Comets and the swastika motif
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These drawings of comets dated before 168 BC from the Book of Silk, unearthed from Han tomb number 3 at Mawangdui, Changsha, China, are part of a large number of documents, which includes the I Ching and two similar versions of the Tao Te Ching, found during the 1970's and often referred to as the Mawangdui Silk Texts. Each illustration has a caption describing what will happen if the comet as depicted appears so the artifact is basically an atlas of comet forms seen in the past. It should not be assumed that each drawing represents a different comet, as any particular comet might appear quite differently to an observer on each trip it makes about the sun.
[edit] Comet-inspired motifs
The Han Dynasty silk comet atlas is a compelling explanation for the ubiquity of the swastika motif.[original research?] In their Cosmic Serpent (1982) (page 155) Victor Clube and Bill Napier reproduced a portion of this silk atlas and suggest that some of the comet drawings were probably related to the breakup of the progenitor of comet Encke and the Taurid meteoroid stream. This object could have produced several very bright comets in short period (~3.3 years) orbits that crossed Earth's path. Fred Whipple in his The Mystery of Comets (1985) (page 163) points out that comet Encke's polar axis is only 5 degrees from its orbital plane. Such an orientation is ideal to have presented a pinwheel like aspect to our ancestors when comet Encke was more active. Carl Sagan in his book Comet (1985) points out that an outgassing comet that could produce a pinwheel appearance to someone looking down the comet's axis of rotation would look very different to an observer viewing the same comet along its equator.
Bob Kobres in Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse (1992) contends that the swastika like comet on the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas was labeled a "long tailed pheasant star" because its resemblance to a bird's foot. There is a strong association in ancient artifacts between the swastika and the owl in particular. Owls have zygodactylous or semizygodactylous (outer toe reversible) feet that can leave swastika like foot-prints in loose dirt or sand. Chinese lore upholds such an interpretation as Ts'ang Chieh, the four eyed legendary inventor of writing, derived his inspiration to create written symbols from noticing the marks of birds' feet in the sand. His ancient style is known as niao chiwen--"bird foot-prints writing." [MacCulloch, C.J.A. 1928].
In a less artificial environ animal tracks speak strongly to people and convey much about the creature which left them.[original research?] Thus a bear, bird or any animal which made impressions on the ground could be symbolically represented in total by drawing these marks.[original research?] This suggests that the jetting comet, to some cultures, looked like a bird's foot in the sky and, as a motif, represented a divine fowl.[original research?]
Symbolic bird tracks, unrecognized as such, appear on objects unearthed by Heinrich Schliemann from Hissarlik in Asia Minor.[original research?] Artifactual support for this contention comes from petroglyphs found in the south-western United States which Pueblo people identify as roadrunner (a type of cuckoo) tracks and identical renderings found by Schliemann. [Morphy, H. 1989] The close association of these two distinctive crosses on artifacts from Schliemann's Troy could be considered coincidental and not necessarily avian-inspired were they found out of context, however, in Schliemann's words:
In treating now of the various kinds of pottery of this third city, I begin with the owl-faced idols and vases, and I would repeatedly call very particular attention to the fact, that the idols, of which I collected about 700, are all of the same shape; that they represent in the rudest possible outlines a female form; and that, therefore, they cannot but be copies of the ancient Palladium, which was fabled to have fallen from heaven with joined feet.
An interesting aspect of the rolling cross motif and its link to birds is the ancient mythical image of a one-legged fowl. This is also a characteristic of the Chinese divine pheasant which was closely associated with the fabulous, lame, raven-beak-nosed emperor, Yu, who could transform himself into this pheasant or a bear. One of Yu's enemies, the Owl, who invented thunder and lightening was also one-footed. [Lonsdale, S. 1982, Barnard, N. 1972, 1973]. Yu's shape-shifting ability can be understood as related to the view a comet associated with him presented to our ancestors.[original research?]
Perhaps the association of the Sanskrit term svastika with this symbol can be linked to the Astika Parva in the Mahabharata which relates the birth of a cosmic bird par excellence--Garuda.[original research?] This fabulous winged deity had a radiance like the Sun, could change shapes at will, and destroyed other gods and kings by casting down fire and stirring up storms of reddish dust which darkened the Sun, Moon and stars. Clearly Garuda was symbolic of an Earth approaching comet.[original research?]
The bird-comet connection is even more obvious in the Jamva-khanda Nirmana Parva of the Mahabharata which describes a fierce fowl with but one wing, one eye, and one leg, hovering in the night sky.[original research?] As this bird "screams" and "vomits blood":
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- All the quarters of the earth, being overwhelmed by showers of dust, look inauspicious. Fierce clouds, portentous of danger, drop bloody showers during the night. Rahu of fierce deeds is also, O monarch, afflicting the constellation Kirtika. Rough winds, portending fierce danger, are constantly blowing.
The mention of Rahu, the demon of eclipse, which originally had four arms and a tail that was severed by Vishnu to become Ketu (comet) is interesting in that the demon is here darkening Kirttika (the Pleiades) in the month of Karttika (latter half of October, through mid November), for the tale goes on to relate that:
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- . . . in course of the same month both the Moon and the Sun have undergone eclipses on the thirteenth days from the day of the first lunation. The Sun and the Moon therefore, by undergoing eclipses on unusual days, will cause a great slaughter of the creatures of the earth. Meteors, effulgent like Indra's thunder-bolt, fall with loud hisses . . . People, for meeting together, coming out of their houses with lighted brands, have still to encounter a thick gloom all round . . . From the mountains of Kailasa and Mandara and Himavat thousands of explosions are heard and thousands of summits are tumbling down . . . Fierce winds charged with pointed pebbles are blowing, crushing mighty trees. In villages and towns trees, ordinary and sacred, are falling down, crushed by mighty winds and struck by lightning.
This is, almost certainly, a mythological record of an intense meteor storm from the still active Taurid stream which presently peaks around the first of November and appears to radiate from near the Pleiades star cluster.[original research?] The un-airworthy bird associated with this meteor bombardment could have been comet Encke which until recently was thought to be the sole source for the Taurid meteors.[original research?] However, the discovery of other large contributors which are now dark but were once active comets rules out a positive identification.
According to Alfred Hillebrandt in his Vedic Mythology (1981 English edition, vol 2 pp 259-60) there is evidence of the notion of a celestial bird foot-print in early Indian literature. Thus the likelihood of the motif that actually looks like a bird's foot-print, often appears in a cosmic context, and eventually became associated with the term svastika being related to that celestial bird is high.[original research?] Hillebrandt relates that it was the seven Rsis who settled down (in the heavens) to practice tapas and with the five Adhvaryus they guard "the hidden foot print of the bird." He goes on to state:
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- In this context another point may be mentioned. In verse III.7 7 cited above "the five Adhvaryus" are mentioned along with the seven Rsis; from this juxtaposition it would seem that this designation too does not refer to the professional priests of the sacrificial place but to certain models in the sky who move to and fro as the Adhvaryus do. It seems to me that here we have an allusion to the five planets. Otherwise we seek in vain for a mention of the planets in the hymns of the RV.
[edit] References
- Clube, V. and Napier, B. The Cosmic Serpent. Universe Books, 1982
- Lonsdale, Steven. Animals and the Origin of Dance, Thames and Hudson Inc., NY, 1982 (pp. 169-181).
- MacCulloch, C.J.A. Canon, John A. (Ed.) Mythology of all Races. vol. 8 ("Chinese Mythology" Ferguson, John C.) Marshall Jones Co. Boston, MA 1928 (p. 31).
- Morphy, Howard (Ed.). Animals into Art (ONE WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY; vol. 7) Unwin Gyman Ltd., London, 1989 (chapt. 11 Schaafsma, Polly).
- Roy, Pratap Chandra. The Mahabharata, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1973 (vol. 1 section 13-58, vol. 5 section 2-3)
- Sagan, Carl, and Ann Druyan (1985). Comet. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-54908-2. London: Joseph. ISBN 0-7181-2631-9.
- Schliemann, Henry. Ilios Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, NY, 1881 (pp. 334-353).
- Whipple, Fred L. The Mystery of Comets Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington, DC 1985, (pp. 163-167).
- Wilson, Thomas (Curator, Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U.S. National Museum) (1896). The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migrations; with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times. In Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution
