The wound motif

The wound motif of the mythological victim assumes many forms, ranging from the violently horrific portrayals of castration and dismemberment, as suffered by Osiris, to more subtle symbolic forms of death, such as induced sleep and the curse of blindness, both inflicted upon the Cyclops Polyphemus. Occasionally the mythological victim will enter the realm of death directly in a form of underworld/otherworld or oceanic journey, like Odysseus, where the dividing line between death and life – as in the motif of the sleeping god – tends to become blurred. This state between death and life is also evident in the motif of the maimed god, who remains alive, yet perpetually suffers from an incurable wound, as in the case of the grail/fisher King from Arthurian romance.

Typically, the fate of the mythological victim is bound up in some form of physical injury. The three most prominent wound motifs in this category, are dismemberment (Osiris, Zagreus, Purusha, Orpheus, Pangu, Ymir, Avalokiteshvara), castration (Shiva, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Izanagi, Ouranos), and an injury to the foot (Bran, seed of the woman ‘Genesis 3:15′, Philoctetes, Centaur Cheiron, Centaur Pholus, Talos, Krishna, Diarmaid, Achilles, Ra), specifically to the heel.

Lunar beasts (part three)

The Mysteries of Mithras

Those initiated into the mysteries of Mithras achieved cosmic release by way of the revolving planets, which appear in Mithraic Iconography, each planet (Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Moon, and Sun) according to Celsus (Origen: Against Celcus 6:22), corresponding with a ladder of seven celestial gateways, surmounted by an eighth gateway, most likely transcendent of the celestial realm. The so-called Mithras Liturgy mentions that the pathway of the visible gods (i.e: the planets), is illuminated by the disc of the sun, the emblem of the indestructible god and gateway to the realm of the gods beyond (545-625). According to Jerome (Letter ‘to Laeta’ 107:2), there were eight stages of initiation (raven, bridegroom, soldier, lion, Perseus, sun, Crab, and father), presumably corresponding with the eight gateways.

In antiquity, numerous writers claim that the mysteries of Mithras took place within a cave and the god himself was born from a rock. Mithraic temples, called Mithraea (known collectively as Mithraeum), were windowless underground structures, evidently imitative of natural caves, and particularly of the mythological cave that enclosed the cosmos. In certain Mithraea, pumex stone was used to imitate the natural appearance of a cave, stars were painted on the ceiling, and the use of artificial light to replicate the heavenly bodies have all served to create the illusion of the celestial realm, according to Mithraic cosmology.

Statues depict Mithras birth, fully grown, from a rock, sometimes enclosed by a coiled serpent, reminiscent of the Orphic creation myth of the birth of the double-sexed being Phanes (Meaning ‘light’, also known as Protogonus ‘firstborn’, among other names), hatched from a serpent entwined cosmic egg. The rock-born motif appears to represent a paradoxical double truth, that Mithras birth within the cosmos and the cosmic creation itself were simultaneous events.

Also associated with the Mithraic cult was the statue of a lion-headed figure (leontocephaline), whose body was entwined by a spiraling serpent. This statue, I believe, represents both the lunar-temporal reality, corresponding with the revolving (serpentine) planetary path leading to cosmic release, and the solar-eternal reality, corresponding with the eighth gate mentioned by Celcus, as the indestructible lion’s head. The serpent also corresponds with the image of the Ouroboros that encircles the world, that in Greek mythology was Oceanus, who himself appears frequently in Mithraic iconography.

The central mystery involved Mithras slaying a bull within a cosmic cave. Leading up to this image of cosmic sacrifice is a sequence of iconic images of Mithras capturing and wrestling the bull. The bull slaying scene itself, known as the Taruoctony, depicts Mithras with his left knee pressed down upon the beast’s arched back, while With his left hand the god pulls back the bull’s head by the nostrils, and cuts the creature’s throat with a knife. The posture of the bull is reminiscent of the waxing crescent moon, while the god himself (the eternal god born within the temporal realm), is like the rising sun.

Other creatures accompany the sacrifice, including a crab and scorpion attacking the bull’s genitals (castration motif), and a dog and serpent attacking the bull’s bleeding throat. To the left and right of the bull slaying scene stand the twin torch bearers, Cautes and Cautopates, dressed Persian style like Mithras, with Phrygian caps. Above Cautes, whose torch points upwards (towards the realm of life) is an image of sol, the sun, who is sometimes riding an ascending chariot, while above Cautopates, whose torch points downwards (towards the realm of death), is Luna, goddess of the moon, sometimes riding a descending chariot drawn by bulls. Luna is also often depicted wearing a lunar headdress reminiscent of bull horns, and it is surely no coincidence that Mithras pulls back the head of the bull, as if transfixed and staring directly towards the moon, while the god himself looks towards the sun.

In various iconic representations, both Mithras and Sol are shown together, and Mithras himself was called Deus Sol Invictus. In one scene Mithras and Sol are sitting together partaking in a meal, presumably of bull flesh. In another scene Sol kneels before Mithras, and it seems apparent that the sun derives it’s power from Mithras himself.

The combined lunar-solar aspects of the god, represented in the leontocephaline, are distinct in the Taruoctony, and there is no other evidence that Mithras himself was ever thought to be both the lunar bull who is slain, as well as the solar god who slays. We find a similar distinction in the Zoroastrian creation myth (see part one). However, in the ancient lore of the mythological victim the god was clearly both.

Lunar beasts (part two)

The Bull Dionysus

Dionysus — accompanied by his army of bacchic revellers — was accredited as the universal distributor of his own worship and the knowledge of the vine (The ambrosial plant). Like Noah, he was the inventor of wine, and like Soma, he himself was the ambrosial drink poured out, everywhere releasing mankind from suffering. He was originally depicted as a bearded man, sometimes wearing a fawn or leopard-skin, and often carrying a wine cup (kantharos). From the 5th Century B.C onwards he primarily took the form of an effeminate youth.

In Euripides’ Bacchae, the god is invoked by the chorus to manifest himself as a bull and multi-headed serpent, both reflecting the god’s temporal aspect, as well as a fire breathing lion, representing his eternal all-consuming nature.

To demonstrate the rampant bull-ness of Dionysus, I need only to quote a paragraph from The Golden Bough:

…he is spoken of as “cow-born,” “bull,” “bull-shaped,” “bull-faced,” “bull-browed,” “bull-horned,” “horn-bearing,” “two-horned,” “horned.” He was believed to appear, at least occasionally, as a bull. His images were often, as at Cyzicus, made in bull shape, or with bull horns; and he was painted with horns. Types of the horned Dionysus are found amongst the surviving monuments of antiquity. On one statuette he appears clad in a bull’s hide, the head, horns, and hoofs hanging down behind. Again, he is represented as a child with clusters of grapes round his brow, and a calf’s head, with sprouting horns, attached to the back of his head. On a red-figured vase the god is portrayed as a calf-headed child seated on a woman’s lap. The people of Cynaetha held a festival of Dionysus in winter, when men, who had greased their bodies with oil for the occasion, used to pick out a bull from the herd and carry it to the sanctuary of the god. Dionysus was supposed to inspire their choice of the particular bull, which probably represented the deity himself; for at his festivals he was believed to appear in bull form. The women of Elis hailed him as a bull, and prayed him to come with his bull’s foot. They sang, “Come hither, Dionysus, to thy holy temple by the sea; come with the Graces to thy temple, rushing with thy bull’s foot, O goodly bull, O goodly bull!” The Bacchanals of Thrace wore horns in imitation of their god. According to the myth, it was in the shape of a bull that he was torn to pieces by the Titans… (James Frazer: The Golden Bough, Ch. 43 Dionysus)

In one of many magnificent mosaics from the House of Masks in Delos, a youthful Dionysus rides on the back of a leopard (another solar beast), holding up a libation dish*, deliberately at an angle, identifying it with the new moon cup of rebirth.

An Attic vase from the 5th Century B.C (below), portrays the god (or rather an effigy of the god) hanging from a vertical post. Branches of ivy sprout from his body, a circular wreath hangs from his belt, and before him stand two large vases upon a table. He is flanked by four female attendants. On the left, one holds a flaming torch pointing downwards towards the realm of death, whilst to the right of the god — hanging, as it were, in liminal space — another holds a torch upwards towards the realm of life, corresponding with the waning and waxing moons. Dionysus was known as Dithyrambos, ‘he of the double-door’, further identifying the god with the old and new moons.

Dionysus was also said to of married Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, who helped Theseus navigate the labyrinth and slay the half-man half-bull Minotaur.

Footnote

* It’s possible that Dionysus is holding up a tambourine, rather than a libation dish. Either way the new moon symbolism is apparent.

Lunar beasts (part one)

Previously, I have referred to the bull and lion as the animal representatives of the temporal-lunar and eternal-solar aspects of divinity, and how both further symbolize their respective modes of existence in the cosmos and the world beyond. Whereas the solar representative is limited to mainly two animal forms (the lion and the eagle), the lunar representative has numerous zoological forms, including bull, serpent, stag (or other assorted horned beasts), and the boar (or pig).

The bull appears to be symbolic of the temporal nature due to it’s horns, being reminiscent of the crescent moon.The boar with it’s tusks and the stag’s antlers seem to be prototypical of the bull, while the serpent, with it’s association with water (a reoccurring cosmic motif), and the ability to shed it’s skin (rebirth motif), occupies a unique class of it’s own, although even the serpent is sometimes depicted with horns.

Here, I intend to focus on the lunar aspect of the divinity in theriomorphic form, although, due to the mutable nature of myth, and the interdependence of both the solar and lunar aspects of god, it is often difficult not to mention one without the other. For example, Dumuzi’s temporal-theriomorphic transformation is actualized through the power of the sun god Utu, and likewise the destruction of the temporal aspect of the vedic god Soma, produces the eternal-solar ambrosia. To entirely exclude references to the coinciding aspects of the temporal and eternal is both problematic and unnecessary, however I shall draw up a more wide-ranging presentation of the temporal-eternal interplay further on.

The cosmic bull sacrifice in Zoroastrian mythology

In the Zoroastrian Bundahishn (The Creation), the cosmic sacrifice is inadvertently performed by the evil Angra Mainyu, who, in the act of corrupting Ahura Mazda’s perfect creation, kills both the primal bull and Gayomart, the primal man. The seed of the bull is purified within the moon, giving birth to all living creatures (10.1-4; 14.1-5), while the seed of Gayomart is purified by the sun, engendering a double-sexed plant (Rivas), that becomes Mashya and Mashyana, the first human couple (15.1-5). At the end of time, the cosmic saviour Saoshyant will sacrifice another bull called Hadhayosh (Sarsaok), and mix it’s fat with haoma (Vedic: soma) to create Hush, the ambrosial food of immortality (30.25).

The Zoroastrian myth of cosmic sacrifice discriminates between the evil slaying of the primal bull, that plays a part in the creation of the cosmos, and the good sacrifice of the ambrosial bull, performed by the eschatological Saoshyant, at the end of the alloted cosmic span of twelve thousand years. Zoroastrian mythology introduces the idea of time as a straight line, the beginning and end of all creation being distinct, whereas, in the preexistent lore of the mythological victim, both the beginning and the end are bound together in cylindrical time through a single cosmic sacrifice, that also impartments the ambrosial boon of life, not at the resurrection at the end of the world, but actually within the temporal realm itself, here and now, which is exactly what we find in the earlier Vedic Soma sacrifice of India.

The Soma Sacrifice

The lunar God, King Soma, was personified as the Plant of Immortality, which in turn was equated in the Rig Vedic hymns (I am using the Ralph Griffith 1896 translation) with the mythical World Tree (Axis-Mundi) that upheld the sky, like a cosmic temple column (9.74.2), separating heaven and earth (9.70.2,5) at the centre of the world (9.72.7; 9.86.8). The identity (or identities?) of the plant remains an academic enigma, although it was certainly narcotic. In the hymns it was praised as the tree that “yields heavenly milk” (9.12.7), sacrificially served up at the banquet of the gods (9.20.1), as the ambrosia from which they derived their power (9.104.5; 9.25.1).

During the Soma sacrifice, large quantities of the plant were swiftly and continuously crushed with mortar stones upon an ox hide (9.30.2; 9.79.4), releasing the ‘solar’ juice (9.63.13; 9.86.34) from the temporal plant who, “freeing himself he flows away leaving his body’s severed limbs” (9.14.4), elsewhere described as shedding his skin like a serpent (9.86.44), and then filtered through a woollen fleece.

The dynamic of the ceremony resides in the perpetual moment of purification. It is then that Soma rightfully becomes King; “May those his beautiful rays be ever free from death, inviolate…rays wherewith powers of men and gods are purified. Yea, even for this have sages welcomed him as King” (9.7.3). Self-purified (9.111.1), he enters the immortal realm (9.25.4), attaining the priestly power to purify (9.67.22), who is then, in turn, paradoxically purified by his worshippers (9.86.12), his body becoming pure and free from stain (9.70.8) in eternal (non-linear) and blissful beautification.

In acquiring sovereignty through purification, Soma “containeth in his hands all treasures”(9.18.4), “winning all precious things at once” (9.29.4) which he liberally showers upon all his worshippers (9..40.5–6; 9.62.11); such as rain (9.8.8), cattle (9.67.6), clothing (9.72.8), food, warriors, horses, and the spoils of war (9.42.6), as well as the gift of immortality. “Immortal in his self he has entered mortals” (8.48.12) through the drinking of the divine Soma (8.48.3).

Soma also separates good and evil (9.97.18). “the worlds expand to him who from aforetime found light to spread the law of life eternal” (9.94.2) “Attaining purity,” he “plunges through the foe, making his ways all easy for pious men” (9.86.26). He vanquishes all enemies (9.48.2; 9.55.4) by crushing fiends (9.37.3; 9.53.1), destroying demons (9.63.28–29), slaying sinners (9.28.6; 9.61.19), and banishing curses, making a way for prayer (9.62.11; 9.96.10). With the powers of darkness he also banishes sickness (9.85.1); “all that is sick he medicines; the blind man sees, the cripple walks”(8.68.2).

Soma’s prime animal form is the bull (9.64.1–2; 9.69.3–4; 9.70.5–7). He is believed to impregnate cows during his purification (9.19.5), and provide them with milk (9.33.4). “The cows have sung with joy to him, even as a woman to her love” (9.32.5). He is also a bird of prey, who acts as guardian of the heavenly law (9.48.4), and embodies the Soma juice in the drinking bowl (9.96.19). Compare Anzu and the Sumerian lion-bird. Soma is described as the ”watchful guardian of the mead, the lion” (9.89.3). Soma is Lord “of all that is” (9.31.6); “of heaven” (9.89.3); “of the multitude” (9.101.7); “of Holy Law” (9.35.6); “of strength” (9.36.6); “of cattle” (9.72.4); “of speech” (9.101.5); “of song” (9.99.6); “of hymns” (9.86.19); “of the world” (9.86.5); “of heros”; “of riches”. Soma is immortal (9.84.2), eternal (9.72.6), and infallible (9.97.38); omnipotent (9.101.5; 9.96.10), omniscient (9.20.3; 9.71.9), and omnipresent (9.97.38; 9.86.5). He upholds the universe (9.76.1), sometimes, as we have already seen, in the form of a cosmic tree. He is victorious (9.24.4; 9.35.4), unconquered (9.4.8; 9.27.4), full of joy (9.47.1), forgiving and full of grace (8.48.9; 8.68.7–8; 9.29.5), and a faithful friend of friends (9.48.4; 9.66.1–4; 9.78.5). Once purified, the Soma juice runs down into a wooden vat (9.66.11; 9.21.3), or is collected in jars (9.63.3, 13; 9.72.1), which appear to be personified by the God Indra (9.37.6; 9.60.3). All through the Soma sacrifice these hymns are sung, empowering (9.64.16) and empowered (9.64.25) by the God himself.

The Lion Slayer

The slaying of the lion is another motif closely related to the theme of the solar giant.

The indestructible nature of the giant can only be overcome by a hero who has attained an identical form of indestructibility. In the conflict with Balor of the evil eye, Lugh’s solar identity is disclosed by his single blazing eye, and the indestructible solar power is turned inward upon it’s source, when the solar hero, blasts a hole through the back of Balor’s head. In the myths concerning David and Goliath, Diarmaid and Sharvan, and Odysseus and Polyphemus, the weapon of the giant is also turned upon it’s source.

One of Heracles’ early labours, the slaying of the Nemean lion, is a good example of a hero who attains an indestructible nature. Heracles is unable to penetrate the lion’s hide, and instead crushes the beast to death, simultaneously achieving oneness in both life and death. Heracles then flays the lion’s skin, cutting the hide with the beast’s own claws, much in the same way as David severs Goliath’s head, with his own sword. The hero afterwards wears the skin of the lion, that is, he clothes himself in indestructibility, becoming again, identical in nature to the all destroying, yet life giving, divine force.

The same idea of acheiving a divine nature can be found in African puberty rites:

…This comes out quite clearly in African initiation ceremonies; here too circumcision is equivalent to death, and the operators are dressed in lion skins and leopard skins; they incarnate the divinities in animal form who in mythical times first performed initiatory murder. The operators wear the claws of beasts of prey and their knives are barbed. They attack the novices genital organs, which shows that the intention is to kill them. The act of circumcision is expressed by the verb “to kill.” But soon afterward the novices are themselves dressed in leopard or skins; that is, they assimilate the divine essence of the initiatory animal and hence are restored to live in it. (Rites and symbols of initiation: the mysteries of birth and rebirth, Mircea Eliade, p.23, 1958 Harper & Row)

Gilgamesh also killed and wore the skin of lions before he passed through the gate of the scorpion men. The scorpion gate is equivalent to the old and new moons, discussed in my previous article The old and new moon boat, and are representative of the temporal realm, as opposed to the solar-eternal realm.

A steatite stamp seal (above) from north Mesopotamia, dating to 3300 B.C, represents the duel lunar-solar mystery of the temporal-lunar double-door, and the eternal-solar gateway. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, once the hero has clothed himself in lion skins and passed the scorpion men, he must then traverse the ocean of death — that, as mentioned in my previous article, only the sun god himself can cross — in order to reach the island of immortality. It is only by attaining an indestructible nature (symbolized by the lion skins), and becoming at one with the solar principle, that Gilgamesh can achieve his goal, at least in the preexistent mythos of the solar hero, upon which the journey of Gilgamesh is clearly based.

The Hebrew hero Samson, whose name means ‘sunlight’, also killed a lion, obtaining the gift of ambrosial honey from the beast’s carcass. This act is the equivalent of Odysseus obtaining the ambrosial wine from Polyphemus’ eye. The myth that Samson unhinged the gates of Gaza and carried them upon his shoulders to the top of hill, is probably an interpretation of an iconic representation of the god in solar aspect standing within a lunar style double-door upon the cosmic axis-mundi (Judges 16:3).