The ritual enacted the destruction
of the world (the deaths of the horse and the goat) due to the mystic union
of Heaven and Earth (the union of the horse and the
mahishi). But
it also symbolized the rebirth of Nature, renewed by the drastic event
(the union of the couples just after the sacrifice).
Interestingly enough, a similar ritual
was performed in ancient Celtic Ireland. This ritual is closely related
to the Vedic
ashvamedha. In the occasion of his enthronement (a
"renewal" of the world), the king would ritually mate with a mare, which
was subsequently sacrificed. From its remains a broth was made, which was
served communially to all. Clearly, the ritual is also an alias of that
of Christian Mass and Communion, whose symbolism can also be traced back
to the Vedic archetypes, the rituals of Soma preparation and of the
ashvamedha.
The Far Oriental Archetypes
In his remarkable study of the Mexican and the Cambodian
pyramids (Stufen Pyramiden in Mexico and Kambodscha, Paideuma,
VI (1958), 473-517), W. Mueller makes important observations. To start
with, the German archaeologist notes that these pyramids share several
features which are also often observed everywhere these enigmatic monuments
are found. These generally include:
-
A surrounding wall, oriented along the Four Cardinal Directions.
-
A small temple or shrine at the top.
-
Roads of access along the four Cardinal Directions, forming a Cross.
-
A lake or dam that is referred to as a "sea", and which surrounds the pyramid,
turning it into an island.
With small differences, the Egyptian pyramids and, in particular
the first one of them, that of King Zozer, also obeyed this paradigm. Mueller
notes that this scheme corresponds to an ancient conception of the Cosmos,
where the earth is considered an island or mountain rising from the primeval
waters. In the Egyptian cosmogony, this scheme corresponds to the Tatenen,
the Primordial Hill rising out of the waters of the
Nun, the Primordial
Abyss.
In Hindu conceptions, this mountain is the Holy Mountain,
Mt. Meru, rising from the waters of the Primeval Ocean. More exactly, as
we discuss in detail elsewhere, this idealized model corresponds to the
sacred geometry of Atlantis. This connection among the Mexican pyramids,
the Egyptian pyramids and the Cambodian pyramids, placed in regions almost
antipodal in the world, attest the universality and, hence, the extreme
antiquity of the Atlantean paradigm.
But what interests us here is the connection between pyramids
and the Cosmogonic Hierogamy. The reader interested in more details in
this regards should read the magnificent book by my Argentianian friend,
Prof. José Alvarez Lopez (El Enigma de las Piramides, Buenos
Aires, 1978), who treats the matter in depth. In the pyramid of Angkor
there is an inscription in Sanskrit, in the northwestern corner of its
wall, which reads: "Angkor is the young bride of the King, who just took
her home, blushing with desire, and dressed with the sea".
This beautiful poetic license is closely paralleled in
the
Book of Revelation, where the Celestial Jerusalem is described
in similar terms, as the Bride of the Lamb the King of the City that is
no other than the citadel of Atlantis itself. In fact, this quaint imagery
is taken directly from the
Ramayana, where it is applied to Lanka,
about to be ravished by Rama and Hanumant. And the "dressing with the sea",
in a white dress that is even today ritually worn by the brides, is in
reality an allegory of the Flood that engulfed the capital of Ravana s
worldwide empire.
All this bespeaks of the Cosmogonic Hierogamy, of Atlantis
fate, and of its origin in the Far East, in the dawn of times. These images
derive directly from the of the
Ramayana as can be seen by comparison.
But the connection can be carried even further. As Mueller and Alvarez
Lopez pointed out, the shrine on the top of the Angkor pyramid was used
for a strange Tantric ceremony akin to the Cosmogonic Hierogamy celebrated
in the holy of holies of the Egyptian pyramids and temples, and in those
of Babylonian
ziggurats: the ritual mating of the King and the Whore,
the priestess of Bastit.
In Angkor, the king mates with the hierodule, the sacred
prostitute that impersons the Nagini, the female Naga, whose role we discuss
further below in the present article. The Nagini is the fateful blonde
of Hindu traditions, the very same "Goldilocks" that we also encounter
in the Egyptian myths which we detail below and elsewhere. In Egyptian
traditions too the Whore is connected with the pyramids, for instance in
the report of Herodotus concerning the whorish daughter of pharaoh Cheops,
or in that related by Diodorus Siculus and the Arab historians, which ascribes
the third pyramid of Giza to Naukratis, to Rhodopis, or to other such courtesans
of fair countenance.
All these are, as we just said, Tantric rituals similar
to the
heb sed and the
akitu. They replicate the Cosmogonic
Hierogamy, and thus insure the periodic renovation of the Cosmos, after
the model of the archetypal one which occurred with Atlantis. Alvarez Lopez
notes the essential structural, symbolic and ritual identity of the American
pyramids found in Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Bolivia, and Peru, with
the ones of Angkor and Egypt.
The great Argentinian researcher even remarks the unequivocal
connection of the American pyramids with the Atlantean myth, which had
already been noted by Russian archaeologists such as Jaguemeister and others.
For instance, one should note that the Egyptian pyramids essentially use
three colors of stones with remarkable regularity: the white limestone
of Tura and Mokatan, the red granite of Aswan, and the black basalt of
the Sinai and elsewhere.
