King killing Bull

A very strange 5th c. AD Sassanian silver dish, with even stranger provenience story. 

The dish depicts a warrior with a spear sitting on a bull, about to stab another bull. His headdress indicates that he is the Persian ruler Yazdagird I (399–421)...

Does anyone have any idea if this is a depiction of some kind of mythological, religious scene? 

The dish was not discovered by archaeologists, but by ethnographer Arkady Baulo, who was in 2001 working with Ob-Ugric peoples in Khanty-Mansiysk, Western Siberia, Russia...

It was kept in the antechamber of the living room, a cult area on the right side of the room where women were not allowed to enter.

According to the owner, the dish was found by his great-grandmother, near the Sinja River...

She saw something shiny in the grass. Scraping the ground, she discovered several bronze pots, containing this dish but also silver and bronze figurines depicting various animals...

Apparently pile of Sassanian artefacts were discovered in similar settings, being used as cult objects by the local people, in Western Siberia...

Info from this article...

I wonder if this "tree" with three leaves is actually the sacred fig from Indian mythology.

And which has been used as a plant calendar marker with bulls as animal calendar markers in Indian Subcontinent since Indus Valley Civilisation...

I talk about this in my post "Harappan wheel seal", in which I analyse this seal from the mature Harappan period, the time when the civilisation was at its peak (2600 BC to 1900 BC), which was discovered in Rajasthan few years ago...

I also talk about sacred fig and bull as calendar markers in my post "Kharif and Rabi seasons" about the depiction of the Kharif (wet) season (May to November)  and the Rabi (dry) season (November to May) through animal and plant calendar markers on an Indus Valley civilisation vase...

And in my post "Sacred fig goddess" about these deified fig trees which we find in both Ancient Egypt and Ancient Indus Valley civilisations...

Anyway, I wonder what Sassanians turned all this into...If anyone knows, please post your comments here...

Now, I want to thank @iphone10fan for this info: "This appears to be Lord Shiva riding Nandi. The three leaf plant in the bottom left could be this. Often associated with Lord Shiva. The bull in the bottom right could be Mahishasura? I'm not sure..."

And you'll love this: "The Indian bael tree, also known as Aegle marmelos, flowers in Apr/May, at the start of the rainy season. The flowers are aromatic and greyish-white in colour".

Another plant calendar marker for monsoon season...

I talked about Shiva, bulls, and monsoon here:

Ardhanarishvara, the union of Shiva and Parvati, produces (the tree of) life and the river Ganges. 

This is a complex calendar marker for the peak of the monsoon season, Jul/Aug, where bull=summer=May/Jun/Jul  meets  lion=autumn=Aug/Sep/Oct... 

Which fills Ganga river with water...

I talk about this in my post "Ardhanarishvara"...

"Bael tree leaves and fruit play a main role in Shiva worship, because the leaf's trifoliate shape is seen to symbolise his trident. Another belief is that the trifoliate shape of Bael leaf is symbolic representation of three eyes of Lord Shiva"...

Now remember this?

What made Indian Devas (good guys, gods) turn into Iranian Daevas (bad guys, false gods)? The answer is (I think🙂): the opposite climate in India and Iran...

Jul/Aug, the wettest time of the year in India, the time of life, is the driest time of the year in Iran, the time of death...

Which causes that the religious symbols (deified calendar markers) have opposite meanings in these two places...

I talk about this in my post "Daevas vs Devas"...

So bull rider killing the bull...In Jul/Aug...When bael tree flowers...Jul/Aug...Which marks the end of summer which starts in Taurus, Apr/May...

I don't think that the bull being killed is Mahishasura. Mahishasura was buffalo, not bull, demon. I talked about him in my post "Mahishasuramardini", about Durga, goddess created by Devas, and armed with all their weapons, and who rides on a lion, avenging their defeat by evil Asura Mahisha (Buffalo). 

What's this all about? Climate in India. Oct/Nov is when wild buffalos start mating. This is also the start of the dry season, which eventually leads to drought...Drought which is killed (ends) in Jul/Aug, Leo, peak of the wet monsoon season...

The "eternal" (read annual) struggle between wet and dry seasons in India, probably mythologised even before  the Indus Valley Civilisation. I talk about this in my post "Proto Durga" about this Is this 3rd mill BC Harappan tablet which could be depicting Proto Durga, the Warrior Goddess, the killer of the buffalo Asura who scared the Devas shitless?

But because of the opposite climates in India and Mesopotamia/Iran, buffalo as a (deified) animal calendar marker has opposite meaning in these two places...

In Mesopotamia/Iran, bulls were linked to the annual flood, which peaks in Apr/May, Taurus...I talked about it my post "Dedicated to Inshushinak" about this 3200 years old Elamite silver pouring vessel dedicated to the Elamite equivalent of Enki/Ea, god of fresh water and flood...

Remember this? The meaning of the lion killing bull?

Lion (autumn, starts in Leo) killing Bull (summer, starts in Taurus) depicted on the wall of the Great Mosque of Diyarbakir the oldest mosque in Anatolia.

I talk about the meaning of this complex animal calendar marker in my posts "Mystery seal", "Angra Mainyu" "Bull leaping in Syria", "Lion killing bull under date palm", "Butt chewing" and many others....

Guess who else killed bull every year in Leo? 

I talk about the true nature of Mithras in my post "Mithras", in which I also ask: Was Mithraism so popular among soldiers in the Imperial Roman army because Mithras was the personification of "Inevitable Victory"? After all, Lion (Autumn) inevitably kills (ends) Bull (Summer)...

In this article I also talk about the "triformed Mithras", which appears on a relief panel from Dieburg, showing a tree with three branches, each ending in a head wearing a Phrygian cap...

Jul/Aug. When Shiva tree blooms and bull gets killed...

And guess what: In Iran and Central Asia, the 3rd-century Kushan coinage featured a syncretic god with attributes of both Shiva and Mithra...You can read about this here...

Could this mean that the King riding a bull and killing a bull could be king as Mithra/Shiva killing a bull?

Mad...

Wow...This turned out to be some ride...I honestly had no idea where this (originally an X thread) will end up when I started writing it...Big, HUGE, thanks again to @iphone10fan for his nudge in the right direction.

If you are interested in reading more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Ardhanarishvara

The Ardhanarishvara (Sanskrit: अर्धनारीश्वर) is a composite form of the Hindu deities Shiva and Parvati. Ardhanarishvara is depicted as half-male and half-female, equally split down the middle. 

The earliest Ardhanarishvara images are dated to the Kushan period, starting from the first century CE (like this seriously cool one). Its iconography evolved and was perfected in the Gupta era.

Accepted interpretation is that "Ardhanarishvara represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe and illustrates how Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from (or the same as) Shiva, the male principle of God, and vice versa"

So far so amazing. The Mother + Father = Life is kind of obvious...The Mother Earth + Father Sky = All Life is pretty easy to arrive to from there and we find this idea everywhere...

But I think that Ardhanarishvara has another, more specific meaning. Specific to India. And the clue to decipherment of this meaning is the fact that "the river Gagnes flows from the point where (or close to where) the Shiva and Parvati parts meet"...

Why? 

Ganges is (currently) the most sacred river of Hinduism. It flows almost parallel to the Himalayas and empties into the Bay of Bengal.

The hydrologic cycle in the Ganges basin is governed by the Monsoon. The monsoon is caused by the heating up of the Himalayas which starts at the end of April, beginning of May. The updraft this creates, starts sucking the moist Indian ocean air across India towards the mountains.

The precipitation this monsoon creates increases sharply starting in May. It peaks in at the end of July - beginning of August and then sharply decreases in October...

Consequently, streamflow in the Ganges is highly seasonal and it sharply increases from May, peaks in August and sharply decreases in October.

What does this have to do with Ardhanarishvara?

Ardhanarishvara is surrounded by the vahanas (vehicles) of Shiva (bull) and Parvati (lion)...As I explained in several of my previous articles about the roles of animals in Indian mythology, vahanas are animal solar calendar markers.

Each animal marks a particular period in the solar year during which an important, obvious, difficult to miss annual event from the animal's lifecycle took place. Like mating or birthing.

I talked about these animal (and plant) calendar markers in India in several of my articles. For instance: "Mahishasuramardini", "Kharif and Rabi season", "Fig with bulls".

These animal calendar markers are not just found in India. They are everywhere:

Anyway back to Ardhanarishvara. 

Bull and lion have a special place among these animal calendar markers. They are one of Four Seasons animal markers, the other two being Goat and Ram.  

Bull is the symbol of summer. Summer which starts at the end of April beginning of May, in Taurus. 

Lion is the symbol of autumn. Autumn which starts at the end of July beginning of August, Leo.

Now, Ardhanarishvara is the union (meeting) of Shiva and Partvati. And that union stands (happens) between bull (vahana, vehicle, calendar marker) of Shiva (symbol of summer) and lion (vahana, vehicle, calendar marker) of Parvati (symbol of autumn)

So Ardhanarishvara represents the moment when summer (bull) and autumn (leon) meet, at the end of July beginning of August. Right at the time of the highest monsoon precipitation and right at the time of the highest flow of the sacred river Ganges which flows from their union...

This is kind of cool, right?

Oh, and guess who is their only child? A little elephant god, Ganesha...I forgot to mention him when I was talking about Elephant symbolism in Indian mythology in my post "Musth"... Guess when the elephant mating season peaks? You guessed right...

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...