Despite its comforting familiarity to many in the modern Western sphere, many of the figures of the Roman religion are somewhat mysterious to us. Particularly when we seek to link them up to what ought be their correlate co-expressions elsewhere within the Indo-European religious world. This invites much speculation - some of it well-founded, and … Continue reading Toward The Indo-European Identification Of Janus – Some Preliminary Observations
Hermes
Hestia & Vak – The Voice In The Flame Of The Goddess At The Center Of Indo-European Faith !
Over and over again, we are told that prominent Goddess figures are somehow 'foreign' to the Indo-European world - that these 'have' to have been picked up from various non-IE groups, and in any case 'must' be merely peripheral to the actual Indo-European religions, much less the archaic Proto-Indo-European belief from which it all descends. … Continue reading Hestia & Vak – The Voice In The Flame Of The Goddess At The Center Of Indo-European Faith !
Mercury The Dog-Headed
It is Wednesday … and it's also November. So therefore, here's Mercury, heralding November. For Dies Mercurii, you understand. Now there's something a bit different about this depiction - the fact that Mercury is, here, a cynocephal … a 'dog-headed' figure (which I suppose would render the apt Old Norse translation for 'Cynocephalic' as 'Ulfhednar'). … Continue reading Mercury The Dog-Headed
The Indo-European Queen of the Dead – A Bridging-Place Between Pitru Paksha And NavRatri
Pitru Paksha - the Fortnight of the Ancestors - is nearly at a close ; and immediately after it comes NavRatri - the Nine Nights of the Mother Goddess. The former, is when the veils between the worlds are thinner, and one's ancestors (Pitrs - etymologically cognate with 'Fathers') are able to come and visit, to receive … Continue reading The Indo-European Queen of the Dead – A Bridging-Place Between Pitru Paksha And NavRatri
On The Adamantine Harpe Of Perseus In Light Of The Vajra Of Indra – A Weapon Of The Striker/Thunderer (Briefly) Comparatively Considered
Something we have written a fair bit upon this year has been the identification of Perseus as an expression of the Striker/Thunderer Indo-European deific. As it happens, the Harpe wielded by the hero is - entirely unsurprisingly - strikingly correlate with the Vajra of Indra, as well. How do we know? Consider the following. The … Continue reading On The Adamantine Harpe Of Perseus In Light Of The Vajra Of Indra – A Weapon Of The Striker/Thunderer (Briefly) Comparatively Considered
Sirius In Central Asia – Soma, Tisya, Tishtrya, Rudra
It is Wednesday - Odin's Day - and so therefore, as has become our custom, some fine devotional (a)art-i. Except this exquisite piece is not from the Northlands of Scandinavia - rather, its provenance is that most mysterious of Indo-European lands … far-flung Central Asia. Khotan, amidst the deserts and mountains fringing China's western edge in … Continue reading Sirius In Central Asia – Soma, Tisya, Tishtrya, Rudra
A Brief Point Upon Sacred Hospitality, The (Wandering) God-Guest, And Vratya
When we think of the concept of the Indo-European Sacred Hospitality, we understandably immediately conjure up the Greek custom of 'Xenia' - and Zeus and Hermes going in disguises to test same. What is less-known is that Athena, too, has a patronage-portfolio role over this area under her Aegis likewise - part of a persistent … Continue reading A Brief Point Upon Sacred Hospitality, The (Wandering) God-Guest, And Vratya
On The Misunderstanding Of Maya As Mere Mirage
An associate earlier this week made a remark about the concept of Maya - and the 'matronly' associations he'd felt for it, coming at it from a Buddhist context. Now, Maya is often misunderstood - in no small part because it's grown so hugely as a term over the millennia … so it seemed as … Continue reading On The Misunderstanding Of Maya As Mere Mirage
Skanda , Heimdall , Kumara – The Star-Borne Son Of The Sky Father
A brief Indo-European observation inspired by the SkandaMata Night of NavRatri - Skanda, the War God Son of Shiva, has Six Heads. This is due to the rather unique manner of His Birth - wherein the embryonic Skanda is transplanted to six mothers via Agni, the Krittika Stars (we would know these in the West … Continue reading Skanda , Heimdall , Kumara – The Star-Borne Son Of The Sky Father
The Transcendent Indo-European Typology Of The God Of Masks – The Sky Father Dances On [ On The Indo-European ‘Interpretatio’ Of Dionysus Part Dieux ]
In my previous piece upon the subject, I asserted that Dionysus is a facing of the Indo-European Sky Father; and sought to illustrate this via the illumination of a range of connections of Dionysus to a range of figures from the broad Indo-European mythology - both Greek and of further afield. This article shall go … Continue reading The Transcendent Indo-European Typology Of The God Of Masks – The Sky Father Dances On [ On The Indo-European ‘Interpretatio’ Of Dionysus Part Dieux ]