Friday, 25 October 2024

Elephants and the river in the sky

Varāhapurāṇa chapter 82: A "river of the sky" starts at the "ocean of the sky" and, being agitated by the elephant of Indra, falls at the top of mount Meru, where at the bottom it forms four great rivers...From "Indra as God of Fertility" 1916 article By E. WASHBURN HOPKINS, Professor in Yale University.

Basically a description of summer monsoon...

But why elephant?

Because Indian elephants mate during Indian monsoon season...

Which is why Indra, the thunder and rain god, rides on a white (cloud) elephant...

Articles about elephant calendar marker, India: "Musth", "Samantabhadra", "Modesty", "Ganesha"...

As for ocean (and) river in the sky (Okeanos Potamos 🙂)

The 340 BC Derveni papyrus which contains commentary on an Orphic poem by Anaxagoras, says this: "...It is unclear to the many, but quite clear to those who have correct understanding, that Oceanus is the [river in the] air". This river? 

I talked about this in my post "River in the sky"...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

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