Samhain

[Craz]

The only fact I know about Stonehenge is the traffic jam every bloomin' year on the way to Glastonbury ... and it's worse coming home!

Can't we move it, so we can widen the road?



I'M KIDDING!

Sorry to bring you bad news, but it has just gotten worse. I drove by recently.

See BBC News - Stonehenge 'road chaos' concern after A344 closure

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

I understand, Tea. What I am trying to establish is that Aryan sun myths, which include Samhain, in Ireland or in India, or in areas between the two, are thousands of years older than Christianity (and, as everybody knows, have heavily influenced Christianity).

So you're arguing that all these celebrations come from a common origin? Must be hard to prove, no?

 

[Aupmanyav]

So you're arguing that all these celebrations come from a common origin? Must be hard to prove, no?

Actually it is not. All branches of Aryans or people influenced by Aryans have remarkable similarity in language and myths. Take the 10 month year (and 2 months of darkness), Hindus have it (the 2 month period of darkness is still known as Ati-ratra (Darker night)), the Zoroastrians have it mentioned in their 'Gathas' when the bodies of those who died in that period were to be kept in ditches to be exhumed in spring for further rights, Romans had it in their old calendar. Tilak gives an nice description of these in the chapter on Comparative Mythology.

"Prof. Max Müller, in his Lectures on the Science of Language, further remarks that “the dawn, which to us is a merely beautiful sight, was to the early gazers and thinkers the problem of all the problems. It was the unknown land from whence rose every day those bright emblems of divine powers, which, left in the mind of man the first impression and intimation of another world, of power above, of order and wisdom. What we simply call the sun-rise, brought before their eyes every day the riddle of all riddles, the riddle of existence. The days of their life sprang from that dark abyss, which every morning seemed instinct with light and life.” And again “a new life flashed up every morning before their eyes and the fresh breezes of the dawn reached them like greetings wafted across the golden threshold of the sky from the distant lands beyond the mountains, beyond the clouds, beyond the dawn, beyond the immortal sea which brought us hither.”

The dawn seemed to them to open golden gates for the sun to pass in triumph and while those gates were open their eyes and their minds strove in their childish way to pierce beyond the finite world. That silent aspect awakened in the human mind the conception of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Divine, and the names of dawn became naturally the names of higher powers. “This is manifestly more poetic than real. But the learned Professor explains many Vedic myths on the theory that they are all Dawn-stories in different garbs. Thus if Saraṇyu, who had twins from Vivasvat, ran off from him in the form of a mare, and he followed her in the form of a horse, it is nothing but a story of the Dawn disappearing at the approach of the sun and producing the pair of day and night. The legend of Suryâ’s marriage with Soma, and of Vṛiṣhâkapâyî, whose oxen (the morning vapors) were swallowed by Indra, or of Aditi giving birth to the Âdityas are again said to be the stories of the Dawn under different aspects. Saramâ, crossing the waters to find out the cows stolen by Paṇis, is similarly the Dawn bringing with her the rays of the morning, and when Urvashi says that she is gone away and Purûravas calls himself Vasiṣhṭha or the brightest, it is the same Dawn flying away from the embrace of the rising sun.

In short, the Dawn is supposed to have been everything to the ancient people, and a number of legends are explained in this way, until at last the monotonous character of these stories led the learned professor to ask to himself the question, “Is everything the Dawn? Is everything the Sun?” — a question, which he answers by informing us that so far as his researches were concerned they had led him again and again to the Dawn and the Sun as the chief burden of the myths of the Aryan race. The dawn here referred to is the daily dawn as we see it in the tropical or the temperate zone, or, in other words, it is the daily conquest of light over darkness that is here represented as filling the minds of the ancient bards with such awe and fear as to give rise to a variety of myths. It may be easily perceived how this theory will be affected by the discovery that Uṣhas, or the goddess of the dawn in the Ṛig-Veda, does not represent the evanescent dawn of the tropics, but is really the long continuous dawn of the Polar or the Circum-Polar regions. If the Arctic theory is once established many of these mythological explanations will have to be entirely re-written. But the task cannot be undertaken in a work which is devoted solely to the examination of the evidence in support of that theory."
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — The Arctic Home in the Vedas — Chapter 9 - Vedic Myths - Captive Waters, page 223 onwards ..

 

[radarmark]

Pretty close to my non-Aryan, non-mythological beliefs. By that I mean classically Jewish and claisically philosophical interpretation of all of this.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So you're arguing that all these celebrations come from a common origin? Must be hard to prove, no?

Actually it is not. All branches of Aryans or people influenced by Aryans have remarkable similarity in language and myths. Take the 10 month year (and 2 months of darkness), Hindus have it (the 2 month period of darkness is still known as Ati-ratra (Darker night)), the Zoroastrians have it mentioned in their 'Gathas' when the bodies of those who died in that period were to be kept in ditches to be exhumed in spring for further rights, Romans had it in their old calendar. Tilak gives an nice description of these in the chapter on Comparative Mythology.

"Prof. Max Müller, in his Lectures on the Science of Language, further remarks* that “the dawn, which to us is a merely beautiful sight, was to the early gazers and thinkers the problem of all the problems. It was the unknown land from whence rose every day those bright emblems of divine powers, which, left in the mind of man the first impression and intimation of another world, of power above, of order and wisdom. What we simply call the sun-rise, brought before their eyes every day the riddle of all riddles, the riddle of existence. The days of their life sprang from that dark abyss, which every morning seemed instinct with light and life.” And again “a new life flashed up every morning before their eyes and the fresh breezes of the dawn reached them like greetings wafted across the golden threshold of the sky from the distant lands beyond the mountains, beyond the clouds, beyond the dawn, beyond the immortal sea which brought us hither.”

The dawn seemed to them to open golden gates for the sun to pass in triumph and while those gates were open their eyes and their minds strove in their childish way to pierce beyond the finite world. That silent aspect awakened in the human mind the conception of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Divine, and the names of dawn became naturally the names of higher powers. “This is manifestly more poetic than real. But the learned Professor explains many Vedic myths on the theory that they are all Dawn-stories in different garbs. Thus if Saraṇyu, who had twins from Vivasvat, ran off from him in the form of a mare, and he followed her in the form of a horse, it is nothing but a story of the Dawn disappearing at the approach of the sun and producing the pair of day and night. The legend of Suryâ’s marriage with Soma, and of Vṛiṣhâkapâyî, whose oxen (the morning vapors) were swallowed by Indra, or of Aditi giving birth to the Âdityas are again said to be the stories of the Dawn under different aspects. Saramâ, crossing the waters to find out the cows stolen by Paṇis, is similarly the Dawn bringing with her the rays of the morning, and when Urvashi says that she is gone away and Purûravas calls himself Vasiṣhṭha or the brightest, it is the same Dawn flying away from the embrace of the rising sun.

In short, the Dawn is supposed to have been everything to the ancient people, and a number of legends are explained in this way, until at last the monotonous character of these stories led the learned professor to ask to himself the question, “Is everything the Dawn? Is everything the Sun?” — a question, which he answers by informing us that so far as his researches were concerned they had led him again and again to the Dawn and the Sun as the chief burden of the myths of the Aryan race. The dawn here referred to is the daily dawn as we see it in the tropical or the temperate zone, or, in other words, it is the daily conquest of light over darkness that is here represented as filling the minds of the ancient bards with such awe and fear as to give rise to a variety of myths. It may be easily perceived how this theory will be affected by the discovery that Uṣhas, or the goddess of the dawn in the Ṛig-Veda, does not represent the evanescent dawn of the tropics, but is really the long continuous dawn of the Polar or the Circum-Polar regions. If the Arctic theory is once established many of these mythological explanations will have to be entirely re-written. But the task cannot be undertaken in a work which is devoted solely to the examination of the evidence in support of that theory."
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — The Arctic Home in the Vedas — Chapter 9 - Vedic Myths - Captive Waters, page 223 onwards ..

 

[Thomas]

Actually it is not. All branches of Aryans or people influenced by Aryans have remarkable similarity in language and myths.

And all have their own way of telling it. That's the point. Otherwise, you're arguing that there is only ever one 'original', and everything else is a copy.

I would suggest that all people, including those not of Aryan origin or influence, would have noticed the procession of the seasons and seen it symbolically was well as actually.

"Prof. Max Müller, in his Lectures on the Science of Language, further remarks that “the dawn, which to us is a merely beautiful sight, was to the early gazers and thinkers the problem of all the problems. It was the unknown land from whence rose every day those bright emblems of divine powers, which, left in the mind of man the first impression and intimation of another world, of power above, of order and wisdom. What we simply call the sun-rise, brought before their eyes every day the riddle of all riddles, the riddle of existence. The days of their life sprang from that dark abyss, which every morning seemed instinct with light and life.” And again “a new life flashed up every morning before their eyes and the fresh breezes of the dawn reached them like greetings wafted across the golden threshold of the sky from the distant lands beyond the mountains, beyond the clouds, beyond the dawn, beyond the immortal sea which brought us hither.”

The dawn seemed to them to open golden gates for the sun to pass in triumph and while those gates were open their eyes and their minds strove in their childish way to pierce beyond the finite world. That silent aspect awakened in the human mind the conception of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Divine, and the names of dawn became naturally the names of higher powers. “This is manifestly more poetic than real. But the learned Professor explains many Vedic myths on the theory that they are all Dawn-stories in different garbs. Thus if Saraṇyu, who had twins from Vivasvat, ran off from him in the form of a mare, and he followed her in the form of a horse, it is nothing but a story of the Dawn disappearing at the approach of the sun and producing the pair of day and night. The legend of Suryâ’s marriage with Soma, and of Vṛiṣhâkapâyî, whose oxen (the morning vapors) were swallowed by Indra, or of Aditi giving birth to the Âdityas are again said to be the stories of the Dawn under different aspects. Saramâ, crossing the waters to find out the cows stolen by Paṇis, is similarly the Dawn bringing with her the rays of the morning, and when Urvashi says that she is gone away and Purûravas calls himself Vasiṣhṭha or the brightest, it is the same Dawn flying away from the embrace of the rising sun.

In short, the Dawn is supposed to have been everything to the ancient people, and a number of legends are explained in this way, until at last the monotonous character of these stories led the learned professor to ask to himself the question, “Is everything the Dawn? Is everything the Sun?” — a question, which he answers by informing us that so far as his researches were concerned they had led him again and again to the Dawn and the Sun as the chief burden of the myths of the Aryan race. The dawn here referred to is the daily dawn as we see it in the tropical or the temperate zone, or, in other words, it is the daily conquest of light over darkness that is here represented as filling the minds of the ancient bards with such awe and fear as to give rise to a variety of myths. It may be easily perceived how this theory will be affected by the discovery that Uṣhas, or the goddess of the dawn in the Ṛig-Veda, does not represent the evanescent dawn of the tropics, but is really the long continuous dawn of the Polar or the Circum-Polar regions. If the Arctic theory is once established many of these mythological explanations will have to be entirely re-written. But the task cannot be undertaken in a work which is devoted solely to the examination of the evidence in support of that theory."
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — The Arctic Home in the Vedas — Chapter 9 - Vedic Myths - Captive Waters, page 223 onwards ..

Is that not human, to think thus? You're not suggesting that only the Aryans saw this? That everyone else 'sees' according to Aryan influence? Surely that's tantamount to proclaiming, dare I say it, a Master Race?

 

[Thomas]

Aupmanyav, please consider this:

I'm not denying migration, but ...

Man is the same the world over, shaped by nature, shaped by nurture.

Take the idea of 'the desert', which is so fundamental to Christian spirituality. Our Lord went into the desert before commencing His ministry. The Desert Fathers are so named because of where they took themselves.

The Irish monks didn't have a desert, so they chose their own wild, inhospitable places. Some Tibetan monasteries are poised on the edge of the world. In Japanese mythology, the hero seeks enlightenment standing under the waterfall. In Arthurian legend he sets off on the Quest for the Holy Grail. The Native Australian takes himself off on walkabout. The native American to the Sweat Lodge.

Everywhere, around the world, the hermit will build his cell in the wilderness, even those in the middle of the metropolis.

It's all the same thing.

They're not copying each other, they are responding to an impetus from deep within the psyche, something that says something seriously profound about their relation to the world.

If there are correspondences, it is because man is the same, everywhere. If there is influence by association, that, really, is incidental.

It may well be true that the First People held a rite to mark the New Year. It may well be true that we can trace a line from the First People to the Tenth People (if you will), who perform the same order of ritual at the same time of the year.

But the Tenth People will do so according to their own internal reason and logic. They have forgotten every trace of the First People. The rationale of the First People will have long gone. It will have mutated over time and through Peoples, each with their own unique expression, into the unique expression of the Tenth People, who make no external reference to validate their experience, but draw entirely from their own resources, their own common sense, their own wisdom, their own insight to give their lives meaning and purpose.

It seems to me that if you are going to create a genealogy of ideas, then what you are saying is that the person responsible for the first idea was the only person ever to have an original idea — that no-one, from the second person on, was capable of individual thought.

 

[A Cup Of Tea]

I would call that a theory, Aup, I can't think of a thing that couldn't have been developed independently of each other. What's that called, convergence?
I'm not saying that your theory isn't true, or at least partly true, but I don't know how it could be proven.

 

[Aupmanyav]

And all have their own way of telling it. That's the point. Otherwise, you're arguing that there is only ever one 'original', and everything else is a copy.

I would suggest that all people, including those not of Aryan origin or influence, would have noticed the procession of the seasons and seen it symbolically was well as actually.

You're not suggesting that only the Aryans saw this? That everyone else 'sees' according to Aryan influence? Surely that's tantamount to proclaiming, dare I say it, a Master Race?

No, I am not. According to RigVeda, the Aryans who come to India belonged to at least five tribes (Pancha Janas - Yadu, Turvasas, Anu, Druhyus, and Purus). In their homeland (wherever that was), it is possible that there were more tribes (may have included 'Yavanas', the Ionians, who went westwards). Surely, they will have their own renderings of the myths.

Yes, the other people also observed the precession of seasons, perhaps the Babylonians. If you know of others, you might mention that. In the Greek world, Hipparchus is credited for talking about precession of equinoxes, but that was very late. But others did not have a long, dark Arctic night or drawn-out dawns as perhaps the Aryans had. That is where the accounts differ. Aryans are the only people I know of who changed the beginning of their calender year at least thrice by a month, to adjust it with the seasons.

I am not a votary of a Master Race. And I observe that all people have red-blood (even the animals), nobody has blue. Races have always intermixed in history like the Aryan migrants to India.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The Irish monks didn't have a desert, so they chose their own wild, inhospitable places. Some Tibetan monasteries are poised on the edge of the world.

It may well be true that the First People held a rite to mark the New Year. It may well be true that we can trace a line from the First People to the Tenth People (if you will), who perform the same order of ritual at the same time of the year.

But the Tenth People will do so according to their own internal reason and logic. They have forgotten every trace of the First People.

Yes, the Indians generally retreated to the Himalayas.

That is why the study of RigVeda is important, to know the rights of the first people in that line. And it has difficulties. Even the 'Taittiriya Aranyaka' which was written around 2,000 BC when the beginning of the year was changed from Orion to Pleiades, is not sure about the ways of the first people as to why old songs mention that there were seven or eight suns (months of sun-light), or sons of the God Mother, Aditi (including Indra and Vishnu). By that time, Aryans were in the temperate zone, where the sun showed for all the twelve months. So, they asked people to take it for granted as was mentioned by old tradition.

"The Âraṇyaka admits, to a certain extent the force of this objection, but says - 'aṣhṭau to vyavasitâḥ', meaning that the number eight is settled by the text of the scripture, and there is no further arguing about it." This is perhaps the only instance in Sanskrit literature where a discussion was truncated in this abrupt manner.
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — The Arctic Home in the Vedas — Chapter 7, Months and Seasons, page 142.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I would call that a theory, Aup, I can't think of a thing that couldn't have been developed independently of each other. What's that called, convergence?
I'm not saying that your theory isn't true, or at least partly true, but I don't know how it could be proven.

Yes, it is a theory. Nothing is settled till now. The DNA spread over these regions, time-line of the movement of Aryans in different regions. Did they come to India 2,000 years ago or 5000 or more years ago? Who were the people who established the Mehrgarh Culture some 9000 years ago? What is their relationship with the Indus valley civilization? Etc.