Loose Thoughts on the Vegetarian Spectrum

The Trang vegetarian festival

The provincial town of Trang in southern Siam is known, amongst other things, for the vegetarian festival observed by the region's Chinese population during a full-moon every October. The festival is Taoist in origin but now includes many Boodhist appropriations. It is said that the Chinese, who came to the Malay peninsula for tin mining, temporarily lapsed from their ancestral customs and that, because of this, a visiting opera troupe was stricken by disease. To make amends, the Taoist priests instituted a nine day period of purification featuring abstinence from meat-eating as recompense - the disease was allayed, the opera singers healed and the period of abstinence has been observed ever since. The rules of purification are: those participating wear white garments for purity for the duration of the festival, they abstain from meat, animal foods and the pungent vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic and tobacco). 

The present author has encountered vegetarian customs throughout his recent travels through Hindoostan and Farther India, and his most recent sojourn in Trang has brought many matters concerning the whole spectrum of vegetarian practices, east/west, traditional and modern into focus. The following are some loose - which is to say unedited and unarranged - thoughts on the topic, along with relevant scattered observations from his travels. The main point to be made, however, is this:

Throughout the Asian traditions (and there is no reason to think occidental traditions would be any different) vegetarianism is, first and foremost, a purification and specifically a purification of the life force (chi, etc.) as manifest in the breath (spiritus, pneuma). This is why in vegetarian traditions abstinence from meat eating very often goes hand in hand with abstinence from onions and other pungent vegetables. The breath is the life force of the organism. Onions, garlic, tobacco etc. stain the breath and are therefore believed to impair the life force. 

Similarly, meat-eating causes bad breath as well. Meat is therefore believed to be polluting. Purification consists of abstaining from all things that stain the breath. This is the whole basis of vegetarianism in traditional oriental culture. It has very little to do with 'compassion to sentient beings' and similar constructions typical of Boodhist modernism and neo-Hindooism. On the contrary, throughout these traditions - let us call them the 'dharma' traditions, Hindooism, Jainism, Boodhism and so on - animals are universally regarded as 'failed human beings' and one abstains from eating them so as to not be dragged down to their level. Animals are inferior and unclean. Eating meat is an impurity. One abstains from meat-eating not out of love for animals but out of a horror for the lowness of the animal state. 

Accordingly, traditional vegetarianism has a completely different foundation and motivation than modern, Western vegetarianism, and the real basis of the traditional doctrine - purification of the life force - is forgotten in the West.

* * * 

Rubens - Pythagoras proclaiming vegetarianism

Some meditations on the vegetarian spectrum:

*In most eastern traditions, and elsewhere, vegetarianism is rarely a 'lifestyle' but is only practiced at certain times for the purposes of prufication.

*Even where Indians advertise ‘Pure Veg’ you might often find fish on the menu. This is especially the case in places like West Bengal and Kerala. Many Hindoos do not regard fish as animal flesh. The present author was told with confidence on several occasions that “there is no karma attached to fish” – the Hindoo piscatarian. Note that eating fish (and other white meats) does not stain the breath like eating red meat and accordingly fish and white meats are often exempt from traditional vegetarian strictures.

*Even where the Boodhists of Siam – a kingdom where a good 95% of citizens count themselves Theravadan Boodhists – proclaim themselves ‘vegetarian’, everything is nevertheless soaked in fish sauce.

*The traditional Japanese had no word for ‘vegetarian’ – it is an English loan word. This is despite there being a genuine vegetarian tradition in Zen Temple cuisine. Again, vegetarianism is a seasonal practice, not a 'lifestyle' or an identity. 

The Zen Temple Cuisine, especially as preserved in Kyoto

*Outside of Jainism, the oldest form of vegetarianism in the Hindoo world seems to come from Udupi. Thus 'Udupi' restaurants are found throughout India. It is further adapted in the diet of the Hare Krishna and related movements and is spiritually anchored in the incarnationist spirituality of Vishnoo. Avoiding the 'pungent vegetables' is as important as avoiding meat. 

*The idea that the 'pungent vegetables' and meat are to be avoided because they 'stir the passions' is a moralistic rationale. The real basis for such practices, however, lies in alchemistic vitalism (which is much older than such moral explanations and is now largely obscured or forgotten.) 

*In certain parts, the sign ‘Pure Veg’ outside a restaurant or street stall in India might often mean specifically “Muslims not welcome!” In the Indian context – and in general - Mohammedans are meat-eaters by definition. Quite apart from more mature considerations, contemporary Hindoos will eat vegetarian (or some version thereof) in order to distinguish themselves from the Musselmans, and the Musselmans will eat meat (in copious quantities!) in order to distinguish themselves from the Hindoos.

*In the Hindoo spectrum you meet many people for whom ‘vegetarian’ just means ‘no beef’. So you can find ‘Pure Veg’ eateries that serve chicken and fish. For the average Hindoo beef-eating is the great dietary sin that incurs karmic retribution. Thus many eateries specify ‘No beef’ on the menu. Again, note that red meat impairs the breath to a far greater degree than does fish or white meats.

*In deference to the Hindoo, of all the creatures it is an affront to slaughter for meat, it is surely the cow, the most serene and most beautiful of animals, emblem of the contemplative soul.

*Forms of vegetarianism found through Hindoostan and nearby are often not especially diverse or healthy. Meals will often consist of over-spiced lentil dishes (dal) and rice or bread, with vegetables, as such, conspicuously absent. The most common ‘vegetable’ is aloo (potato) and sometimes a wrinkled up old gobi (cauliflower) but there are few, if any, green vegetables in sight. Fresh leafy green vegetables are rarely seen at all. Carrots are commonly eaten as a sugared dessert (halva) in season. The contemporary Indian ‘vegetarian’ diet is surprisingly degraded, notably by sugar and potatoes and a dependence on spices rather than substance to provide satisfaction.

*The Hindoo knows absolutely nothing about salad. (Something called a 'green salad' appears on menus throughout India. Do not be fooled! It's not green and it is not a salad.)

*The Chinese culinary tradition (and variations thereof found throughout Sino-Asiatic civilization) is essentially omnivorous – albeit without dairy foods - but its ancient roots are better preserved than that of the Indian tradition and it is more easily adapted to a satisfying vegetarianism and especially a viable veganism in a modern context.

*Important to note: One of the lost keys to ancient ‘vegetarianism’ is a deep cultural abhorrence of cannibalism. In the first instance, meats that taste like human flesh are made taboo. Thus in Japan, for instance, eating monkey flesh was made subject to the death penalty, and in the Semitic order swine flesh was forbidden. (Noting that the instinct to avoid the cannibalistic was less developed in the Chinese world, in itself a spiritual failing of that civilization, although it remains more ‘primordial’ in other respects.)

*As Roger Sandall observes, the deconstruction of the ‘cannibalism narrative’ by the post-colonial counter-tradition is the cornerstone of the new barbarism, the anthropological toxin of our age. we have almost completely lost all understanding of this great theme of tradition now.

*Regardless of what certain New Age manifestations of Soofism propose, a legitimate vegetarianism is a theological impossibility in Islam. The sacrificial order of Abrahamism prevails among the Mohammadans. Islam very specifically does not end the institution of animal sacrifice. There is no way around this fact. Muslims are theologically bound to partake of the sacrifice at least once a year (on the Eid). Christianity, on the other hand, has abolished all sacrifices (or subsumed them in the sacrificial flesh of Christ – noting the primordial cannibalistic theme inherent in the Christian perspective) – Christians are free to be vegetarians, or indeed omnivores, so long as they eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ. A Christian vegetarianism is a legitimate spiritual possibility, but in that it has no distinct merit.

*Vestiges of the ‘primordiality’ of a vegetarianism scaled according to an abhorrence of cannibalism is found today in the so-called ‘macrobiotic’ cuisine as reformulated in a modern guise by the Japanese alchemist George Ohsawa. Thus the flesh of mammals and higher order animals is avoided but those lower on the evolutionary scale (fish, shrimp, moluscs etc.) might be eaten sometimes. The less an animal tastes like human flesh – which is to say the further it is from the human on the evolutionary scale – the better.

*In all religious traditions the avoidance of animal foods is associated with a spiritual vocation; it is priestly. In traditional cultures it is never a question of ‘ethics’ and even less of ‘ecology’ or some sort of smug political stance. What modern Westerners rarely appreciate is that a vegetarian (or vegan) diet without spiritual application can be destructive and the cause of psychological and other imbalances. That is, a secular vegetarianism is a nonsense, an aberration, a usurpation, a spiritual danger.

*Vegetarianism is often supposed to be alien to the occident, an oriental affectation, but let us recall that it was a feature of the Pythagorean tradition, and to an extent the broader Platonic tradition too, since ancient times. It is as natural to the West as Pythagoras and Plato.

*Although adored by countless simpering vegetarians and vegans in the West, His Holiness the Dalai Lama – that sanctimonious old phony – is a bad-breathed carnivore. He claims it is “on doctor’s orders.” Sure. (In all fairness, though, the entire Tibetan Boodhist tradition, of which this celebrity Lama is erstwhile leader, is resoundingly carnivorous , which makes the fact that most Western followers of Tibetan Boodhism are vegetarians all the more bizarre. The modern Western cult of Tibetan Boodhism is a strange phenomenon indeed!)

*Aside from vitalism, the whole metaphysical basis for oriental vegetarianism is dharma and hence reincarnation. (This is also true of occidental Pythagorean vegetarianism which has no other basis than metempsychosis.) Without such a metaphysical underpinning it is merely ‘ethical’ and sentimental. In general, if you do not believe in reincarnation/metempsychosis there is not likely to be a firm (deep) basis for your vegetarianism.

*The critique of vegetarianism that begins… “Science has shown that plants are sentient too…” is an instance of a corrosive scientistic relativism. It is increasingly common and we can expect more of it in the future as relativist deconstructions dismantle all reasonable norms in the decadent West. There is a clear and obvious difference between a plant and an animal; it is an abdication of reason and a sinister mischievousness to suppose otherwise.

*While we today associate a vegetable diet with health, in the past, in both east and west, meat was regarded as remedial. If you became ill you ate meat in order to get well. (The idea persists, especially among Jews, in the proverbial remedial powers of ‘chicken soup’.) There are amusing stories from the Middle Ages in whole communities of monks would regularly feign illness in order to get a feed of meat. This might seem contrary to concerns of purifying the vital force (breathe) but it is a question of animal energies. In such cases, one eats meat until one has recovered and then returns to a vegetable basis diet. We should not confuse animal 'health' with ethereal 'purity'.

*A lacto-vegetarianism arises naturally from the Hindoo world. Veganism is more natural to the Sino-Asiatic universe. The Hindoo diet has paneer. The Chinese diet has the soy bean. Milk is alien to the Chinaman. Soy is alien to the Hindoo. These differences are not accidental; they reflect profound differences in spiritual temperament and go very deep. A lacto-vegetarian will have a more Indo-Asiatic temperament, a vegan a more Sino-Asiatic temperament. We might generalize: a lacto-vegetarian will do yoga; a vegan will do tai chi. 

*The compromised 'objectivity' of science in the West - and especially in universities - is on display in the ridiculous reports that seem incapable of conceiving of a viable diet without meat and dairy foods. People are right to hold these judgments in contempt. These scientists only serve the meat and dairy industries - as if the Indian and Chinese civilizations were deficient for their vegetarianism and lack of dairy foods respectively. Western food science, so-called, is Eurocentric in the narrowest possible sense.

*Whatever merit might be attached to it the popular New Age vegetarianism of urban elites, social justice warriors and eco-spiritualists in the West is deeply sentimental and decadent. It is symptomatic of cultural collapse. Its motives are perverse and its manifestations cultish. We cannot overlook the fact that so many vegetarians are dissipated social degenerates. There is an honesty, a sincerity, a simplicity, an integrity, a wholesome attachment to tradition and history, a truthful aversion to fads of cultural vandalism, in the confirmed meat eater. Apart from our notes on Pythagoreanism above, occidental man is essentially and temperamentally a hunter.

*It requires a particularly vulgar insensitivity to not be appalled and disturbed by utilitarian industrial meat production. In no other age has the slaughter of animals for meat – on such a massive scale – ever been conducted without a sense of moral danger and a corresponding need to avoid Divine judgment for such a transgression. Factory farming is clearly an abomination. So secular vegetarianism on ‘ethical’ grounds is understandable in the first instance, but otherwise it fails to meet the depths of the case; it does nothing to appease Heaven and so is finally just self-righteous and narcissistic.

*Industrial halal meat production - where an imam says a quick 'bismillah' before pressing the 'on button' of massive assembly-line slaughter machines - is an especially obscene hypocrisy. The obsession with 'halal' meat among contemporary Mohammedans - absurdly Pharisaic - is one of the most advanced symptoms of spiritual decay in contemporary Islamic externalism. 

Vegetarians in white during the nine days and nights of the festival in Trang. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Kolam: Patterns at the Portals

The designs shown on this page are all from a single street in Mattancherry.

The tradition of “kolam” – also called “rangoli” and other names in other parts of Hindoostan ("kolam" being the Tamil word) – is thought to be very ancient. Being an ephemeral art it is very hard to tell. It consists of inscribing geometrical or interlaced patterns on the floor or ground, especially at the entrance to buildings. In an earlier post on these pages (see here) the present writer revealed his fascination for the symbolism of portals and doorways. Kolam is a traditional folk art that is associated with that symbolism. He collects photographs of portals, but he also keeps a collection of kolam designs as he encounters them during his travels. 

In the north of India, in Rajistan and elsewhere, the inscribed patterns are often coloured and resemble what are usually called mandalas. Often they are found on walls or the sides of buildings. In the south, though, the more ancient and rustic practices are preserved and the patterns are found at doorways or on the steps at the front of houses. It is a domestic religious art. Certain patterns are preserved and passed down through families, usually among women. The custom in the south is for women to sweep the doorstep of the house every morning and to inscribe the kolam on the ground using rice powder, a flour paste or, these days, chalk. 

The present author saw a great many such patterns in Bangalore during a visit there several years ago. On his recent journey he has only seen kolam in certain areas of Cochin, specifically some streets in the town of Nazareth and parts of Mattancherry. In particular, one street, resident to a community of Brahmin families, had a large collection of patterns drawn at the front of every house. The pictures illustrating this page are from that street in Mattancherry. 

A very handsome Brahmin gentleman invited the author to photograph them and was happy to discuss them, but he explained that it was largely a matter for womenfolk and he could not provide much information about the actual significances of particular patterns. Some are simple. Some are complex. Some are floriform. Some are astral and star-like. Some are explicitly geometric. Often women pride themselves on being able to inscribe the pattern in a single unbroken movement without lifting the chalk from the ground. “They invite in the god,” the Brahmin explained. This idea is the usual explanation – the patterns are an invitation to the gods, or to good spirits, or to “luck”. Inscribing the pattern at the entryway to the house every morning is regarded as auspicious. 

It should be noted, though, that the patterns are often labyrinthine, and are in this sense connected to portals and doorways. It is sometimes explained that the patterns are designed to bamboozle evil spirits that might try to enter an abode – that, quite the opposite to an “invitation to the god”, they are a barrier to the devil. 

This author is of the opinion that, most probably, the original idea behind such patterns is – like so much other traditional symbolism – astronomical in nature, and that the patterns represent the motions of heavenly bodies and planets as seen from a geocentric viewpoint. They are thus an extension of the astronomical symbolism of portals. The symbolism of the patterns is thus primordial, although its original significance has been forgotten. This is characteristic of Indian religion in general: it persists since very early times and is a remembrance of primordial forms, although the original ideas have been forgotten. Kolam are probably among the clearest examples of this - ancient, primordial patterns preserved as a mere "folk  art" in a simple domestic context. This most humble of art forms might, in fact, be the most pure and profound. The author hopes to explain more of this and expand upon it in later posts.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Lost City of Muziris

The Tabula Peutingeriana

The Romans, we know, traded for spices at sites along the western shores of the Hindoostani sub-continent, but the most famous trading centre of all, usually known as Muziris (or Muchiri), and mentioned in several Latin sources, including Pliny, and marked on the famous Roman map the Tabula Peutingeriana, is lost to us. Southern Indian sources speak of the Yavanas (Romans) and their “beautiful ships” that “stir the white foam on the Periyar River” coming to the “city where liquor abounds”, the “city that bestows wealth… to the merchants of the sea…” But where exactly was this illustrious city? It was, we can surmise, somewhere in the vicinity of present-day Cochin – the port city now at the mouth of the Periyar River - but its exact location in that area is unknown.

The problem arises because cyclonic floods of catastrophic proportions in the year 1341 completely reshaped the Malabar coastline. Muziris – or the city that succeeded it, by then called Cranganore – was drowned and the ancient port silted up. It is estimated that the coastline shifted several kilometers. A new opening of the Periyar into the Arabian Sea was opened and a backwater formed by the long stretch of the newly created Vypen Island. 

The complex waterways where the Periyar River meets the Arabian Sea was reshaped by the floods of 1341. Muziris was lost. Kochi (Cochin) became the principle port. 

It was after the events of 1341 that commerce shifted to Cochin which then became the centre for inter-civilizational trade for a series of early modern colonial powers: first the Portugese, then the Dutch and finally the British in turn. The history of Cochin is well documented, but anything prior to 1341 is sketchy at best. The great trading port known to the Romans, once the meeting place of east and west, is lost. 

It would be a great boon to discover it again, because it was there, in ancient times, that Rome met China, and also where the three great Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Mahometanism are supposed to have made their first entry into India. The Tabula Peutingeriana indicates that the Romans had built a Temple of Augustus there. Jewish legend says that Jews from the period of Solomon settled there, and then over 10,000 refugees from the destruction of the second Temple made their way there in the year 72AD founding synagogues along the Malabar coast. Christian sources relate that St. Thomas travelled there in the year 52AD, founding seven churches and bringing Thomasine Christianity to Southern India. Then, Muslim sources relate that the king of Muziris travelled to Mecca, met the Prophet Muhammad and converted to Islam and in this way Islam was first brought to India. Land routes came later. The sea route from the Red Sea or Persian Gulf to the Malabar Coast was of prime importance in the beginning. 

Thus was Muziris axial in the contacts between India and the West, as well as hosting a community of Chinese traders (famous for their distinctive fishing nets which still characterize the coastline in this region today) and thus being the midpoint between great civilisations. Muziris was one of the great hubs, the great junctions of human civilization. 

Without knowing the location of the city, and until excavations of the location have been made, however, much of the history of the western or Malabar coast is in question and subject to sometimes rancorous debate. Was there really a Temple to Augustus? When did the first Jews arrive? How early was Christianity established in Western India? Was there a trade of ideas between Europeans and the Chinese? 

A historical marker on the foreshore of Fort Kochi relating the great flood of 1341 explains that the Chinese fishing nets previously located at Crangancore.

The author is presently residing in Fort Kochi, on Cochin island, and has been spending his days visiting historical sites and pondering some of the historical problems related to this lost city. His interest is mainly in issues concerning the St. Thomas Christians and, even more, the Malabar Jews, and the peculiar religious traditions found in this famous region. It is, though, a very tangled matter. Local debates concerning the long lost ‘Muziris’ have caught his attention in the last few days, and they are rancorous indeed. As noted above, the very geography of the region has shifted considerably since ancient times, and there is now no agreement about how the area might once have looked. Debate rages. There are contending camps, and efforts to locate the lost city are hindered by the peculiar ferocity that characterizes Indian historical debates.

* * * 

The rancor was on full display just a few days ago. The President of the Indian Republic made a visit to the area and was due to visit the so-called 'Muziris Heritage Project', this being a set of archaeological diggings in the village of Pattanam. His visit caused an uproar, however. A group of historians rose up to denounce the 'Muziris Heritage Project' as fake and urged the President to stay away. This, at the eleventh hour, he did, and that decision was duly denounced as "painful" and "hurtful" and "perplexing" by a counter group of historians who have worked on the diggings at Pattanam for many years. What, the present author wondered, was all the fuss about? It is difficult to work out. The entire matter is hopelessly politicized in a thoroughly Indian way. In such a climate of disputation it is almost impossible to establish the truth. The matter, however, seems to have gone as follows:

*It is generally agreed, based on all records, that Muziris was in the vacinity of the medieval city known as Cranganore (known to the Jews as Shingli) and this is identified as the modern village of Kodungallur. 

*Diggings at Kodungallur, however, have been fruitless. No evidence of an ancient city on that site have been discovered. There are artifacts from the medieval period, but no earlier. So it happens that Muziris is not where we expected. 

*In the early 2000s another excavation was made at nearby Pattanam. This was done by the Kerala Council for Historical Research mainly consisting of amateur local historians. Diggings turned up some Roman coins and other artefacts along with a profusion of glass beads.

*The KCHR announced that Muziris had been found at Pattanam. Subsequently, the 'Muziris Heritage Project' was established and promoted to tourists. 

*But the identification of Pattanam with Muziris is premature. The fact that Roman coins etc. were found there is not in the least conclusive. Roman coins etc. have been found at many sites. It does not mean that Romans were at those sites, only that people at those sites traded with Romans, or traded with people who traded with Romans. 

*There are now contending groups of historical opinion. Some - mainly locals - proclaim Pattanam as the long lost city. Others - mainly outsiders - are sceptical or indeed denounce the Pattanam diggings as spurious. These critics believe that Pattanam was nothing more than a centre of glass bead-making and a marketplace. The 'Muziris Heritage Project', they say, is a tourist scam. 

*Nevertheless, the diggings at Pattanam are, at least, promising and perhaps indicate part of the ancient city. Much more exploration is needed. This, however, is hindered because the good people of Pattanam fear that their land is being taken from them and have resisted further archaeology. 

*It was into this tangle that the President wandered. At the last minute his advisors told him to back out, which he did. Thus the furore. History in modern India is like that. The experts agree on nothing. There are religious and ethnic sensitivities at every turn.  Parties are always eager for legitimacy. The slightest affront unleashes tirades of dispute. 

The present author has visited at least some of the areas of contention, but he is certainly in no position to make his own determination on such vexed matters. We know that Muziris was around here somewhere, but where? The land is low-lying, a maze of islands and backwaters. There are many layers of history, but the catastrophe of 1341 seems to have been decisive. History earlier than that is well and truly lost. Is Muziris at Pattanam? Unfortunately, it is just as possible that the original site of the great ancient city is currently somwhere at the bottom of the natural harbour of which Cochin now forms the gateway. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Chariots of the Moon

The Moon Chariots of Udupi

The most unique feature of the Hindoo cultus to be found at the sacred town of Udupi on the west coast of the Indian sub-continent are elaborate rites in which cult objects – statues of deities – are placed in massive “chariots” and dragged by devotees around a fixed circuit. The present author was privileged to watch the entire procession from start to finish a few nights ago and has since been pondering the symbolism of the event. 

As always in India there are centuries and even millennia of overlays obscuring the original cultus – Hindooism is especially organic and relinquishes nothing to time – but the essentials of the rites have not changed and can be made out with careful observation and a discerning sense of the symbolic. There are always keys with which even the strangest and most opaque mysteries can be unlocked. Even if those who maintain the rites today have lost sight of their origins, they will usually preserve and guard the essentials – at least in an integral and living tradition such as Hindooism. 

In the case of the rites at Udupi there is a single and somewhat obvious key to what otherwise are peculiar but spectacular events. There are three temples at the site, each of a different age and a different layer of history. It is an ancient site, but it was expanded as recently as the XIIth century when it became one of the foremost centres for the veneration of the avatar Lord Krishna in all the lands of Hindoostan. Each evening – or at least on certain evenings, and certainly at festivals – the image of Lord Krishna, along with an image of Lord Shiva, is removed from its home in the temple and placed in massive four-wheeled wooden constructions which are designated as “chariots”. 

These vehicles are highly decorated, most notably with horse figurines, and function, in fact, as types of temples on wheels. Then they are lit up, blessed and dragged by thick ropes around an elongated pathway. The route is marked by two large guardians, namely men in over-sized costumes with each wielding a sword and a shield, who spin around in circles as they lead the procession. There are starts and stops and fireworks and candles along the way. When the chariots have completed the circumabulation the cult statues are removed and put back into their respective temples in the usual place having gone, it seems, for their nightly jaunt around the track. The photographs on this page illustrate the rites. 

The key? Clearly, the entire event is an enactment of the movement of celestial bodies around the circuit of the heavens. All the details of the rites become explicable in light of this fact. Specifically, one “chariot” – painted gold, as it happens – represents the Sun, and another – balloon-like - represents the Moon. The circuit, which is oriented exactly east-west, represents the ecliptic. The array of torches, fireworks and candles around the pathway represent the background of the stars. The whirling guardians armed with swords and shields represent the nodes that define the limits of the ecliptic. We can be sure of this key since the very name of the town, Udupi, means “Lord of the Stars” and the myths and legends concerning the founding of the site are all cosmological in nature. Moreover, as the present author noted in a previous post, the town is a veritable centre of the astrological sciences; the Hindoo religion takes a particular astrological form here. The entire history of the place has to do with the stars and stellar religion. 

The thing that obscures this key to the symbolism of the Udupi complex is the association of Krishna with the site. Udupi is now known as a centre of devotion to Lord Krishna, and in this sense there is no obvious and direct stellar dimension to that cultus. Indeed, the usual explanation given for the nightly rounds of the chariot is that Krishna was a charioteer, most famously in the Bhagavad Gita. Why is the cult statue of Krishna taken from its temple, placed in a chariot and dragged around its circuit every night? There is a mythological reason: it enacts the scenes of the Gita in which Krishna rides in his chariot. 

But, in fact, this is the most recent layer of symbolism – an overlay on top of the older rites. Before Krishna, the site was sacred to Shiva, and specifically to Shiva as a Moon god. This is plain if one ventures into the sanctuary of the oldest Shiva temple on the site, the Chandramauleshvara Temple. There Shiva is represented, not by the usual lingam, but by an image consisting of a bright round silver face. Chandramauleshvara means, literally, Moon-crowned, or Moon-faced. Shiva, then, was the original passenger in the celestial chariot, the chariot of the Moon. The Krishna cult is a late arrival. Krishna has been added to the temple complex in the XIIth century on the basis of the simple association of chariots. Since this was already a place featuring sacred chariots, the cult of Lord Krishna, the charioteer, found a ready home here. But one needs to look beyond the associations with Krishna to the earlier Shaivite layer of rites in order to understand them correctly. 

Many other strange details of the rites become clear once one applies the key. The whole complex, in fact, its history and its rituals, deserves a thorough study – more thorough and comprehensive than can be offered here. In each of the temples in the complex there are further stellar motifs. The more time one spends there, the more the cosmological character of the cultus becomes clear. 

* * *

As an aside, the structure, purpose and symbolism of the lunar chariots of Udupi invite comparison with the Chariot Trump in the Tarot cards of western esotericism. The resemblance is striking. The present author has long noted that while most occidental literary references to celestial chariots have a solar symbolism - Phaethon's chariot in Greek mythology, for instance - the Chariot Trump of the Tarot is, even in the earliest designs, lunar. The author has had the problem of explaining this lunar chariot symbolism. The problem is resolved in Udupi. Here we have lunar chariots, and they take a form that is strongly reminiscent of the Tarot Trump. 

See the design of the A.E. Waite deck below. Ignoring the pseudo-Egyptian sphinx motif, note the lunar and celestial symbolism throughout. It is exactly this chariot that one encounters in the great temple of Udupi in western India. Most remarkable is the winged (phallic) device in the centre of the card. In the large lunar chariots used in the sacred parades in Udupi, exactly this motif is displayed during the period that the chariot is on the move. Thus, not only is there a general similarity, there is a consonance of details. Note also, if readers care to look closely, how the chariot-riders belt is the celestial ecliptic. The conclusion is inescapable: this Tarot design refers to the very same traditions that are given expression in the rites of Udupi. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Udupi - Notes on the Symbolism of the Number 108

Vast and variegated, the great lands of Hindoostan are a rich patchwork of local traditions even though, together, they accumulate into a single edifice of belief and practice that may reasonably be designated by the term ‘Hindooism’, especially as seen from the outside (things being less clear when standing in its midst.) From north to south, east to west, local traditions, flavours and colourings vary, yet somehow they converge into a single stream, a unified tradition. Do not expect consistency or system, though. There is no Pope of the Hindoos to bring the swarming variations into a coherent orthodoxy. Very wisely, the Hindoo cherishes variation and tolerates a very wide range of religious expression. This fact has become very noticeable to the present writer in his current sojourn across the Indian sub-continent. Any expectation of consistency or system is foiled at every turn. Just when he thinks he has a handle on some aspect of Hindoo religious life, he moves on to a new town, a new location, and there different traditions and ways prevail, even though they are in some way entirely apiece with the whole. Reflecting on Hindooism is an object lesson on the problem of the one and the many.

The western coast of India is very different to the north and one encounters there, sure enough, a different assembly of myths and legends and accompanying practices. The author arrived in the temple town of Udupi several days ago and since then has been observing the local religious life, especially as it is centred on the great Krishna temple complex that makes the town a centre of pilgrimage. A full description of the rites and mysteries of this temple will have to be postponed until a later post: they are very complex and very profound and would require a long and detailed exposition.

Instead, the purpose of this current post is simply to record an observation concerning the symbolic powers of the celebrated number one hundred and eight (108). The meaning of the number – or at least something of its essential symbolism – has become obvious to this writer since arriving in Udupi and becoming immersed in the local traditions of the place. A group of connections have come together. A particular order of symbolism has become plain. The purpose of this post is just to make note of that symbolism. How it fits into the greater symbolism evident in Udupi and its surrounds is another matter and must wait for another time.

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The author has long observed the special character of the number 108 in certain religious contexts. It is an important number with symbolic import. Most notably, there is the fact that the rosary beads – or japa beads (japa mala) – commonly employed by both Hindoos and Boodhists consist of 108 stones or seeds or peas strung on a string which are then counted with the fingers. Thus, in any cycle of prayer the Hindoo or Boodhist makes 108 utterances or mantras of some sacred name or phrase. The author, indeed, has purchased a set of the said beads at the store in the Udupi temple where they hang on wracks in great profusion. Everywhere about, one can see Hindoos fingering their beads and muttering their mantras – one of the most common and easiest forms of devotion. There are no Boodhists to be seen in Udupi but elsewhere they use the rosary of 108 beads as well. (The Mahometan tesbe is different since it consists of 99 beads – a decimal rosary, as it were – being based on the literal – and quite mistaken – reading of a certain hadeeth in which the Prophet declares that God has ninety-nine names. This is just an instance of semitic hyperbole and it means that God has a large or indefinite number of names, but Mahometans, stupidly, draw up a litany of ninety-nine names, even though there are clearly more than that number given in the Holy Koran.)

Nor, however, is 108 only a preferred number in oriental symbolism. The author, being a student of the Greeks, knows also that in Homeric myth the number of suitors of Penelope is very specifically 108. And it is found in many other contexts besides. It is a auspicious number which occurs in certain symbolically significant contexts in traditions east and west.

But why 108? Why this particular number? What particular symbolism is attached to this number? What are its traditional powers?

The answer to this presents itself in Udupi. The name of the town is said to come from two roots signifying the idea “Lord + Stars” = “Lord of the Stars”. A local myth relates that, once upon a time, the “twenty-seven stars” were dimmed by decree of a certain king. Thereupon, the “Lord of the Stars” – that is, the Moon – appealed to Lord Shiva to restore their brightness, and Lord Shiva looked favourably upon this request and did so. Consequently, Shiva came to be worshipped locally and the place became known as Udupi – the land of the Lord of Stars, which is to say a land of the Moon. Shiva, of course, is himself a lunar deity and wears the lunar crescent as a crown. It is one of his chief emblems. He is essentially a time god, and the Moon, in this context, is the marker of time. Thus, in the Udupi temple complex the oldest temple, called ‘Chandramauleshvara’ belongs to the Moon-crowned Shiva (Chandra = Moon). The restoration of the twenty-seven stars for the Lord of the Stars is celebrated in this temple in this town.

Moreover, a second myth told in this same region concerns the axe-wielding avatar Parashurama who, it is said, severed the land from the sea. The whole coast of western India – Goa, Konkan, Karnataka, Kerela – is collectively known as the Land of Parashurama. He split the land from the sea with his axe, and then – it is said – he established 108 statues of Shiva throughout the land. Indeed, these 108 statues or linga – Shiva shrines - still exist today, distributed along the coastal lands with the shrines in Udupi being prominent among them. Now, the axe of Parashurama is without question itself a symbol of the crescent Moon – the crescent shaped axe is lunar wherever it is found - and so once again in this myth we have a lunar motif associated with Udupi and with the lunar deity Shiva, and the number 108 is explicitly given in this context.

Furthermore, as this present writer notes in a casual observation that turns out to be relevant, Udupi is a thriving centre for Hindoo astrology, particularly in its lunar mode. There are astrologers on every street corner, and many astrologers have set up practice in the confines of the temple complex itself. It might seem that there are more astrologers in Udupi than in the rest of India combined. The signs and shops throughout make it clear that it is nothing less than an astrological centre. Pilgrims who come to Udupi to make observances at the temple also take the opportunity to have an astrological reading since here, as elsewhere in India, astrology is indeed regarded as a sacred art and an important feature of the Hindoo religion. As it is practiced, it is based upon the twenty-seven lunar mansions (nakshatra) and the sub-division of those mansions into astral regions known as pada. Typically, the Hindoo takes a name from the pada in which he was born. (Typically, also, astrologers inform inquirers that this was done in error and that the error can only be corrected by prayers and generous donations to the temple – such being the way of seers.)

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Let us now string all of these factors together. Udupi is a charming town and the temple is a place of remarkable fascination. There is much that can be said but, again, it will need to wait for another post. What is important at this time is that in Udupi, and its local myths, the nature and import of the number 108 becomes obvious. Even in this there is much to say, but for now it suffices to point to what is plain.

Most crucially, let us note that 27 x 4 = 108. That is, there are 27 lunar mansions each divided into four parts. This is essential to Hindoo astrology. This makes the number 108 symbolic of the lunar zodiac. It is a number that represents the whole cosmic cycle considered by its lunar delineations. It is a lunar, not a solar number. Many numbers measure time (cycles) by solar measures – the number 360, for example. But the number 108 is resoundingly lunar in its essential meanings. In the foundation myth of Udupi, the “twenty-seven stars” dimmed by the evil king and restored by “Moon-crowned” Shiva are the twenty-seven lunar mansions. When, in the other myth, the axe-wielding Parashurama separates the land and the sea and establishes the 108 Shiva shrines, we have the finer division of the pada. The rosary of 108 beads, then, represents the year, and by extension the cosmic cycle (since an annual year is a reflection of the Great Year.) The Moon, in this scheme, is the measurer of time – a function of Lord Shiva – and so it is with lunar time reckonings, great and small, that we are concerned. The beads (japa mala) is a device symbolic of the full lunar cycle. To prayer the japa is to be united with and contextualized by that cycle.

The same significance prevails, surely, in Homer. Penelope’s weaving and unweaving as she awaits the return of Odysseus in the epic poem is, surely, itself a lunar motif. This has been widely observed from ancient times to modern. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, so Penelope weaves and unweaves. But now we can understand why there are 108 suitors seeking her hand. The number is the number of the lunar cycle (and it is furthermore no accident that the total journey of Odysseus is nineteen years, the number of the metonic or lunar eclipse cycle.) Penelope will not submit to any particular division of the small cycle. Odysseus himself, and his journey, signifies the greater cycle. Let us also note, in a Greek context, that 108 is a number relevant to the Platonic Nuptial Number, the calculation of the Great Year given in the Republic: the figures are 12,960,000 = 108 x 120,000.

In any case, 108 is the number of the lunar cycle. Wherever it is found it is likely to have this significance. It features in Udupi because Udupi is the land of the “Lord of Stars” i.e. the Moon. This is an old layer of symbolism in the Udupi temple. The associations of the temple with Krishna are much more recent – medieval rather than ancient. The oldest layers of the Udupi cultus go back beyond this association to Shiva as “Moon-crowned” or “Moon-faced”. It is a cultus that is particularly cosmological and in which an ancient cosmological symbolism has been well preserved. A more detailed description will be given some other time. For now, it is enough to note that 108 is a lunar number – the number of the cosmic cycle in its lunar mode.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Reclaiming the Swastika

The polar significance of the swastika is implied in this depiction since it stands as a separate symbol to sun and moon. It is clearly not a solar symbol here. 

An immediately confronting, or at least baffling, aspect of India, Hindoostan and many other parts of Asia - Japan, for instance - for those not accustomed to such lands is the ubiquitous display of the swastika in nearly all walks of life. The symbol is so completely stigmatized to Western eyes following its misappropriation by the National Socialists in Germany from the 1920s onwards, and has such odious associations, that to step into an environment where it is displayed as an auspicious omen on everything from sacred temples to taxi windscreens requires at least some mental adjustment. 

We live, of course, in an age of unwarranted misappropriations at every turn. Consider the recent history of the word “gay”, for instance; once one of the loveliest and most potent rhymes in English verse – “their eyes, their eyes, their ancient glistening eyes are gay” - the word has, regrettably, been hijacked by those who would turn sodomy into a fashionable lifestyle. In such a short time the word has been almost completely ruined. It takes a brave soul these days to attempt to reclaim it. The author notes that Bob Dylan – who has much to answer for on other counts – gave it a good try when he declared himself to be “strumming on my gay guitar…” on his Time Out of Mind long player, and this without the slightest accommodation to the word’s newly approved connotations, but otherwise “gay" is gone. Half of the best poetry in English prior to 1970 now requires mental adjustment. 

Outside of its Hindoo and Boodhist contexts, the swastika is almost beyond repair as well. Hitler (the worst military strategist in history and on the evidence of the newly republished Mein Kampf one of the worst writers too) and his cohort of thugs took one of the most noble of all symbols and dragged it into the pits of ignominy. One fears that it will never be rehabilitated in the Occidental world. This is a dreadful pity because it is one of the most ancient and also one of the most universal of symbols, and is not - or was not - by any means distinctly and exclusively Oriental. It once featured as much in ancient Western insignia as anywhere else, being known to the Celts, the Greeks, the Norse and many others besides. Hitler, with no more justification than a whim, decided it stood for some supposed "Aryan Race" and turned it to his evil ends.  It has now disappeared from Western symbology altogether, even to the point that the paternalistic do-gooders who run the European Union, in predictable fashion, have attempted to make its public display illegal throughout the entire European domain. 

In Japan, we read in recent accounts, authorities have decided to remove it from maps where it has long signified a Boodhist temple. It seems that European visitors are confused. When they see a swastika they think of goosestepping and zeig heils and imagine such locations on the map to be concentration camps. For the Japanese, quite rightly, it represents sanctity and piety. The symbol has been carried across Asia by the Boodhists; it is found throughout Japan in that context. 

Here in India, where the author resides at present, the symbol's Nazi associations are worlds away and the ancient symbology prevails. It is not subject to any post-Nazi sensitivities whatsoever. On a popular level it signifies all things auspicious and is often used for decorative purposes, but it has more precise meanings in such religious contexts as temples and shrines. It transcends the denominational divides of the sub-continent. Hindoos, Boodhists and Jains of all stamps, Vishnuites and Shaivites, all employ it such that it is a more or less general symbol for the holy and the sacred wherever one goes. No single group can claim it, although it is especially replete in Jain iconography. It appears in religious texts, in religious art and in religious ritual. It appears on walls as graffiti and it is inscribed on the foreheads of devotees. To be in India is to be immersed in a sea of swastikas. Although one can see some variations here and there, it is generally the same everywhere with remarkable consistency, namely the equal-armed 'fylfot' cross, or, more technically, the "tetraskelion", defined as a four-armed cross with perpendicular extensions, at 90° angles, radiating in the same direction, usually (but not always) clockwise.

The origins of the symbol are lost in time. Its use goes back to the neolithic era and beyond. It is pointless to speculate about when it was first devised and where. But there is some point in discussing why, and in discussing its meaning and significance. To say that it signifies "good luck" is, of course, completely unhelpful and is the sort of idiotic thing an anthropologist or sociologist or more likely a journalist might come out with. Clearly, it has deeper and more profound and exact meanings than that. But just what they are is subject to some debate and a wide range of views. Readers will discover a whole array of theories, some obviously more plausible than others. There are some outlandish and inventive proposals, along with some that seem more sensible and likely. We can be sure that the symbol had no attachment to "Aryan purity" and the like at its inception, and it certainly carried a more exact meaning than just "good luck", but what? 

On the whole the meaning of the symbol has two possible significances which are themselves not unrelated. The only question is which is earlier and more integral.The possibilities are that (a) it is a solar symbol, and refers to the cycle of the sun and therefore to the turn of the four seasons, or (b) it is a polar symbol and refers to the turn of the constellations (and especially the Great Bear, or the Big Dipper) around the north pole. For many reasons (upon which there is insufficent space to elaborate in detail here) the present author strongly favours the polar signification. Polar symbolism precedes solar symbolism. Rather than representing the sun, the equinoxes and the solstices - the fourfold nature and relevance of which is not in dispute - it represents, in its primal signification, the pole and the turn of the constellations around it. It is, that is to say, Hyperborean; in fact, the Hyperborean symbol par excellence. It becomes a solar symbol by extension and in a later phase of religious symbolism. 

The shift from polar alignments to solar alignments is one of the great movements in early human spiritual consciousness but is not widely understood. Many solar symbols were originally of polar significance. For instance, the common astrological glyph for the Sun originally (and obviously when you look at it) signified the pole and the artic circle, thus:

At a certain point, however, the polar association was lost and the newer solar meaning came to prevail. This has led to a great deal of confusion in religious symbolism and iconography, confusion that is exactly characteristic of what the Hindoos describe as the decline of the Ages or Yugas.

A recent post by the present author on the Hyperborean nature of the cult of Shiva in Benares deals with related matters and makes some relevant points about the symbolism of the swastika in relation to that of the lingam. Please find a link to it here. 

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The present author is an unashamed enthusiast for the swastika and actively campaigns to have it reclaimed from its Nazi associations. (He feels the same about recaiming the word 'gay' from cultural Marxism.) One fears, however, that such a reclamation might be beyond the guilt-ridden and unimaginative Europeans of our time. 

Readers can find below a collection of photographs of this noble symbol the author has taken at various locations around India during his recent travels:

The swastika is often found combined with the primordial syllable, AUM, pointing to its great antiquity and its primordiality. Such associations point to its polar significance and count against a solar meaning in the first instance.  

In this interesting example from a cafe in Benares we see the corresponding symbolism of the swastika with the magic square (Kamea).

The Jain ghat in Benares which features a huge red swastika facing out into the Ganges River. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black