In our previous installments, we had sought to extoll two key elements.

For the first – some brief textual attestations of Roman and Vedic provenance for the concept of the Gods being actively supported (“subsist[ing]”, as one translated section had it) through our offerings to Them through the proper rites. Which is, of course, a rather foundational reasoning as to why we carry out such in the first place.

And within the second – an elucidation (mostly drawn from the Hindu legendarium) for what happens if (or, rather, when) these ritual undertakings cease. The better to demonstrate why they are necessary in the first place.

In the case of the exemplar we had chosen to illustrate such, this (sudden) drop-off in operative piety had NOT come about through the regrettably inexorable deterioration for propriety which accompanies the procession of the ages (hence the “when” ensconced grimly within the line above). But instead, had resulted from a rather clever demonic gambit – one which had sought to weaken and thence enable the overwhelming of the Gods through (hitherto unsuccessful) martial conquest via the active suppression for proper sacral conduct.

This was to be accomplished via a metaphysical mechanism which would effectively erase the knowledge of said proper (in this case and culture, Vedic) Rites from the universe so as to render them (for obvious reasons) impossible to be performed by men or Gods alike.

Which, of course, significantly detrimentally impacted the Divine war effort – both because a key line of supply had thusly been cut (contributing to a situation of mounting attritional impairment and exhaustion for the side of the Gods as the battles wore on, those strengths expended through combats being unable to be swiftly replenished as before); but also, I would infer, through the comprehensive neutralization of a most potent array of weaponry and other force multipliers that would otherwise have been quite integral in any other sustained fightback against a demonic onslaught.

After all – the inability for the Rites to be performed by men or Gods doesn’t just mean the flow of energetic sustenance from ‘Down Here’ to ‘Up There’ has been cut off. It also means the ritualistic replenishment for stocks of Thunderbolts (or similar Deva-stating munitions) is suddenly impossible (and yes, yes, we do have the requisite theology in both Classical and Hindu spheres for that being how these are brought forth, and in some cases, also to be deployed – think Brihaspati’s orbital bombardment approach, for instance), and the production of that certain Empowering Elixir (viz. Soma / Amrit) is also now halted. You get the idea.

As with ‘conventional’ warfare down here in ‘midst this more terrestrial plane of ours, logistics is absolutely crucial to the successful maintaining of an active war effort. You knock that out, no matter how mighty the combatants involved and it’s tantamount to severing the oxygen supply for a room full of professional athletes in the middle of a competitive event.

Sure, they’ll keep moving for a bit – and they’ll almost certainly get further than a more ordinary person (albeit possibly more as a result of their remarkable reservoirs of willpower and determination rather than their carefully cultivated apex-physiologies … as compared to a ‘normal’ human, their markedly more muscle-mass may mean more power, but it also mandates more energy and oxygenation required in order to actually move. We shall leave the proper fleshing out as to various forms of illustrative ‘resonancy’ for this situation with that of the Divine as a contemplative exercise for the reader).

But realistically, as with any Fire no matter how bright They can burn … in the absence of ongoing oxygen supply – even where there’s an abundance of otherwise-combustible fuel – there can really only be one outcome.

That oxygen, that ensuring as to oxygen supply – that’s our contribution, from ‘Down Here’. We ‘breathe life’ into those structures of religion within which the (sparks of the) Gods are to be located (some might term this ‘returning the Favour’).

In some of our circumstances, this is likely to be encountered most overtly literally. We enable the transformation (through Ignition) or the empty, cold, material space of the as-yet unlit altarshearth into the flame-immanent Conduit for the Divine of Living Fire. And I do say “Living Fire” – the ‘Animate Fire’, the ‘Alive Fire’, which is *h₁ngʷni-s in Proto-Indo-European (whence ‘Ignis’, ‘Ignite’, and of course, *Agni*), as distinguished from the more mundane mere material flame which was *péh2-ur (whence ‘Fire’, ‘Pyre’, etc.). A process which, of course, mandates far more than the triggering for the chemical reaction called ‘combustion’. The requisite ‘Emplacement’ for the inceptive Divine, for instance – hence the root underpinning to each of Sanskrit ‘Dhiṣṇya’ (c.f. Latin ‘Fanum’ and what turns into English ‘-Fest’) and Ancient Greek Θεός (‘Theos’) – from PIE *dʰeh₁s- <= *dʰeh₁- / *dʰh₁s-, and its notion of ‘to place’.

In other fashions, however, a more ‘figurative’ comprehension is that which has been called for. The ‘structures of religion’ are not simply the physical housings of Altar and of Temple, but rather are also the mental elements, the performative deeds which go alongside as their most vital (in both senses) active-expression.

Why do I say the latter?

Well, dear reader – consider just what it is which separates the full-scale Vedic Yajna with which we had culminated a prior phase of operations earlier this year from, say, a substantive Ancient Greek offering into the fire.

The ‘simple’ and straightforward answers would be probably something along the lines of “a few thousand kilometers” and “a few thousand years”. More involved contemplations might bring to the fore the fact that these are two different (albeit in various fashions related) ritual undertakings, conducted in two different archaic IE liturgical languages, for two different sets of Facings to the IE Gods, and quite likely with some noteworthy distinctions as to what was being offered more specifically (some of which are ‘similar-but-different’, to be sure; as an example from elsewhere – one is tempted to contemplate the Crossroads offerings to Rudra / Zeus … featuring a black antelope skin and a black sheep’s fleece, respectively, with the view that Rudra shall be appeased, rendered ‘Shiva’, as Zeus (Maimaktes – the ‘Raging / Furious’) ought become ‘Meilichios’ likewise).

These are all not-incorrect answers – but not the one which I had, in fact, been going for here.

Instead, the actual division between yon Vedic Yajna and the aforesaid Ancient Greek correlate … the actual separation between these is but a pane of glass. Of the sort which separates out the museum-going public from an exhibit unearthed at some archaeological site – even with the painstaking reconstruction to ‘fill in the gaps’ and the missing pieces which might thence ensue.

The Ancient Greek iteration shall have this. The Vedic Yajna, by contrast, does not.

Why does it not? It is not because there are no archaeological undertakings with which to draw from (and a rather remarkable Agnicayana configured altar with attendant offering-elements of Shunga era antiquity is well-known from the archaeological sphere); nor is it simply because we have a far better suite of surviving (textual) attestation as to direct ritual instruction and correspondent comprehension for the how to carry out as to the Vedic rite (not, of course, that you can simply get everything which you would need out of a book!).

Rather, it is quite overtly that there are people still undertaking the Rite(s) in question today for the Vedic sphere – whereas, for the most part (and with some determined efforts at reconstruction from time to time somewhat excepted) the Ancient Greek equivalents can only be viewed or otherwise engaged with through that aforementioned pane of museum-exhibit glass.

Because even where we have something like, say, the Roman ‘Ara Pacis Augustae’ quite fantastically preserved and publicly housed (I was fortunate enough to behold it in person some years ago now) … the religion in question (or, I would say, the ‘denomination’ of the Indo-European religion in question) is not truly inhabited, it is therefore not very alive.

It is neither alive ‘mentally’ – in terms not only of people knowing and comprehending what they are supposed to be doing within such a space or such a structure (whether physical or ‘cultural’, mentally construed) – nor is it alive in terms of the actual actions which should otherwise bring it to or maintain it in life.

As applies the former, the ‘mental energy’, the ‘mental engagement’, the ‘mindset’ … outside of some aforementioned enthusiastic endeavours … is basically restricted to academic contemplations (rather than ‘inhabitations’) or an admiring (from a distance – temporal, cultural, spatial, etc.) of the (external) aesthetics and little more. Which has corresponding and rather direct significance in conditioning these Rites in their actual performance – who’s carrying them out, how frequently, what is the actual demand for them (and therefore consequent material support going thereto) and how supported are the practitioners thereof to continue to keep doing so.

In other words – all of the surrounding factors that actually make (or do not make) for a sustained and pervasive immanency FOR said rites within the lives, culture, and civilization of the given sector as to mankind.

We bring Life. Down Here, at any rate. Via our ‘habitation’ within these spaces, these structures – we bring these things to Life.

Not only via our ‘oxygenation’ within the operational context of the Rites which actually enable the interaction for material components (whether Fuel or Physical Structure) with the less (directly) physically tangible – the metaphysical structures to the ritual and the religion (and, for that matter, reality Herself), the broader (and Deepa) complex to the religion and (corresponding) culture … and, of course, the Gods Themselves.

Why does all of that matter?

Because we have seen – indeed, we are seeing … we are, in various quarters, actually living – what happens in its absence.

That ‘Structure’ – Those ‘Structures’, which I had spoken upon earlier, these are ‘Order’ : they are immanentizations of Rta. And in the absence for such, the conditions for ‘civilization’ (as contrasted, I suppose, with a whole bunch of people living in close proximity and shoving coinage and/or cutlery at each other somewhat intermittently) begin to fade.

And within that desiccation, that denigration, the Demons can move to dwell most trenchantly therein.

What is the counter? What is the ‘antidote’?

Fire.

Alive Fire.

What is the demonstration?

That of Phoroneus – the Bearer (‘Bharata’) of Fire and Bringer of Law ; of that entirely uncoincidentally named city of Argos and the Argive people – the root to this (PIE *h₂(e)rǵ- – whence Arjuna & Rajata) resonating the radiancy (and ‘quickness’) as to sacred flame.

Cassiodorus, the famed Magister Officiorum to Theodoric the Great, had invoked the mythology of Phoroneus for the purposes of his letter exhorting a recently-empowered Intendant of the ‘Armifactores’ (the ‘Weapons-Smiths’ or ‘Armourers’) in his duties.

To quote from the letter directly:

“Vide ergo qua diligentia, quo studio faciendum est quod ad nostrum venturum constat examen. […] opus quod mortem generat et salutem, interitus peccantium, custodia bonorum, contra improbos necessarium semper auxilium. hoc primum Phoroneus Iunoni dicitur obtulisse, ut inventum suum numinis, ut putabant, auspicio consecraret. haec in bello necessaria, in pace decora sunt: haec denique imbecilles fragilesque mortales cunctis beluis efficiunt fortiores.”
[VII 18 2]

Which, to quote in the Bjornlie translation –

” Behold, therefore, with what diligence, and with what care, that which is the test of our future must be made. […] This work begets death and salvation, the destruction of those sinning, the protection of the good, and always necessary assistance against the wicked.
Phoroneus is said to have first offered this craft to Juno, so that, as the ancients supposed, he had dedicated his invention to divine majesty at the very beginning. Such weapons are necessary in war and comely in peace; furthermore, they make fragile and weak mortals stronger than any beast.”

Why do I quote this?

Because it is a most useful distortion – the kind which reveals something fundamentally accurate in its shifting.

Cassiodorus was, of course, a Christian – and these letters he had penned date from the (Gothic) Rome of the mid-6th century AD rather than the still-then-living pagan antiquity of the Classical eras which had come much before. However, the ‘distortion’ is not – in its inception, at least – truly his. Rather, it runs back at least as far as Hyginus and his Fabulae – wherein we observe a bit of a ‘jump’ in terms of what Phoroneus is supposed to have been doing.

At 143 3, it is “quod Iunoni sacra primus fecit” – that is, being the first to carry out rites of offering for Juno. At 225 2, he is one of those “qvi primi templa deorvm constitverunt” – who first built the Temples of the Gods; specifically, “templum Argis Iunoni primus fecit” – the Temple to Juno [Hera] in Argos, he first made.

And, to speak briefly upon that second point … we can be fairly sure it is an ‘innovation’, a ‘loka-lization’. Why so? Because for a start, the archaic Indo-European religion was not one of fixed and permanent temples but instead of re-created-as-necessary ‘ritual enclosure’. That is, in fact, basically what the word ‘temple’ effectively derives from in the first place (ref. Varro VII 7 &10, Servius I 446, etc.); a conceptual understanding visible also in the Ancient Greek ‘Temenos’ (τέμενος – attested in Linear B as ‘Te-Me-No’ ), which conveys its conceptual origins quite readily through its PIE rooting of *temh₁-, which means ‘to cut’ (c.f. Ancient Greek τέμνω (‘temno’), of correlate meaning). That is to say – this was a space ‘separated out’ from the mundane world for the holy (and pointedly mesocosmic) undertakings to occur therein, the focus of which proving the sacred flame (‘focus’, there, is doing bilingual duty for me – in Latin, ‘Focus’, refers quite directly to a hearth, a place of fire).

The ‘House of the God(s)’ idea being a later development quite literally ‘built upon’ this more archaic (and readily migratory!) concept; both in terms of the physical structure (a somewhat logical progression, one assumes, from a temporary construction a la the Roman ‘Tabernaculum’ … ‘Tent’), but also as applies the (‘conceptual’) movement from “Divinity is (currently) there” to “Divinity resides there” (consider ‘Divinity is Alive there’ as compared to ‘Divinity is Living there’) which likewise characterizes the shift from temporary ritual enclosure to permanent place of worship. The two trends quite naturally go together – after all, why would you need a permanent physical structure upon your ritual enclosure unless the ‘essence’ that was to be invoked through said ritual enclosure was now there upon a more permanent basis likewise.

What this has to do with Phoroneus is quite simple. His mythology is not, truly, his alone – but rather constitutes the particular loka-lization of a quite foundational Indo-European mythic personage. Namely, that of the First Man (post-Flood), who is also the First Sacrificer / First Priest, and First Ruler (or, at least, institutor of Rule – significantly in the sense of The Rules, i.e. Law; rather than being restricted to ‘Rule’ in the direct and ‘executor’ sense only; how else could a regime endure or be bigger than him?), as well as proving an oft-eponymous progenitor to a people and/or a polis (or, at least, the dominant strand of aristocracy therein).

It is fairly common within the academic-overview literature to hear Phoroneus – quite correctly – to be observed substantively coterminous in key detailings with other prominent foundational figures of Hellenic myth. Fowler, for instance, makes mention for Deucalion (Deukalion) and Pelasgos – and with most pointed attention to the situation of the establishment of ‘Altars’ (First Altars, in fact), undertaken by each. This is not simply a modern-day phenomenon – one thinks of the work of Clement of Alexandria (specifically, his Protrepticus – ‘Exhortation’, as it is often translated … the exhortation to leave the ancestral Greek religion and become Christian) had made mention for ” the well-known Phoroneus, or Merops, or others like them, who set up temples and altars to the daemons, and are also said in legend to have been the first to offer sacrifices”, proclaiming these sorts “the first to be themselves deceived, and the first also, by the laws they established for the worship of accursed daemons, to proclaim their superstition to mankind”. [III 38, Butterworth translation]

There are also a number of other figures that also come up with similar capacity, albeit in some cases more heavily loka-lized significance – and, for that matter, having evidently become ‘integrated’ into larger and more dominant paradigmatic approaches and ‘re-assigned’ roles to thereby become ‘dependents’ of the more ‘core’ figure(s) to a given account. It does not take much imagination to see how “your founding figure was, in fact, the younger brother / nephew / son [etc.] of our founding figure” may have gotten going as a recurrent theme. It has proven fashionable to seek to interpret various of these figures and the clades for which they once stood to be of non-/pre-Indo-European salience – however, the close concordance for various detailings for these figures (fragmentary as they might, by this stage, be in our hands) would serve to suggest otherwise. I do not intend to turn attention to a detailed examination for these mist-wreathed progenitors in this current piece – as we are digressing quite substantially upon all of these matters enough as it is for the moment.

Our point with regard to Phoroneus here is that the concordancy as to his mythology with various other Ancient Greek correlates is ‘necessary but not sufficient’ in a proper interpretation for the figure. We must go ‘broader’, we must go ‘deepa’ – and with the light provided for us via the archaic occurrence for the Vedic figure of Manu, it becomes apparent that it is not only these aforesaid Hellenic identities to whom Phoroneus is a co-expressive. Instead, the heritage goes back rather further still – it is plausibly a myth of the Proto-Indo-European Urheimat, carried forward by various descendant groups in different directions and with slight degrees of ‘refraction’ occurring in the years and in the centuries since.

Hence, as the ‘Temple’ as physical and permanent structure (in the manner of the later Ancient Greeks) was not something quite yet to be developed amidst the Proto-Indo-Europeans … we would seemingly have additional confirmation in-hand as to Phoroneus’ great deed in fact having originally proven to be that of the setting forth of Offering (in line with Fabulae 143 3’s “quod Iunoni sacra primus fecit”, no Temple overtly to be mentioned), utilizing that Sacred Flame for which he is attributed the (re-)introduction (ref. Pausanias II 19 5, etc.).

The ‘Temple’ is a ‘refraction’ of this essential concept. What differentiates it from another finely featured building is simply that it has within it this essence-tial, Living Flame. And all which flows therefrom.

Yet to bring things back to where we had intended to be moving with all of this … that notion for Phoroneus as having been a ‘first weaponsmith’ is something which is simultaneously both true and also misleading.

It is true, insofar as Weaponry is exactly what Phoroneus had wrought and received utilizing the flame he no doubt toiled over … and it is misleading, insofar as subsequent commentators (like that Christian, Cassiodorus, whose letter we had quoted from earlier) had evidently come to reconstrue both undertaking and output as the material production of physical weapons (a sword, a spear, an axe, and the like) through the crafts of the smith. Rather than more ‘metaphysical’ fire-power aptly ‘weaponized’ via the capabilities of the Priest.

‘Theurgy’, in other words, was misremembered (and consequentially, displaced) for Metallurgy.

One finds the appropriate and illuminating proper resonancy for this which confirms it not only in Vedic usage (wherein the idea of Priests with Fire producing powerful armaments is very much in evidence) – but also as an emulation, a mythic resonancy and recurrence, for the First Altar upon which the Gods had offered Their First Sacrifice (“In hac primum dii existimantur sacra […]” – Hyginus’ Astronomica II 39 1), and which (as we have observed in a number of previous works) had brought forth that most mighty of weapons, the Thunderbolt of Zeus (ref. the TriKanda [‘Three-Arrow’] of Rudra congealed in similar fashion within the Upasads Rites of the Vedas) as (immediate) result.

Thus, indeed, are the shadows driven back and the Spaces (both Sacred and Universal, Conceptual and Physical) to be (re-)claimed in earnest.