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. 

* * * 

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

Danielou's Shiva & the Primordial Tradition

Often counted as a “soft” Traditionalist after he became a sympathetic reader of some of the works Rene Guenon in the 1940s, the French musician and teacher Alain Danielou spent most of his adult life living in the Asi Ghat area of Shiva’s sacred city, Benares, where he adopted Shaivite religion and lived as a Shaivite Hindoo. The present author has just spent over a month in the same city trying his best to come to terms with Shaivism and towards that end purchased and read a copy of Monseiur Danielou’s Shiva & the Primordial Tradition from the Asi Ghat bookstore hoping that it might shed light upon the key aspects of Shaivism and, as the title promises, its place in the ‘Primordial Tradition’ of integral religions. Regrettably, the book does neither to any depth. It is a strange and disappointing work. Danielou presents Shaivism as a type of Dionysian phallicism and by the ‘Primordial Tradition’ he largely means the doctrine of the Four Yugas. The book does not go much further than that but is padded out with chapters, not always entirely relevant, on diverse topics such as dream interpretation, poetics, music theory and homosexuality. It offers, that is, a view of Shaivism very much through the prism of Danielou’s own personal preoccupations. At its core, though, is his account of Hindooism in a broad sweep, its origins and its history, and this, at least, is worth considering, even if one suspects it is highly stylized and warped in favor of his particular preferences. Certainly, there are very different accounts available; Danielou presents a French convert’s partisan Shaivite version of the roots of the Hindoo faith.

By his account, there are two ancient indigenous traditions in the Indian sub-continent: Tantric Shiva worship, which he presents as an animistic and “shamanic” nature religion, and Jainism, which he presents as an atheistic ethical system. According to Danielou, these two streams represent the authentic genius of India, but they have, he asserts, been distorted and befouled throughout the centuries by overlays of intruding traditions, most notably Vedic religion and then, more recently, Mahometism and British/Western culture. In this sweeping history he presents Buddhism as a mutation of the Jainist stream which was then re-Hindooized in its Mayahana forms and proceeded to colonize the souls and minds of Asia, all the way to Japan. Back in the sub-continent he portrays Vedic religion as an alien, authoritarian creed that secured, he asserts, only a nominal place in the evolving Hindoo mix; in fact, he says, a resurgent Shaivism reconquered India and left Vedism as a fake veneer. Shaivism – and its Samkya cosmology, which includes yoga – is, he insists, the real Hindooism, even when it is dressed up in Vedic forms. Vedic religion invaded, caused its mischief, but was re-Shaivized in subsequent revivals of the underlying indigenous cultus. He is equally dismissive of the manifestations of Vishnu worship, the cults of Krishna and Rama, which take the form of bhakti spirituality, a sentimental and exoteric form of religion which, he says, misrepresents Hindooism in the modern West.

All well and good. It is an intriguing if contentious overview. Its effect is to make ancient Dravidean Shiva culture the original India and the Vedic Aryans hostile intruders. For Danielou, Shaivite Tantra is a means to return to the authentic and autochthonous layers of Hindoo spirituality – and anything that ever went wrong in India was, by his account, imposed by outsiders. This includes traditional Indian aversion to homosexuality, a subject obviously close to his heart because he was himself a homosexual and it was with his partner Raymond Burnier, that he first travelled to Benares and decided to make home there. Although he mentions in passing that Jainism (which, remember, was one of the two ancient, original streams of Hindooism) has a strong taboo against homosexuality, and he also notes that all forms of oral sex are regarded as unclean in India, he says that homopobia is a trait of the “anglicized upper class” and spends a whole chapter setting out Lord Shiva’s homo- and bi- tolerant credentials. One gets the impression, in fact, that this is in large measure a reason for his embrace of the Shaivite creed, just as it is a reason for his undisguised disdain for the Catholicism into which he had been born. It is obviously important – crucial – for Danielou that Shaivism is, in his experience, pro-sexual while Catholicism (and European culture generally) is not.

This general bias goes further. Not only does Danielou characterize Shaivism as Dionysean – a cult of ecstasy – but his homoerotic interests are to be seen in his particular focus upon Shaivism’s phallic nature. The present author spent weeks in Benares being assured by priests and devotees alike that Shaivism is not “phallic worship” and that this is a shameful misconception entertained by sex-obsessed Westerners, and yet upon opening Monsieur Danielou’s account he reads that the Shaivic creed is phallic worship pure and undisguised. “The symbol of Shiva, the Creator of the world, the image worshipped in his temples, is the erect phallus,” he writes. And elsewhere, “The phallus is the emblem, the sign of the person of Shiva, of whom it is the image." This is no doubt true on an immediate level, but Danielou gives no thorough account of the further symbolism of the lingam and the many filters of piety through which the vast majority of resoundingly conservative Hindoos view it. The present author wrote about this in a recent post. Danielou’s Shaivism, certainly, is a long way from what this writer witnessed in the temples of Benares. Although he dresses it up as an esoteric “primordialism” Danielou presents a sexo-yogic version of Shaivism that is much nearer to the doctrines of Rajneesh and the neo-tantric New Agers than anything one is likely to see in the actual religious life of Benares as it is practiced today. One wonders what the decent pious Hindoo families that line up outside the Golden Temple in Benares – the very centre of the Shaivite world – would make of Danielou’s assertion that "It is in the region of the sexual organs that one attains pure knowledge,” or “The godhead can only be perceived through… its linga.”

It is all somewhat twentieth century. One can hear prefigurings of contemporary neo-tantra in such assertions as:

Tantric rites and practices, open to all without any restriction of caste, gender, or nature, are meant to permit anyone to draw closer to the divine through these three passages - on the levels of existence, consciousness, and sensual pleasure.

The book is further marred by quite unnecessary and inflammatory tirades against what Monsieur Danielou calls “monotheism”; there is an entire chapter in which his contempt and lack of feeling for the whole Abrahamic tradition is on display. The idea of the personal god, he writes, is nothing more than the cosmic inflation of human egoism, the poison of egoism writ large. “The notion of a god,” he writes, “a divine personage, is a projection of the notion of individuality, of a being that says "I." Monotheism is merely the deification of the notion of individuality.” He sets this ego-worship against the true religion of phallic worship. “Worshipping the linga means acknowledging the presence of the divine in what is human,” he writes. “It is the opposite of anthropomorphic monotheism that projects human individualism on to the divine world.” Once again, one feels that Monsieur Danielou’s own homoerotic obsessions and his own revolt against his Christian upbringing have been cast as an esotericism that he discovered in mystic India. “Associating the demoniac with the sexual,” he says, “is peculiar to the Christian world.” And therefore “Churches,” he declares, “are conservative and not liberating.” He projects this view back as a conspiracy theory that may have been daring once but which is today drearily commonplace:

The history of the Christian world is sadly filled with witchhunts that have served as a pretext for attacking initiatic organizations.

By “initiatic organizations” he means those that understand and maintain the worship of the sacred phallus. This is the cornerstone of his account of Western spiritual history:

Numerous sects did their utmost to maintain a Dionysian type initiatic tradition in the Christian world but were ferociously persecuted for political reasons, which have nothing to do with truly religious values. Organisms whose aims are purely spiritual are thus persecuted when civil and ecclesiastical authorities seek to establish their total hegemony over souls. The Catholic Church has played this sinister role throughout the ages…

But what of the good elements in Christianity and other religions? He is only able to reconcile himself to certain aspects of other religious traditions by proposing a general thesis that attributes all good things to Shiva worship. “In the final analysis,” he writes, “all initiation is ultimately connected with Shaivism, or with its kindred Dionysian or Sufi forms. Traces of such an origin can be detected in authentic initiatic groups in the Christian, Vedic, Taoist, Buddhist, and Islamic worlds.”

In many places these arguments become nothing less than outlandish. At one point he speaks of a mysterious and unnamed political cohort of “… India persons clothed in the monastic dress, of astonishing intelligence and culture, who, [have]… set up a traditionalist party… against Gandhi, Nehru, and the Indian Congress Party… which, at the right time, will take power and reestablish the traditional order…” Worse than this fantasy, in the chapter on music – an art to which he devoted his life - he argues that the Shaivite esotericism – his “primordial tradition” - is today found in the decadent fervor of discos and rock concerts! He writes:

… in the modern West, music with certain features close to those of ecstatic music is no longer found in places of worship, but in quite different places like discos, where dancers experience the kind of hypnotic isolation that is needed for mystical experience... The gods are much closer in the exaltation of rock concerts than in the faded canticles of the churches… just as vagabond hippies are much closer to the mystical wanderers… than frustrated monks snug in their… monasteries.

Vagabond hippies as the new Traditionalists? By this stage the present author had realized that Shiva & the Primordial Tradition was not going to offer the sort of penetrating and insightful introduction to Shaivite spirituality he had hoped. Rather, this was a tome that instead explained a great deal about the disaffected, resentful, unkempt, lazy, ill-educated and bedraggled feral youths from Germany and France - with their Om tee shirts, dreadlocks and degrees in Queer Studies - who laze about in the cafes of the backstreets of Benares smoking pot, torturing a sitar and taking yoga classes – these, apparently, are Danielou’s cherished inheritors of Shaivite primordiality, by his account the great indigenous treasure of India.

Needless to say this has nothing to do with the ‘primordial tradition’ of Rene Guenon. Nor does it have much to do with the Shaivism one can witness as a living tradition in the temples of Benares and on the ghats of the River Ganges. Alain Danielou and his boyfriend spent forty years living in the sacred city. He taught at the Benares Hindu University, and in the schools established by Rabindranath Tagore, and was decorated by the government of India for his services to music. On the evidence of this work, though, his Shaivism was a very personal avant-gard creation – largely a construction of his own prejudices and demons - the shortcomings of which has been badly exposed by the passage of time. The title promised so much more. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Ithyphallic Shiva - poster boy

Benares is replete with Shiva linga. The lingam of Shiva is everywhere in the city of Shiva. Pilgrims come in their thousands from throughout India to make pooja (prayers and offerings) at one or more of the lingam shrines, most notably at the Golden Temple, which is one of the twelve great lingams on the pilgrim circuit for devout Hindoos. 

The extraordinary thing about the Shiva lingam is that, while the symbol is essentially and quite obviously a stylized phallus (usually united with a yoni, the stylized female part), this fact is not at all obvious to the average Shaivite devotee. In fact, most Hindoos are taken aback and scandalized by the realisation that Europeans (and other non-Hindoos) see the lingam as a phallus and therefore see devotions to the lingam as a form of phallic worship. 

The fact that the lingam is phallic shaped does not even occur to the Hindoo, or if it does it does so via many filters of meaning and symbolism that remove it from any crudely sexual content. It is a remarkable phenomenon. Hindoo women may devote themselves to massaging the lingam of Shiva with lashings of cream and ghee, but it is only to outsiders that this seems like a blatently erotic act. The Hindoos theselves do not see it. Instead, for them, the symbol is encoded in a rich bed of mythology that mutes its phallic significance. For the Hindoo it is much more the 'pillar of light' of Shaivite cosmogony than an erect phallus (being gripped by a yoni.) The difference in what the tourist (outsider) sees in the temples of Benares and what the pilgrim Hindoo (participant) sees is truly striking. The Hindoo is genuinely offended if you remark upon the erotic nature of the lingam and yoni as symbols. He sees it, but he doesn't. And he resents having it pointed out. 

Even the ithyphallic iconography of Lord Shiva is filtered from its blatent meaning in the Hindoo mind. Shiva will be shown fully erect, with his erect phallus absolutely upright. The outsider sees the erect phallus as a signal to sexual action. He concludes that sexual potency is an attribute of Shiva. For the Hindoo, however, the ithyphallic Shiva signifies exactly the opposite to a liscentious deity. In the Hindoo view this iconography symbolizes Lord Shiva's complete yogic control over his sexual appetites. The phallus is erect, but intact, and his seed unspilled. It may seem paradoxical to the non-Hindoo, but here the Hindoo sees an erect phallus as a symbol of sexual continence and self-control. 

* * * 

The iconography of Lord Shiva is far more extensive. While there is an abundance of aniconic linga throughout Benares, other presentations of Shiva's iconography are less common. The most vivid representations to be found are in the souvenir stores that dot the crowded laneways near the Golden Temple. There, pilgrims stock up on objects of Shaivite devotionalism or "All your pooja supplies!" as the storefronts promise. These feature large full-colour wall posters of the god in all his glory, often surrounded by his family. Shiva kitsch - much loved by the Hindoo. Below are some of the posters available. Notes on the icongraphy will follow.  

Shiva and the Holy Family. 

The closed eye in the centre of Lord Shiva's forehead. Shiva as destroyer. When this eye opens, the cosmos will be destroyed. Shiva as consciousness - when the universe is destroyed, the destroyer still remains. Shiva is the consciousness that remains after the whole of creation has ended. 

The cobra around Lord Shiva's neck. The cobra is tame. Shiva has conquered his appetites and passions. He wears his passions as a necklace. 

The twin drum. Duality. 

Shiva is typically shown dressed as a mendicant and seated meditating. In one hand, the prayer beads. Perpetual mantra. 

The crescent moon. Shiva as god of time. 

The three lines of ash on the forehead - the three worlds (through which the axis of light extends). 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Hyperborean Hindu

There is no religious tradition so doggedly confusing in its overwhelming complexity as that of the Hindoo. It is a tradition stretching back thousands of years and from a very early point the Hindoo people adopted a policy of never - never - throwing anything away. In every manifestation of Hindooism, great or small, there is layer upon layer upon layer of complexity, such that to an outsider it appears to have no obvious coherence. Europeans like their religion relatively clear-cut. The Hindoo prefers his religion just as he prefers his electric wiring:

The present author has been in Hindoostan for over three months as of this post. It is his fourth visit to the sub-continent. Most of the Hindoo faith - in all its variety and depth - remains a mystery to him, although a few things have become clear. The following notes concern what he discerns to be a major theme in Hindoo spirituality - a simple motif obscured by layers of tradition. Let us try to identify and disentangle a single, central strand of Hindoo religiosity...

* * * 

* Much of Hindooism concerns Hyperborean themes, which is to say themes and motifs and symbols that have to do with the north pole (and pole star) as World Axis. 

* This is the meaning of the swastika. The swastika is not a solar symbol in the first instance, as is often supposed; rather it depicts the north pole with the constellations of the Great Bear (Ursa) and their movement through the four seasons forming the arms of the cross. The Great Bear protects the World Axis. The swastika is a geometrical depiction of the movement of the polar constellations around the pole through the (solar) year. 

* The swastika is ubiquitous in India. Everywhere. The Hindoo will merely tell you that it is "auspicious" or a symbol of "good luck". In fact, it signals a very ancient and persistent theme in Hindoo spiritual cosmology - the North Pole as the World Axis (protected by the polar constellations). 

Often the swastika is used as an overtly astronomical symbol, as here, where is stands apart from the Sun and Moon. It is clearly not a solar symbol here. Rather, it symbolizes the pole and the rotaion of the cosmos around it. 

* Exactly the same symbolism is found in the ubiqitous Shaivite symbol, the lingam. Many Western students - such as Alain Danielou, who lived in Benares for over forty years near where the writer presently resides - prefer to emphasize the phallic character of the symbol, but the Hindoo himself will tell you it refers to the cosmic axis of light that is the consciousness of Shiva in himself. Its more obvious significance becomes plain when one realizes that the lingam shrine of Shiva is - in nearly all cases - aligned to the North Pole. The long neck of the yoni upon which the lingam sits points to the north. 

* Accordingly, the lingam is - as it were - a local re-location of the North Pole as ever-present World Axis. The North Pole is a symbol of a metaphysical pole which is everywhere - the omnipresent subject. Shiva is consciousness itself. From whatever point the observer may observe, there is the Centre. A lingam shrine is a local application of this principle. The Mahometans have their kiblah in Mecca. That too is an expression of the World Axis. The Hindoo has the lingam shrine on every street corner and often in the home. It is every Hindoo's private symbol of the Centre. In this respect it is, so to say, his private North Pole, his personal kiblah. 

* In terms of the swastika symbolism mentioned above, the pillar of the lingam is the centre of the swastika - the pole around which everything turns. In the case of the lingam, however, it is protected by the bull, Nandi, and, often, by the cobra. Sometimes there will be four cobras protected the lingam, as in the photograph below (which the author took in the old temple in Darjeeling): 

* From this picture we see the connection with the swastika. Rather than representing the Great Bear through the four seasons, here we see the central axis (lingam) with the four arms of the swastika shown as four cobras, one for each of the four directions. The polar constellations are here envisaged as the cobra of Shiva protecting his lingam (pole). 

* There is a typical Hindoo diversity of symbolisms, all interchangeable, in this case. Bear/bull/cobra - the essential idea is that one of Shiva's creatures guards the pivot of the lingam. The pole is adamantine. In most instances, this task falls to Nandi, the bull, but the cobra clearly serves the same function. Shiva has conquered his passions. His cobra, which in other iconography he drapes around his neck, is tamed. At root, the symbolism is stellar and Hyperborean: Shiva's creature guarding the pivot of the lingam is an expression of a celestial mythos concerning the constellations that guard the north pole. 

Nandi guarding the lingham. The neck of the yoni points north. The guardian Nandi can sit as any of the four points of the compass but in any case represents the constellations that guard the north pole.  

* The geographical expression - or terrestrial correlate - to this axial/polar stellar symbolism is the mountain as axis and the river as stellar stream (constellations/Milky Way). The mountains of the Himalayas may therefore stand as World-Axis symbol. Thus does Lord Shiva find his abode there. And the celestial river, flowing from the north/mountains is the Ganges. The waters of the Ganges - flowing through the hair of Shiva - are correlated to milk. The sanctity of the cow in Hindooism has its roots here. The lingam/yoni construction correlates, quite simply and obviously, to the mountains and the river that traverses the earth.

LINGAM = MOUNTAIN = POLE

* Many Hindoo myths concern the distribution of this mountain/pole (Hyperborean) mythology throughout the Indian sub-continent. The gods might pick up a mountain from the Himalayas and throw it down in southern India, for example. The myth concerns the transferred application of the Hyperborean spirituality into the plains of India. Stories of the Ganges travelling underground in secret networks to watercourses, lakes, wells and streams throughout India are in the same category. 

* Symbolism of an axial order - concerning the north pole (or a mountain) as world axis - runs throughout Hindoo religion, particularly in its Shaivite manifestations. A good many aspects of Hindooism are easily understood as expressions of this order of symbolism. It is very productive to approach Hindoo mythology through this symbolic framework. 

* * * 

Since this post was made on Christmas Day, 2015, let us add as a footnote that the Christmas tree, with its crowning star, is nothing less than a symbol of the World Axis in Christian folk custom, with the star indicating the Pole Star. The star is the Star of Bethlehem, yes, but - by ellision - it is the Pole Star that crowns the axis of the cosmos. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black 

Gyanvapi - The Centre of the Centre of the Centre

The centre of the centre of the centre of Shaivite Hindooism is a small, unremarkable well in the courtyard of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple – the “Golden” Temple – popularly called ‘Gyanvapi’ (or Gyan Bajee) - ‘The Well of Knowledge’. Benares – or, to give the city its ancient name, Kashi – is as a whole the spiritual centre of the Hindoo world. All roads lead to Kashi, if only because it is here that Hindoos of all stripes come to die and be cremated and have their ashes committed to the Ganges. To die of natural causes in a certain area of the old city is considered to be so fortunate that the soul that meets this end is liberated from the cycle of birth and death. 

Within Kashi – the old city – there are literally hundreds of temples, but the most sacred of them is the Vishwanath, which is marked atop by golden domes. Within Vishwanath, there is the great lingam of Shiva over which hundreds of gallons of milk are poured every day by a priesthood and an unending stream of pilgrims. But the lingam is not, in fact, the most sacred place in the temple compound. That honour is given to a well nearby – Gyanvapi. There are many deep wells along the west bank of the Ganges, obviously fed underground by the river.

For pious Hindoos, the water of the well, Gyanvapi, is more holy than that of the Ganges. They understand that the location of the well marks the place where the world began and the place that will remain when the world ends. That is, Gyanvapi is the Hindoo axis mundi, the world-axis, the very centre of Hindooism’s extensive and madly complex sacred geography. 

Benares in itself is a microcosm with its own sacred geography. For example there are a network of Ganesh (Elephant) Temples around the Vishwanath Temple that are acting as protectors of the Well of Knowledge. There are also five pilgrim routes around to various places within the city - usually to sacred linga - and each route has the well of Knowledge at its centre. 

It is a location steeped in controversy. The Vishwanath Temple that accompanies the sacred well has been sacked and destroyed at several times in its history. The survival of the well in spite of this history is part of its sanctity. It is said that at one sacking the god Shiva himself retired into the well, ‘hiding’ from the invaders. Thus, his ‘presence’ is in the well itself.

The most recent desecration was at the hands of the Mughuls under Orangzeb who tore down the temple and used its stone to construct parts of the Gyanvapi mosque. The mosque is still standing on what (we think) was the original location of the Temple. The current Temple is more recent and sits very un comfortably next to the intruding mosque.

This had made it a flashpoint at several times for Hindoo partisans who seek to correct the historical impositions of the Mahometans. Some have proposed that the mosque should be reclaimed for the Hindoos. This is, after all, the single most sacred area in the cosmos for the Shaivite Hindoo, whereas for the Mahometans it is an undistinguished mosque built by a tyrant as a deliberate affront to the Hindoo faith. 

(The political expression of these Hindoos, let us note, is the BJP party. The official policy of the party is that Hindoos should be able to reclaim any mosque the Mahometans are no longer using. But as the Mahometans insist on keeping the Gyanvapi as an active mosque, the Vishwanath Temple compound is not in that category. Therein is the on-going but low-level friction.)

At the present time, as this author can report, the Vishwanath Temple – and the Gyanpavi Mosque – are under very tight security. There are walls of soldiers and checkpoints. This is India’s version of the ‘Temple Mount’ issue in Jerusalem – a Mahometan building has been constructed on top of someone’s most sacred temple creating a weeping sore of tension and disputes ever after.

The author is renting a room (for $8 a night) literally fifty yards from the Vishwanath Temple (and the Annapoona Temple which is part of the same complex.) He has been watching the pilgrims coming and going, and all the sundry paraphernalia connected with the temple, for three weeks. Every morning he steps out into the laneway to be greeted by long lines of eager pilgrims from all over India – whole familes of them - holding little cups of milk and garlands of flowers. On the corner are half a dozen soldiers with high-powered weapons. In amongst everyone are porters and wallahs and sadhus and beggars and cows.

There are areas of the Temple compound that are officially closed to foreigners, although many people seem to ignore the injunction. There is, all the same, a white marble marker on the side wall of one section saying, ‘GENTLEMEN NOT OF THE HINDOO FAITH ARE REQUESTED NOT TO ENTER’. The author, being a gentleman, and not of the Hindoo faith, respected the request. 

It is remarkable how much one can read about Shaivism – even by scholars who lived and worked in Benares – and yet never read an account of the utterly central importance of this place in Shaivite piety. The act of centring is fundamental to Shaivite piety. The lingham – the sacred icon of this mode of Hindooism – is in itself an emblem of (and functionally a marker for) the axis mundi – this is why the linga of Benares are aligned to the north pole. These dimensions of Shaivite piety are Hyperborean. The essential religious gesture of this piety is to turn to the centre, turn to the axis, turn to the source. Centre–axis–source is symbolized by the Gyanvapi well, the very Font of Knowledge. Shaivism is axial - and here in Benares is the axis.

The photos of this page are historical. Photography is absolutely point-a-machinegun-in-your-face forbidden anywhere near the Well of Knowledge today.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black