JIVE TALK: Acharya returns to discuss Vedic wisdom in the Kali Yuga

Holy holes: Passing through and looking through

 

Passing through rituals involving holes in stones and trees are widespread in Europe and beyond and are related to rituals that involve looking through a hole to see spirits. In this video we look at the passing through rituals associated with megalithic structures in Britain and Ireland, and the arboreal passing through rituals associated with oak and ash trees all over Europe, known as träddragning in Nordic countries. We also look at the related customs of looking through holes among the Sami and the Welsh, the Odinic ritual of looking through an arm akimbo as described in the Viking saga of King Hrólfr Kraki, and at the hagstone or adderstone tradition from Britain and the associated magical practices. 

Animations by Castor and Bollux animation: 

Will  

Eliot  

Efa 

Additional art by: 

Thomas Cormack - Elf blot 

 Christian Sloan Hall - Odin 

Graman Folcwald - Anglo-Saxon burial 

Christopher Steininger - Odin

Sources:

Camden, W., ‘Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland’ (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610) Copyright 2004 by Dana F. Sutton. 

Campbell, J. G., ‘Witchcraft & second sight in the Highlands & islands of Scotland’ (1902). Davies, J. C., ‘Folk-lore of West and mid-Wales’ (1911). 

Evans, George E., ‘The Pattern Under the Plough’ (1966). 

Guðmundsson, H., ‘Handan hafsins’ Háskólaútgáfan (2012). 

Hand, Wayland D. “‘Passing Through’: Folk Medical Magic and Symbolism.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 112, no. 6, 1968, pp. 379–402. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/985938. 

Kuusela, T., 'He met his own funeral procession': The Year walk-ritual in Swedish folk tradition. Chapter in: "Folk Belief and Traditions of the Supernatural". Edited by Tommy Kuusela & Giuseppe Maiello. Beewolf Press 2016. Pp. 58-91. 

Saxo Grammaticus. Gesta Danorum: the History of the Danes I, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, and trans. Peter Fisher (Oxford, 2014), book 2, ch. 7, pp. 138–39. 

Marwick, E. (1975) The Stone of Odin. In Robertson, J. D. M. (1991) An Orkney Anthology: The Selected Works of Ernest Walker Marwick (Vol 1). Scottish Academic Press: Edinburgh. 

McDowall, Sue ‘PASSING THROUGH & UNDER: A RITUAL HEALING IN ENGLAND’ Folklore Thursday blog. 

National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009137/4990205/5100637 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009301/5005811/5133480 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922361/4874175 https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5009277/5003835/5131790 

Ryan, Derek ‘Hag Stones, are they an example of authentic Irish folklore or a neo-pagan import?’ The Tipperary antiquarian blog (2019) 

Rydving, Hakan. (2010). The 'Bear Ceremonial' and Bear Rituals among the Khanty and the Sami. Temenos. 46. 31-52. 10.33356/temenos.6940. 

Skott, F., ‘Passing Through as Healing and Crime’ (2014). 

Thoms, William J. “Divination by the Blade-Bone.” The Folk-Lore Record, vol. 1, 1878, pp. 176–179. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1252358.

Death & Burial in Vedic India

White Tarim Mummies, Tocharians and other Indo-Europeans of China

Discovery of mummies in the Taklamakan desert of Western China dating back 4,000 years has captivated the imaginations of researchers, who were surprised to discover that they were caucasians from Europe. The answers to the mystery of who these white mummies were might be found in the later history of Xinjiang province; in the Chinese written records of blue eyed and red bearded merchants such as the Yuezhi and the Sogdians from the West and in the manuscripts written in a mysterious Indo-European language known as Tocharian. Clearly there were both Iranic and Tocharian peoples living in Western China in later times, and the Tarim mummies must have been the ancestors of some if not all of them.

The inhospitable Tarim basin became a vital route for merchants, at the crossroads between East and West, the basin is skirted by oasis towns which were stations for anyone traveling on the Silk Road.The caucasian, Europoid mummies and the ancient Indo-European languages of the region challenge popular misconceptions about the limits of European civilisation in the Bronze Age. The material excavated suggests the area was active for thousands of years, with diverse languages, lifestyles, religions, and cultures present.

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Credits

Tocharians and Tarim mummies art by Andrew Whyte

Andronovo chariot art by Christian Sloan Hall

OST by Deor (his website coming soon)

Sources:

• Adams, D., (2019) ‘Tocharian C: its discovery and implications’ 
• A dictionary of Tocharian B 
• Gray, Russell & Atkinson, Quentin & Greenhill, Simon. (2011). Language Evolution and Human History.
• Good, I., ‘A Social Archaeology of Cloth some preliminary remarks on prehistoric textiles of the Tarim Basin’ (Peabody Museum)
• Hollard, C. et al. (2018). New genetic evidence of affinities and discontinuities between bronze age Siberian populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 167 (1): 97–107.
• Katariya, A., ‘Ancient History of Central Asia: Yuezhi-Gurjar History’, Article No 01
• Mair, V., ‘Ancient Mummies of the Tarim Basin’
• Ning, et al. (2019), ‘Ancient Genomes Reveal Yamnaya - Related Ancestry and a Potential Source of Indo-European Speakers in Iron Age Tianshan’ 
• Wenkan, X. (1996) ‘The Tokharians and Buddhism’
• Xie, M. et al, (2013) Interdisciplinary investigation on ancient Ephedra twigs from Gumugou Cemetery (3800 B.P.) in Xinjiang region, northwest China. 
• Yang, Y. (2019), ‘Shifting Memories: Burial Practices and Cultural Interaction in Bronze Age China A study of the Xiaohe-Gumugou cemeteries in the Tarim Basin’
• Selections from the Han Narrative Histories 

Documentary about Aryan Kalash people

KALASHA Core of Culture | Documentary Short Film | 2019

Ramayana Anime 1992

Aryan Invasion of India: Myth or Reality?

DNA evidence has shed new light on the origins of the Indian people, the Hindu religion and the Sanskrit language. Pastoralists of the Andronovo culture from the Bronze age steppe invaded India from the North West and brought Indo-European languages to the Indian subcontinent. These pastoralists were ethnically white people, and they mixed with Indians to create the modern genetic diversity of India. This theory has been developed over 200 years, and has often been attacked as a colonial fable or even as Nazi propaganda, but now genetic science has vindicated the Victorian scholars who said the roots of the Aryans lay in the Corded Ware culture of Europe.

Odin as Brihaspati

Not everyone agreed with my association of Woden with the Vedic era sage god Brihaspati, but I stick by it. I refer not to the medieval Brihaspati (Jupiter) but to the Vedic Brihaspati, favourite guru of Lord Indra, said to have been appointed as the priest of the Devas during their war with the Asuras. He he did not have the skill of Necromancy which gave the Asuras an advantage, therefore, his son Kacha, whose name means sage, was sent to learn necromancy from Shukracharya, the guru of the Asuras.

Like Brihaspati and his son, we see that Odin/Woden is the sage god, as I said in my video "Who is Woden", he performs all priestly activities for the gods, giving himself as a sacrifice to himself, and even performing the first ever sacrifice with his brothers in Gylfaginning.

More specifically, Odin learned seiðr from the Vanir. There was a conflict between Aesir and Vanir, yet Odin had to learn magic from them. He became a necromancer and a god of the dead. The 12th rune he learned from his sacrifice allowed him to speak with the dead, bringing them back like the Mrita Sanjivini mantra does. 

"A twelfth I know, if high on a tree  

I see a hanged man swing;  

So do I write  and color the runes 

That forth he fares,   

And to me talks."

Remember that the root meaning of "rune" is esoteric secret and it is therefore essentially a magical formula like a mantra. The parallels between these stories are quite obvious. An additional parallel may be found in the part of the myth in which Kacha is killed by the Asuras and his remains are mixed with wine, which is imbibed by his master - a story reminiscent of the Norse myth in which the wisest man, Kvasir, is murdered by dwarves who blend his blood with honey to make the divine mead....

The Milk Drinking Serpent

Out on a Spring jog last weekend I was delighted to encounter a grass snake which I chased into a corner where I could admire it. They are very lucky in the folklore of Indo-European countries and this must be due to its former mythological status. The grass snake (natrix natrix) is a non-venomous serpent found across Europe and the Eurasian steppes where the Proto-Indo-Europeans originated.

A paper by Lender and Janssen (2014) argued that the grass snake has been sacred since the Neolithic, and owes its wide distribution due to the fact that dung heaps made by farmers create the perfect nesting environment for them to thrive. The paper shows that the grass snake spread during the Neolithic with agriculture. We can presume it spread even more in the late Neolithic, after the Indo-Europeans brought lactase persistence to the region and made cows an even more valuable resource.

Snakes got a bad name with Christianity, and the grass snake lost its special status in many places. However, in Lithuania, the last European country to be Christianised, the grass snake, known as žaltys, is still a sacred animal. In mythology, it is a household spirit, and Baltic people, particularly young couples, would keep them as pets beneath the bed, and feed them by hand. If a grass snake was found in the wild then people would try to befriend it with an offering  of milk.

Found a snek at the lek #donttreadonme #grasssnake #reptiles #steveirwin

A post shared by Survive the Jive (@survivethejive) on May 27, 2017 at 8:59am PDT

I am assured by a Swedish friend that the same practice of offering bowls of milk to grass snakes, snok, also occurred in Sweden until quite recently. This got me wondering how widespread the practice was. 

Then I read in the Hindu myth of Mansā Devi, the goddess of snakes, the story of a girl called Behula who placated malicious serpents with bowls of milk to drink. The snakes were vicious in the legend but the snake goddess is revered and she can heal or prevent snake bites. In fact, there is even a Hindu snake festival held in July/August called Naga Panchami, during which snake spirits (Naga) are worshiped. Just as the realm of the underworld in Norse mythology is populated by serpents such as Nidhogg, Hindu cosmology relegates Naga to the lowest of the seven realms of the universe. During this festival, snakes are sometimes bathed in milk or they are fed milk, but as you can see from the image below, the snakes are reluctant to participate. Some Indians don't realise that snakes prefer bugs and rats to bowls of milk.

The notion of malevolent spirits such as elves or fairies or even animals such as hares stealing butter or milk is common in the folklore of the British Isles, but in rural parts of England, such as Gloucestershire, there are specific examples where milk is said to be sucked directly from the cow's udder by a snake. This charming tale from 1700 is a nice example:

The story begins with the unaccountable failure of an Alderney cow to yield her customary supply of milk. Hitherto the reputation of Daisy, the animal in question, had been above reproach. She had borne twelve promising calves in thirteen years, and had supplied milk with the regularity of penny-in-the-slot machine. But without warning her generous fountains ran suddenly dry, and to quote ‘our Jarge’ my principal informant ‘Her didn’t yield not spot of milk for more’n two days.’ The farm bailiff, suspecting that gipsies or tramps must have got at Daisy’s supply, instructed the cowman to keep an eye on that excellent beast, which Jorge accordingly did, with surprising results. After a brief period of vigilance the honest fellow sought out the bailiff and made his report boldly as follows; ‘l’ve been a-waitin’, and I do know what be wrong with our Daisy. I’ve seed snakes.’ Now the farm hand who sees snakes is rarely encouraged. ‘Jarge,’ however, stuck manfully to his story, which was that had come upon Daisy lying on the grass with expression of bovine bliss upon her countenance ‘same if her bein’ tickled pleasantlike.’ He made the cow get up, and then to his astonishment saw two great snakes wriggle in the grass where she had lain. ‘I struck out stick’ quoth Jarge ‘and killed ’em dead. They’ve been a-suckin’ our Daisy’s milk this three days.’

In Spain, rural peasants not only still believe that snakes will steal the milk of their cows, but also that a sickly child may be suffering because a snake has been stealing the mother's milk straight from the tit while she sleeps. The Spaniards are wont to kill snakes wherever they see them. No doubt due to Christian superstition and ignorant prejudice. The snake in these folkloric beliefs is reduced to a despised thief (maybe due to Christianity), unlike the revered serpents in the other examples, but in each case, the enduring belief that snakes drink milk must derive from some pre-Christian, Indo-European source.

Snakes, being reptiles, do not have the necessary digestive equipment to break down the lactose in milk and therefore have no interest in drinking it. In fact, even human adults couldn't digest milk until the Indo-Europeans spread their lactase persistent genes across Eurasia in the Bronze age. The Indo-Europeans had a prominent serpent in their mythology which was slain by the storm god. They also had a myth about enchanted apples being stolen from a deity by a sub-race of god-like beings. It seems likely that there was a folk belief among these early drinkers of cow and goat milk, that their treasured nutritious beverage would be stolen from them by serpents and that serpent-like nature-spirits ought also to be placated with offerings of milk.

EDIT: There is a whole paper on this phenomenon here - ERMACORA (2017)
EDIT 2019: There is also an Austrian folk story about a milk drinking grass snake. See video below.

Indo-European Archery Contest Myth

While reading the Hindu epic Mahābhārata for the first time, I was struck by several quite obvious parallels in European literature regarding archery, which immediately aroused my suspicion of a common Proto-Indo-European origin. Not just because both Indian and Homeric sources use similar language, such as describing arrows as "winged" and bows as "shining" (West, 2007) but because of similar kinds of contests of archery.

The first simply involves the stringing of an incredibly strong bow. In Mahābhārata it is a bow so strong that it can be strung by none but Arjuna the son of Indra the thunder god. This feat Arjuna performs at a contest where he shoots five arrows into a horn. The story has the same origin as one in the Odyssey, in which Penelope, wife of Odysseus, says to her suitors in her husband's absence that she will marry any who can string his bow. All fail but Odysseus himself, who strings the bow while in disguise and thus woos his own wife. This follows an Indo-European tradition of heroic wooing.

In the Iliad at the funeral of Patroclus there is an archery contest in which a bird must be shot from the top of a mast, and this is very like Drona's archery test in Mahābhārata in which a fake bird is used as the target instead.

Another Greek source tells the story of how Heracles seeks a throne through marriage and hears that Eurytus, king of the city of Oechalia, is holding an archery contest with his daughter Iole as a bride for a winner. Of course Heracles beats everybody.

Another example in Mahābhārata was the archery contest in which the hand of Princess Draupadi is the prize at her Swayamvara. The five Pandavas all attend in disguise as Brahmins. Here we see both the theme of the archery contest with a Princess bride as the prize, and also the the theme of the heroic suitor in disguise.

You may recognise this story from Robin Hood? I did! Michael Nagler wrote that the origin of this story, widespread in mythology and fairy tales, is an Indo-European contest "with a disguised hero whose invincible identity is hidden behind a mask of social inferiority, the former arousing the suitors' fear and the latter their indignant rejection."

The contest is recorded in 'A Gest of Robyn Hode", one of the oldest surviving tales of Robin Hood, printed between 1492 and 1534, but was based on much older stories. It is possible the Robin Hood stories borrowed elements from Greek myths, but it seems to me just as likely that the Robin Hood version is derived from a native English myth, perhaps of Anglo-Saxon or even of Celtic origin?

Let me know if you can shed any light on this in the comments. 

Sources

Michael N. (1993) "Penelope's Male Hand: Gender and Violence in the Odyssey,"

Indo-European Poetry and Myth By M. L. West (2007)

A Passage to India: From Aryans to Empire

Julius Evola on Buddhism

A selection of quotes from a book on Buddhism by Italian esotericist, Julius Evola

Documentary: A British History of Ceylon Tea

The Sacred Cow in Indo-European Religion

Making Bronze Hindu Deities The Medieval Way

Christianity and Hinduism with Fr. Bede Griffiths

Fr. Bede Griffiths was a Benedictine monk who dabbled with Hinduism. In this video he talks about how exploring other religions can enhance the faith you practice. If people can learn to simplify their lives, look beyond reality to the mystery, they can be closer to God. This clip is the courtesy of the National Council of Churches from their film "Search for Spirituality."

History of the Moustache

The moustache is no longer the face of the Western man. It is more commonly associated with Turks and Hindus than with Europeans these days. Its history is hard to trace through Western culture. The earliest depiction is this one below, showing a Scythian Pazyrik horseman from around 300 BC. An Indo-European people of the steppes.




 The Hindu gods are sometimes depicted with moustaches, like Indra in the image below from 1820, as this is a sign of masculinity in Hindu culture. It is uncertain when the moustache became popular in India but it is possible it derives from Aryan fashions since Aryans were related to Scythians. However it is also likely that the more recent Western moustache was revived by influence from the Hindu tradition.






 Romans, Greeks, Jews and later Christians and Muslims all favoured a full beard rather than a moustache. But the moustache was popular among the "barbarian" cultures of Northern and Eastern Europe. This Celtic stone head from Mšecké Žehrovice, Czech Republic, is from the late La Tène culture. This head was probably made around the time of the birth of Christ.





  As well as the Celts, the Norse sometimes favoured moustaches as demonstrated by this carving which may be a depiction of the god of mischief, Loki.



The Anglo-Saxons certainly favoured moustaches rather than beards, both before and after they converted to Christianity. This is clearly shown in the Bayeaux tapestry in which all the Saxons wear moustaches including King Harold Godwinson as shown in the image below.





 In fact, the tash was so important to them, that it is even depicted on the Sutton hoo helmet, lest the enemy mistakenly believe the Anglo-Saxon was clean shaven beneath the mask.





The moustache went out of fashion over the centuries though, being replaced by the proud beard or more commonly the clean shaven Christian of the West. It was not until the days of British Imperialism that we once again donned the soup strainers. The catalyst was caused by influence from India where the British had usurped the roles of the higher caste of the Hindus and had taken to growing moustaches following the Indian custom. The custom was encouraged because Indians were inclined to view clean shaven men as effeminate and in order to maintain an image of power in the eyes of the Hindus, British men needed to maintain whiskers on the upper lip.



You can read more about the importance of the moustache to the British Empire in the following article.

How the moustache won an empire.



The rise of communist dictators such as Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky, who sullied the image of the Western moustache, may have caused its demise until the more recent revival in which it was worn ironically by hipsters in Dalston and Williamsburg.


This cannot go on, I am doing my bit to bring back the Western moustache, without irony or apology, for neither charity nor humour. A tash is for life not just for Movember.

Documentary: Jainism

This is a documentary about Jainism. Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called Jina "Conqueror, Victor". Jainism is also referred to as Shramana "self-reliant" Dharma or the religion of Nirgrantha "those without ties" by ancient texts.

Carl Sagan on Hinduism

Are Men the dreams of the Gods or are the Gods the dreams of Men?