17

Chapter XVII

  1. Cf. O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte (1905), p. 1036, n.1: “probably the Milky Way.”

  2. Plato’s Republic (Cornford trans.), p. 353.

  3. Eisler, Weltenmantel und Himmelszelt (1910), pp. 97ff.

  4. Cf. also the discussion in J. L. E. Dreyer, A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler (1953), pp. 56ff. Concerning the “chains,” which he translates “ligatures,” Dreyer states: “The ligatures (desmoi) of the heavens are the solstitial and equinoctial colures intersecting in the poles, which points therefore may be called their extremities (akra).”

  5. G. de Santillana and W. Pitts, “Philolaos in Limbo,” ISIS 42 (1951), pp. 112-20; also in Reflections on Men and Ideas (1968), pp. 190-201.

  6. See H. Diets, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1951), vol. 1, pp. 412f.

  7. Harvard Oriental Series, vol.8, p. 590.

  8. K. Krohn, Kalevalastudien 4. Sampo (1927), p. 13.

  9. We are aware that either Grotte “should” have three roots, or that Yggdrasil should be uprooted, and that the Finns do not tell how the maelstroem came into being. All of which can be explained; we wish, however, to avoid dragging more and more material into the case. Several ages of the world have passed away, and they do not perish all in the same manner; e.g., the Finns know of the destruction of Sampo and of the felling of the huge Oak.

  10. To clear up the exact range of the three worlds, it would be necessary to work out the whole history of the Babylonian “Ways of Anu, Enlil, and Ea” (cf. pp. 431f.), and how these “Ways” were adapted, changed, and defined anew by the many heirs of ancient oriental astronomy. And then we would not yet be wise to the precise whereabouts of Air, Saltwater, and other ambiguous items.

  11. Radloff, quoted by W. E. Roescher, Der Omphalosgedanke (1918), pp. 1f.

  12. Mbh. 1.71, Roy trans., vol. 1, p. 171.

  13. The notion of “numerous (newly appointed) stars beginning with Sravana” should enlighten us. Sravana, “the Lame,” is, in the generally accepted order, the twenty-first lunar mansion, alpha beta gamma Aquilae, also called by the name Ashvatta, which stands for a sacred fig tree but which means literally “below which the horses stand” (Scherer, Gestirnnamen, p. 158), and which invites comparison with Old Norse Yggdrasil, meaning “the tree below which Odin’s horse grazes” (Reuter, Germanische Himmelskunde, p. 236). Actually, the solstitial colure ran through alpha beta gamma Aquilae around 300 B.C., and long after the time when it used to pass through one or the other of the stars of the Big Dipper; the equinoctial colure, however, comes down very near eta Ursae Majoris. Considering that eta maintains the most cordial relations with Mars in occidental astrology, Vishvāmitra might be eta, and might represent Mars, and that would go well with the violent character of this Rishi. But even if we accept this for a working hypothesis, there remains the riddle of the “second world,” i.e., “second” with respect to which “first” world? Although we have a hunch, we are not going to try to solve it here and now. Two pieces of information should be mentioned, however: (1) Mbh. 14-44 (Roy trans., vol. 12, p. 83) states: “The constellations (= lunar mansions, nakshatras) have Sravana for their first”; (2) Sengupta (in Burgess’ trans. of Surya Siddhanta, p.xxxiv) claims that “the time of the present redaction of the Mahabbarata” was called “Sravanadi kala, i.e., the time when the winter solstitial colure passed through the nakshatra Sravana.”

  14. N. M. Penzer, The Ocean of Story (1924), vol. 1, p. 3.

  15. Anabasis of Alexander 2.3.1-8 (Robson trans., LCL).

  16. Orpheus and Greek Religion (1952), p. 168.

  17. P. Mus, Barabudur (1935).

  18. F. Boll, Sphaera (1903), pp. 19, 28, 47, 246-51. Antiochus does not mention any of these star groups.

  19. The notion is not even foreign to the cheering adventures of Sun, the Chinese Monkey (Wou Tch’eng Ngen, French trans. by Louis Avenal [1957]). One day, two “harponneurs des morts” get hold of him, claiming that he has arrived at the term of his destiny, and is ripe for the underworld. He escapes, of course. The translator remarks (vol. 1, p. iii) that it is the constellation Nan Teou, the Southern Dipper, that decides everybody’s death, and the orders are executed by these “harponneurs des morts.” The Southern Dipper consists of the stars mu, lambda, phi, sigma, tau, and zeta Sagittarii (cf. G. Schlegel, L’Uranographie Chinoise [1875], pp. 172ff.; L. de Saussure, Les Origines de l’Astronomie Chinoise [1930], pp. 452f.).