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Dinesh club

Posted: 09 Nov 2024

Taken: 09 Nov 2024

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ORIENTAL MYTHOLOGY •
JOSEPH CAMPBELL •
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Figure 18

Figure 18
The Lord of the beasts: Indus Valley, c. 2000 BC
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
A theme, no less typical of timeless India, striked the eye in the imagery of a series of about half a dozen Indus seals showing ‘figures in yoga posture,’ of which two examples will suffice for our present view. The first (figure 18) shows a personage, apparently with three faces, seated in yoga on a low dias, before which stand two opposed gazelle. Four beasts surround him in the four directions: a tiger, elephant, rhinoceros, and water buffalo. His immense headdress of horns with its towering crown between suggests (like the address of the goddess in the tree)the form of a trident (trisula).

Also who have commented on this figure have perceived in it a prototype of Shiva, the god who in India to this day is the consort of the goddess Kali; for Shiva is the lord of yoga, of cremation grounds, of the beasts of the wilderness, who are quelled in their ferocity by this meditating presence, and of the lingam. His symbol is the trident. In his character as Mahashvara the Great Lord, he has three faces. Moreover, his particular animal is bull; and, among the numerous beasts represented on the Indus Valley seals, the bull preponderates by far, frequently standing before a censor, which suggests that, like the Apis bull of Ptah, it was regarded as divine. page 169

ORIENTAL MYTHOLOGY
4 months ago. Edited 4 months ago.

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