Triangles of the Gods

Late last night Sophie and I were laying around talking, and she asked me to explicate a point I had tried to make about dreams being much more related to art than to science, as she knows I expressed uncertainty about being back in school and being able to make clear arguments vocally in class. This lead into a much larger discussion about the roots of psychology and science in the ancient philosophers, and I was surprised to discover how much I was able to tie in points I had learned in class, as if I am actually already learning this stuff. It made me realize how much I miss good intellectual conversations, which seem so few and far between in my life right now but have never really drawn on source material the way I will be expected to do for school.

For my history of philosophy class, Magic Medicine and Science, I was asked to read Plato's "Timaeus," the ideas of which are perhaps pivotal to the modern view of science and medicine, but what immediately struck me was how much it sounded like a load of hogwash. Full of Demiurges and half-formulated mathematical theorems, an attempt to explain the creation of the world in terms of the four elements which would be laughed down if published in the modern world, and yet still held such an impact on all trains of rational thinking that followed. I felt that with his preponderance on just how the Demiurge created the world, the soul, and all the creatures, the "Timaeus" read almost more like a creation myth I would discuss in my Myth Symbol and Ritual class, although with the supernatural beings replaced by the peculiar triangles of the Platonic solids. And yet I could still see how it was the root of logic, that it attempted to offer an explanation of the processes of the natural world without recourse to a pantheon of gods. It is kind of difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that Plato existed simultaneously with the myths of Zeus and his pantheon, despite the hoakiness of his theories it seems like two entirely different views of reality.

Of course, amidst all the elements cutting each other to create color and getting mixed about in the 'Receptacle' of reality, there is still some very practical wisdom that seems almost forgotten in this modern age. Particularly, Plato suggests that psychological disorders are a result of an imbalance of attention and of bad education, and recommends that if one is sick due to intellectual overbalance to go do some gymnastics, but to resort to medicine as the last course, as it will fuck you up more than it helps you. As much as science, psychology, medicine drew on these ancient philosophies it seems to have overlooked such obvious sense and instead we have the pharmaceutical industry.

Vivid Wanderings: The Gunwinggu Rainbow Serpent as Symbolic of Indigenous Australian Life

Vivid Wanderings: The Gunwinggu Rainbow Serpent as Symbolic of Indigenous Australian Life

Throughout Indigenous Australian belief systems there consistently arises the symbol of the Rainbow Serpent, a mythological being known by various names to individual tribes but generally linked with water (Berndts, World 251). In other cultures, the rainbow has often symbolized a connection to the heavens, whereas serpents may serve as intermediaries to the unmanifest, chthonic realms; though both these symbols occasionally share a common connection to water, it is perhaps solely in Indigenous Australian myth that rainbows and serpents are portrayed in one entity (Cowan 22). According to the anthropological studies of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Rainbow Serpents were generally depicted as living in deep waterholes and are responsible for rainbows, rain, and the quartz crystals used by Indigenous Australian medicine-men (19). While the symbol of the Rainbow Serpent may have its source in natural phenomena, it was far more than just a rainbow or a snake (Eliade 115). Ngaljod, the Rainbow Serpent of the Gunwinggu tribe of west Arnhem Land, was portrayed with a host of other meanings. She was attributed with the creation of the landscape, animals, and spirit-children, and was associated with certain religious rituals and socio-economic taboos (Mountford 78-9). These characteristics of the Rainbow Serpent were more common in northern Australia, but there was often disagreement over the sex and number of Rainbow Serpents, and occasionally other creatures would take on roles attributed to these iridescent ophidians (Maddock, Introduction 2-5). Such cross-continental ambiguity makes it difficult to assign an ultimate meaning to the Rainbow Serpent for all Indigenous Australians. By placing the phenomenon of Ngaljod first in its specific socio-cultural context, and then in contradistinction to the diffusion of Rainbow Serpents across the continent, it may be possible to offer a hermeneutical interpretation of what this symbol meant for the whole life of the Gunwinggu tribe, and why, despite its variations and current cultural degradation, the multivalent symbolism of the Rainbow Serpent spanned Indigenous Australian belief.
As the Indigenous Australians did not keep historical records beyond their myths, it is difficult to date their culture or its specific symbols. Based on scant archeological evidence it is believed to be possible that they settled in Australia roughly 30,000 years ago (Berndts, World 4). However, traces of red ochre found on skeletal remains from that period imply that there was already a substantial spiritual tradition, placing the date much earlier (Cowan 7). Either way, linguistic lineage suggests that the first Australians migrated from Southern Asia and reached the continent by sea (Cowan 9), eventually landing on the northwest coast (Berndts, World 2-3), which could explain why the Rainbow Serpent picks up cosmogonic connotations in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land regions.

The Gunwinggu were one of over 500 distinct tribes that existed in Australia prior to European contact (Cowan 68). Their traditional territory was on the western and southwestern side of what is now the Arnhem Land Reserve in northern Australia, a coastal environment well supplied with natural resources and water (Berndts, Man 1-3). Like the other Indigenous Australian tribes, the Gunwinggu had a minimum of material goods, did not live in permanent houses, and hunted and collected their food with the aim of sustaining their natural environment (Berndts, World 7-8). The tribe was bound by actual or implied genealogy and common rules for behavior and language (Berndts, World 32-6), but in the typical Indigenous Australian pattern, lived in small, dispersed foraging groups that occasionally coalesced into larger units for religious ceremonies and trade (Berndts, Man 105). Unlike most tribes, matrilineal descent was primarily used by the Gunwinggu to establish social and marriage relationships (Berndts, World 61), though patrilineal decent was effective in delineating land ownership and religious responsibility (Berndts, Man 111). Typically men hunted and performed the rituals while women collected food and raised children (Berndts, World 119). Tribal economy relied on these natural resources, and was based on reciprocal gift exchange and trade (Berndts, World 132), but magico-religious beliefs served as the major focal point of their culture and life (Berndts, Man 112).

Though Indigenous Australian life has been characterized by cultural isolation and the rejection of outside influences (Cowan 19-20), the Gunwinggu have had a long history of interaction with others (Berndts, Man 1). Not only did they trade goods and ideas with other tribes, but also there was sustained contact with Indonesian traders whom they called Macassans, and later with Japanese pearling fleets. A group of unidentified islands to the northwest called ‘Macassar’ became the vague point of origin for both these traders and the Gunwinggu’s mythological characters (Berndts, Man 4).

The Indigenous Australians explained their origins through long myth-cycles variously translated as the Eternal Dream Time, or the Dreaming, which described a time before mankind when supernatural beings or ancestral heroes appeared and wandered across the land, creating life and culture in the process (Eliade 42-3). The Dreaming was the most fundamental aspect of Indigenous Australian life, and offered much more than an account of creation. The myths described how the supernatural power of the ancestral heroes was embodied in the Australian landscape, as well as in the social precepts and rituals of the Indigenous Australians in a way that made those powers available for current life (Charlesworth 9-10). The Dreaming conjured an immediate or eternal present where the actions of the mythic beings were still occurring, particularly during ceremonies (Cowan 26), thus setting a precedent for all human action and relationship (Eliade 43).

Like the other Indigenous Australian tribes, the Gunwinggu myths did not tell of the creation of the earth or sky. The land was already in place when the first people arrived, and after altering the featureless landscape and preparing it for human habitation, the mythic beings left their spiritual essence or djang behind (Berndts, Man 18), often in sacred sites which marked their final resting place (Eliade 45). A djang also lived in every representative of a given species (Berndts, Man 114), in ritual objects, as spirit-children that women found at waterholes in order to become pregnant, and as the men in which these ancestral beings were presently incarnated (Eliade 49-50). This Indigenous Australian belief, generally called totemism, allowed man to express his direct spiritual connection to the world and the Dreaming (Cowan 39). In a totemic fashion, the Gunwinggu considered any rainbow to be the original Ngaljod serpent, and men could summon her great floods by smashing a rock associated with the serpent’s djang, which in myths was performed as an act of revenge or suicide (Berndts, Man 114, 27). As opposed to the ancestral heroes who created man and culture, only those beings connected to a local site were considered djang, except the Rainbow Serpent, who was both a creator and a local spirit (Berndts, Man 19).

The Gunwinggu word for rainbow, mai?, generally included a class of living beings; animals, reptiles, and birds that were biologically male, but when referring directly to the rainbow the term was affixed with the feminine prefix ngal- (Berndts, Man 20). The Rainbow Serpent Ngaljod, also known as Ngalmud or Ngaldargid, was often credited in the myths with giving birth to the first humans as the archetypal Mother (Berndts, Man 20). She came underground from ‘Macassar,’ carrying spirit-children inside her; she made humans’ feet, hands, and eyes, her urine became water, she taught men how and where to dig for food and what to eat, explained the djang and myths, and gave breath to children in the womb (Berndts, Man 117-8). Furthermore, Ngalmud was the Gunwinggu word for the Dreaming, the timeless spiritual quality that all djang share with the Rainbow Serpent (Berndts, Man 75). The fertile Mother was a widespread mythological character throughout Indigenous Australian belief, spanning form the Victoria River District in the east to the western Kimberley Range (Berndts, World 256). As a predominantly matrilineal tribe, it makes some sense that the Gunwinggu might have expressed this Mother figure in relation to the more terrifying symbol of the Rainbow Serpent. Many of their myths are concerned with Ngaljod as being both a protective and destructive mother (Berndts, Man 147), particularly in relation to maintaining the environment and social structure.

As their myths prescribed a spiritual connection with the land, the Indigenous Australians saw themselves as an integral part of their environment (Berndts, Man 113). Most Indigenous Australian myths described how the ancestral beings wandered from one waterhole to the next, naming and commemorating these sites as sacred places (Berndts, World 137), and almost every rock, spring, or waterhole was connected to mythic events (Eliade 57). The Indigenous Australians mapped every detail of their territory (Cowan 12), but some sites were more important because of religious associations or prohibitions (Berndts, Man 12). These places were set apart as potentially dangerous for women and uninitiated men (Charlesworth 11). Though people moved freely over the land belonging to other tribes, they did not trespass on their sacred sites without permission (Berndts, World 141). In the Gunwinggu tribe these sites existed in territories called gunmugugur, which were associated with and protected by units of patrilineal descent (Berndts, Man 54). Like other Indigenous Australian tribes, the Gunwinggu were semi-nomadic, but the men spent most of their time in and around their gunmugugur, where they were intimately familiar with the natural resources and sacred features (Berndts, Man 101, 107-8), including which waterholes may have housed Rainbow Serpents.

Throughout Indigenous Australia, the immense Rainbow Serpents were thought to inhabit certain waterholes. Men would take great care when drinking or bathing from these sites to obey strict laws and taboos out of fear that the serpents would create storms and drown them (Mountford 23). The Gunwinggu similarly feared the Rainbow Serpent, who might swallow them and spit out their bones, thereby making the site taboo for water and food (Berndts, Man 20-3). These stories were often connected with food taboos, and nearly all Gunwinggu myth contains some reference to cooking, gathering, or eating (Berndts, Man 43). Stories warn against cooking animals on sandy banks or rocks near the river, which may have been unstable places to cook, but the sizzling noise would surely bring the Rainbow Serpent (Berndts, Man 50). Occasionally an orphan child cried for food and the noise summoned Ngaljod, a common theme in myths throughout the region that may have served as an example to not spoil children (Berndts, Man 21-3). In another myth, a man eats secretly, and as a result the Rainbow Serpent drowns his tribe (Berndts, Man 45). Though there were no public sanctions against going to and eating in certain places, these taboos and prohibitions were unequivocal and may rarely have been broken. The Gunwinggu did not take the religious retribution of the Rainbow Serpent lightly (Berndts, Man 28). While the myths set out land ownership and a responsibility for specific resources by particular groups, it seems that the food taboos symbolized by Ngaljod may have encouraged the sharing and proper division of resources that would have been necessary to survival (Berndts, World 142-3), and the Rainbow Serpent’s feminine aspect may have related to the fact that the food collected by women was the most dependable part of the Gunwinggu diet (Berndts, Man 109). The supply of resources varied over place and season, and these prohibitions based on age, sex, locality, and ritual helped define what foods were socially considered available (Berndts, Man 35).

Ngaljod was also feared for bringing the rains and floods, an aspect of the Rainbow Serpent particularly dominant during the wet season, which lasted from November to March (Berndts, Man 144, 31). Throughout the dry season Ngaljod was depicted as a colorful, whiskered serpent living in the local waterholes, but when the rains struck she appeared in the sky as the rainbow (Mountford 71). The central feature of the wet season in northwest Australia was the monsoon, which pelted the coast and inlands with occasional cyclones and became the point of reference for marking the year (Berndts, Man 32). During this season the Gunwinggu migrated to higher ground, where their camping sites were based on mythological precedent; even if they were not djang or ritual grounds, they were most likely the richest in resources, and served as meeting places for the tribe (Berndts, Man 106-9). Throughout the monsoon season, jira songs were sung to pacify the Rainbow Serpent and ward off the harsh weather, while also narrating accounts of the first rains (Berndts, Man 144). Like other Indigenous Australian stories, these myths may have impressed upon the Gunwinggu the responsibility for keeping the land fertile (Eliade 50). Faced with having either too little or too much rain to make the most use of their resources, many of their myths and rituals reflected a strong interest in maintaining the balance of nature (Berndts, Man 51). The threatening aspects of nature symbolized by the Rainbow Serpent mythology may have reinforced this feeling that the land was sacred, but it was primarily through elaborate rituals that man could recapitulate and sustain his environment (Berndts, Man 207, 108).

Indigenous Australian ritual governed all transitions in life (Cowan 53), and allowed mankind to assure the continuation of their world (Eliade 65). The Gunwinggu ritual cycles were related directly to their territories, showing a concern with the cyclical progression of life through ritual intervention, and the three major rituals, the ubar, maraiin, and kunapipi, were dominated by the figure of the Mother (Berndts, Man 115, 117). In each of these ceremonial initiations, the men symbolically entered the Mother’s womb in the shape of the sacred ground, and though she was here symbolized as the Rainbow Serpent, Ngaljod took on a background role in the rituals, intermediated by other mythic beings (Berndts, Man 147, 227). In the ubar ritual a male serpent, Yirawadbad traveled over the country, and in the maraiin the Rainbow Serpent followed Lumaluma the whale and was later stolen by the Laradjeidja brothers (Berndts, Man 119-23). Though many of these rites were performed for the increase of animal and human species, they also formed a basis for economic obligation and moral action (Brendts, World 291-2), and most served as initiations where sexually maturing men were removed from their family orientation and placed in dependence to the older men of the tribe (Hiatt 50). Gunwnggu initiation did not include practices of circumcision or subincision like other Indigenous Australian tribes, and instead focused on the teaching of myths and ritual actions in association with food taboos that emphasized the sacred quality of the initiatory state (Berndts, Man 115). In the ubar ritual men poked the ground with sticks to ward off the Rainbow, and if the initiates ate certain foods Ngaljod would eat them (Berndts, Man 130-1). However, this “pre-enactment” of death, symbolized by being swallowed and reborn into the community, was the central aspect of the rituals (Berndts, World 167), and the snake, which appears to die when it sheds its old skin, was perhaps a fitting symbol for this transitional period of initiation (Turner 237). The last of the Gunwinggu initiation rituals, the kunapipi, began with the swinging of bullroarers, whose sound symbolized the Rainbow Serpent calling the initiates into the sacred ground to be swallowed, and thus reborn (Berndts, Man 139).

The Rainbow Serpent was an integral part of the Gunwinggu kunapipi ritual, but many sections of it resembled the eastern Arnhem Land kunapipi myths of the Wawalag or Wauwalak sisters, and the Gunwinggu themselves recognized the rites as an imported cult (Berndts, Man 122-3, 139). In the stories of the Murngin tribe, the Rainbow Serpent is Yurlunggur, who, enraged by the smell of blood, caused storms and ate the sisters after one of them gives birth (Eliade 101). Like Ngaljod, Yurlunggur was a harbinger of rain and fertility and becomes pregnant after eating the sisters (Eliade 109, 103), but the Rainbow Serpent of east Arnhem Land was more clearly symbolic of the penis, which the initiates had incised during the ritual (Cowan 101). Yurlunggur was the Great Father who called the young men to the sacred ground and served as a cosmic intimidation beyond that of their human fathers (Hiatt 50). Despite the ambiguity in the Rainbow Serpent’s sex, both versions of the kunapipi contained serpents and female mythic characters that ultimately assured fertility (Eliade 100), and signified the transition from the dry season to monsoonal flooding (Berndts, Man 228). Furthermore, the depiction of parental figures as monstrous beings may have shocked the initiates into a deeper understanding of social and environmental relationships (Turner 240) and the Gunwinngu association of Ngaljod with the Mother may once again have been due to their greater focus on matrilineal descent. Either way, the kunapipi ritual itself was from further south, and though undergoing a slight shifting of identities, found suitable mythologies in both Arnhem Land territories for its expression (Berndts, World 286).

It is worth noting that much of Gunwinggu mythology did not belong to them originally but came from outside tribes or from the Macassan traders (Berndts, Man 124), so it is difficult to offer definitive interpretations for any one symbol within an individual tribal context. Each local group was responsible for particular mythic episodes and rites associated with stops the ancestral beings made in their wanderings (Eliade 60). No one tribe “owned” a whole myth cycle, just those parts associated with their territory (Berndts, Man 243). Even within the tribe, there were as many versions of a myth as there were men telling it, and full details were often omitted (Berndts, World 242). Outside of a ritual context myths were told informally, and their main themes were elaborated, cut short, or omitted altogether depending on the speaker and situation (Berndts, Man 17, 40). Often it was the men who controlled the religious sites and rituals whose version were considered the most authoritative (Berndts, Man 16-7), but even then they often kept certain parts of the myths to themselves (Berndts, World 241). Women did not have knowledge or access to the secret-sacred myths and rituals, and it is possible that they took accounts of what happened on the men’s sacred ground as factual or symbolically true (Berndts, Man 16, 287). The myths also gained validity through contemporary experience such as the more portentous accounts of floods and monsoons (Berndts, Man 50). It is possible that depending on when or with whom anthropologists collected their material, they would have been given highly different versions of Indigenous Australian mythology, which could explain not only the multivalence of the Rainbow Serpent symbolism within the Gunwinggu tribe, but its diffusion across all of Australia.

Though there was no central Indigenous Australian authority or religion, a strong resemblance existed between the myths, rituals, and languages of the 500 distinct tribes (Charlesworth 7, Berndts, World 21). Each tribe kept mostly to themselves, but tribal territories were highly flexible (Berndts, World 22, 33), and local traditions were vivified by transmission from neighboring clans (Maddock, World 87). During intertribal ceremonies people met to exchange both goods and religious ideas, and there was a constant movement of both material and spiritual capital along trade roads that crossed the whole continent along waterhole routes (Berndts, World 16, 128). It is possible that the Dreaming tracks left by the migrating Rainbow Serpents along these routes represented a potential network of communications for the Indigenous Australians (Berndts, World 243). The anthropologist Charles P. Mountford suggests that the myths of the Rainbow Serpent reached Australia through the Cape York area in the northeast, becoming more complex in the eastern and northern coasts where external influence was greatest (93). It seems equally possible that these myths started in the northern and northwestern territories, such as the Arnhem Land region inhabited by the Gunwinggu tribe, from where external influences may have eventually diffused through the rest of the continent (Berndts, World 21).

Looking at a broad selection of Rainbow Serpent beliefs from a variety of different tribes, primarily collected by Mountford in his essay, “The Rainbow-Serpent Myths of Australia” (see Appendix One, Rainbow Serpent Types), it is possible to divide the symbol into several main functions that roughly correspond with certain geographical regions of Australia, though these are by no means clear cut distinctions. As mentioned previously, Rainbow Serpents in the north and northwest are often credited with the creation of the land, life, and culture during their mythic wanderings. In the east and northwest the symbol is associated with the powers and quartz crystals of medicine men. For the northern to west-central desert tribes the Rainbow Serpent is primarily a harbinger of rain, living in deep waterholes, and in southern Australia other mythic creatures such as the bunyip replace the serpent symbol altogether.
Like Ngaljod, many of the northwestern rainbow serpents arrived from off-shore and wandered into the middle of the continent leaving spirit-children at waterholes, but further into Australia this path is reversed; Jarapiri, the Rainbow Serpent of the Winbaraku tribe of Central Australia creates life as he migrates from the mountains to the sea, perhaps retracing the Indigenous Australians’ own migrant origins (Cowan 31-2). Kunukban of the northwestern Wardaman tribe was also credited with the creation of culture, but unlike the Gunwinggu Ngaljod who gave birth to mankind, this Rainbow Serpent stole culture from another ancestral being, Ekarlarwan, whom he chased across the continent (Cown 31-4). In myths from the Murinbata tribe in the Northern Territory the Rainbow Serpent Kunmanggur created animals and spirit-children only after a flying fox or his son speared him for stealing women (Maddock, Introduction 5-7, Moutnford 79-80), bringing up potential sexual taboos not present in the Gunwinggu’s mythic focus on food. Perhaps the most interesting variation on the Rainbow Serpent creation theme occured among the Unambal and Ungarinyin tribes who neighbored the Gunwinggu in the Kimberley Range area to the west. Here the Rainbow Serpent Ungud dreamt of the faceless figures called wondjina, who are painted on rocks throughout the region and are representative of rain (Eliade 69), and after raising the land from the sea laid these spirits as eggs across the country (Maddock, Introduction 14-6). Ungud however is only credited with the creation of nature and faded into the mythic background, while the wondjina are held responsible for the active creation of culture (Eliade 73, Mountford 84-5), a division of roles the motherly Gunwinggu Ngaljod does not express.

Another distinction between these two beings is that Ungud was also responsible for giving the mekigar medicine men their powers and quartz crystals (Cowan 36), a role often found in east and northwest Australia (Mountford 93). Each tribe had these “men of high degree” who played a central role in the rituals, healed the sick, defended the community from black magic, and were the only ones who could really see and converse with mythic beings like the Rainbow Serpents (Eliade 128-9). Often in shamanic initiation, magical objects such as crystals and a magic rope-snake were inserted into the medicine man’s body (Eliade 149); these objects were thought to represent magical power bestowed by the Rainbow Serpent (Cowan 86-8). Kanmare, the Rainbow Serpent of the Boulia District tribes of Queensland in the northeast, would drown men and make them sick before bestowing its magical powers (Radcliffe-Brown 19); men from the Wiradjuri tribe of New South Wales in the east would follow the rainbow to waterholes were the Rainbow Serpent Wāwi would teach them new songs for the rituals (Eliade 155). Targan, the Rainbow Serpent in Brisbane, Queensland, vomited quartz crystals when it rained, and the medicine men would know to look for them where the rainbow ended (Radcliffe-Brown 20-1). The Gunwinggu tribe also contained medicine men, some of whom had personal Rainbow Serpents that they could summon at will (Berndts, Man 146), but there was no connection between Ngaljod and quartz crystals, perhaps because these magical objects were not available in the Arnhem Land region.
Moving further south and west, the symbolism of the Rainbow Serpent became more concerned with its relationship to rain and waterholes, as well as with physical descriptions of distinct, terrifying beings. The Kajura of the Ingarda tribe and Wanamangura of the Talainji tribe, both in west Central Australia, are connected primarily to the rain totem (Radcliffe-Brown 22), and Unurugu, the Rainbow Serpent of the western Broome tribe, caused rainstorms if it was killed (Mountford 35). In the tribes around Perth in western Australia the Wogal is a winged Rainbow Serpent that lives in waterholes and is dangerous to approach (Radcliffe-Brown 22), and in the Central desert waterholes live many Wanambi who fly into the air and attack intruders with whirlwinds and rainbows (Mountford 52-3). Like many Rainbow Serpents these are depicted as being multicolored and bearded, with large eyes and long ears (Mountford 40). Some, like the Wollunqua of the Warramunga tribe in the west Central area, were so huge that they could touch the skies and had a reach of over 150 miles from their waterholes (Mountford 36). While the Gunwinggu Ngaljod also lived in waterholes and bore these kinds of physical characteristics, she also had a distinct and metaphysical quality that is missing from the western and southern Rainbow Serpents. Ngaljod was certainly associated with the monsoonal rains in Arnhem Land, but in the barren deserts it seems that the Rainbow Serpent symbolism is stripped of all other qualities besides those of maintaining the potable water necessary for survival.

In southern Australia, particularly in the Victoria region, beliefs in the Rainbow Serpent were superceded altogether by a variety of beings that lived in waterholes and drowned trespassers (Mountford 26), though rarely were they associated with religious structures or socio-economic taboos. Generally these beings were called bunyips, and they could take various forms depending on local sites (Mountford 30). Perhaps most Rainbow Serpent-like was the Myndie from the Melbourne District, a large serpent that would attack both people who broke laws and those who didn’t (Mountford 31-2). Other ferocious beings were the Gourke, a swamp-dwelling emu, and the Turden, an enormous dingo, who also attacked the Indigenous Australians of the Victoria region (Mountford 32-2). Similarly, on Groote Eylandt and Bathurst Island off the Northern Coast the beings associated with bright colors and rain were not serpents but the Ipilja-ipilja geckos and Maratji lizards respectively (Mountford 86-8), and it seems what was a highly developed Rainbow Serpent symbolism for the Gunwinggu tribe may eventually have lost most of its deeper significances with either distance or cultural isolation. But the question still remains of what the symbol of the Rainbow Serpent actually meant.

The theorist Paul Riceour suggests that unlike signs, which often have a one-to-one correlation with the things they represent, symbols conceal their meaning in a “double intentionality” that invites thought and reflection between the primary and latent meanings like a curtain drawn back at the theater (2-3). The symbolism of the Rainbow Serpent may have held much more than just this two-fold meaning behind the symbolic curtain, for the Gunwinggu tribe used it to express many facets of their life: their mythic origins, their relationship to land, food, and seasons, and their socio-economic structures and taboos. For Riceour, to offer a hermeneutic interpretation of a symbol one must start with the phenomena itself, but unlike comparative religious studies that seek to place a symbol in a larger homogenous system, it is only possible to bring out the truth of a symbol if one becomes personally involved in the life of that one symbol in its original context (8). The Rainbow Serpent has been compared to many mythological beings outside Australia, such as the naga of India, taniwah of New Zealand, water serpents of the Kalahari Desert (Mountford 92), the Babylonian Tiamat (Eliade 80), or the Chinese dragon, which is associated with moisture and iridescent pearls (Radcliffe-Brown 25). One might also look at the Biblical rainbow given to man as a covenant after the flood (Boyer 17); or at the Norse juxtaposition between the heavenly rainbow bridge Bifrost and the two serpents that live in the waters and under the world tree, Iormungund and Niddhog (Sturluson 15-26), whose names bear a slight phonetic resemblance to the Arnhem Land Rainbow Serpents Yurlunggur and Ngaljod. However, as Radcliffe-Brown points out, such comparisons may only be valid after intensive cultural studies in each separate belief system (25), and the radical diversity of Rainbow Serpent symbolism within the unique cultural milieu of Indigenous Australia already offers more than enough material for consideration.

Even within the context of Australia, many of the theorists and anthropologists looking at the symbolism of the Rainbow Serpent have tried to draw broad, abstract conclusions from all the instances in which it is portrayed, while perhaps neglecting many of its individual distinctions between tribes. Ronald and Catherine Berndt interpret the serpent as the male counterpart of the uterine All-Mother (Maddock, Introduction 2), and Géza Róheim also suggests a psychosexual interpretation in the penile fear of being swallowed back into the womb (Hiatt 46-7). Both Radcliffe-Brown and Kenneth Maddock view the Rainbow Serpent as a striking representation of the creative and destructive forces in nature (Maddock, World 94-6) though Radcliffe-Brown reduces the possibility that there were many distinct Rainbow Serpents into one symbolic being (Maddock, Introduction 3). Mircea Eliade, in line with his own theories of interpreting symbols, claims that the Rainbow Serpent is a religious structure that unites opposites (Eliade 79). Religion certainly dominated Indigenous Australian life, and while the various serpents portrayed ambiguities between many and one, male or female, living above or below the ground, or being either anthropomorphic or zoomorphic creatures (Maddock, Introduction 8), it is possible that Eliade, and the majority of these theorists, are projecting their own systems of classification on what is most likely not a homogenous totality or abstract symbolism. It is clearly evident from anthropological accounts that even after European contact, the Indigenous Australians had a very strong belief that these seemingly mythological serpents were real beings that still inhabited the country’s waterholes (Mountford 58). Though they were both characters in mythic narratives and symbols in a metaphysical system of thought (Maddock, Introduction 10), it is necessary to not disregard the Indigenous Australians’ own lived fear that the Rainbow Serpents actually existed, perhaps as cryptozoological survivors of Australia’s ancient mega-fauna. Even the earliest European settlers seemed to have some real belief in these mythological monsters (Mountford 26). As Riceour notes on the process of interpretation, “You must understand in order to believe but you must believe in order to understand” (9).

A morphological comparison of distinct Rainbow Serpent beliefs reveals that this symbol was generally connected with water and often feared by the Indigenous Australians unless certain rites were performed, but for the Gunwinggu tribe the Rainbow Serpent nearly achieves the status of a supreme being (Mountford 76, 94). Ngaljod was connected to their location on the hospitable and accessible northern coast, their focus on matrilineal descent and economic division of resources, and their interest in ritually maintaining the seasonal and social landscapes. As one of her names, Ngalmud, referred to the Indigenous Australian concept of the Dreaming that underscored their whole existence, it is possible to see how the Gunwinggu conceptualization of the rainbow, as an overarching and omnipotent serpentine mother, allowed them to articulate and organize all of the multifaceted aspects of their life into one vividly striking symbol.

However, even recognizing the Rainbow Serpent’s ability to unify the various levels of reality for the Gunwinggu tribe is not enough to offer a thorough hermeneutic interpretation (Riceour 8). The Indigenous Australian way of life, in which the Dreaming served to interconnect the past and present of their land, myths, and socio-cultural contexts, is radically different from the modern Western conception of reality. Due to the sheer depth with which this symbol is rooted in the interconnectedness of Gunwinggu life, an adequate interpretation of the Rainbow Serpent may require a much more thorough analysis of their culture than is possible with the amount of information available. Even then it may not be possible to bridge the cultural gap, and truly enter into the kind of emotional and critical relationship that Riceour suggests is necessary in order to understand how a symbol was actually lived. Furthermore, European contact essentially stripped the Indigenous Australians of their land and traditional way of life (Berndts, World 497-8) so that many of the myths and rituals surrounding the Rainbow Serpent may no longer be available for further anthropological study. Though such studies have recorded these oral beliefs and made them available to the rest of the world, this was only possible due to European contact, and has come at the expense of the entire culture under question.

In the traditional perspective, if the sacred rituals were neglected, the world would regress into the chaos that existed before the Dreaming and the ancestral beings, which is precisely the crisis faced by the Indigenous Australians in the present era (Eliade 65). What was once a distinct and vibrant way of life, that allowed the Gunwinggu tribe to articulate such a colorfully multivalent symbol as the Ngaljod Rainbow Serpent, has been all but decimated by policies of assimilation, Methodist missionaries, and the modern world-view in general (Berndts, Man 199-200). Though there is some current interest in reviving the ancient traditions, and Gunwinggu mythology had always adapted to outside influences in the past, these stories may no longer be relevant to a people who have lost their spiritual connection to their land (Berndts, Man 205-7). The Rainbow Serpent may have represented the vital and dynamic connection that the Gunwinggu had between their sacred history, physical environment, socio-economic structures, religious rituals, and whole manner of being in the world; but as that traditional world-view passes out of existence, so too does that vivid living symbol of the Rainbow Serpent become yet another mythological landmark in the static burial grounds of religious history.

Bibliography

Berndt, Ronald M. and Catherine H. “Man, Land and Myth in North Australia: The Gunwinggu People.” East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1970

--- “The World of the First Australians: Aboriginal Traditional Life: Past and Present.” 5th ed. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 1988

Boyer, Carl B. “The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics.” Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987

Charlesworth, Max. “Introduction.” Religion in Aboriginal Australia: An Anthology. Ed. Max Charlesworth, Howard Morphy, Diane Bell, and Kenneth Maddock. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1984

Cowan, James G. “The Elements of the Aborigine Tradition.” Shaftesbury, Dorset: Element, Inc., 1992

Maddock, Kenneth. “Introduction.” The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece. Ed. Ira Buchler and Kenneth Maddock. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978

--- “Metaphysics in a Mythical View of the World.” The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece. Ed. Ira Buchler and Kenneth Maddock. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978

--- “The World-Creative Powers.” Religion in Aboriginal Australia: An Anthology. Ed. Max Charlesworth, Howard Morphy, Diane Bell, and Kenneth Maddock. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1984

Eliade, Mircea. “Australian Religions: An Introduction.” Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973

Hiatt, L. R. “Swallowing and Regurgitation in Australian Myth and Rite.” Religion in Aboriginal Australia: An Anthology. Ed. Max Charlesworth, Howard Morphy, Diane Bell, and Kenneth Maddock. St. Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1984

Mountford, Charles. “The Rainbow-Serpent Myths of Australia.” The Rainbow Serpent: A Chromatic Piece. Ed. Ira Buchler and Kenneth Maddock. The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1978

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. “The Rainbow-Serpent Myth of Australia.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 56 (1926): 19-25

Riceour, Paul. “The Hermeneutics of Symbols and Philosophical Reflection.” Attribution Unknown. 21pp.

Sturluson, Snorri. “Edda.” Trans. and ed. Anthony Faulkes. London: Everyman, 1987

Turner, Victor W. “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites De Passage.” Reader in Comparative Religion. Eds. Lessa and Vogt. Harper and Row, 1979

All You Need Is Love

The other night Sophie and I went to go see the new movie "Across the Universe," a love story set in the turbulence of the 60s and narrated through the songs of the Beatles. Though the use of visual overlays in some scenes was a little cheesy, the selection of songs was impressive, and for most of the flick I was close to tears, which I will admit takes a really good movie to bring me to.

The movie also brought up my interest of looking for modern mythemes, as the Beatles' cultural influence has been coming up recently each time I play them at work. The Beatles clearly represent one of the largest modern set of culture heroes, especially in the 60s. Not to downplay the works and influence of Leary, Kesey, et al., but the Beatles' popularity and rise to fame had a dramatic effect on American youth, and was perhaps paradigmatic of the ideals of that generation. That four "lads from Liverpool" could rise to international stardom not only exemplary of the American mytheme of 'rags to riches,' but may also have created that mythic idea of bands "making it" from humble, anonymous beginnings, certainly not an easy task, as any musician can tell you. Not only that, but the Beatles' whole aesthetic, politics, etc. had deep repercussions on fashion, social consciousness, and, though maybe not an enormously positive effect depending on your stance, the use of mind-altering substances. When the Beatles began experimenting with psychedelics, when they went to India to learn transcendental meditation and incorporated such Asiatic sounds and styles in their own feel, they took American youth along for the ride. How many peace activists may have been moved to non-violent protest after hearing "You Say You Want a Revolution?" Of course, it's hard to say whether the Beatles caused these changes themselves, or were just the most visible public figures riding the waves of social change, but as they were such figureheads, their actions fed-back on culture, became an example of what was possible in the world. That it was possible for a "small group of dedicated individuals"(to quote Margaret Meed) to sing "All You Need Is Love," and mean that enough to make a difference.

As Mircea Eliade and Charles Long both discuss, new myths and hierophanies come into affect by being truer 'over against' older, worn out social and sacred realities, and many were tired of the social staidness of the post-World War fifties. Whose to say that a hundred, a thousand years from now the Beatles might not be mythologized as the Heroes who through the magic of song defeated the demons of war, social mores, etc.? If they are not already attributed with these epic victories. Perhaps the only other band who comes close to this role, for me at least, was Crass, whose political stance against the Thatcher administration, and rejection of the colorful, commodified punk look of the 70s I suspect became the model for the resurgence of Anarchism asa valid modern youth movement in these decades following the 80s. But this influence is more contestable than that of the Beatles, whose sheer legacy of hits and continued mass appeal assures their heroic place in the cultural imagination.

Ironically, it was precisely this inordinate mass appeal that turned me off from the Beatles' music for a long time. My parents had been hippies back in the 60s and I vividly recall my father playing both "Rocky Raccoon" and "Cry, Baby, Cry" to us on his guitar when we were children. Though from my childhood intimately familiar with most of their material, I always associated it first as "something my parents listened to," and then with all the stoned, tie-dye clad hippies I knew in high school, as being just too weak and feel-goody, in contrast to the aggressive and directly political music I was listening to then. It wasn't until many years later, after performing in many bands and intentionally broadening my musical horizons to anything remotely influential, that I realized how effective the Beatles' music really was. Even on just a compositional level they still blow away any other rock/pop band before or since. Not to mention the effect those songs had in helping shape the beliefs of an entire generation, and many of the generations since. No overtly political punk band can boast to having such a deep effect on culture, not by directly singing about what they were against, but by singing about love, and coming together.

The Beatles continue to be the biggest selling band of all time, with movies, toys, and even a circus show in Las Vegas dedicated to their legacy. Despite this commodification, the reason why they continue to serve as an paradigm is that their music was just that good, and still speaks with just as strong a voice these forty years later.

A Definition Among Many

"Myth (may be) a symbol system expressed in story form generally modeled from the given factors of the human situation and expressing a people's or possibly an individual's view of reality by chronicling past events perceived to be definitive and authenticating and ascribing them an aura of ultimate significance so that the story often serves as a paradigm for human activity." -Dr. Fred Clothey's final words on myth, from his lectures on Myth, Symbol, and Ritual.

I finished writing my research paper in time to hand it in at class this evening, though when I laid down to sleep I started thinking about particular themes and symbols from the myth that I wasn't able to touch on in the paper, nor frankly was sure just how to interpret. I realized that though I felt I did a good job trying to show how Indra-Vṛtrahan may have been a manifestation of the power of the Vedic nobility, I may never really know what some of the symbols mean, nor for that matter what the entire myth actually meant for its culture. Which returns to Dr. Clothey's perspective that interpretation, and theories in general, are themselves a form of mythmaking, and we can never quite keep from brining our own subjective givens to whatever we look at.

We transitioned into our discussion on symbol tonight and Clothey stressed the distinction between direct signification and the potentiality of meanings possible in symbols, in that signs act like religious dogmas that delimit and exclude other perspectives, and symbols openly invite thought and community. To illustrate this he contrasted Western discourse's use of A/not-A logic to the Jain philosophical arguments of "Viewpoints" (nayavāda) and "Maybe" (syādvādha), which are taken together as the "Doctrine of Manysidedness" (anekāntavāda) in which discourse can have a conception of possibilities that recognizes the finitude of individual perspectives. I asked why, if such open and flexible discourse is possible, is Western Culture still stuck on A/not-A? Dr. Clothey, who had just been very animated in his discussion, suddenly grew quiet and after pointing at Plato as the origins admitted he didn't know. Then he went on tell how in all his years studying religion and trying to promote open dialogues in religious communities around the world, he had seen that whenever violence was done in the name of religion it often stemmed from a fundamental ignorance of the other guy's position, and an inability to recognize the finitude of one's own. Holding back both evident tears and growing rage he said that often, if not always, you can't understand your own perspective until you look someone else in the eyes and take their perspective seriously. After which he apologized for ranting, asked for our papers, and told us to go home.

Between the Covers

I've been doing long hours typing up my paper for class on the Ṛigveda myth of Indra slaying Vṛtra and freeing the waters and lights. I don't really want to write about it since it's about all that's been in my brain for weeks now, I'm sweating vajras and soma. And it's occluding everything I'd rather discuss about mythology that's come up recently, such as modern myths about race or the Native American geographical myths we trekked through out west this summer. Hopefully I'll have more time to write about this stuff as I wrap up the paper for thursday, and the other paper that's due, and the personal myth I still have to edit.

Despite this (or perhaps because I needed a break) I decided to do a bit of interweb housecleaning, finally getting a gmail account, and starting a new blog which I can use to focus on my studies of cultural and literary myth-making, and keep my "academic" interests more clearly distinguished from my own personal story line.

"Oh brave new world that has such people in it!"

It seems that all the scientific excitement right now is percolating around Craig Venter's impending creation of the first form of artificial life (via monkeyfilter.com).

Perhaps the most fitting quote I've heard in connection with this event comes from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (though originally from Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), which ironically predicts such biological engineering in contrast to the myth of a 'noble savage' who sees through the Soma haze of this utopian future at the sexual, familial, and moral degradation such genetic manipulation might produce. These are perhaps the kinds of controversial questions Venter hopes to raise with his brash step forward into a somewhat foolish new world. Incidentally, Huxley's society's delight in the intoxications of Soma is drawn from the pre-Hindu Vedic culture of India, where it took pride place in their sacrificial rituals and stirred the warriors into battle frenzy. A far cry from the tripped-out mellow of Huxley's anti-utopia.

Bioengineering is a rather modern plot twist however, even Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" was a 'modern Prometheus' born from fears of the Industrial Revolution. Humans have been trying to usurp the creative abilities of the gods since at least the Renaissance, when the ancient Hermetic texts of the mythic Hermes Trismegistus were translated, and drawing wild comparisons between science and magic was all the rage. Trismegistus's "To Asclepius" from the "Corpus Hermeticum" in particular claimed to record the rituals ancient Egyptian priests used to bring spirits into statues and animate them to life, which compares to the Kabbalistic technique of creating golems by inserting a scroll into a statue's mouth. Pico Della Mirandola, as exemplary of the Renaissance Man archetype, praised human individuality and ability above the rest of creation, claiming that we could learn the words with which God spoke the world into existence. And though we have up till now not been able to speak life itself into existence, and it still may be too soon to say, the magical power of language to create is perhaps responsible for the enormity of the world's cultures, from myths, to laws, to the varied interactions of our every day.

Towards The Ineffable

Tracking down that religious feeling... in the brains of nuns (via KurzweilAI.net) and in the morals of culture.

After thousands of years the clearest thing we might be able to say about the sacred is that it just defies expression. And yet mankind is still haunted by the presence of the divine, the transcendent, the mystical. As Epicurus, an ancient Greek atomist, perhaps jokingly put it, the clearest proof in the existence of gods is that every culture has them. Though he also went on to suggest that as the gods are "immortal and blessed," their lives were too excellent to be bothered by such matters as keeping the cosmos spinning or being angry if humans did not perform the appropriate sacrifices.

Manifesting Power: Indra’s Slaying of Vṛtra as Kratophany of the Vedic Kings

Manifesting Power: Indra’s Slaying of Vṛtra as Kratophany of the Vedic Kings

The Ṛigvedic myth from pre-Hindu India in which the god Indra slays the dragon Vṛtra has been considered the most important myth of the Vedic Indians (Frawley 31). However, even the oldest Indian scholar Yāska, writing shortly after the final collection of the Ṛigvedic texts in 600 B.C., was uncertain how to interpret this epic victory (Dandekar 142). For scholars since then, the slaying of Vṛtra has symbolized the release of rains or rivers, the Āryan tribes’ conquest of their enemies, or the creation of the world out of Vṛtra’s body (O’Flaherty 148). Though the socio-cultural context of the Ṛigveda indicates problems in each of these interpretations, they all may point to Indra as being a manifestation of creative power for the Vedic Indians, as embodied in their nobility. Mircea Eliade’s theory of kratophanies has the potential to elucidate why the Āryan tribes may have needed such a multivalent expression of power during their migration into India.

For Eliade, myth is a sacred history that narrates through the acts of supernatural beings how some aspect of reality came into existence, establishing a paradigm for all human actions (Myth 5). In this story, most prominently depicted in hymn I.32 of the Ṛigveda, Indra wields his divine weapon, the vajra, against the demonic Vṛtra, who is holding the waters prisoner on the mountains. After a legendary battle, the god slays Vṛtra, freeing the waters and in the process bringing forth the light. While supernatural beings and the origin of waters and light are clearly present, it is unclear what sort of paradigm this myth might represent without looking closer at Vedic culture.

Though there is some disagreement over the exact age of the Ṛigveda (Griswold 67-9), most of the hymns seem to have been composed by 1000 B.C. at the latest, by many families living around the Sarasvatī river in the Punjab region of India (Gonda 1). Before their migration, the Indo-European clans may have primarily been cattle-breeders divided between nomadic and settled life with no formal political unions, though they would usually act together in times of war (Griswold 7-10). By roughly 1500 B.C. the pre-Āryan tribes split from the Iranian branch and their shared Varuṇa-religion (Griswold 22-3) and began moving southeast from Central Asia in what is generally characterized as a “mission of conquest and colonization” (Dandekar 169). The scholar H. D. Griswold suggests that the Āryans migrated in multiple bands over several centuries, entering India through waves of both peaceful penetration and armed force against the dark-skinned natives; and though they certainly fought against the aboriginal Dasyus, the Āryan tribes may frequently have warred amongst themselves (34-6). The Ṛigveda mentions five Āryan tribes, to all of whom the god Indra belonged, and it is possible that the hostile Dasyus halted the Vedic Indians in the Punjab region until the five tribes had banded together with enough strength to make the final push towards the Ganges river (Griswold 45-7).

Vedic society eventually settled into a caste system centered around two main classes, the noble or warrior class of the Kṣatriyas, and the priestly Brāhman class (Frawley 101-2). The Vaiśya class contained the rest of the Āryan subjects, common farmers and merchants, while non-Āryan peoples under Vedic rule were relegated to the Śudra class at the bottom of the social structure (Griswold 51). However, the Ṛigveda and its accompanying religion belonged solely to the higher castes, while the masses remained spectators of the rituals (Oldenburg 206). The Vedic monarchy had been strengthened by war against the Dasyus, and many of the Vedic gods may have been patterned after the nobility, especially Indra (Griswold 47). War was portrayed as a struggle between good and evil, but it was often the priestly prayers and mantras that were thought to determine victory (Frawley 102). This is clearly shown by Indra and Vṛtra’s use of magic in the myth. Though the main rituals were already established when the Vedic tribes migrated into India, the hotar, or chief priest, composed most of the Ṛigvedic hymns under contract to the wealthy Kṣatriya class (Griswold 48). The rituals were performed in exchange for a dakṣiṇa, or sacrificial fee (Griswold 49), wealth won by the nobility in battle (Frawley 103), which sets up an interesting relationship between the warring rulers and the conception of the religious texts.

The Ṛigveda primarily focuses on the main gods and the Soma sacrifice (Oldenburg 5), and was a priestly textbook written with the practical interest of serving this ritual (Griswold, 55-6). Jan Gonda contests this view however, positing that many of the hymns were used on other religious occasions (2). Regardless, the Soma offering was the main sacrificial ritual of the Vedic Indians (Macdonell 7), and Indra was considered the main god of that ritual. The hymns praise Indra as the drinker of Soma above all the other gods and the noon Soma pressing was dedicated to him alone (Oldenburg 241). In the myth, Indra drinks three vats of Soma before confronting Vṛtra, a practice the Kṣatriya may have picked up in order to banish fear and restore vigor before battle (Dandekar 176). In brief, the ritual consisted in a portion of milk, meat, vegetables, or Soma being offered into the sacred fire with the rest consumed by the sacrificer (Heesterman, Inner 89). Fixed and spontaneous prayers accompanied the offering (Oldenburg 232) with the purpose of mediating between the sacred and profane worlds (Smith 173). J.C. Heesterman claims that battle and catastrophe had originally belonged to the essence of the sacrifice, including the slaying of Vṛtra as part of the Soma ritual (Inner 86-7), which allowed the Vedic Indiands to enact “the periodical regeneration of the cosmos, the winning of life out of death” (Inner 26).

There seems to be little evidence to connect this specific myth directly to the Soma ritual, though the immense number of hymns composed in Indra’s honor attests to his importance in the Vedic religion (Gonda 3). The Ṛigvedic text clearly shows that Indra-worship was rapidly succeeding the earlier Varuṇa-ruled religion (Dandekar 179). Beyond the offering of sacrifice before battle, in which the priests presumably called on Indra for help, the god was also invoked to bring rain, crops, cows, and strong children (Griswold 43, 207). The sacrificial poems of the Ṛigveda were recited by the hotar in order to celebrate the deeds and splendor of the god as well as to narrate the wishes of man (Oldenburg 214, 235). This praise sought to confirm or strengthen the deity (Gonda 77) and to give him the pleasure of performing new acts inspired by memories of former deeds (Oldenburg 234). Though the first stanzas of the Ṛigvedic poems often invoked the gods to the sacrifice, Gonda sees hymn I.32 as being instead a commemoration of that mythic conflict and an appeal for the god to reiterate his heroic deed (6, 11, 102). Scholars have offered varied perspectives on what Indra’s deed may actually have meant for the Vedic Indians, but like all myths this meaning may remain dependent upon subjective interpretation.

The most prevalent school of interpretation treats the Ṛigvedic mythology as a set of primitive belief that all phenomena of nature are animate and divine (Macdonell 2). From this perspective, Indra is a storm god, and Vṛtra is the withholder of rain (Griswold 88), either a personification of the droughts or dust storms that afflicted the Punjab region before the summer monsoon season (Griswold 33). The vajra is the lightning bolt (Macdonell 55) with which Indra frees the rains from the bellies of the cloud-mountains (Griswold 182). In another naturalistic interpretation, Hermann Oldenburg sees the myth as the freeing of seven earthly rivers from the earthly mountains (76). This theory relates the mythic rivers to actual geography, as the most prominent feature of the Punjab region is its seven rivers (Griswold 30), which the Vedic Indians must have relied upon to support their life in the arid Indian climate. Conversely, Alfred Hillebrandt argues that Vṛtra was an ice-giant and Indra a sun god who freed the waters from the grip of winter, making this an older myth from a northern climate, later developed into a rain mythology (vol. 2, 112-26, Griswold 181). From yet another set of perspective, B. G. Tilak considers the winning of the light to be a yearly myth reflecting the relation of the sacrifice to the solstices (Frawley 33), and in the later ritual texts of the Brāhmaṇas, Vṛtra is the moon swallowed by Indra as the sun during the new moon ritual (Macdonell 159). The Brāhmaṇas also describe Vṛtra as the darkness cleaved by sunrise (Heesterman, Ancient 100).

Problematic to these natural interpretations is that Indra’s name does not seem to designate any phenomenon of nature (Macdonell 54). There were already both a rain god and a sun god in the Vedic pantheon, called Trita Āptya and Sūrya, although Indra gradually took over their functions in his rise to prominence in the Vedic texts (Dandekar 151-6). Furthermore, the Ṛigveda does not refer explicitly to the phenomena of either rain or snow (Oldenburg 76-7), and descriptions of the vajra as metallic and four or hundred-angled may be too specific to be symbolic of lightning (Dandekar 147). Though sacrifices were performed to bring rain, it seems likely that the Vedic priests and nobility had more pressing social concerns to express in their mythology.

The second major school of interpretation considers Indra as a war god conquering the foes of the Āryans. As we have seen, Indra was invoked for success in battle, and in the myth, Vṛtra is called Dāsa, another name for the dark-skinned aboriginal inhabitants of India (Macdonell 64). In this perspective, Indra represents an embodiment of the imperialistic tendencies of the Vedic Indians, and his vajra is a weapon suggestive of ruthless might (Griswold 177-8). Other hymns of the Ṛigveda describe Indra as being a warrior from birth, and as having been born for the purpose of slaying Vṛtra (Macdonnel 56, 158). R. N. Dandekar even suggests that the Ṛigveda portrays Indra’s physical characteristics and excessive drinking of Soma in such human terms that the god may originally have been a Vedic hero or warlord later elevated to godhead for his miraculous deeds (160-2). This seems unlikely though, as Indra was already a deity in the Varuṇa-religion of the earlier Indo-Iranian period (Griswold 23). Regardless, Indra’s chief epithet is Vṛtrahan, the ‘Vṛtra-slayer,’ and though Vṛtra’s name may have derived from the root vṛ, ‘to encompass’ (Macdonell 60, 159), it may also have derived from the root var, ‘to resist,’ making Indra a divine power called upon to overcome enemy resistance (Dandekar 173).

A major challenge to this sociological interpretation may be in determining what waters and lights freed from the mountains may have signified for a war god. In other Ṛigvedic hymns addressing this myth, Indra is said to shatter Vṛtra’s ninety-nine fortresses when he slays the dragon, which may either refer to storm clouds (Macdonell 60) or to river bends in which Vṛtra lays (Oldenburg 75). Vṛtra is sometimes related to the mythic Dāsa warlord Śambara (Oldenburg 83), whose his ninety-nine mountain fortresses Indra destroys with a flood (Frawley 115-6). As such, the fortresses may have been river-dams built by the native peoples (Dandekar 183), but this does not fully explain why a war-god would be concerned with freeing the waters or winning the light.

In antithesis to this interpretation of Indra as a war god, the deity is often called Maghavan, ‘bountiful’ (Griswold 207), and functions to bestow fertility on the Vedic Indians just as much as to destroy their enemies (Hopkins 244). Even in the myth, Indra is compared to “a bull bursting with seed,” and the bull is sacred to the god as exemplary of his virile powers (Hopkins 243). Hymn I.32 relates the freeing of the waters to another of Indra’s deeds, in which he rescues stolen cows from the hostile tribe of the Paṇis (O’Flaherty 152). Cattle may have symbolized both fertility and wealth for the Āryans (Frawley 119), but the Vedic texts display a tendency of drawing playful connections between disparate entities (Smith 30), which makes it difficult to tell what is actually being referred to in the myth. Cows were occasionally homologous to rain clouds and sunbeams (Macdonell 59), mountains or fortresses (Frawley 119), and to Vṛtra’s mother Dānu (Macdonell 158), making it difficult to tell just what Indra freed or where he freed it from, or more importantly, what this heroic action meant for the Vedic Indians.

While the varied interpretations of the myth as portraying natural, martial, or fertile themes each might have some validity, Gonda asserts that Indra’s slaying of Vṛtra is now essentially viewed as cosmogonic, or at least demiurgic (4): “In the beginning was Vṛtra, who covered over all that the Universe needed,” both the cosmic waters and embryonic sun prior to creation (Brown, Creation 91). In this perspective, Vṛtra is cast as the shell of the cosmic egg, and Indra’s slaying of the demon breaks the shell and forces Heaven and Earth apart, allowing the sun to shine and creation to begin (Brown, Creation 96-8). The Brāhmaṇas state that after the battle, Vrṭra’s eyes become ointment and the overflowing waters become darbha grass used in the Soma ritual, while the vajra is the bow held by the sacrificer to symbolize the rebirth of the sun (Heesterman, Ancient 100). In these later texts the freeing of waters and lights disappears entirely from the myth, and it is the gods Agni and Soma whom Indra frees from Vṛtra’s belly with the use of a sacrificial cake (Hillebrandt, vol. 2, 134-6). As Agni and Soma are the two other deities connected with the sacrifice (Macdonell 20), the myth may have eventually been interpreted as a discovery of the ritual (Heesterman, Inner 49). Other hymns of the Ṛigveda equate Agni directly with the fire and sun, and Soma with the flowing waters (Macdonell 91, 107). Indra also recovers both Agni and Soma during his various exploits (O’Flaherty 108, 128). Though these deeds are only briefly alluded to in hymn I.32, the Vedic priests may already have considered Indra’s slaying of Vṛtra as an origin of the sacrifice when the Ṛigveda was being composed.

If this myth indeed revealed the ritual and Indra’s victory was sometimes spoken of as a sacrifice in itself (Brown, Theories 26), it is possible to see how its recitation may have allowed the Brāhmans to reiterate the cosmogonic act. The Ṛigveda however describes Paruṣa as the sacrificial giant from whom the Universe is made, and later Prajāpati becomes the cosmic man (Macdonell 12-3), though Indra may have taken over this role as well during his period of fame. Norman Brown suggests that while some may have taken this demiurgic creation at face value, the sophisticated Āryans saw in the myth “Potenitality striving to overcome Inertia by the aid of Power… in the Universe” (Theories 24). The Kṣatriya may not have paid the Brahmans to indulge in this level of philosophic speculation while wars and society remained disorganized, but it is also possible that the nobility may have benefited from comparison to such manifest creative power.

Having examined the myth through its sociological origins and a variety of interpretations, the application of Eliade’s theories may offer yet another perspective. As stated previously, the myth may have been cosmogonic, and may also have represented a model for how the Vedic Indians acted towards the natural, social, cosmogonic, and ritual worlds. For Eliade, the sacred and religious stand opposed to profane and secular life, but are expressed in historical moments through what he calls Hierophanies (Eliade, Patterns 1-2). “Everything unusual, unique, new, perfect or monstrous at once becomes imbued with magico-religious powers and an object of veneration or fear,” an ambivalence even more clearly expressed when the sacred is revealed as a kratophany, a manifestation of power (Eliade, Patterns 13-14). As opposed to having an anthropological approach that might place the myth in the context of a specific people, Eliade is primarily concerned with how myth brings out certain patterns of meaning (Strenski 105). Theorists such as Malinowski and Lévi-Struass are more concerned with the cultural functions of myth (Malinowski 19) and its linguistic structure (Lévi-Strauss 206-7), in contrast to Eliade, who relies on the development of generalized cross-cultural comparisons that are ungrounded in sociological contexts (Strenski 105). Regardless, Eliade’s concepts may still be useful for establishing what this particular myth meant for the Vedic Indians.

Eliade at first suggests a natural interpretation, treating Indra as a sky-god concretized into the dynamic force of the storm (Eliade, Patterns 52-3). However, Hierophanies of the sky can never be reduced to meteorological phenomena and instead become expressions of power and sovereignty, epiphanies of force and violence upon whose energy life depends (Eliade, Patterns 59, 83). As such, Indra is the epitome of all energy: his weapon denotes strength, his symbol is the bull, and he rules over the Vedic gods and humans as king (Hillebrandt, vol. 2, 99). Indra governs rainfall, fertility, the fields and plough, and the inexhaustible power of generating life (Eliade, Patterns 85). While his name has uncertain meaning for any particular phenomenon of nature (Macdonell 54), it is commonly thought to derive from indu, ‘drop,’ suggesting not only drops of rain and pressed Soma but also the virile power of semen (Dandekar 186). Indra may not directly make the Universe, but he is a personification of the cosmic and biological energy necessary to keep life in motion (Eliade, Patterns 84-6). Of course, it may be difficult to ascribe this role of cosmic progenitor to the sky-gods of other religions, much less to the Vedic religion, without studying the specific socio-cultural contexts. Furthermore, Eliade’s theory operates on the assumption that as a hierophany, myth reveals the sacred, a concept generally viewed as being transcendent and ineffable. While a culture’s mythic expressions of its daily rituals and need for origins may have arisen from functional and creative desires, it seems impossible to prove that all members of that society subjectively viewed these myths as being a manifestation of an inexpressible reality, without asking them in person.

As the progenitors of the Ṛigvedic Indra mythology, the Vedic Kṣatriya may have found it easier to rule their subjects and lead them through the hostile natives into India if their noble strength was perceived by these subjects as vital for the continuation of social and cosmic life. While trying to unite the Vedic tribes in the Punjab region, the emerging nobility may have commissioned the Brāhmans to compose new hymns to the deity who most portrayed these desirable characteristics of courage, virility, and bounteousness. Thus Indra was hailed as the Kṣatriya of the gods, and he gradually took over other deific functions that would grant him the ultimate sovereignty that the nobility required to rule.

In his role as divine king, Indra could bring the rains and daylight, win battles against the Dasyus, make the fields, cows, and women fertile, reveal the sacrificial ritual, and through all these continually recreate the cosmos for the Āryans. Hymn I.32 of the Ṛigveda, the epic commemoration of Indra’s slaying of Vṛtra, is exemplary of this godly will to power because it concentrates all of Indra’s creative functions into one heroic deed. The god’s victory is not simply over a draconic representation of drought, darkness, Dasyu foes, or cosmic disintegration, but may have revealed to the Vedic people that their leaders could overcome any obstacle hindering their growing civilization’s rise to power.


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