112 An extremely interesting instance of the hand being actually figured
between the sun and the moon, _i. e._ as the symbol of the Middle,
is to be seen on the Phœnician tablet to Baal Hamman and Tanitla,
from Carthage, preserved at the British Museum and figured by Mr.
Goodyear, fig. 64, 1. Above the hand is a group of symbols
consisting of two S-shaped signs, resembling the Mexican picture of
Ursa Major. Between these is a pyramid and above this a
seven-petalled conventionalized flower, which should be compared
with fig. 64, 3, a copy of the familiar flower on the sacred tree of
the Assyrians. In fig. 64, 2, copied from another Phœnician tablet
(Goodyear), the flower occupies the central position between two
hands; the latter taking the places of sun and moon in the tablet 1,
an interesting detail considering the instances cited, showing that
dual rulership was indiscriminately associated with “right and left
hand” or “the sun and moon.”
113 It is remarkable that the sound of the Latin word for ram=aries, so
closely resembles the Egyptian symbols for Amen-Ra (see fig. 63,
1-4) and that the am and ar syllables occur in the following names
for ram or sheep, applied to the zodiacal constellation:
Al Hamal=the sheep (Arabic).
Bara=the ram (Persian).
Amru=the ram (Syrian).
Varak=the ram (Parsi).
114 The inscription on this monument, which also exhibits the portrait
statue of Amenophis III, is of particular interest as it states that
the temple of Saleb, built by the king, was “very wide and large ...
its towers reached to the sky, and _the flagstaffs united themselves
with the stars of heaven_” (see official catalogue of the Berlin
Museum, p. 122). This appears to indicate that the flagstaffs were
employed for purposes of astronomical observations.
115 The ideas associated with the form of a lion couchant are best
learned from the following passages from the Bible: “He couched, he
lay down as a lion and as a great lion; who shall stir him up?”
(Numbers XXIV, 9, see also Genesis XLIX, 9). It is only by the light
afforded by such insights into eastern contemporaneous thought that
the meaning of the Egyptian sphinx can be in some measure
understood.
116 I address the query to Egyptologists: whether there are any
indications of a common identity of sound in the Egyptian word for
beard and same name, denoting rule or power, similar to that
existing in the Maya language between “ah-meex”=bearded man and
“ah-mek-tan” governor, ruler (see p. 232).
117 The somewhat perplexing allusions to the “divine marriage” of Isis
to her father or brother and to her giving birth to her own mother,
as in the above text, are very naturally explained by the fact that
the successive officiating king-high-priest always personified
Ra-Osiris or the Sun and the queen Isis-Sothis-Hathor and the Moon
or Sirius. The female child to whom the queen gives birth was
destined to be her successor and another personification of Isis,
therefore she could be said to have given birth to her own mother,
since, like the latter, the child would be an Isis. In the same way
the queen could be said to marry her father and brother, as, like
herself, the king was the offspring of a divine union and bore his
father’s title. In connection with the custom of the male Horus
naming the “young sun” and the female Horus the young star or moon,
it is noteworthy that the son and daughter of Anthony and Cleopatra,
who used to assume the insignia of Isis on state occasions, were
given the Greek surnames of Helios and Selene.
118 It is extremely curious and interesting that the Incas, the
civilizers of Peru, also set up a disk of gold as the image of the
Creator and placed it between images of the sun and moon. We also
find the Inca Ccapac Yupanqui, like Amenhotep, deploring the spread
of idolatry and image-worship as a misfortune to his vassals and a
sorrow to himself. It is recorded of another Inca that, as a wise
measure he destroyed all writing, presumably picture and rebus
writing, as calculated to mislead his people by a multiplication of
symbols. It is an interesting reflection which our increased
knowledge of the primitive civilization of Egypt enables us to make,
that the organization of Peru, under Inca rule, must have closely
resembled that of Egypt in remotest antiquity, at its primitive
stage of development, when simplicity, harmony and equilibrium
existed throughout the “celestial kingdom.”
119 The following detached extracts, partly from Mr. Richard Hinckley
Allen’s valuable work, should be carefully studied in connection
with the above text, as they throw further light upon the ideas
associated with the sacred centres of heaven and earth by nations
with whom the Greeks were in touch.
“To the whole Arabian nation, heathen or Mahommedan, Polaris was
Alfass, the hole in which the earth’s axle found its bearing” (p.
451).
The following important material pertains to the chapter on India,
of whose insufficiency I am painfully aware. “In earliest Northern
India the star nearest the pole was known as Grahadhara, ‘the pivot
of the planets,’ representing the great god Dhruva, and Al Biruni
said that among the Hindus of his time it was Dhruva himself. It was
an object of their worship” (p. 456).
In Bournouf’s Bhagavata-pûrana (chap. IV) it is said that “Dhruva,
meditating on Brahma, stood on one foot, motionless as a post; while
he did so half the world, wounded by his big toe, bent over under
his weight like a boat which, bearing a vigorous elephant, leans at
each step he takes, from left to right.” O’Neil, citing the same
source continues: “In consequence of his austerities Bhagavat said
‘I grant thee virtuous Child, a Spot which has never yet been
occupied by any being, a Spot blazing with splendor, of which the
ground is firm, where is fixed the circus of the celestial lights,
of the planets, constellations and stars; which turn all around like
oxen round their stake, and which [the Spot] subsists motionless
even after the Dwellers of a Kalpa [a day and night of Brahmâ _i.
e._ 4,320,000,000 years] have disappeared. Around this Spot there
turn with the stars and leaving it on their right, Dharma, Agni,
Kasyapa and Sakra and the Solitaries who live in the Forest’ ...”
(p. 801). According to the Vishnu-purâna: “As Dhruva turns, he
causes sun, moon and other planets to turn round also, and the lunar
asterisms follow in his circular course, for all the celestial
lights are in fact bound to the Polar star by aërial cords”
(Vishnu-purâna, see O’Neil, p. 503). It is instructive to compare
these descriptions of Dhruva with the Akkadian-Sumerian hymn to
Ishtar, whom I have identified as the female form of Polaris (p.
342). According to Professor Sayce it begins: “Thou who as the axis
of the heavens dawnest. In the dwellings of the earth her name
revolves” (O’Neil, p. 715).
O’Neil further notes that “Dhruva is named the sun of Uttâna-Pâda”
and that this name is connected with uttarat=north and also
signifies outstretched, supine. He also states that “Uttara and
Uttarâ was the dual god of the north, the son and daughter of
Virâta, and expresses the opinion that the age of the Dhruva legend
is unutterable” (p. 503).
According to another Sanscrit legend: “At one time in the history of
the creation an attempt was made by Visvamitra to locate a southern
pole and another bear in positions corresponding to the northern,
this pole passing through the island Lumka or Vadavāmukha (Ceylon)”
(Allen, p. 436). Professor Sayce writes: “In early Sumerian days,
the heaven was believed to rest upon the peak of ‘the mountain of
the world’ in the far northeast, where the gods had their
habitations (_cf._ Isa. XIV, 13) [the mount of congregation in the
uttermost parts of the north], while an ocean or ‘deep’ encircled
the earth which rested upon its surface.” Von Herder referred to it
as “Albordz, the dazzling mountain on which was held the assembly of
the gods, and identified it with the holy mountain of God,” alluded
to in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel XXVIII, 14; and Professor
Whitney quoted from the sixty-second verse of the first chapter of
the Surya Siddhanta, “the mountain which is the seat of the gods”
and from the thirty-fourth verse of the twelfth chapter: “A
collection of manifold jewels, a mountain of gold, is Meru, passing
through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either
side;” commenting on which he says: the “seat of the gods” is Mount
Meru, situated at the North Pole (p. 452).
120 I likewise deeply regret that it is only since the last pages of the
present investigation have been in proof, that a remarkable work,
full of valuable material relating to the universal spread of
pole-star worship and symbolism, was particularly recommended to me
by a distinguished fellow archæologist. Had I realized before this
the great value of the late John O’Neil’s “The Night of the Gods”
(David Nutt, London, 1897), as a compendium, the result of years of
conscientious and painstaking labor, I should have made extensive
use of it and should have been able to make my survey of the ancient
civilizations of the Old World far more complete and my material
more convincing. As it is, I can only warmly recommend the work to
all interested in the present investigation, who will see for
themselves the widely different points of view from which our
respective researches have been carried out but will probably be
struck with the identity of some of our views. I should like to
express here my keen realization of the many blunders and omissions
I have probably made in the course of the present investigation,
which carried me, reluctantly, into fields of research where I felt
myself to be a stranger. In view of the disadvantages under which I
have labored, under pressure of time and a frequent inability to
obtain all the books I wished to consult, I rely upon the leniency
of specialists and upon their kindly communicating to me the faults
they detect, so that I may avoid them in future publications.
121 “The Century Dictionary has a theory as to the origin of the idea of
a Bear for the seven stars, doubtless from its editor, Professor
Whitney, that seems plausible, at all events scholarly. It is that
their Sanscrit designation, Riksha, signifies, in two different
genders, ‘a bear’ and ‘a star,’ ‘bright’ or ‘to shine;’ hence a
title, the Seven Shiners,—to that it would appear to have come, by
some confusion of sound of the two words, among a people not
familiar with the sound” (p. 424). “Later on Riksha was confounded
with Rishi, and so connected with the Seven Sages or Poets of India.
Al Biruni devoted a chapter of his work on India to the seven stars
[of Ursa Major] known as Saptar Shayar, the seven Anchorites”
(Allen). I draw attention here to the curious fact that the Sanscrit
verb to see=iksh is nearly homonymous with riksha and that
therefore, in Sanscrit, the association of a star with the
eye=akshan, that sees=iksh, must have been a very close one and
suggested the employment of the eye as a symbol for star. In
connection with the Sanscrit riksha it is curious to note that, in
Japanese, riki means power, viz., jin-riki-sha=man—power-wagon; and
hasha or rinsha=wagon or wain. The following extract from one of the
hymns in the oldest Veda, the Brahmâna, which “mark the beginning of
the philosophical creed of the Vedic period,” is particularly
significant when compared, not only with the preceding association
of Ursa Major with the seven sages of India, but also with Plato’s
cosmological doctrines: “I have beheld the Lord of Men,” one poet
writes, “with seven sons, of which delightful and benevolent [deity]
who is the object of our invocation, there is _an all-pervading
middle brother_ and a third brother.... They yoke the seven to the
one wheeled car; _one horse named seven_ bears it along; the
three-axled _wheel is undecaying, never loosened and in it all these
regions of the universe abide_.... Immature, undiscerning in mind, I
inquire of those things _which are hidden from the gods_ [_cf._ Hymn
to Amen-Ra, p. 388, where the same expression is used], the seven
threads which the sages _have spread to envelop the sun in whom all
abide_” (Chambers’ Encyclopædia, article India).