Gods, Myths, and the Machinery of Society 6
Part 6
As told earlier that totem had the most important role in society and a totem was a religion in itself which kept on mixing due to interaction with each other, in which expansion, capturing resources, trade relation, migration due to any other reason, and mingling with groups like Polynesians, Melanesians, and Phoenicians based at seashores played an important role. All this did happen all over the world and beacause of this you will find similarity between names, concepts, stories, deities all over the world. Now if we focus only on Egypt then just like India, there was a belief for afterlife and there too were a lot of totem castes and all this has taken such a confusing form that if Egypt had not become a victim of Islamization the same religious fabric as India would have been visible there too.
There have been 31 dynasties from 3188 BC to 332 BC before it came under the control of the Romans and before that the society was flourishing like that of India with many beliefs. The first dynasty was established by king Menes. Manu can also be considered around the same period... There was influence of Aryans spread through the Caspian Sea on both sides. Ptah was their most ancient god who was the creator of the original egg, from this egg the universe was created... He used to create the world sitting on a single winged throne.
Here also the feather and the egg are symbols of the bird. However, by uniting the Egyptians divided into northern and southern parts, Menes made the capital at Memphis. To the north of Memphis was the city of On which later was known by Heliopolis, a name given by Greeks. At first a column was worshiped here and after the establishment of the dynasty, they started heliolatry that is worship of the sun. According to a legend, a pyramidal stone in the form of Benben was there in the temple on which the sun manifested itself in the form of a phoenix.
The chief deities of Heliopolis were Ra (Atum or Aten- the Sun), his son Shu (the air god), Tefnut (the goddess of moisture) and their daughters Geb (the goddess of the earth) and Nut (the goddess of the sky) and Osiris and their offsprings Isis, Seth, Teftis were together called the Ennead (a group)... outside which there were also some small gods with Horus as their head.
Names like Ra Atum, Horus, Horakhty were all used for sun that was also considered as a symbol of Garuda in another concept. Pay attention to these facts that Heliolatery was a common practise in different forms. The people called Naga and Garuda were spread everywhere and the Dravidians who lived in the southern India were also spread till the Mediterranean Sea. Everyone's totems and stories were mixed. In the Egyptian context, Osiris may have been a king of a small reign in the past who later became a deity, and Horus who was at first recognised as a separate deity later recognised as the son of Osiris, as Shiva and Ganapati of the sects of Shaiv and Ganpatya in India became father and son which relation is not mentioned in any previous texts. The Fish was also a major totem after the Naga and the Garuda and the Babylonians had a deity that was a mixture of man and fish.
About whom they believed that he has created the universe. In India we also have stories of "Matsyavtar" that is incarnation of a deity in the form of fish. Manu is also associated with a fish. Fish might have been the totem of many castes dependent on fishery. Another major totem was the dragon, a dominant creature that is found everywhere with slight variations. The dragon is associated with water... It has 117 thorns on its body, of which 81 are good and 36 are bad. They are both male and female and can take any form like of a beautiful girl, young man, old person, mouse, snake, fish, tree, etc...
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Dragon is the god of rains and also have the power of thunder and lightening. Now consider the worldwide similarities.... Like the dragon, Indra, Zeus (Greek), Tarku (Asia Minor), Thor (Northern Europe), Marduk (Babylon) are also associated with clouds, rain and storm… Varuna is also associated with water and Makara (crocodile) refers to it that is similar to the dragon. Varuna was the god of Aryans and Asuras. The Polynesians, who considered their god Tiki to be the son of the Sun, also worshiped the dragon in many different forms and called it Mo-o Mo-ko. It had horns so had Manu's fish.
The Babylonian god of the sea Iya also had horn. Iya was related to the dragon Tiamat, after killing which he became a dragon himself. In the form of a dragon, Iya is related to snakes, insects and also fish. In one form Osiris is the soul of the river Nile and in other form it is also a snake which lies in the sea and surrounds the whole world… Vishnu's sheshnag also lies in the sea. In Japan too, the dragon is associated with water, it holds water. Pharaoh in Egypt was an incarnation of Osiris or Horus because he killed the dragon.
And in China the emperor was the incarnation of the dragon. In Egypt the dragon was the destructive water while in China it was the nourishing and nurturing water. In China the dragon was the water god, was also the lord of wealth who lived in the well. There was a dragon well near Jerusalem. Similar wells are found from Scotland to Ireland. In the Chinese book named Yinlin, the dragon is a source of light... The opening and closing of its eyes causes day and night. In China it is also described as a corpse that walks alive and sucks blood in a formless form.
Like the Chinese dragon, in the Indian tradition, nagas guarded the directions. Sea was the king of Nagas... In Japan, it is called Neptune. Buddhists used to draw a man with a crown of snake that was also seen in Egypt. There used to be a Snake girl in mythology with the body of half woman half snake... This form is also found in Tibet, China and Japan. In Tibet, the snake has the upper torso of a human and the lower torso of a snake... There are horns on the head and they also have wings. In India, the snake's enemy was Garuda, who used to fly holding it in its claws.
The war between Garuda and Naga is also seen in Babylonian as well as Arabian mythology. In Babylonia 'Zu' was the eagle god... It is depicted on bricks in the library of Ashurbanipal. 'Ju' was killed by Shams (sun)... In another story 'Ju' was killed by a snake... That snake used to hide in the body of a bull. The bull was revered as 'Apis' in Egypt... The bull was also revered in the Minoan culture that spread from Crete through the sea trade route to the cities of the Mediterranean... The bull is the vehicle of Shiva in India with the snake living next to it.
The Jews used to worship bull which was stopped by Moses. In a Babylonian story when Garuda would come to eat the bull, the snake used to come out and kill him. Like the Babylonian legend, the Polynesian legend also mentions the enmity and war between Garuda and Naga. In Egypt, a large bird was drwan, which had a fighting snake in its thigh. In Mexico also a similar picture was made on a plate and placed on the door. Even in 'Iliad' Garuda is shown flying with a snake. Snake bites him... Garuda leaves him.
Such a description of a great war between Garuda and Naga is also mentioned in Mahabharata. In Egypt, Horus was the god Garuda and Set was the snake god... In Tibet the snake and the bird together were depicted as one animal. In the Buddhist tradition, god Kubera holds a mongoose in his hand which is the enemy of snake. Mongoose rides a yaksha (bird). In Elam there is a lion dragon with the head of an eagle with wings. Its front paws are like those of an eagle, and hind paws are those of a lion. In one of its forms, deity Tarmuz was the Ningirsu, a lion-faced Garuda in the Sumerian city of Lagash.
The dragon of the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, is a combination of a garuda, serpent and a lion. It also had horns. The Egyptian god Thaat was an eagle-faced man, Seth was bird-faced, Ra was animal-faced, Bes a lion-faced, and Anubis was a jackal-faced garuda. Such characters will be found in abundance in India as well. According to Elliot Smith, the belief in the dragon had reached America in ancient times as well. Similarly, the pig is also found in different places... Seth is also depicted as a black pig with a snake, which was killed by Horus.
While Osiris is also considered a pig even as a good god. Yet the Egyptians considered the pig unclean, bathed when touched, their fosters were not allowed in the temple... The Arabians also considered it unclean on the same ground while the Achaeans, Gauls, Scandinavians, Celts considered the pig good. In India, the pig is also in the form of Varaha Avatar (incarnation of lord Vishnu) and also considered dirty. The main symbol of Rome was also the pig. You will find this trend in the same way in the present era as well.
Overall, it means that don't feel pride considering your culture or religion or race as superior... Get rid of this thinking of yourself being the unique. If you look back into the past, you will find everything so intertwined that you cannot decide who took what from whom and whose idea was the original. If spread of Semitic religion had not changed the whole world further, then probably India's system would have been seen everywhere.
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