The Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations Part 24

Another form of the supreme being was the sun G.o.d Surya, who was also named Savitri, the generator, Pushan=the feeder and Mithra=the light-G.o.d, who is called the watcher and ruler of the world and was a.s.sociated with the wheel, which is termed "the most ancient symbol of divine power and dominion."(89)

"In India the wheel was, moreover, connected with the t.i.tle of a chakrayartin (from chakra=a wheel), the t.i.tle meaning a supreme ruler or universal monarch, who ruled the four quarters of the world and on his coronation he had to drive his chariot or wheel to the four cardinal points to signify his conquest of them" (Wm. Simpson, Quarterly statement of Palestine Expl. Fund, 1895, p. 84). It is significant that "Mithra,"

the G.o.d of the wheel, who was, as I shall show later on, likewise a.s.sociated with the serpent, is represented with a chariot pulled by seven horses and thus to find the idea of centrifugal power, combined with the numeral seven and the conception of central rulers.h.i.+p extending to the four quarters.

While the above pa.s.sages afford an interesting insight into the ancient significance and symbolism of the chariot, the use of which, with that of the throne was, originally, exclusively confined to the central supreme ruler, they also furnish a curious parallelism to the Chinese tours of inspection performed, by the emperor, to the four provinces in rotation.

The general application of the quadruplicate system is moreover shown by the fact that, from time immemorial, the population of India has been divided into four great castes, and these are a.s.sociated with distinctive colors, the Sanscrit word for color, _varna_, signifying also caste.

According to the native myth, Brahma created the Brahmin or ruling caste from his mouth, the warrior caste from his arms and hands, the merchant and agricultural caste from his hips and the artisan or lowest caste from the soles of his feet. The warrior caste was named Kschatria; the people the yellow, or Vaicya; the original, conquered inhabitants of India were named the black, or Sudra. The Brahman caste was above all these.

Concerning the origin of the Brahmans, it is related that "Manu was created ... he, in turn created ten great sages, the ancestors of the Brahmans. These created _seven_ other Ma.n.u.s or spiritual princes, the preservers of moral orders in the world" (Goodyear). Pointing out that the seven Ma.n.u.s evidently const.i.tuted a septarchy, let us now study the Brahmanistic conception of a supreme divinity. From various authorities we learn that, in later times "the Brahmans invented a new G.o.d, the impersonal Brahma, who only appears in the youngest portion of the Vedas."

He is described as "the supreme One who alone exists really and absolutely," and is represented with four heads and four arms, the idea of four-fold power and rule being thus expressed. The proof that, at the same time, the idea of duality existed, is furnished by the invention of a female counterpart of Brahma, namely, his consort Sarawati and the later development of the rival religions which now exist side by side and divide the population of India into halves. The cult of Vishnu, a.s.sociated with the male principle, though curiously blended with the principle of preservation, is obviously a parallel form of the American and Chinese cult of the Above or Heaven; while that of Siva, or the female principle, strongly mingled with the idea of destruction, forms a parallel to the cult of the Earth-mother and of darkness and the nocturnal heaven. Brahma was born of an egg and is also figured as springing from a lotus which, in turn rises from the navel of Vishnu or Narayana, "the Spirit moving on the waters."...(90)

In modern Buddhism the identical fundamental ideas continue to exist in a slightly different form; the six directions in s.p.a.ce are known and elaborately wors.h.i.+pped. The embodiment of central power is Buddha, seated cross-legged on a lotus flower. According to Birdwood, cited by Mr.

Goodyear, "In the Hindu cosmogony the world is likened to a lotus flower, floating in the centre of a shallow circular vessel, which has for its stalk an elephant and for its pedestal a tortoise. The seven petals of the lotus flower represent the seven divisions of the world as known to the ancient Hindus and the tabular torus (_Nelumbium speciosum_) which rises from their centre represents Mount Meru, the Hindu Olympus."

In the statues of Buddha, thus a.s.sociated with the centre of the world, we have what may be termed the highest development of the idea of stability, quietude and absolute repose which impressed itself upon the human mind by the observation of Polaris. The abstract conception of Nirvana, "the state in which all individuality and consciousness are lost, and life and death, good and evil, and every other possible ant.i.thesis disappear in absolute unity," appears to me to be the natural ultimate outgrowth of the primitive appreciation of stability and repose as the most desirable of conditions.

An ancient American priest-astronomer, imbued with the native ideas, would doubtlessly see in the modern figures of Buddha a more perfect artistic rendition of the same conception which was expressed in the Copan swastika. He might remark that, in the statues of Buddha, the human form is intended to convey the idea of quadruple organization and that in certain images the primitive symbols of the centre, "the belly and navel,"

are obviously emphasized. In the fakirs, who cultivate immobility, he might see people who are under the absolute dominion of the ideal of stability and detect the origin of this suggestion from the fact that the swastika position of either arms or legs is a favorite one among Hindoo fanatics, just as, out of devotion, many persons have swastikas painted or tattooed upon their limbs.

It is interesting to note the peculiar result attained by the Buddhists in their development of the twin idea of permanence, _i. e._ immutability or immortality, as shown in the following quotation: "There is a remarkable distinction between the Buddhism of China and of Tibet. In regard to philosophy there is little or no difference, but in Tibet there is a hierarchy which exercises political power. In China this could not be. The Grand Lama and many other lamas in Mongolia and Tibet a.s.sume the t.i.tle of 'Living Buddha.' In him, most of all, Buddha is incarnate, as the people are taught to think. He never dies. When the body, in which Buddha is for the time incarnate, ceases to perform its functions, some infant is chosen by the priests, who are intrusted with the duty of selecting, to become the residence of Buddha until, in turn, it grows up to manhood and dies.

No Buddhist priest in China pretends to be a 'living Buddha' or to have a right to the exercise of political power. In Tibet, on the other hand, the Grand Lama, as chief of the 'living Buddhas,' not only holds the place of the historical Buddha long since dead, acting as a sort of high-priest, but he also exercises sovereignty over the country of Tibet ruling the laity as well as the clergy and being only subordinate to the lord paramount, the Emperor of China" (Edkins, Religion in China, p. 8).

"The form of the Buddhist temples exemplifies in a striking manner the relative positions of Buddha and the G.o.ds. Four kings of the G.o.ds are represented in the vestibule. Their office is to guard the door by which entrance is obtained to the presence of Buddha.... The central position is that of Buddha, who is seated on the lotus flower in the att.i.tude of a teacher...." (Edkins). In this att.i.tude an ancient American high-priest would see the graphic representation of one of the t.i.tles of the star-G.o.d Polaris, "the teacher of the world."

The a.s.sociation of Buddha with the north and with the number seven is curiously shown in the mythical account that "when Buddha was born a lotus blossomed where he touched the ground; he stepped seven steps northward and a lotus marked each footfall."

Distinct evidence of the ancient cult of Polaris is yielded by the Hindu marriage custom, which I have found described thus in Meyer's conversations Lexikon: "In the evening the bride and bridegroom seat themselves on the hide of a red ox, after making the usual offerings....

Then the bridegroom points out the pole-star to the bride and says: 'the heaven is firm, also the earth; the universe is stedfast, so mayest thou be stedfast in our family'...." The symbolism of the act of sharing the ox-hide as a seat becomes apparent when it is realized that the name for cow or ox=go, also signifies possessions and riches, a conception which is traceable to a period when cattle const.i.tuted the chief and most valued possession of pastoral tribes. The veneration accorded in India to the cow is well known and travellers have frequently described the sacred statue of a cow, which is seven feet in height and stands next to the sacred well of the temple at Benares.

In connection with the reference to the pole-star made by the Hindu bridegroom, it is noteworthy that the Sanscrit for star is stri, tara, for stara; Hindu sitara, tara and Bengal stara and that variants of the same word const.i.tute the name for star in Latin, Greek, Gothic, Old and Anglo Saxon, Welsh, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish and Basque, in which language it appears as izarra, recalling the Hindu sitara and, if I may venture to say so, the Nahuatl word for star, citlallin.

The supreme veneration and importance accorded in India to the North, from time immemorial, are shown by pa.s.sages of the book of Manu, which prescribe the severe penances which were to be performed by the Brahmans who attained advanced age. He "is to inflict all sorts of tortures upon himself and when he falls ill in consequence, he is to set out to walk to the northwest, towards the holy mountain Meru, until his mortal frame breaks down and he unites himself with Brahma." It is likewise stated that when a Brahman king grew old and ill he was obliged to abdicate in favor of his son and voluntarily seek death in battle or by starvation, whilst wandering towards the holy mountain Meru, in the northwest. I point out the curious parallelism of this custom, which was carried out during countless centuries and determined a periodical migration towards the northwest of venerable sages, presumably accompanied by faithful followers, and the search for the stable centre of the world which caused the wanderings of American tribes under their chiefs.

According to various encyclopaedias and general works of reference, Brahma is said to have made the world in two parts, _i. e._, heaven and earth; placed air between both and made the eight regions, fire and the eternal waters. The mythical mountain Meru, on the summit of which the supreme power is said to be enthroned in eternal majesty, is the traditional paradise and is supposed to lie somewhere in the northwest of the Himalayas. It is situated in the centre of the seven zones in which the earth is divided, thence its name Meru=the Middle. The a.s.sociation of the central mountain with divinity and eternal stability is further shown by the statement that the sun, moon and stars circled about it and that it supported the heaven.

As the natural complement to the above, I can cite the following evidences of an all-pervading quadruplicate division and organization, as set forth in an ancient ma.n.u.script which was brought from India by Count Angelo de Gubernatis and exhibited in Florence in 1898, by Mr. Pulle, in an extremely instructive series of native maps of India: 1. In the oldest maps, the empire of India was represented as a disk, divided into a number of concentric zones, in the centre of which arose the sacred mountain. 2.

These representations were, in several cases, accompanied by representations of the swastika obviously representing quadruplicate territorial division.

On Mount Meru itself there were four lakes respectively filled with milk, b.u.t.ter, coagulated milk and sugar. Four great rivers flowed from the mountain towards the cardinal points, namely, the Ganges, issuing from the mouth of a cow, the Sita from the head of the elephant; the Bhadra from a tiger or lion and the Chaksu from a horse. According to Buddhistic mythology, the sacred mountain Meru, which const.i.tutes the centre of the world, is guarded by four hero "kings of demons." Their names are as follows: 1. Kubera or Vaisranana, the G.o.d of wealth, who lives in the north, whose attributes are the lance and banner, the rat which throws forth jewels from its mouth. 2. Virudhaka, who rules the south, and whose attributes are the helmet in the form of an elephant's head, and a long sword. 3. Virupaksha, the guardian of the west: attributes, the jewel and the serpent. 4 Dhrtarashtra, the ruler of the east: attribute, the mandoline.

An interesting parallelism is brought out by a comparison between the ancient Mexican mode of producing the sacred fire by means of a reed and a piece of wood and its symbolism of the mystic union of the two principles of nature, to the origin of fire as told in the Veda and the ceremonial mode employed in India to produce the sacred fire by means of the mystic arani and the pramantha. The difference between the ancient American and Indian apparatus should be noticed. The two arani, made of the wood of _Ficus religiosa_, were placed crosswise. "At their junction was a fossette or cup-like hole and there they placed a piece of wood upright, in the form of a lance (the pramantha), violent rotation of which by means of whipping, produced fire, as did Prometheus, the bearer of fire in Greece" (Bournouf, Des Sciences et Religions and Prof. Thomas Wilson, The Swastika, p. 777). A remarkable relation unquestionably exists between the two mystic arani, which, crossed, form a four-branched cross from the centre of which fire is produced by rotation and the almost universal identification of Polaris and Ursa Major, as the central source of life, power extending to four directions, rotation and duality underlying quadruplicity. In my opinion no more graphic presentation of the rotation of Ursa Major around Polaris, the central ruler of heaven, could have been devised than the cross figure from the centre of which fire was perpetually obtained.

It is all the more significant, therefore, to find it stated that the ancient Aryan light-G.o.d, Mithra, was wors.h.i.+pped under the form of fire. I point out that, in a representation published by Layard in his Culte de Mithra and reproduced here (fig. 72, 1) from Mr. Goodyear's work, a man and a woman are represented as wors.h.i.+pping a star, the scene so strongly recalling the portion of the Hindu marriage ceremony where the pole-star is pointed out, that an ident.i.ty of scene suggests itself. Returning to the swastika: its meaning in India appears to be forgotten; but, according to Professor Thomas Wilson, a follower of the Jain religion expressed the opinion that "the original idea was very high, but later on some persons thought the swastika represented only the combination of the male and female principles" (Thomas Wilson, On the Swastika, p. 803).

To the Hindu, holding this view and also accustomed to a.s.sociate the pole-star with the marriage rite, there must exist a curious band of union and ident.i.ty between Polaris and the swastika, both connected with the combination of the male and female principles.

To treat of the Hindu calendar and division of time would be to transgress beyond the limits of the present investigation which has already a.s.sumed unforeseen dimensions. As I shall discuss it in detail in my monograph on the ancient Mexican Calendar system, it will suffice to recall here that Humboldt pointed out the resemblance between the latter and the Hindu system, and that this has been further dwelt upon for instance in the article on the subject in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In the same work of reference it is also stated that, "according to the conclusions of Delambre, the Hindoo knowledge of astronomy was greatly inferior to that of the Greeks, and it has been argued by Laplace, in opposition to the previous opinions of Bailly, that the Indian astronomy is not of the highest antiquity, but must have been imperfectly borrowed from the Greeks." I may as well state here, however, that, in India as in Mexico, the divisions of time were in accordance with the general scheme, and enabled human activity and labor to be controlled and carried out by means of rotation, and with strict impartial law, order and harmony.

Pausing here and with a clear realization of probable omissions and deficiencies of material, I venture to believe that the foregoing data suffice to establish beyond a doubt the point which is the main object of the present essay, namely, that in India the swastika is found accompanied by the primordial set of ideas which also form the basis of the Chinese and ancient American civilizations. The Middle is, moreover, a.s.sociated in India with the idea of immovability, repose and centrifugal power and rule, incorporated in the supreme divinity whose symbol is the wheel and who is represented as dual and quadruple in nature, _i. e._ with four hands (as two persons), and with four heads (four persons), the six persons thus symbolized being united in the person of the seventh, the synopsis of them all. The seven-day period; the seven zones of the earth; the seven divine footsteps towards the north; the seven councillors of the Brahmin king, etc., all prove that, whereas six directions in s.p.a.ce were wors.h.i.+pped in India, they were inseparable from the sacred seventh which united all of them. The mythical sacred mountain Meru, the throne of the supreme eternal power, const.i.tuted the fixed centre of the world and strikingly exemplified quadruplicate division and organization, being a.s.sociated with four lakes and four rivers; four mythical animals and four guardians. In consonance with this plan Brahma was endowed with four heads and four hands; the empire was divided into four quarters and seven zones, and the population into four castes identified with four colors, and governed by a king and seven councillors. The wheel, a.s.sociated in the case of Mithra with the serpent, const.i.tuted the emblem of supreme dominion and rule which was connected with the idea of an extension to the four quarters. The swastika was but another expression of the same idea and represented also an image of the universal scheme. This sign and the pole-star were both a.s.sociated, in the native mind, with the life-producing union of the male and female principles of nature and the sacred element fire, under which form the supreme G.o.d was anciently wors.h.i.+pped. The lotus flower symbolized the universe, its unity and complexity; the number of petals represented usually agreeing with the number of the cosmical divisions. Two points should further be briefly referred to: The division of time into seven-day periods coincides with the septenary scheme of organization resting upon the seven directions in s.p.a.ce. The sacred soma tree, the hom, was an object of cult in India. The custom of planting a Bodhi tree wherever Buddhist missionaries established their doctrine indicates its a.s.sociation with the idea of an established centre. The employment of wooden sticks for the production of the sacred fire under which form the supreme central G.o.d was anciently wors.h.i.+pped, also connected wood and the tree with the sacred Centre. Deferring a discussion of the different and yet a.n.a.logous way in which the fundamental set of ideas was worked out in America and India, I shall but mention here how clearly, in each case, the ultimate results can be traced back to a common primitive and natural origin.

MESOPOTAMIA.

Let us now carry our research into that region whence civilization spread through western Asia, and is said to have been carried to Egypt, Greece and Rome. It may be a surprise to many to learn that, at the present day, on the banks of the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, pole-star wors.h.i.+p, pure and simple, is openly professed by the Mandates who are reputed to be the descendants of the famous Magi of ancient Chaldea, and are termed Sabba or Sabans by the Moslems. It will be seen that these star-watchers have preserved intact an extremely ancient form of the archaic cult which contains the living germ of all primitive religions and represents an evolutionary stage which they must all have undergone.

It is to the kindness of a friend that I owe the knowledge of an article on a Mandate New Year festival which appeared in the "Standard" some years ago and which I reproduce in full as Appendix II. As might be expected, the Euphratean star-gazers, like the Chinese, determined midnight by the position of the Great Bear. It is interesting to find, moreover, that the spiritual head of the sect is ent.i.tled Gan-zivro, and is closely escorted by four young deacons, named sh-kan-dos, as well as by four priests=tarmidos, and four sub-deacons. The circ.u.mstance that the consecrated group of officiants consists of 12+1=13 individuals is particularly suggestive. Not less so are the employment of the tau-shaped cross and the sacrifice of a quadruped to the lord of the underworld and his companion (the lord of the upper world?). The ceremonial immersion in the starlit river is a curious parallel to the midnight bathing in the sacred pool attached to the ancient Mexican temple.

The formulas employed in addressing the pole-star deserve special consideration. In the designation of the stable centre of heaven as "the abode of the pious hereafter and the paradise of the elect," the natural longings of the human race for stability, _i. e._ safety and repose, find an expression and in this we can detect the germ of thought whose extreme development, in India, produced the comparatively philosophical doctrine of Nirvana. The t.i.tle of "Primitive Sun" enlightens us as to the original use of the word sun and the supreme importance accorded by the ancient star-gazers to the "Imperial ruler of heaven," as the Chinese term the pole-star. This application of the word sun will be found particularly interesting to those who, having found the swastika termed a "sun-symbol,"

have naturally been led to a.s.sociate it with the diurnal sun, although they found it difficult to understand its connection with the rotatory motion so clearly discernible in the form of the primitive symbol.

Having ascertained that the Mandate pole-star wors.h.i.+p of the present day embodies the cult of the sacred centre and of dual principles (one of which is designated as the lord of the underworld) and is a.s.sociated with quadruple organization and a form of cross, let us now make a great stride backwards and note some details concerning ancient Sabaean star-wors.h.i.+p.

ARABIA.

In remote antiquity, star-wors.h.i.+p prevailed throughout Arabia and one of its great centres was the flouris.h.i.+ng land of Saba or Sheba, whose queen visited Solomon at Jerusalem. The star-cult of the Sabaeans is acknowledged to have resembled that of the ancient inhabitants of Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and India. We are told that a certain sect amongst them "believed in a great cycle of time in which certain epochs of the world's history recurred"-an idea akin to ancient Mexican speculative philosophy. It is also stated that one of the chief centres of Sabaeism was the town of Harran in Mesopotamia and that, although surrounded by Christianity, this ancient form of star-wors.h.i.+p maintained itself here until the Middle Ages.

The possibility that the Mandates of to-day may be the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Harran is naturally suggested by this historical fact. A curious detail concerning monarchical succession in Sheba has been preserved to us. The king was kept in an enforced seclusion in his palace and incurred the penalty of death if he left it. His office was not hereditary but fell to the first son who was born amongst the n.o.bility, after a king's accession to the throne. In this custom, a curious parallel of which is furnished by the Thibetan mode of electing the "living Buddha," some readers may be inclined to find an explanation for the ma.s.sacre of the babes ordered by Herod when he learned that the wise men of the East, guided by a star, had designated "a young child" as the future "King of the Jews." It is an interesting reflection that, to many of his contemporaries, the establishment of the "Kingdom of Heaven,"

announced by the Messiah, may have appeared as a movement to revive the most ancient form of government and to reinstate Jerusalem as the central metropolis of an empire, the organization of which would have resembled the Chinese and ancient American forms of "Middle Kingdoms," or "Celestial Empires."

The ideal of many of these descendants of ancient pole-star wors.h.i.+ppers may well have been the reversion to the primitive, pure type of single central, celestial and terrestrial rule which had been superseded in western Asia by the pernicious growth of the utterly abasing and demoralizing separate cults of the dual principles of nature.

A curious remnant of the wors.h.i.+p of the Earth-mother and of the stable centre of the world, recalling ancient American symbolism, exists in Arabia and merits a pa.s.sing notice. "The great holy place of Jiddah, the princ.i.p.al landing place of the pilgrims to Mecca, on the eastern coast of the Red sea, is the singular tomb of 'our mother Eve' surrounded by the princ.i.p.al cemetery. The tomb is a walled enclosure said to represent the dimensions of the body about 200 paces long and 15 feet wide. At the head is a small erection where gifts are deposited and rather more than half way down a whitewashed dome encloses a small, dark chapel, within which is the black stone known as el-surrah=the navel. The grave of Eve is mentioned by Edrisi but, except the black stone, nothing bears any aspect of antiquity" (Encycl. Brit., article Jiddah).

The fact that the Arabian appellation for Mecca is om-el-kora="the mother of cities" deserves special attention. Exactly in the centre of the city is the mosque enclosing the kaaba, a structure the only door of which opens to the north. It contains the celebrated black sacred stone and a trough, reputed to be of pure gold, which conducts freshly fallen rain water to the interior of the building and pours it upon its floor of dark earth. The following details are given in a recently published account by an anonymous visitor:

"The Moslems believe that the original Kaaba was built in heaven two thousand years before the creation of the world and that, at the command of the Almighty, angels walked around it in adoration. Furthermore, they said that Adam built the first Kaaba on earth on its present site, directly under the one in heaven.... Long before the time of Mahomet, the Kaaba was a place of wors.h.i.+p for the idolatrous Arabs and in it they had no less than 360 idols, one for each day of the Arabian year. These were destroyed by Mahomet...." Beside the pilgrimages to the Kaaba pious Mussulmans also visit the sacred granite mountains the "Arafat where Adam is supposed to have met Eve after a long separation."

Summarized, the preceding facts clearly show that, from a remote antiquity, the Arabians have preserved the conception of (1) a divine, celestial, stable sanctuary around which "angels" walked in a circle. (2) A terrestrial sanctuary built by man directly beneath the heavenly one and a.s.sociated with the period of a year, _i. e._ 360 days. (3) In the sacred terrestrial kaaba the mystic union of rain and earth is made to take place, while (4) Mount Arafat is connected with the traditional reunion of Adam and Eve.

It is unnecessary to point out the significant a.s.sociation of an annual count of days with the stable centre and its importance as an indication that the ancient Arabian star-gazers originally a.s.sociated the year period with circ.u.mpolar rotation. The a.n.a.logy between the Arabian ideas concerning the dual principles of nature and those of other nations is also too marked to be easily overlooked.

Nor need I emphasize how strikingly the imagery of the celestial kaaba suits Polaris and the circ.u.mpolar constellations. But I shall now proceed to point out that the word kaaba itself curiously resembles star-names which are given by Mr. Robert Brown in his recent valuable publication to which I shall revert, namely, the Akkadian name for constellation in general=kakkab and the Babylonian and a.s.syrian name for the pole-star=Kakkabu. In this connection and upon Professor Sayce's authority I cite the significant fact that the word for north and for the empire and capital of northern Babylonia was Akkad, and that we thus find in North Babylonia a great centre of government the name of which contains the syllables ak-ka which recur in the appellations for north and for Polaris.

The following star-names, given by Mr. Robert Brown, are of utmost interest considering that a star in Draconis was the pole-star of 2170 B.C. and that in general the serpent was indissolubly connected with the pole-star. "The constellation Drakon is Phnician=Kanaanite in origin and represented primarily the nakkasch qodmun (old serpent)=the guardian of the stars (golden apples) which hang from the pole tree. It is called the crooked serpent=nakkasch in Job XXVI:13 ..." (_op. cit._, p. 29). I further cite Mr. Brown's authority for the fact that in Phnicia A.D., 1200, the name for Ursa Major was Dubkabir and for Ursa Minor, Dub.

Before returning to the Euphratean valley let us note some facts concerning the ancient religion of

PERSIA.

The swastika is found in Persia as well as a sacred mountain, the Elburl.

The supreme divinity was the invisible Ahuramazda, the "creator of heaven and earth," who was a.s.sociated with "eternal light" and appears to be identical with the ancient Aryan G.o.d of light, Mithra, the watcher and ruler of the world, who was wors.h.i.+pped under the form of fire.

Mithra and Ahuramazda alike are a.s.sociated with six spirits named the Amesha-zpenta, who are said, in the first case, to be personifications of the sun, moon, fire, earth, water and air, and in the second, of certain qualities of the supreme power, namely, law, power, goodness, piety, health and immortality, abstract conceptions which evidently pertain to a more advanced intellectual stage. The septarchy thus formed by Mithra and his Amesha appears to a.s.sign the Middle to him and to a.s.sociate the sun with the day, heaven, light and the Above, the moon with the night and darkness and the Below, and the elements with the Four Quarters. It is suggestive of four-fold rule and power to find, on a bas-relief found at the ancient holy city Pasargada, the Persian king Cyrus represented with four wings and a diadem with two uraeus serpents like that of Egyptian kings.

The most ancient Persian monarch is said to have been Haha-manis or Akhamanis, who was termed "the king of Anshan." Subsequent kings bore the t.i.tle of Hakhamanisija, as for instance, Cyrus and Darius I (520-486 B.C.). At the present day, the t.i.tle Charkan is that employed to designate the Shah, whereas G.o.da or khoda signifies lord, master, prince or ruler.

In a bas-relief published by Spamer, whose work of reference will be referred to again later on, Darius is represented as standing under the image of Ahuramazda, the supreme deity, who, like the a.s.syrian G.o.d a.s.sur, is figured as a king wearing the royal cap, and issuing from the centre of a winged ring or circlet. In Persia the G.o.d holds another ring in his hand (fig. 71, 1). It seems impossible to emphasize more strongly or express more clearly the idea that Ahuramazda was the lord of the circle and of the Above, the wings being emblematic of air or heaven and of motion.

The signification of the symbolical representation of the supreme power and the adoption of fire by the founders of the ancient Pa.r.s.ee religion as the most appropriate image of their highest G.o.d, become clear when interpreted as the outcome of pole-star wors.h.i.+p. Resisting the temptation to prolong the study of ancient Persia, let us now hasten to the reputed cradle of the civilization of Western Asia.