"In the beginning, Agni burned all things, but at the insistence of Shiva, Brahma withdrew Agni, and instead created Yama, the god of death" from: "Encyclopaedia of the Hindu World, Volume 1" By Gaṅgā Rām Garg...
Very interesting...Because of this: Nergal, the Mesopotamian god of death, who "represented the high summer sun which scorched the earth...which hindered crop production"...I talked about Nergal in my post "Winged superhuman hero"...
In Mesopotamia, Nergal is associated with lions (is actually depicted as a lion, lion-man). Why? Because in Mesopotamia, Jul/Aug, Leo, is the hottest and driest part of the year. The time of drought. The time of death...
Why is Jul/August marked with Leo? Cause the end of Jul, beginning of Aug marks the beginning of the Eurasian lions main mating season...
But in Indian subcontinent, Leo is the peak of Monsoon season...The wettest time of the year...
The climate in Leo in India is the opposite to the climate in Leo in Mesopotamia...Which is why lion is a negative symbol in Mesopotamia and a positive symbol in India...I talked about this in my post "Mahishasuramardini"...
So when is the hottest and driest time of the year in India? As you can see on the previous chart, the temperatures start rising during Jan/Feb, beginning of spring, and peak during Apr/May, the end of spring...This is also when we have minimum precipitation...
So the hot/dry season in India is spring, symbolised by ram...I talked about the animal symbols of the seasons in my post "Symbols of the seasons"...
Aries, ram, is the symbol of spring, because spring is sheep lambing season. The most important event in sheep annual lifecycle of both domestic and wild sheep...
And the hottest/driest time of the hot and dry season, the time of drought, the time of death, is during Aries...Which is why, I think, Agni rides on a ram...Love the ram's grin... 🙂
This is the time of the burning sun, sun's fire, Agni, "which destroys all things"...Remember, in Hindu mythology, Agni (fire) was believed to have three manifestations: Sun, Lightning, Fire...Which is why he had three heads...
So, Agni, in his "burning sun" form, gets replaced by Yama, the god of death, who is in the Rigveda, the son of Surya, the Sun God...Now that makes sense I think...🙂 And Yama is also closely associated with Agni, who is both Yama's friend and priest...That too now makes sense...All very interesting...
BTW, Aries is when Slavs celebrate Jarilo, Sun god whose name means Brightly burning one...The Dragon...Who then got Christianised into St George, The Dragon Killer...I wrote about Jarilo in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about solar symbolism of snakes and dragons in Slavic mythology.
You can read more about Jario (Pronounced Yareelo), Aries, Georgios (See how it all sounds similar) in my posts "Aries must die", "Two Georges"...
Jarilo, the dragon (symbol of the destructive sun's heat)...Like this Mesopotamian dragon, with 7 snake heads...Snake, symbol of sun's heat, one for each summer hot dry summer month...I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...
Hmmm...is it possible that this is why Agni, the personification of (sun's) fire, has "seven tongues"? Agni, the dragon, the one who destroys everything, the one who brings death, who was "replaced" by the god of death, Yama...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
No comments:
Post a Comment