Pretas

In Buddhism, Pretas, the "Hungry ghosts" are pitiable creatures with huge, empty stomachs which suffer constant hunger...

Buddhists believe that beings are reborn as hungry ghosts because of their greed, envy, addiction, obsession, and compulsion and jealousy...

And yet, in the summer there are hungry ghost festivals throughout Asia that feature food and entertainment for the hungry ghosts...

The origin of Buddhist "hungry ghosts" is in Hinduism, where originally Preta was understood as the ghost of any deceased individual. The Sanskrit word "preta" (प्रेत) literally means "departed, deceased, a dead person" derived from "pra-ita" meaning "gone forth, departed"...

Today, the dead are burned and the food is given to them "for a year, until they reincarnate"...But I wonder if this belief about the hungry dead originates from the time before Hindus started to be burn their dead and before Hindus started believing in reincarnation?

Here is why.  Today the Hindu families ritually feed the deceased "whose spirit is often symbolised by a clay mound somewhere in the house"...Why? Is this a remnant of the memory of the the time when the dead were buried under the mounds of clay (earth), under tumuli?

Is it possible that this belief and ritual came to India from the steppe with the Indo-Europeans? Who did bury their dead under the tumuli. And is it possible that these are actually remnants of the ancient Ancestor Cult?

The same ancestral cult featuring ever hungry and thirsty ancestors found among the Slavs for instance? I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Soul breads", "Dead man loaf" and , in which I talked about the breads made for the hungry dead...

It is interesting that Hindus feed their "hungry dead" rice balls, "which are said to symbolise the body of the deceased"...Just like in the Slavic ancestor cult where ancestors are believed to be the source of grain. 

I talked about this in my post "Diduch", about Diduch (grandfather), symbolic representation of the the dead ancestors who govern the lives of the living... 

BTW, Romans too saw direct link between the dead and the grain. I talked about this in my article "Lapis Manalis", about the sacred water stone which covered the entrance into the underworld/grain storage pit...

BTW, while I was looking for a suitable illustration for "lapis manalis" (we don't know what it actually looked like), the sacred stone used as part of a Roman "aquaelicium" (calling of the waters), rain making ceremony performed during droughts, I suddenly realised what cup and ring marks look like...

We find the same link between the dead, the god of the dead, Osiris and grain in Egyptian religion too. I talked about this in these articles where I talk about why Egyptians believed that grain grows from the body of Osiris...I talked about this in my post "The beard of Osiris" and "Braided beard"...

It is this life giving power of the dead, which Pluto (Hades), the giver of wealth, appropriated for himself. And this is why Hades and Persephone are depicted sitting on their throne in the land of the dead, with sheafs of wheat and flowers...I talked about this in my post "Pluto"...

In the Mesopotamian and Hittite ancestor cult, we also find hangry and thirsty ancestors who are also linked to rain and grain. Talked about this in my article "Care of the dead" about the care of the dead in Mesopotamia and Anatolia...

"...humiliation of the Hittite kingdom is the result of the fact that the Hittites have forgotten to respect the sacred bond with their dead..." - Last Hittite king Suppiluliuma II.

Statue of Suppiluliuma II, Hatay Archeology Museum

The last thing that I will say about the "hungry ghosts" is that in China the hungry ghost festival is held on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month which corresponds to Jul/Aug in Gregorian calendar...

During the festivals, people give food to the hungry ghosts and hope for blessings from their ancestors in return...This is the old contract between the dead and the living. The living feed the dead so that the dead will feed the living...The contract the Hittites broke...

The Chinese seventh lunar month, is actually known as the "Ghost Month" or "Hungry Ghost Month," and is believed to be a time of the year when the gates of the underworld open, allowing spirits to roam the earth...

Very interesting, considering that in Mesopotamia, July, or month of Ab, was dedicated to the dead and the dead god, Tammuz, who died and went to the underworld...You can read more about this here...

The rituals of this month, consisted in eating bread in the funeral feasts for the dead god of life, who now reposed in hell, and in carrying torches by night for the souls of the dead who during this month ascended from the underworld to the world of the living...

Interesting, right?

Dewy head

"Greetings to the hair of your head, spun like silk,

and to your head with its curly locks,

O George, star brighter than (other) stars!

May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning,

like the rain of grace a thirsty field!"

This is one stanza of the liturgical poem መልክአ፡ ጊዮርጊስ፡, "The Image of George". This genre of poems praises the body parts of a saint from the head and down to the feet...

Ethiopia, 18th c.

I want to thank @ArtEthiopic for all his hard work promoting amazing Ethiopian religious art...

And I want to add few comments that might explain the last two verses:

"May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning, like the rain of grace a thirsty field..."

Rains arrive to Ethiopia in Mar/Apr...Right on time for St Georges day...Full blown monsoon starts in Jun...You can read about Ethiopian climate here...

Interestingly, in Serbian Orthodox calendar, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, is marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George('s day)...In Ethiopia, the climate is the opposite to the one in Serbia...I wrote about this in my post "Two Georges"...

Speaking of dew, this also might be of interest:

Irish riddle

Q: I wash my face in water that has never rained nor run, and dry it in a towel that was never wove on spun   

A: A face washed in Mayday dew and dried in the open air.  

The same tradition is in the Balkans linked to St George's day, Jurjevo. 

On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia.

This ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day, when medicinal herbs were also collected because people believed that they were the most potent on that day. This would explain why washing your face with the morning dew collected from these the plants on that morning was also the most beneficial...I talked about this in my posts "Morning dew" and "Jani", "Parilia"...

Many other traditions which are in Celtic parts of Europe linked to Beltane, 1st of May, are in the Balkans linked to St George's day, indicating that these two calendar markers are one and the same...

Parilia

Happy Parilia (or Palilia) - This Roman festival, held on 21st April, cleansed shepherds & sheep, honouring the god of shepherds & sheep, Pales. A bonfire was built, with the shepherd and sheep jumping through the flames to be cleansed. The painting by Joseph-Benoît Suvée reimagines the festival

I find it interesting that the Romans didn't know who or what Pales was...But, considering that Ovid says that Parilia predates the founding of Rome, Pales and related rituals are of Pre Roman and most likely of Non Roman origin...

I don't know who or what Pales was either. But I would like here to add few bits of information that might help someone, some day, solve this mystery 🙂 First let's have a look at the Parilia ceremony:

"...After the sheep pen had been decorated with green branches and a wreath draped on the gate, the remainder of the ceremony took place in this sequence..."

"...At the first sign of daylight, the shepherd would purify the sheep: by sweeping the pen and then constructing a bonfire...the shepherd would jump through this flame, dragging his sheep along with him...Offerings of bread and milk were then presented to Pales..."

"...After these offerings, the shepherd would wet his hands with dew, face the east, and repeat a prayer four times...requesting Pales’s protection of the shepherd and the flock..."

"...The final portion of the rural festival made use of the beverage burranica, a combination of milk and sapa (boiled wine). After consumption of this beverage, the shepherd would leap through the fire three times, bringing an end to the ceremony..."

So...21st of April is very close to the 1st of May...Which was in some parts of the world known as Beltane (Bealtaine)...The day that marked the beginning of the Celtic summer (May-Oct), half of the year dominated by the sun...

On Beltane, in Scotland, they purified the sheep and cattle by walking them between two fires derived from single ritually kindled fire...I talked about this in my post "Beltane purification ceremony"...

And they did the same thing in Ireland on the same day...I talked about this in my post "The City"...

21st of April is very close to the 23rd of April, St George's day...And in the past in the Balkans, at the dawn of the St George's day, two fires were lit between which people and domestic animals (sheep and cattle) walked "for protection from diseases and snakes"...

St George being Christianised old Slavic sun god Jarilo (The Brightly Burning one), and snake being the solar animal which follows sun everywhere, it is obvious why people performed snake protection rituals on the day of the sun...

But there is something really interesting about when we celebrate St George and St Michael...The dragon killers...They mark the beginning and the end of the "Old Summer", the domain of the sun, the domain of the dragon...I talked about that in my post "Dragon always gets killed"...

BTW, in the old Serbian calendar, solar year is also divided into summer and autumn...Where summer starts with summer St Georges day, and winter starts with Winter St Georges day...

Summer George icon. 

Winter George icon.

So the fire purification on the day (around) the beginning of the summer...The season ruled by the Jarilo, the "Brightly Burning One"...The one who "pali" (lights up fires)...

It is interesting that in the past, in the Balkans, on the morning of St George's day kids were woken up by being swished with nettles, "to be healthy"...

Nettle sting feels like burning, and the expression in Serbian for being stung by nettles is "ožariti se" (to be burned)...

In the past, in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia, women swept their houses with nettles early in the morning on St George's day, "to sweep all bad things out of the house, because everything runs away from nettles"...From: Ѓурѓовденски обичаи (1956) which sadly isn't available on Youtube any more...

There is an expression in Serbian "on žari i pali" which means "he burns and lights up fires"...Jarilo, Žarilo, Palilo...The Burning Sun of summer...

Shepherd kids making flower wreaths in the spring, most likely for Djurdjevdan (St George's day)...

From the description of the Parilia ritual:

"...After the sheep pen had been decorated with green branches and a wreath draped on the gate..."

In Serbia, on the St George's day people put wild flower and medicinal herbs wreaths on house gates for good luck and health...

I talked about St George (Jarilo) as the sheep and shepherds god in my posts "April" and "Aries must die"...

From the description of the Parilia ritual: "...Offerings of bread and milk were then presented to Pales..."

St George's day rituals involving bread and milk from Serbia: 

This is "kravaj" (pronounced kravay), a ritual bread made in Serbia. It was in the past used during "premlaz", the ritual first milking of the year which is always done the day before St George's day and which marks the beginning of the milking season...I talked about this in my post "Aries must die"...

From the description of the Parilia ritual: "...After these offerings, the shepherd would wet his hands with dew, face the east...pray..."

Just in case you wondered who the shepherd was praying to facing east at dawn...The sun...god..who "pali" (burns)...

Oh, and why would he "wet his hands with dew" before praying?

Well in places where people believed in purification by fire at the beginning of summer, they also believed in purification by dew at the beginning of summer...

This is one custom that I only read about before. On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia. From: Ѓурѓовденски обичаи (1956) which sadly isn't available on Youtube any more...

But this ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day. And the Irish did it too, on Beltane morning...Just another indication what St George's day is...I talked about this in my post "Morning dew"...

Interestingly, the same ritual is performed in Latvia on Jāņi day (summer solstice). Girls wash their faces with the morning dew, so their face will always be white and beautiful"...Great example how ritual dates change because of climate...I talked about this in my post "Jani"...

And that's it from me for today...After all this, I still don't know who Pales was...But I could guess...🙂 Especially after I recently found out that one of the names of the Mesopotamian god of death, Nergal, the personification of the destructive, burning sun of the late summer, was "Palil"...I talked about this in my post "Palil"...

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...

Lapis manalis

While I was looking for a suitable illustration for this post about "lapis manalis", the sacred stone used as part of a Roman "aquaelicium" (calling of the waters), rain making ceremony performed during droughts, I suddenly realised what cup and ring marks look like...

I'll just leave this here...

Anyway, we have no ideas what this magic Roman "weather stone" looked like...What we know is that it was kept inside the Temple of Mars in Clivo near the Porta Capena...

From there, the stone was brought into the Senate, where offerings were made to Jupiter petitioning for rain, and water was ceremonially poured over the stone...

Now, have a look at this: In his 1925 paper "The Ring of Nestor", Sir Arthur Evans, mentions a curious rain-making ritual which was performed in Ibrahimovci, near Skoplje, Macedonia, during droughts. Pic: Altar dedicated to Jupiter, Macedonia

This is 1925 we are talking about. At least 1500 years since Jupiter was officially a god of rain...And yet, uneducated, illiterate SLAVIC villagers in Macedonia still remembered him in times of desperation...

What is very interesting is that this altar "was lying face down normally but was lifted when the rain was needed". 

Compare this with this Slavic rain making ritual from Belarus in which Dabog's stone is ceremonially lifted (and water is poured on it 🙂). I talked about it in my post "Last megalithic ritual in Europe"...

And compare this with other weather controlling Slavic rituals involving stones and rocks. I talked about this in my post "Water stones"...

Have a look at this article too, "White cross", about weather control "temple" from Slovenia...

And now compare all this with the Roman "calling the waters" (Latin: aquaelicium) ritual with the "lapis manalis" sacred stone...Interesting, right? It gets better...

This was not the only sacred "lapis manalis" stone Romans played with...There was one more...This one covered the "mundus Cereris" (The world of Ceres), a pit thought to contain an entrance to the underworld...

This "lapis manalis" was removed on August 24, October 5 and November 8 and the pit was opened with the official announcement "mundus patet" ("the mundus is open")...

Its opening offered the spirits of the dead temporary leave from the underworld, to roam lawfully among the living...This is very interesting...You'll see soon why...

Anyway after the pit was opened, offerings were thrown into it for "the underworld deities" and "the agricultural deities", including Ceres the goddess of grain "and guardian of underworld portals"...This is also very interesting...You'll see soon why...

Roman tradition held that the "mundus Cereris" had been dug and sealed by Romulus as part of Rome's foundation...

There are some suggestions that the "mundus Cereris" was the Rome's first storehouse (penus) for seed-grain, which later become the symbolic penus of the Roman state...Which makes sense cause the pit was called "mundus Cereris" (The world of Ceres)...

However, most cities of Latium and Etruria contained a similar pit or ditch...Plutarch suggests that the custom of the "mundus Cereris" was of Etruscan origin...

He compares it to pits dug by Etruscan colonists, containing soil brought from their parent city, and into which they sacrificed the first fruits of the harvest...

Sooo...Here we have two stones with the same name, one used in rain making ritual, the most important agricultural ritual that there is, and the other one used in a thanksgiving agricultural ritual involving "the dead" and grain...

Apparently, grammarian Festus, who worked  in the later 2nd century AD, "held the cover to the gate of the underworld and the rainmaking stone to be two distinct stones"....

Possibly...But they were functionally and mythologically definitely related...Except, by the time of Festus, Romans probably had forgotten that fact...Well, not everyone forgot the link between the dead, the grain, the stones and the rain...Check this:

In the Balkans people believed that if the dead were not given water, they would drink it from the clouds, and would cause drought. More about the eternal thirst of the dead can be found in my post "Thirst"...

This is why Bosnian Muslim Slavs would during droughts throw stones in the air making sure they fall in a river. The reason why a stone was thrown up in the air was "to bring the thirsty souls down from the clouds"...

Slavs believed that stones can capture the spirits of deceased...

Slavs used to place stones in, on and around graves to prevent the dead from rising. I talked about this in my post "Tombstones"...I this why suspected vampires were buried with stones in their mouths...

Hence why Romans also believed that their "lapis manalis" stone would keep the souls of their "blessed dead" inside the "mundus Cereris"...

This belief in thirsty ancestors most likely originates in Neolithic...In this post, "One for the road", I talk about the possibility that vessels placed in graves since Neolithic were not left there empty, but originally contained drink for the thirsty dead...

We find the same belief among the Hittites, who blamed the effects of the climate change which eventually led to the collapse of the Bronze Age empires around Mediterranean, on themselves. Because they have forgotten to honour their ancestors.  I talked about this in my post "House of bones"...

BTW, Slavs didn't just believe that the ancestors controlled only rain. They firmly believed that it was their ancestors who were the source of all the good and all the bad in their lives. And particularly grain...

Making Diduch or Did from grain, meaning grandfather, ancestor, the most important decoration made in the Carpathian villages in Western Ukraine during the traditional winter holidays...I talked about this in my post "Diduch"...

Greeks believed that too, BTW. It is this life giving power of the dead, which Pluto (Hades), the giver of wealth, appropriated for himself. And this is why Hades and Persephone are depicted sitting on their throne in the land of the dead, with sheafs of wheat and flowers...I talked about this in my post "Pluto"

So...Back to Romans and their sacred "lapis manalis" stones. Were they named the same because they were both linked with the worship of the ancestors? Doesn't "lapis manalis" mean "Manes (blessed dead) stone"?

Was the water poured on the rain making "lapis manalis"  during the rain making ceremony, because it contained "thirsty souls of the ancestors"?

You know,  Manes, the blessed dead, who lived in the pit covered with the other "lapis manalis"...The pit which Romans opened so they can sacrifice to "the underworld deities" and "the agricultural deities"...

The pit which could have originally been the grain seed store...Thankfully, Slavs still remembered who to blame for the drought, and who to thank for rain and grain until recently: the ancestors...So we can now understand these ancient "obscure" Roman rituals a bit better...

Oh, forgot. Slavs also prayed to and sacrificed to Dabog. Don't forget Dabog, The Giving god. Dabog, The Sky god, Sun and Rain god, to whom Slavs prayed for just enough rain and sunshine, so their grain fields would yield plenty of grain...

Also Dabog, the god of the dead...Whom Serbs considered their ancestral deity, the first, original ancestor...And whom other Slavs knew as "Djed" (Grandfather)...So we are still in the realm of the ancestor cult...

So there you have it...

Finally, have a look at this: 

Food for thought...

Norman font from St Nonna's Church at Altarnun. Decorated with Perunikas, Perun's flowers,  also known as thunder marks...and water marks...and flowers of life...Because it is rain that makes life possible??? What is the origin of stone fonts? Maybe rain filled ancient stone mortars? I talked about this link between holy water fonts and mortars in my post "Knocking stones"...

Eagle-Snake struggle

Eagle-Snake struggle mosaic from the palace of the Emperor Justinian I  (527-565), Istambul...

Ever wondered why this is the symbol of Zeus/Jupiter? It is all to do with annual distribution of thunderstorms in Europe, and annual lifecycle of snakes, and snake eagles...

The short-toed snake eagle (Circaetus gallicus) is a medium-sized bird of prey, found throughout the Mediterranean basin, into Russia and the Middle East, and parts of Western Asia, and in the Indian Subcontinent.

This eagle, as its name says has short toes 🙂 And eats snakes...

And in Europe, it is a migratory bird, leaving for Africa in Sep/Oct and returning in Apr/May...So this eagle disappears with snakes (goes to the underworld 🙂) and reappears with snakes (returns from the underworld)...

The only time you can see this scene is during summer and autumn...Beginning from Apr-May...Beginning of summer...Which is interesting, because in Europe, Apr-May is also the beginning of the Thunderstorm season...

Snake is the symbol of sun's heat...The only true solar animal. Snakes are in our world when sun is in our world (day and hot part of the year) and in the underworld when sun is in the underworld (night and cold part of the year). Sun god with snakes from my article "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

For the same reason, the earliest depictions of dragons found in Mesopotamia had bodies of lions and heads of snakes...I talked about this in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

The Mesopotamian dragon had the body of a lion, because Leo (Jul/Aug) is the hottest and driest part of the year...The seat of Nergal, the god of death, personification of the sun's destructive heat...Who was depicted with lion body...I talked about this in my post "Winged super human hero"...

Snakes are solar symbols in Slavic folklore. I talked about this in my posts "Enemy of the sun" and "Chthonic animal"...

And fire breathing dragon is the personification of the sun's destructive heat that "steals water" and brings drought...I talked about this in my post "Dragon who stole rain"...

Pic: "Victory over Gorynych the Serpent". Gorynych was the name of a dragon from Russian mythology which means "the burning one", from gori (burns). As in burning summer sun...

So while snake is pretty universal symbol of the sun, and sun's heat, eagle is pretty universal symbol of rain...I talked about this in my post "Mysterious creature", "The judgement of the birdman", "Eagle dance", "Griffin killing lizard", "Summer and winter BMAC seals", "Pero"...

Hence Eagle (Thunder god) fighting Snake (Sun's heat)...

In Fertile Crescent, where these animal calendar markers developed, the climatic year is divided into hot, dry summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov) and cool wet winter (Oct/Nov-Apr/May)...

Because the hot dry half of the year starts with mating of snakes (Apr/May) and because the cool wet half of the year starts with mating of vultures (Oct/Nov), the struggle between the eagle and snake in Mesopotamia is short, and eagle's victory is never in doubt...

But in Europe where the hottest part of the year is also the part of the year with most thunderstorms, the struggle between eagle (rain) and snake (sun) is long and hard...

This fight intensifies as the summer goes on, reaching crescendo at the end of Jul, the hottest and most thunderous part of the year in Europe...

But in the end eagle always wins...And at the beginning of Aug, Slavs celebrate the victory of their thunder god Perun (Eagle) over his enemy, the great serpent (Veles) who stole heavenly cows (clouds)...

Right at the time when the Northern hemisphere starts cooling, and when the Thunderstorm activity in Europe starts to diminish...

Eagle kills snake, the world is saved...Again...

Cool, 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...