Chapter X: Old World (4)

75 In Tullan we seem to find the Maya equivalent to the Mexican
Itzacual=enclosure, by which the Teotihuacan pyramids are popularly
designated, as may be verified by the discussion of the Maya word in
the preceding pages (_cf._ tulum, tulul, tuliz, tulacal), which
conveys the idea of something enclosed, entire, whole and universal
and will be reverted to. Cholol-lan seems to be connected with the
verb cholol-tia=to escape (like game from a snare or net) to fly, or
to spring away. According to this, Cholol-lan would mean “the place
of escape or flight” and it will be seen that this designation will
be found to agree with the native tradition concerning the purpose
of the pyramid, which will be cited presently. It is not impossible,
however, that Cholol-lan may be bilingual and also be a corrupt
rendering of the Maya _ho_ or _hool_=head, also capital. This
supposition receives a certain support from Padre Rios’ statement
that “the inhabitants of Cholula, in their sacred festivals,
performed a solemn dance around the pyramid chanting a song which
began with the words Tulanian Hulaez.” These, he states, “belonged
to none of the languages now spoken in Mexico” (Orozco y Berra _op.
cit._ p. 363). The name Tlachiuhaltepetl is translated by Orozcoy
Berra by “mountain made by hand,” _i. e._ artificial mountain or
pyramid; from tlachiuhaliztli, the act of accomplishing some work
forming or creating something. As the origin of primitive symbolism
is a question of such deep interest I shall mention here some
curious data in connection with the pyramid. The word Tlachiuhale
was a title or name applied to the “Creator or Former of living
creatures.” In order to express the sound of this word in the
picture-writings, it is obvious that a pyramid could have been
employed, since it graphically and phonetically conveyed the desired
sound tlachiual-tepetl. At the same time a complementary sign would
be necessary so as to obtain a symbol which would specially apply to
the Creator alone. The word tlachia=to look, see, watch, naturally
suggests itself, as a complement to the sound tlach; and to express,
in a cursive way, the action of seeing, an eye sufficed. We thus see
that an artificial mountain or pyramid and an eye formed a
hieroglyph which expressed the sound “Tlachiuale” and signified the
“Creator.” As the eye by itself was the sign for star, and the idea
of a central star, as frequently depicted in the nahui-ollin sign,
was an emblem of the creative and central power, it is evident that,
besides its literal meaning, _i. e._ an artificial or created
mountain, a “tlachiuhaltepetl” would have been regarded by the
initiated as the Mountain of the Creator, the sacred pyramid, which
was the image of central, dual and quadruple power.

76 The testimony of early Spanish missionaries established the fact
that in ancient Mexico a caste of master builders and masons
existed, whose name, Tulteca, identified them with the ancient
centre of civilization and integral state of Tullan. “Whenever the
natives were asked who had constructed certain edifices, passes and
roads, etc., they invariably answered the ‘tultecas,’ a Nahuatl word
in current use, which signified ‘the skilled artificers or workers
in stone, etc., the master-masons or builders.’ ”

77 The ancient native name of this volcano was Citlal-tepetl, literally
the Star Mountain, from which it may, perhaps, be inferred that,
from the plains, its high and sharp peak served as a means of
registering the movements of certain stars and planets.

78 China, Prof. Rob. Douglas, p. 259.

79 The Chinese designation ho, applied to the limits of space, is
particularly interesting in connection with the Maya ho and its
homonyms.

80 “The Mongol-Mayan Constitution,” The American Antiquarian, May and
June, 1898. It is with all the more genuine appreciation that I
point out how Mr. Wickersham, anticipating my publication of the
same conclusion, has recognized that the Zuñis, Mexicans and
Peruvians as well as the Chinese, were ruled by what he aptly terms
the “Quadriform Constitution,” since it has taken me years of hard
study to perceive this common basis. I likewise draw attention to
his study in primitive law, “The Constitution of China (Olympia,
1898),” but must remark that I strongly differ from his conclusions
in the recently published Answer to Major Powell’s inquiry “Whence
came the American Indians?” (Tacoma, 1899.)

81 Shu King. The Chinese Classics, Legge. Book I, p. 37.

82 Sacred Books of the East, Legge, vol. III, Shû King; also W. H.
Medhurst, Shanghai, 1846.

83 An interesting note in connection with the assignment of color to
the cardinal points in Asia, is given by Schlagintweit (Buddhism in
Thibet, 27, 3), who relates that “the walls of the temples look
towards the 4 quarters of heaven and each side should be painted
with its particular colour, viz.: north=green, east=white,
south=yellow, west=red, but this rule is not strictly adhered to;
most, indeed, are painted red.” As a parallel to this I refer to
Sahagun’s description of the temple of the high-priest Quetzalcoatl
at Tula, which held four chambers facing the cardinal points; “The
east chamber was termed the golden house and was lined with plates
of gold; the west chamber was termed the house of emeralds and
turquoises; the south chamber was inlaid with silver and mother of
pearl and the north chamber with red jasper and shells.” Sahagun
describes also a second building of the same kind, in which the
decoration of the four rooms was carried out in the same colors, in
feather-mosaic (_op. cit._ Book X, chap. XXIX).

84 The alligator-altar of Copan and the “Great Turtle” of Quirigua, on
which four limbs may be discerned, are the most remarkable examples
of the native employment of the quadruped figure as a symbol of
clan-organization and the great Quadruplicate Plan. An interesting
instance of the association, in China, of the form of a four-footed
animal with numerical divisions is furnished by the following
passage from the Book of Yu, Shoo-King, ed. Legge. Khung-she has
said that “Heaven conferred on Yü the divine tortoise bearing a book
out of the river; on its back were various numbers, up to nine. Yü
arranged them and completed the 9 species. On the head of the
tortoise was 9, on the tail 1, on the left side 3, on the right 7.
The shoulders were formed by 2 and 4, the thighs by 6 and 8.”

85 As Prof. E. B. Taylor has aptly pointed out: “By accident the
[Mexican] Calendar may be exactly illustrated with a modern pack of
cards laid out in rotation of the four suits, as an ace of hearts, 2
of spades, 3 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 5 of hearts, etc.... This
system [of combining signs with numerals] is similar to that of
central southwestern Asia where, among the Mongols, Tibetans and
Chinese, etc., series of signs are thus combined to reckon years,
months and days.... Humboldt makes this comparison in his Vue des
Cordillères, p. 212”.... (Article “Mexico,” Ency. Brit.).

86 The following passages contain interesting evidences of the ancient
application of the number seven to tribal organization in China. “In
the time of the Suy dynasty Manchuria went by the name of Mo-ho in
China ... the people being _then divided into seven tribes_....
Towards the end of the eleventh century one Yang-ko was elected as
their chief ... and he organized something of a regular government
throughout the various tribes of Jou-tchi or Niô-tchi’s and
collected taxes from them. The highest of his officers were all
styled po-k-eih-lee and _were distinguished by the names of the sun,
planets and 28 constellations of the Zodiac_. Every five, every ten
and every hundred men had their special officers.... From the chief
of five to the chief of ten thousand, each trained his dependents in
military art....” Wylie: On the origin of the Manchus (Chinese
Researches, p. 244).

87 The Nestorian Tablet in Si-ngan-foo (p. 24, Chinese Researches.
Shanghai, 1897).

88 (The Religion of Japan, Wm. Elliott Griffis. London, 1895, p. 67 and
note 9.) This curious agreement between the Japanese and other
ethnic traditions, in locating Paradise, the origin of the human
family and of civilization at the north pole, has not escaped the
attention of Dr. W. F. Warren, President of Boston University, who
makes extended reference to it in his suggestive book, “Paradise
Found, The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole. A Study of
the Prehistoric World. Boston, 1885.”

89 An interesting parallelism in the development or evolution of the
idea of rotation around a central pole was brought to my notice by a
model in the Indian Department of the South Kensington Museum. It
represents the Hindu fanatical religious rite known as the “Churruck
Puja.” Four individuals are suspended by cords, with hooks drawn
through their flesh, to a movable wooden structure like a wheel
surmounting a high pole, similar to that used by the Ancient Mexican
“flyers” (see p. 24) which likewise served as a pivot for the
circling motion of the performers. The torture voluntarily endured
by the latter recalls that accompanying the sacred sun pole-dance of
certain North American Indian tribes. It is interesting to contrast
the ancient Mexican refined and intellectual symbolization of
circumpolar motion with the fanatical and hideous self-torture
associated with the North American and Hindu modes of representing
the same phenomena, as it throws much light on the development of
certain sides of human nature.

90 Mr. Wm. H. Goodyear, from whose admirable work, the Grammar of the
Lotus, the above quotations are taken, remarks that “the myth of
Horus rising from the lotus, as found in the Egyptian texts, is the
exact counterpart of this idea and as far as Brahmanism is
concerned, is much the older;” also that “it is possible that the
lotus symbolism of Egypt and India dates from a race which divided
into separate branches; it is also possible that the people of India
experienced the influence, direct or indirect, of Egypt.”

91 Researches into the origin of the primitive constellations of the
Greeks, Phœnicians and Babylonians (Robert Brown, jun., F. S. A., M.
R. A. S., vol. I, 1899, p. 357).

92 In Assyria we find one of the oldest temples bearing the name
E-kharsag-kurkura, that stamps the edifice as the reproduction of
the “mountain of all lands” and there are other temples that
likewise bear names in which the idea of a mountain is
introduced.... The zikkurat or “mountain-house”=E-kur was at Nippur,
Sippar, Uruk, Ur and Larsa, “the centre of a considerable group of
buildings; while at Babylon ... the temple area of E-sagila must
have presented the appearance of a little city of itself, shut off
from the rest of the town by a wall which invariably enclosed the
sacred quarter.” The name E-kur was used at Nippur, by extension, to
denote the entire sacred precinct which contained the zikkurat or
staged tower, the great court where worshippers assembled, shrines
and other minor structures. The excavations at Nippur have afforded
us, for the first time, a general view of a sacred quarter in an
ancient Babylonian city. The extent of the quarter was considerable.
Dr. Peters’ estimate is eight acres for the zikkurat and surrounding
structures.... “A factor that contributed largely to the growth of
the sacred precinct in the large centres was the circumstance that
the political importance of such centres as Nippur, Lagash, Ur,
Babylon and Nineveh led the rulers to group around the worship of
the chief deity, the cult of the minor ones who constituted the
family or court of the chief god.” A “list of temples in Lagash,
recently published by Scheil, ... furnishes the name of no less than
thirteen sacred edifices, and we are certain that as many as four or
five smaller chapels surrounded the precinct in which stood the
great temple E-ninnu ...” (Jastrow, _op. cit._).

93 These facts shed additional light and interest upon the Mt. Meru of
India, where the Brahmans sought union with their god Brahma.

94 “Diodorus Siculus maintains that the E-kur was employed as an
astronomical observatory. The antiquity of Babylonian astronomy is
indicated by the testimony of Simplicius and Porphyrius who relate
that Callisthenes, the companion of Alexander the Great during his
campaigns, brought back from Babylon and communicated to Aristoteles
a series of observations which had been made there for a period of
1,903 years. Accordingly, the Chaldæans must have begun to make
astronomical notes more than 2,200 years before the Christian era.
It stands indeed to reason that they must have made observations
during countless centuries, since they discovered the Saros, known
as the Chaldæan period of 6583-1/3 days, which served for the
prediction of eclipses and were also acquainted with the precession
of the equinoxes.”

95 Professor Jastrow tells us that the name Shamash merely signifies
vassal or servitor. I venture to point out what is doubtlessly a
fact familiar to Assyriologists, that the name closely resembles the
Babylonian-Assyrian name Shame=heaven, the equivalent of the
Sumerian an, a word of which the most ancient cuneiform signs were
four crossed lines, forming eight lines proceeding from a common
centre.

96 A striking corroboration of the view that China derived its
civilization from Asia Minor is afforded by the resemblance between
the Assyrian Anu and the Chinese Shang, both signifying Heaven, and
the Assyrian Ea and Chinese Lea, both applied to “the Below.”

97 An analytical study of the Babylonian and Assyrian divinities
enumerated in Professor Jastrow’s hand-book enables us to detect
some of the natural associations of ideas that influenced the
formation of one artificial theological system after another, all
springing from a single root.

The fundamental realization of the antithesis of light and darkness
giving rise to the division of the universe into two distinct parts,
the conception of an eternal antagonism between both followed and
led to the stage of thought set forth by Mr. Robert Brown who tells
us (_op. cit._) that “the original twins were the Sun and Moon” and
that an archaic cosmogonic legend attached to the third month of Kas
(twins) is that of two hostile brethren and the building of the
first city. The great twin-brethren who join together to build the
city are the Sun and Moon, engaged in preserving cosmic order yet
also constantly antagonistic to each other and who constantly chase
each other, one being up when the other is down. Mr. Brown also
relates the myth of antagonistic satraps Namaros and Parsondas and
states that, in the twin stars, Castor and Pollux, named by the
Euphrateans the great Twins=Mastab-bagal-gal, the Sun and Moon were
re-duplicated. The Euphratean abbreviation is mas=twin or mas-mas,
and Pollux is equated with the fourth antediluvian king Ammenon, a
name derived from Akkadian: umun=offspring, an=heaven _i. e._ the
Sun, “the son or offspring of heaven.”

98 “There are reasons for believing, however, that Sarpanitum, the
offspring-producing goddess once enjoyed considerable importance of
her own; that, prior to the rise of Marduk to his supreme position,
a goddess was worshipped in Babylon, one of whose special functions
it was to protect the progeny while still in the mother’s womb. A
late king of Babylon, the great Nebuchadnezzar, appeals to this
attribute of the goddess. To her was also attributed the possession
of knowledge concealed from men.... A late ruler of Babylon,
Shamash-Shumu-kin, calls her ‘the queen of the gods’ and declares
himself to have been nominated by her to lord it over men” (Jastrow,
_op. cit._ p. 122).

The following extracts from Assyrian prayers addressed to Ishtar
further define her position at one time: “The producer, queen of
heaven, the glorious lady. To the one who dwells in E-babbara.... To
the queen of the gods to whom has been entrusted the commands of the
great gods. To the lady of Nineveh.... To the daughter of Sin, _the
twin-sister of Shamash_, ruling over all kingdoms. Who issues
decrees, the goddess of the universe.... _Besides thee there is no
guiding deity_....”

99 As an illustration of the ideas connected with Astarte it is
interesting to note that fish and doves, inhabitants of the sea and
air, became her sacred emblems. The horns which she is sometimes
represented as wearing seem to be not only symbolical of the moon,
but also to be a remnant of a more ancient form of symbolism which
associated the goddess with the cow. It is stated that, in Canaan,
Astarte was represented under the form of a cow and it will be shown
that, in the Egyptian zodiac Polaris and Ursa Major were represented
under the form of a bull or cow or its thigh. The eye painted on the
prow of the ship was also a symbol of the goddess, an interesting
fact considering that the eye expresses a star among other primitive
people.

100 Book V, Chaps. VIII-X.

101 “That the Hebrew and Babylonian traditions [of the Creation] spring
from a common source is so evident as to require no further proof.
The agreements are too close to be accidental. At the same time the
variations in detail point to an independent elaboration of the
traditions on the part of the Hebrews and Babylonians.... It is in
Babylonia that the thought would naturally arise of making the world
begin with the close of the storms and rains in the spring. The
Terahites must, therefore, have brought those cosmological
traditions with them upon migrating from the Euphrates Valley to the
Jordan district.... The intercourse, political and commercial,
between Palestine and Mesopotamia was uninterrupted.... The
so-called Babylonian exile brought Hebrews and Babylonians once more
side by side.... A direct borrowing [of traditions] from the
Babylonians has not taken place and while the Babylonian records are
in all probability much older than the Hebrew, the latter again
contain elements, as Gunkel has shown, of a more primitive character
than the Babylonian production. This relationship can only
satisfactorily be explained on the assumption that the Hebrews
possessed the traditions upon which Genesis narrative rests, long
before the Babylonian exile, when the story appears, indeed, to have
received its final and present shape.... Yahwe is assigned the rôle
of Bel-Marduk, the division of the work of creation into six days is
definitely made and some further modifications introduced ...”
(Jastrow, _op. cit._ pp. 452-453).

102 Dr. von Luschan (_op. cit._ p. 22) translates this cuneiform sign,
which exists in Babylonian and Assyrian forms, as “Siebeneinigkeit”
and emphasizes the fact that it is employed in the singular form.
The inference that it may designate not only the Pleiades but more
probably Ursa Major corroborates the view that the mystic number
seven impressed itself upon the human mind by its association with
the Septentriones.

103 The fact that the mountain was the symbol of the centre of the earth
and of Bel, throws light upon the meaning of the clay cones which
were “very common votive objects in Babylonia especially in the
earlier periods.” They would have been appropriately used in the
cult of Baal, the personification of the male principle, and are
indeed usually represented as offered by male worshippers. That the
cones in some cases represented the conical bunch of the male
blossom of the palm tree may also be conjectured.

104 An interesting complement to this is furnished by the texts of
oracular messages sent by the goddess Ishtar to King Ashurbanapal
who seems to have been a fervent disciple of the theological school
of Arbela. On one occasion, when the king’s army was in a
predicament, Ishtar appears at night and declares: “I walk in front
of Ashurbanapal, the king, who is the creation of my hands.” On
another occasion the oracle-giving medium reports to the king:
“Ishtar, dwelling in Arbela, came with quivers hung on her right and
left sides with a bow in her hand and girded with a pointed
unsheathed sword. Before thee [_i. e._ the king] she stood and like
the mother that bore thee [with maternal kindness] Ishtar, supreme
among the gods, addressed thee commanding: ‘Be encouraged
[literally, look up] for the fray. Wherever thou art, I am.’ ” The
images of Ashur aiming his arrow and Ishtar with an unsheathed
pointed sword recall the biblical description of the flaming sword
which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life (Genesis
III).

105 It is interesting to trace to the same origin the “quadriga” which
may well have been associated with the “primitive sun”=Polaris,
before supreme sovereignty was transferred to Phœbus, the diurnal
sun, by the votaries of the cult of Light.

106 I am pleased to be able, at the last moment, to insert the following
interesting points personally communicated to me by Dr. Wallis
Budge: In remotest antiquity two mythical mountains marked the two
divisions of the land: Bakhan, situated to the southeast, and Manu,
situated to the northwest. The latter, like the mountain Meru of
India, was the abode of the blessed, towards which the souls of the
dead set out from Abydos and where eternal rest was to be found. The
curious connection between the north=mehta and the west=amenta,
which I have shown to have prevailed in ancient Mexico where the
north is named Mictlan and in Yucatan where Aman signifies north, is
particularly interesting in connection with the exclamation or
exhortation to the soul, constantly met with in the Egyptian Book of
the Dead: Er-amentet=to the hidden land! _i. e._, the northwest.

107 Thesaurus Inscriptionem Ægyptiacarum II, p. 212.

108 First Steps in Egyptian, London, 1898. I am mainly indebted to this
useful book and other publications by the same author for the
Egyptian words cited in the following pages. An interesting point,
personally communicated to me by Dr. Wallis Budge, is that the
cardinal points in Egypt were located diagonally, a method which is
shown to have also existed in Central America by the diagonal
orientation of numberless pyramids and buildings.

109 A History of Egypt, Vol. II. London, 1896.

110 Reference is made to another translation of the hymn in the “Records
of the Past,” Vol. II, pp. 127-136, and to Grébaut, Hymne à Ammon
Ra.

111 First steps in Egyptian, Mr. Wallis Budge, p. 235.

112 An extremely interesting instance of the hand being actually figured
between the sun and the moon, _i. e._ as the symbol of the Middle,
is to be seen on the Phœnician tablet to Baal Hamman and Tanitla,
from Carthage, preserved at the British Museum and figured by Mr.
Goodyear, fig. 64, 1. Above the hand is a group of symbols
consisting of two S-shaped signs, resembling the Mexican picture of
Ursa Major. Between these is a pyramid and above this a
seven-petalled conventionalized flower, which should be compared
with fig. 64, 3, a copy of the familiar flower on the sacred tree of
the Assyrians. In fig. 64, 2, copied from another Phœnician tablet
(Goodyear), the flower occupies the central position between two
hands; the latter taking the places of sun and moon in the tablet 1,
an interesting detail considering the instances cited, showing that
dual rulership was indiscriminately associated with “right and left
hand” or “the sun and moon.”

113 It is remarkable that the sound of the Latin word for ram=aries, so
closely resembles the Egyptian symbols for Amen-Ra (see fig. 63,
1-4) and that the am and ar syllables occur in the following names
for ram or sheep, applied to the zodiacal constellation:

Al Hamal=the sheep (Arabic).
Bara=the ram (Persian).
Amru=the ram (Syrian).
Varak=the ram (Parsi).

114 The inscription on this monument, which also exhibits the portrait
statue of Amenophis III, is of particular interest as it states that
the temple of Saleb, built by the king, was “very wide and large ...
its towers reached to the sky, and _the flagstaffs united themselves
with the stars of heaven_” (see official catalogue of the Berlin
Museum, p. 122). This appears to indicate that the flagstaffs were
employed for purposes of astronomical observations.

115 The ideas associated with the form of a lion couchant are best
learned from the following passages from the Bible: “He couched, he
lay down as a lion and as a great lion; who shall stir him up?”
(Numbers XXIV, 9, see also Genesis XLIX, 9). It is only by the light
afforded by such insights into eastern contemporaneous thought that
the meaning of the Egyptian sphinx can be in some measure
understood.

116 I address the query to Egyptologists: whether there are any
indications of a common identity of sound in the Egyptian word for
beard and same name, denoting rule or power, similar to that
existing in the Maya language between “ah-meex”=bearded man and
“ah-mek-tan” governor, ruler (see p. 232).

117 The somewhat perplexing allusions to the “divine marriage” of Isis
to her father or brother and to her giving birth to her own mother,
as in the above text, are very naturally explained by the fact that
the successive officiating king-high-priest always personified
Ra-Osiris or the Sun and the queen Isis-Sothis-Hathor and the Moon
or Sirius. The female child to whom the queen gives birth was
destined to be her successor and another personification of Isis,
therefore she could be said to have given birth to her own mother,
since, like the latter, the child would be an Isis. In the same way
the queen could be said to marry her father and brother, as, like
herself, the king was the offspring of a divine union and bore his
father’s title. In connection with the custom of the male Horus
naming the “young sun” and the female Horus the young star or moon,
it is noteworthy that the son and daughter of Anthony and Cleopatra,
who used to assume the insignia of Isis on state occasions, were
given the Greek surnames of Helios and Selene.

118 It is extremely curious and interesting that the Incas, the
civilizers of Peru, also set up a disk of gold as the image of the
Creator and placed it between images of the sun and moon. We also
find the Inca Ccapac Yupanqui, like Amenhotep, deploring the spread
of idolatry and image-worship as a misfortune to his vassals and a
sorrow to himself. It is recorded of another Inca that, as a wise
measure he destroyed all writing, presumably picture and rebus
writing, as calculated to mislead his people by a multiplication of
symbols. It is an interesting reflection which our increased
knowledge of the primitive civilization of Egypt enables us to make,
that the organization of Peru, under Inca rule, must have closely
resembled that of Egypt in remotest antiquity, at its primitive
stage of development, when simplicity, harmony and equilibrium
existed throughout the “celestial kingdom.”

119 The following detached extracts, partly from Mr. Richard Hinckley
Allen’s valuable work, should be carefully studied in connection
with the above text, as they throw further light upon the ideas
associated with the sacred centres of heaven and earth by nations
with whom the Greeks were in touch.

“To the whole Arabian nation, heathen or Mahommedan, Polaris was
Alfass, the hole in which the earth’s axle found its bearing” (p.
451).

The following important material pertains to the chapter on India,
of whose insufficiency I am painfully aware. “In earliest Northern
India the star nearest the pole was known as Grahadhara, ‘the pivot
of the planets,’ representing the great god Dhruva, and Al Biruni
said that among the Hindus of his time it was Dhruva himself. It was
an object of their worship” (p. 456).

In Bournouf’s Bhagavata-pûrana (chap. IV) it is said that “Dhruva,
meditating on Brahma, stood on one foot, motionless as a post; while
he did so half the world, wounded by his big toe, bent over under
his weight like a boat which, bearing a vigorous elephant, leans at
each step he takes, from left to right.” O’Neil, citing the same
source continues: “In consequence of his austerities Bhagavat said
‘I grant thee virtuous Child, a Spot which has never yet been
occupied by any being, a Spot blazing with splendor, of which the
ground is firm, where is fixed the circus of the celestial lights,
of the planets, constellations and stars; which turn all around like
oxen round their stake, and which [the Spot] subsists motionless
even after the Dwellers of a Kalpa [a day and night of Brahmâ _i.
e._ 4,320,000,000 years] have disappeared. Around this Spot there
turn with the stars and leaving it on their right, Dharma, Agni,
Kasyapa and Sakra and the Solitaries who live in the Forest’ ...”
(p. 801). According to the Vishnu-purâna: “As Dhruva turns, he
causes sun, moon and other planets to turn round also, and the lunar
asterisms follow in his circular course, for all the celestial
lights are in fact bound to the Polar star by aërial cords”
(Vishnu-purâna, see O’Neil, p. 503). It is instructive to compare
these descriptions of Dhruva with the Akkadian-Sumerian hymn to
Ishtar, whom I have identified as the female form of Polaris (p.
342). According to Professor Sayce it begins: “Thou who as the axis
of the heavens dawnest. In the dwellings of the earth her name
revolves” (O’Neil, p. 715).

O’Neil further notes that “Dhruva is named the sun of Uttâna-Pâda”
and that this name is connected with uttarat=north and also
signifies outstretched, supine. He also states that “Uttara and
Uttarâ was the dual god of the north, the son and daughter of
Virâta, and expresses the opinion that the age of the Dhruva legend
is unutterable” (p. 503).

According to another Sanscrit legend: “At one time in the history of
the creation an attempt was made by Visvamitra to locate a southern
pole and another bear in positions corresponding to the northern,
this pole passing through the island Lumka or Vadavāmukha (Ceylon)”
(Allen, p. 436). Professor Sayce writes: “In early Sumerian days,
the heaven was believed to rest upon the peak of ‘the mountain of
the world’ in the far northeast, where the gods had their
habitations (_cf._ Isa. XIV, 13) [the mount of congregation in the
uttermost parts of the north], while an ocean or ‘deep’ encircled
the earth which rested upon its surface.” Von Herder referred to it
as “Albordz, the dazzling mountain on which was held the assembly of
the gods, and identified it with the holy mountain of God,” alluded
to in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel XXVIII, 14; and Professor
Whitney quoted from the sixty-second verse of the first chapter of
the Surya Siddhanta, “the mountain which is the seat of the gods”
and from the thirty-fourth verse of the twelfth chapter: “A
collection of manifold jewels, a mountain of gold, is Meru, passing
through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either
side;” commenting on which he says: the “seat of the gods” is Mount
Meru, situated at the North Pole (p. 452).

120 I likewise deeply regret that it is only since the last pages of the
present investigation have been in proof, that a remarkable work,
full of valuable material relating to the universal spread of
pole-star worship and symbolism, was particularly recommended to me
by a distinguished fellow archæologist. Had I realized before this
the great value of the late John O’Neil’s “The Night of the Gods”
(David Nutt, London, 1897), as a compendium, the result of years of
conscientious and painstaking labor, I should have made extensive
use of it and should have been able to make my survey of the ancient
civilizations of the Old World far more complete and my material
more convincing. As it is, I can only warmly recommend the work to
all interested in the present investigation, who will see for
themselves the widely different points of view from which our
respective researches have been carried out but will probably be
struck with the identity of some of our views. I should like to
express here my keen realization of the many blunders and omissions
I have probably made in the course of the present investigation,
which carried me, reluctantly, into fields of research where I felt
myself to be a stranger. In view of the disadvantages under which I
have labored, under pressure of time and a frequent inability to
obtain all the books I wished to consult, I rely upon the leniency
of specialists and upon their kindly communicating to me the faults
they detect, so that I may avoid them in future publications.

121 “The Century Dictionary has a theory as to the origin of the idea of
a Bear for the seven stars, doubtless from its editor, Professor
Whitney, that seems plausible, at all events scholarly. It is that
their Sanscrit designation, Riksha, signifies, in two different
genders, ‘a bear’ and ‘a star,’ ‘bright’ or ‘to shine;’ hence a
title, the Seven Shiners,—to that it would appear to have come, by
some confusion of sound of the two words, among a people not
familiar with the sound” (p. 424). “Later on Riksha was confounded
with Rishi, and so connected with the Seven Sages or Poets of India.
Al Biruni devoted a chapter of his work on India to the seven stars
[of Ursa Major] known as Saptar Shayar, the seven Anchorites”
(Allen). I draw attention here to the curious fact that the Sanscrit
verb to see=iksh is nearly homonymous with riksha and that
therefore, in Sanscrit, the association of a star with the
eye=akshan, that sees=iksh, must have been a very close one and
suggested the employment of the eye as a symbol for star. In
connection with the Sanscrit riksha it is curious to note that, in
Japanese, riki means power, viz., jin-riki-sha=man—power-wagon; and
hasha or rinsha=wagon or wain. The following extract from one of the
hymns in the oldest Veda, the Brahmâna, which “mark the beginning of
the philosophical creed of the Vedic period,” is particularly
significant when compared, not only with the preceding association
of Ursa Major with the seven sages of India, but also with Plato’s
cosmological doctrines: “I have beheld the Lord of Men,” one poet
writes, “with seven sons, of which delightful and benevolent [deity]
who is the object of our invocation, there is _an all-pervading
middle brother_ and a third brother.... They yoke the seven to the
one wheeled car; _one horse named seven_ bears it along; the
three-axled _wheel is undecaying, never loosened and in it all these
regions of the universe abide_.... Immature, undiscerning in mind, I
inquire of those things _which are hidden from the gods_ [_cf._ Hymn
to Amen-Ra, p. 388, where the same expression is used], the seven
threads which the sages _have spread to envelop the sun in whom all
abide_” (Chambers’ Encyclopædia, article India).

122 Fig. 72, 1, is referred to on p. 319.

123 The original name for Phrygia is said to have been Askanios, from
Askanios its first ruler. The cenotaph of Midas is built in the rock
at Jazylykaia, in the vicinity of Kumbet, where other similarly
decorated royal tombs exist.

124 It would be interesting to learn whether the Arabian title
Om-al-kara, “the mother of cities,” has ever been connected with
Roma by investigators.

125 It is recalled here that the twin brothers Romulus and Remus are
supposed to have been the issue of the union, in the temple of Mars,
of the vestal virgin Rhea Silvia with a personification of the god
Mars.

126 The recurrence of the square plan, employed in Babylonia and Egypt
(see pp. 333 and 369), is noteworthy.

127 In course of time each Roman civitas, or political canton or
community, possessed such “a centre, which was termed capitolium,
_i. e._ the height, from being originally fixed on a height or
hill-top, corresponding to the Greek akra. Round this stronghold of
the canton, which formed the nucleus of the earliest Latin towns,
houses sprang up, which were in turn surrounded by the oppidum or
the urbs (ring-wall connected with urbus, curvus, orbis); hence, in
later times, oppidum and urbs became, naturally enough, the
recognized designations of town and city.”—Chambers’ Encyclopædia.

128 Diocletian (A.D. 292) revived dual rulership and quadruplicate
organization by instituting the quadruple hierarchy of two Augusti
and two Cæsars. The prevalence of quadruplicate division with
current cosmical conceptions is shown by the following text: “The
usual form of taking an augury was very solemn; the augur ascending
a tower, bearing in his hand a curved stick called a _litus_. He
turned his face to the east and marked out some distant objects as
the limits within which he would make his observations and _divided
mentally the enclosed space into four divisions_.... He next ...
prayed and offered sacrifices....” “We learn from ... the augur
Cicero that while the Romans only had four divisions to their
heavens-templum, the Etruscans had sixteen, obtained by bisecting
and rebisecting the four angles” (O’Neil, p. 433).

129 The cult of Ishtar=Isis, associated with mystery and of
Serapis=Osiris, had been instituted in Rome by Domitian (A.D. 82)
who caused temples to be built for them. Curious instances of the
spread of the cults of other countries throughout the Roman empire
have come under my personal notice. In the Museum at Bonn, Germany,
there is a Roman tombstone the inscription on which consists of a
wheel above the name Jovis, the association of Jove with the wheel,
being very remarkable and significant in connection with the present
subject.

At Nîmes in the South of France, a curious statue of Mithra was
found in the ruins of the Roman city. It consists of a Hermes,
surmounted by a hairy, dog-like face. A great serpent is wound
around the Hermes, the signs of the zodiac being sculptured between
the coils. In the light of the present investigation the meaning of
the symbolical statue seems too obvious to require explanation. It
is strange that the recollection of seeing this statue at the age of
nine with my father, who pointed out and explained the signs of the
zodiac to me, is one of the most vivid of my childhood.

130 The curious association of the number seven with Stonehenge in gypsy
folk-lore, which possibly contains vestiges of Druidical folk-lore,
is brought out by R. G. Haliburton in his paper on “Gypsy folk-lore
as to Stonehenge,” to which I refer the reader.

131 In the case of Mayapan, Yucatan, the practical use of analogous
council-houses is described (p. 209). The Irish tower and seven
houses are remarkably in accord with the scheme of organization used
in ancient Greece where, at Tenos, each gens was known as “a tower”
and each gens, as well as its town, was divided into at least seven
parts (p. 456).

132 John Speed relates that one of the kings of Kent, named Catigera,
“was interred upon a plain where his monument vulgarly called
‘citscotehouse,’ consisted of four stones pitched in the manner of
the stonehenge.” It is tempting to see in the four stones “pitched”
around the grave, the underlying thought of a resting-place in the
cosmical centre, of the symbolized four quarters, and to view the
prehistoric crosses of Ireland and Scotland as emblematic of the
Middle and Four Quarters, associated with secret pole-star and
cosmical cult and employed as symbols of time and of quadruplicate
government.

133 Celi-Ced and the cult of the wren. Theosophical review, June 15,
1900.

134 Light is thrown upon the possible conception of Ursa Major as Thor’s
wagon and the most primitive form of chariots in general by the
archaic chariot of state used, to this day, in Corea and formerly in
Japan. It is one-wheeled and the seat, destined for one person, is
placed high above the single wheel and rests upon two long poles,
the ends of which project in front and behind. Four men are required
to support and push this chariot of state, a fine example of which
has lately been secured for the Museum of Salem, Mass., by Prof. E.
S. Morse.

135 It is with keenest interest that I look forward to learning, from
the distinguished archæologists of Sweden, among whom I have the
honor of having highly-esteemed, personal friends, how far their
observation and deeper knowledge lead them to entertain views I have
advanced concerning the origin of the swastika and the influence of
pole-star worship upon the development of primitive religion and
social organization. It is from them that I expect information as to
the relation of the prehistoric inhabitants of Scandinavia to the
ancient centres of civilization which have been discussed.

136 Hewitt states (p. 90) that, “it was successively immigrating races
from the North ... who placed a king at the head of the confederated
provinces formed from their confederated villages.... The
confederate form of these kingdoms is shown in such names as
Chuttisgurh which means the 36 gurhs or united provinces. But the
final consolidated form of the pre-Aryan Indian village was that
framed by the Kushites. It was they who placed the royal province in
the centre of the kingdom.... It was on these principles that the
government of the Ooraon village of Chota Nagpore was constructed.
The Ooraon form of village government is that which has been
preserved with less alteration from subsequent invaders than that of
any other part of India, for the Ooraons, Mundas, Ho-kals and Bhuyas
have always been able, under the protection of their mountain
fastnesses, their political organization and their natural love of
independence, to keep their country free from the interference of
the hated Sadhs, the name by which they call the Hindus. But these
people, who repelled and held themselves aloof from later invaders
were of no less foreign origin than those who succeeded them, for
they were all formed by the union with the matriarchal Australioids
_and patriarchal Mongols or Finnish and other Northern stocks_, most
of whom were formed into confederated tribes of artisans and
agriculturists in Asia Minor and it was from the southern part of
Asia Minor or Northern Palestine, that the Ooraons came. They
themselves say that they came from Western India, from the land of
Ruhidas [the land of the red men], but this means Syria, the country
whose people were called Rotou by the Egyptians, and they were the
race who introduced barley and plough-tillage into India and Chota
Nagpore.”

Particular attention is drawn to Wylie’s statements, quoted on p.
303, concerning the migration of Israelites to China, via Persia
(about A.D. 58-75) and the native record that Christianity was the
ancient religion of Ta-Tsin=Syria. Hewitt’s identification of Syria
as the “red land” causes the Ooraon and Chinese traditions to agree
in assigning it as the common source of origin of their
civilization. According to Professor Sayce it was “about B.C. 600
that the Phœnicians penetrated to the northwest coast of India,” and
“tradition brought them originally from the Persian Gulf” (Ancient
Empire of the East, p. 183).

137 The recent discovery, by Prof. Flinders Petrie, of the mummy of
Aha-Mena, and of six other kings of the first dynasty, suggests the
possibility that they may have reigned simultaneously and
constituted a heptarchy(?). Although it would materially affect
Egyptian and Babylonian-Assyrian chronology as it now stands,
historians may yet find it necessary to make a revision taking into
deeper consideration the existence of tetrarchies and heptarchies in
which a number of kings and subrulers reigned simultaneously.

138 To assist these four principal secretaries are two
under-secretaries, one Manchu and one Chinese, and a board of ten
assistants. Together, these sixteen secretaries divided between two
races, constitute a grand secretariat, which acts as nearly as
possible as the cabinet of the Emperor. (Missions in China. Jas. S.
Dennis, D.D.)

139 This association of Tenos with seven-fold division is particularly
suggestive because, in Pythagorean philosophy, the number seven was
named Parthenos, Athene, also Apollo, Hermes, Hephaistos, Heracles,
Dionysius, Rex, etc. These divinities, the second and third of which
are specially known as patrons of cities, appear in a new light when
it is realized that they were personifications of the number seven
and, by extension, of the seven-fold cosmos, state and city. On p.
449, Plato’s division of the Cosmos is cited. Reference to the
history of Greek philosophy shows, however that the spurious
existence of four or five elements had not always been accepted in
Greece, that Thalês (640-550 B.C.) had laid down the doctrine of a
single eternal, original element, water or fluid substance, and
“assimilated the universe to an organized body or system.”
Xenophanës (570-480 B.C.) conceived “nature as one unchangeable and
indivisible whole, spherical, animated ... penetrated by or indeed
identical with God.” It is usually accepted that it was Empedocles
(444 B.C.) who first formulated the elements, earth, air, fire and
water, to which later philosophers added a fifth, the all-embracing
æther.

In a luminous monograph (Pythagoras und die Inder, Leipzig, 1884.),
Professor L. von Schroeder, of Dorpat, Russia, quoting the authority
of Professor Max Müller, Edward Zeller and Oldenburg, has
conclusively shown that the five elements, earth, fire, water, air
and æther (Sanskrit ākaçā) already occur in the Brahmanas; were
taught in the Sāmkhya philosophy of the Kapila and were therefore
known in India at least as far back as in the seventh century B.C.
The idea of the five elements is so familiar to the Hindus at the
present time that death is usually spoken of as “a dissolution into
the five elements,” or a “going over into the Five.” Professor von
Schroeder’s conclusion is that Pythagorean philosophy derived the
elemental divisions from India as well as its doctrine of
transmigration, etc., and its science of geometry and of number,
mentioning, in support of the latter assertion, the fact that
Sâmkya, the name of the ancient Indian school of philosophy,
signifies “number,” that its followers were therefore designated as
“philosophers or teachers of numbers.” At the same time I point out
that, according to Oliver, “a large portion of Egyptian philosophy
and religion was constructed almost wholly upon the science of
numbers and we are assured by Kircher (Oedip. Egypt, II, 2) that
everything in nature was explained on this principle alone.”

Returning to Professor von Schroeder’s work I refer the reader to
pp. 59 and 65, and notes for an extremely interesting discussion of
the Greek name of the fifth element that figures in the work of
Philolaus, the first who wrote a treatise on the Pythagorean system
of philosophy. The name employed has been deciphered by different
authorities as ὅλχας, ὁλχας, χυχλάς, ογχος, ὁγοτας, or ὅλας. The
interpretation given is that the name (the first syllable of which
recurs in the word Olympus) signified “that which moves or carries
with it the universe.” Professor von Schroeder suggests that the
name may be a corruption of the Sanscrit name for æther, the
all-embracing element, âkâça. I venture to recall here the curious
fact that, in ancient Mexico, the symbol, enclosing the four
elements, is always designated as the ollin, a word associated with
the idea of “movement” and of life=yoli.

In his work on the “Pythagorean Triangle,” the Rev. G. Oliver gives
an extremely clear account of the Pythagorean philosophy and tells
us that its central thought is the idea of number, the recognition
of the “numerical and mathematical relations of things....” “The
Pythagoreans seem,” says Aristotle, “to have looked upon number as
the principle and, so to speak, the matter of which existences
consist;” and again “they supposed the elements of number to be the
elements of existence, and pronounced the whole heaven to be harmony
and number.”

Concerning the universe, like many early thinkers, as a sphere, they
placed in the heart of it the central fire to which they gave the
name of Hestia, the hearth or altar of the universe, the citadel or
throne of Zeus. Around this move the ten heavenly bodies ... the
earth revolved on its own axis....

They developed a list of ten fundamental oppositions: 1, limited and
unlimited; 2, odd and even; 3, one and many; 4, right and left; 5,
masculine and feminine; 6, rest and motion; 7, straight and crooked;
8, light and darkness; 9, good and evil.... The union of opposites
in which consists the existence of things is harmony; hence the
expression that the whole heaven or the whole universe is harmony.
Pointing out that it is only by a combination of odd and even
numbers that a harmonious cycle is created, I continue to cite from
Mr. Oliver’s work: “The decade, as the basis of the numerical
system, appeared to them to comprehend all other numbers in itself,
and to it are applied, therefore, the epithets quoted above of
number in general. Similar language is held of the number ‘four’
because it is the first square number and is also the potential
decade (1+2+3+4=10). Pythagoras is celebrated as the discoverer of
the holy ‘Tetraktos’ the fountain and root of ever-living nature, or
the Cosmos consisting of Fire, Air, Earth, Water, the four roots of
all existing things.

“Number,” says Philolaus, “is great and perfect and omnipotent, and
the principle and guide of divine and human life. Number then is the
principle of order, the principle on which cosmos or ordered world
exists.” Without number and the limitation which number brings,
there would only be chaos and the illimitable, a thought abhorrent
to the Greek mind.

140 “The four Ionic tribes were abolished by Kleisthenes (510 B.C.) who
created, in their place, ten new tribes founded on a new principle,
independent of the gentes and phratries. Each new tribe comprised a
certain number of demes or cantons with the enrolled proprietors and
residents in each of them. Each tribe had a chapel, sacred rites and
festivals and a common fund for such meetings, in honor of its
eponymous hero, administered by members of its own choice; and the
statues of all the ten eponymous heroes, fraternal patrons of the
democracy, were planted in the most conspicuous part of the agora of
Athens.... The demes taken altogether, included the entire surface
of Attica. Simultaneously Kleisthenes divided the year into ten
portions called Prytanies,—the fifty senators of each tribe taking
by turns the duty of constant attendance during one prytany and
receiving during that time, the title of The Prytanes. The order of
precedence among the tribes in these duties was annually determined
by lot.... Moreover, a further subdivision of the prytany into five
periods of seven days each and of the fifty tribe-senators into five
bodies of ten each, was recognized; each body of ten presided in the
senate for one period of seven days, drawing lots every day among
their number for a new chairman called Epistates, to whom, during
his day of office were confided the keys of the acropolis and the
treasury, together with the city seal.” The remaining senators, not
belonging to the prytanizing tribe, might of course attend if they
chose, but the attendance of nine among them, one from each of the
remaining nine tribes, was imperatively necessary to constitute a
valid meeting and to insure a constant representation of the
collective people. During those later times—the ekklesia or formal
assembly of the citizens, was convened four times regularly during
each prytany ... (_op. cit._, vol. IV, p. 138). Special attention is
drawn here to the intimate association of the system of government
and the calendar, analogous to the ancient Mexican system.

“The number of inhabitants an ideal state should contain and their
numerical organization were evidently subjects of supreme interest
to Greek statesmen and philosophers. The great work by Aristoteles
(384-322 B.C.) on Politics, ‘according to Grote,’ was based on a
collection made by himself, of 158 different constitutions of
states, which collection has, unfortunately, been lost.” “The
purpose of comfortable subsistence for which commonwealths are
instituted, requiring a minute subdivision of labor,” Aristotle
says, that “in this particular view, the more populous the community
its end will be the more completely attained.... All things
considered he declares in favour of what would be now deemed a very
small commonwealth, consisting of 15,000 or 20,000 citizens....”

“In his ‘Book of Laws’ Plato intended to delineate a more
practicable scheme of government than that of his first.... His two
republics nearly agree in form, though they differ in magnitude; the
first containing one thousand and the second five thousand and forty
men bearing arms.... In his second republic he equalizes estates but
leaves population unlimited.... A regulation directly the reverse of
this is introduced by one of the most ancient writers on the subject
of politics, Pheidon of Corinth, who limits population, but does not
equalize possessions.... The republic, planned by the architect
Hippodamus, consisted of ten thousand men, divided into the three
classes of artificers, husbandmen and soldiers. The territory he
likewise divides into three portions: the sacred, destined for the
various exigencies of public worship; the common, to be cultivated
for the common benefit of the soldiers; and the private, to be
separately appropriated by the husbandmen. His laws were also
divided into three kinds....” (Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, John
Gillies, LL.D., London 1804).

The knowledge that a republic was actually planned on the scheme of
three-fold division naturally suggests the possibility that the
Sicilian coat of arms, the triskeles, may be a survival of a period
when a similar republic existed in Sicily and the year was divided
into three seasons only. (For interesting details concerning the
employment and spread of a year of three seasons in ancient times,
see Hewitt, _op. cit._ Preface XVI, vol. I.)