Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Religion Before Adam
The use made of the Adam and Eve myth has been to de-legitimize nakedness and subjugate the sacred under the control of priests and the state. See for example Elaine Pagels book, "Adam, Eve and the Serpent," a book less about the first couple than the use made by a patriarchial culture of it's origen myth.
Religion before Adam, though, was an affair of naked, dark skinned, dancing, snake handling entheogen using shamans. In many cosmologies of many cultures the themes of serpent, cosmic, primordial or first man and or woman, nakedness and magic plant occur together. For example: Purusha and the couple Shiva and Parvati in India, Adam Kadmon and Adam and Eve in Jewish folklore, Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri in India, Tibet and Mahayana Buddhism.
One place to look for clues about religion before Adam is Africa and the ancient near East. On the southern coast of South Africa, about 200 miles east of Cape Town there is a cave at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay. In the cave, there is evidence of habitation by anatomically modern human who engaged in symbolic behavior 164,000 years ago. It would have been easy since then for people to spread thoughout Africa, starting on the coast and spreading inland. In the Sahara Pump theory, North Africa is alternately wet and dry. When wet it's habitable. As it drys out, animals, people and their cattle migrate to the North, and East; to Egypt and the Middle East. The latest wet period was 12,500 b.c. to 4,000 b.c. at which time there was a migration away from the drying Sahara. Semitic languages like Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew are of the Afro-Asiatic family, not Indo-European.
At the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana, there is a stone python that apparently has been worshiped for the last 70,000 years. There was plenty of water and good hunting and fishing at the time. The site is about 25 miles from the Okavango River Delta, a remnant of Lake Makgadikgadi, a huge lake that dried up about 10,0000 years ago.
The people who live in the area today, the San or Bushmen, believe all humanity is descended from a python. According to the San the First Spirit knelt and prayed on the "male" hill after creating the world. and his knees left an impression in the rock. (Interestingly, there is a similar tradition at Sri Pada, a mountain also called "Adam's Peak" in Sri Lanka. An indentation at the peak is taken as the footprint of Adam, Buddha or Shiva by Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.)
At Tsodilo Hills, there was a chamber in which a shaman could hide. And he was probably naked. According to anthropologists, clothing was invented around that time in climates far colder than Botswana.
The San people of the Kalahari desert, also known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe date far back in pre-history to at least 22,000 b.c. and by genetic evidence, are one of the oldest peoples of the world. They had an advanced culture 20,000 years ago. They call themselves "the first people," and may be right. As late as 1962, nakedness was common among the Nuer and San peoples.
In San religion a shaman enters trance to consult with "power animals." The San "Trickster" god seems similar to Shiva, the "wild god of power and ecstasy." In art, Shiva is depicted with a snake. In India, there are Naga: Naked Indian ascetics who worship Siva. "Naga" means a snake being that is associated with the elixir of life and immortality. One of the names of Siva is दिगम्बर or Digambara, Dik = Clothes, Ambara = Sky; a Sanskrit term for "clothed with the sky," i.e naked. Digambar is the name of one of the two Jain sects and also also one of the names of Siva.
The first or cosmic man in the Upanishads is the giant Purusha. In Samkhya, a school of Hindu philosophy, Purusha is pure consciousness, thought to be our true identity, and contrasted with Prakrti, or the material world.
Similarly, Samantabhadra or the Bodhisattva Universal Goodness (Tibetan Buddhism, Lotus and Flower Ornament Sutra) is a naked blue Buddha who represents ultimate reality: "Among those esoteric traditions that treat Samantabhadra as the Primordial Buddha, he is always represented naked, with a dark blue body, in union with his consort Samantabhadi."
"Samantabhadra is looked upon in certain Tantric Buddhist sects as the Primordial Buddha, awakened since the very beginning. Certain of the Yogacara sects claim that Samantabhadra, instead of Vairocana, is the founder of the Yoga system, and look upon him as a divinity of religious ecstasy. Those who practice ecstatic meditation in Japanese esoteric schools regard him as a special divinity central to their practice."
The name Samantabhadra = Saman hymn ? + Bhadra Auspicious?
The Samaveda "consists chiefly of hymns to be chanted by the Udgatar priests at the performance of those important sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and other ingredients, was offered in libation to various deities."
As cosmic person, Samantabhadra shrank from cosmic proportions to human size: "The Bodhisattva Universal Virtue is boundless in the size of his body, boundless in the sound of his voice, and boundless in the form of his imate. Desiring to come to this world, he makes use of his free trancendent powers and shrinks his stature to the small size [of a human being]."
The Threefold Lotus Sutra: The Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue pp. 348 - 349
As Samantabhadra is shown with his consort Samantabhadri, Shiva is said to have shared half of His body for Shakti and is known as ardhanarishwara (half woman, half man.) Shiva is said to have shared half of His body with Shakti and is known as Ardhanarishwara (half woman, half man) in this form.
In "Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism," 160 p. 129 - 130
Adam the Giant: Adam was as tall as the sky. The angels complained, and God reduced him to human stature. also: 162, Adam's body of light: when Adam's brightness vanished, he was naked.
In Sri Lanka, At Sri Pada or "Adam's Peak" Sinhalese Samanalakanda "butterfly mountain" in Tamil Shivanolipatha Malai and Shiva padam, there is a rock formation with an indentation resembling a foot at the top. The foot is variously taken as the footprint of Adam, Buddha or Shiva. Saman is the local deity of the place.
It would be interesting to investigate, for example, the roots of the words for naked and serpent. In the Hebrew bible, Nakedness and the serpent are associated through a pun:
- aw-rome nude or naked
and
- aw-room subtil.
"... and they shall be one flesh, and they were both naked (6174 aw-rome),
the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." Gen 2:24-2:25 6174
also, maybe there is a connection with the serpent here:
6191, 6192 aram - prim root; to make bare, smoothness, cunning, prudent, gather together
6193 orem - strategem, craftiness
Now the serpent was more subtil (Gen. 3:1 6175 aw-room cunning, crafty, prudent, subtil) Note: 5904 is Iyr Nachash: city of a serpent Serpent in Genesis - 5175 Nachash - snake, serpent hiss, to whisper a magic spell, prognosticate, divine, enchanter, diligently observe Matthew 10:16 3789 "be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Greek ophis - sharp vision, snake, sly cunning person
Also, Moses compatriots were apt to get naked at the most inconvenient times: "Moses saw that the people were naked ... "
Ex 32:25 6544 paw-rah loosen, expose, make naked.
Religion before Adam, though, was an affair of naked, dark skinned, dancing, snake handling entheogen using shamans. In many cosmologies of many cultures the themes of serpent, cosmic, primordial or first man and or woman, nakedness and magic plant occur together. For example: Purusha and the couple Shiva and Parvati in India, Adam Kadmon and Adam and Eve in Jewish folklore, Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri in India, Tibet and Mahayana Buddhism.
One place to look for clues about religion before Adam is Africa and the ancient near East. On the southern coast of South Africa, about 200 miles east of Cape Town there is a cave at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay. In the cave, there is evidence of habitation by anatomically modern human who engaged in symbolic behavior 164,000 years ago. It would have been easy since then for people to spread thoughout Africa, starting on the coast and spreading inland. In the Sahara Pump theory, North Africa is alternately wet and dry. When wet it's habitable. As it drys out, animals, people and their cattle migrate to the North, and East; to Egypt and the Middle East. The latest wet period was 12,500 b.c. to 4,000 b.c. at which time there was a migration away from the drying Sahara. Semitic languages like Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew are of the Afro-Asiatic family, not Indo-European.
At the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana, there is a stone python that apparently has been worshiped for the last 70,000 years. There was plenty of water and good hunting and fishing at the time. The site is about 25 miles from the Okavango River Delta, a remnant of Lake Makgadikgadi, a huge lake that dried up about 10,0000 years ago.
The people who live in the area today, the San or Bushmen, believe all humanity is descended from a python. According to the San the First Spirit knelt and prayed on the "male" hill after creating the world. and his knees left an impression in the rock. (Interestingly, there is a similar tradition at Sri Pada, a mountain also called "Adam's Peak" in Sri Lanka. An indentation at the peak is taken as the footprint of Adam, Buddha or Shiva by Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus.)
At Tsodilo Hills, there was a chamber in which a shaman could hide. And he was probably naked. According to anthropologists, clothing was invented around that time in climates far colder than Botswana.
The San people of the Kalahari desert, also known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe date far back in pre-history to at least 22,000 b.c. and by genetic evidence, are one of the oldest peoples of the world. They had an advanced culture 20,000 years ago. They call themselves "the first people," and may be right. As late as 1962, nakedness was common among the Nuer and San peoples.
In San religion a shaman enters trance to consult with "power animals." The San "Trickster" god seems similar to Shiva, the "wild god of power and ecstasy." In art, Shiva is depicted with a snake. In India, there are Naga: Naked Indian ascetics who worship Siva. "Naga" means a snake being that is associated with the elixir of life and immortality. One of the names of Siva is दिगम्बर or Digambara, Dik = Clothes, Ambara = Sky; a Sanskrit term for "clothed with the sky," i.e naked. Digambar is the name of one of the two Jain sects and also also one of the names of Siva.
The first or cosmic man in the Upanishads is the giant Purusha. In Samkhya, a school of Hindu philosophy, Purusha is pure consciousness, thought to be our true identity, and contrasted with Prakrti, or the material world.
Similarly, Samantabhadra or the Bodhisattva Universal Goodness (Tibetan Buddhism, Lotus and Flower Ornament Sutra) is a naked blue Buddha who represents ultimate reality: "Among those esoteric traditions that treat Samantabhadra as the Primordial Buddha, he is always represented naked, with a dark blue body, in union with his consort Samantabhadi."
"Samantabhadra is looked upon in certain Tantric Buddhist sects as the Primordial Buddha, awakened since the very beginning. Certain of the Yogacara sects claim that Samantabhadra, instead of Vairocana, is the founder of the Yoga system, and look upon him as a divinity of religious ecstasy. Those who practice ecstatic meditation in Japanese esoteric schools regard him as a special divinity central to their practice."
The name Samantabhadra = Saman hymn ? + Bhadra Auspicious?
The Samaveda "consists chiefly of hymns to be chanted by the Udgatar priests at the performance of those important sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and other ingredients, was offered in libation to various deities."
As cosmic person, Samantabhadra shrank from cosmic proportions to human size: "The Bodhisattva Universal Virtue is boundless in the size of his body, boundless in the sound of his voice, and boundless in the form of his imate. Desiring to come to this world, he makes use of his free trancendent powers and shrinks his stature to the small size [of a human being]."
The Threefold Lotus Sutra: The Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue pp. 348 - 349
As Samantabhadra is shown with his consort Samantabhadri, Shiva is said to have shared half of His body for Shakti and is known as ardhanarishwara (half woman, half man.) Shiva is said to have shared half of His body with Shakti and is known as Ardhanarishwara (half woman, half man) in this form.
In "Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism," 160 p. 129 - 130
Adam the Giant: Adam was as tall as the sky. The angels complained, and God reduced him to human stature. also: 162, Adam's body of light: when Adam's brightness vanished, he was naked.
In Sri Lanka, At Sri Pada or "Adam's Peak" Sinhalese Samanalakanda "butterfly mountain" in Tamil Shivanolipatha Malai and Shiva padam, there is a rock formation with an indentation resembling a foot at the top. The foot is variously taken as the footprint of Adam, Buddha or Shiva. Saman is the local deity of the place.
It would be interesting to investigate, for example, the roots of the words for naked and serpent. In the Hebrew bible, Nakedness and the serpent are associated through a pun:
- aw-rome nude or naked
and
- aw-room subtil.
"... and they shall be one flesh, and they were both naked (6174 aw-rome),
the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed." Gen 2:24-2:25 6174
also, maybe there is a connection with the serpent here:
6191, 6192 aram - prim root; to make bare, smoothness, cunning, prudent, gather together
6193 orem - strategem, craftiness
Now the serpent was more subtil (Gen. 3:1 6175 aw-room cunning, crafty, prudent, subtil) Note: 5904 is Iyr Nachash: city of a serpent Serpent in Genesis - 5175 Nachash - snake, serpent hiss, to whisper a magic spell, prognosticate, divine, enchanter, diligently observe Matthew 10:16 3789 "be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves" (Greek ophis - sharp vision, snake, sly cunning person
Also, Moses compatriots were apt to get naked at the most inconvenient times: "Moses saw that the people were naked ... "
Ex 32:25 6544 paw-rah loosen, expose, make naked.
