Yajnopavita"). He is clad in tiger skin while his attendants are wearing Sodgian dress. In Eastern Turkestan in the Taklamakan Desert. There is a depiction of his four-legged seated cross-legged n a cushioned seat supported by two bulls. Another panel form Dandan-Uilip shows Shiva in His Trimurti form with His Shakti kneeling on her right thigh. It is also noted that Zoroastrian wind god Vayu-Vata took on the iconographic appearance of Shiva.
Kirant people, a Mongol tribe from Nepal, worship a form of Shiva as one of their major deity, identifying him as the lord of animals. It is also said that the physical form of Shiva as a yogi is derived from Kirants as it is mentioned in Mundhum that Shiva took human form as a child of Kirant. He is also said to give Kirants visions in form of a male deer.
In Indonesia, Shiva is also worshiped as Batara Guru. His other name is "Sang Hyang Jagadnata" (king of the universe) and "Sang Hyang Girinata" (king of mountains). In the ancient times, all kingdoms were located on top of mountains. When he was young, before receiving his authority of power, his name was Sang Hyang Manikmaya. He is first of the children who hatched from the eggs laid by Manuk Patiaraja, wife of god Mulajadi na Bolon. This avatar is also worshiped in Malaysia. Shiva's other form in Indonesian Hindu worship is "Maharaja Dewa" (Mahadeva). Both the forms are closely identified with the Sun in local forms of Hinduism or Kebatinan, and even in the genie lore of Muslims. Mostly Shiva is worshipped in the form of a lingam or the phallus.
WIKIPEDIA
The city of Yogyakarta was the result of a dynastic split in the Mataram Sultanate, with the towns of Yogyakarta and Surakarta both being found around 1755 by different members of the same family, proclaiming themselves as sultans. These rulers were descendants from the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit rulers, and although they were nominally Muslim by this time, they still upheld strong Hindu-Islamic syncretic beliefs and traditions at the court. The Hindu influences are still clearly visible in the palaces and mosques of the sultans in Yogyakarta. "Yogya" today is a beautiful and fascinating historical city in Central Java.
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A small flowering plant growing in a meadow covered in frost after the second morning below freezing this wintry season.
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• Species Identification Group on Reddit
(A crowdsourced method of identifying unknown species of any organism through discussion with up or down votes and comments from tons of people including a bunch of biologists.)
• Artistic Photography Group on Reddit
(Showcase your favorite artistic photography from your peers, pros, amateurs, or even yourself.)
Chau dancers from Purulia district of West Bengal, called Chau dancers, seen at Dilly Haat in Delhi last month.
From Wikipedia: “Chhau dance, also spelled as Chau or Chhaau, is a semi classical Indian dance with martial, tribal and folk traditions, with origins in eastern India. It is found in three styles named after the location where they are performed, i.e. the Purulia Chau of Bengal, the Seraikella Chau of Jharkhand, and the Mayurbhanj Chau of Odisha.
The dance ranges from celebrating martial arts, acrobatics and athletics performed in festive themes of a folk dance, to a structured dance with religious themes found in Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism. The costumes vary between the styles, with Purulia and Serakeilla using masks to identify the character. The stories enacted by Chhau dancers include those from the Hindu epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas and other Indian literature.
The dance is traditionally an all males troupe, regionally celebrated particularly during spring every year, and may be a syncretic dance form that emerged from a fusion of classical Hindu dances and the traditions of ancient regional tribes. The dance is amazing and brings together people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds in a festive and religious spirit.