Is the Biblical / post-Biblical demon Asmodeus really a displaced Vedic storm god who entered Middle Judaism through Zoroastrianism?
No idea, and the video above isn´t scholarly, but it´s an interesting idea, to be sure! Note also the peculiar ambivalence towards the Asmodeus character in Judaism. Solomonic grimoire magick, anyone?
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| Credit: Kevin Cho |
I asked Gemini about the oldest surviving human traditions. Supposedly, Australian Aboriginals have stories which go back tens of thousands of years. I admit that I´m skeptical. So much romantic BS have been written about Native tribes that I wouldn´t be surprised if somebody debunks this 20 years from now. But sure, here is the information (I´ve heard some of it before):
Is it possible to know which religious or cultural tradition is the oldest? That is, the oldest of those which still exist today?
Determining the "oldest" tradition is a bit like tracing a river back to its source—it depends on whether you are looking for the oldest continuous practice, the oldest organized religion, or the oldest written scriptures.
Because cultures evolve, merge, and change names, there isn't one single winner, but rather several "finalists" depending on how you define the terms.
If we define "tradition" as a set of spiritual beliefs and cultural practices passed down through generations, Indigenous Australian and San (Bushmen) traditions are the oldest.
Aboriginal Australians: Their spiritual connection to the "Dreamtime" and their oral histories have been maintained for over 50,000 to 65,000 years. Recent archaeological evidence suggests they have passed down stories of sea-level rises and volcanic eruptions that occurred tens of thousands of years ago.
The San People (Southern Africa): Genetic and archaeological data suggest the San have lived in Southern Africa for at least 20,000 to 30,000 years, maintaining a shamanistic tradition that involves rock art and trance dances.
In terms of "major" world religions with a structured system, hierarchy, and massive following, Hinduism is widely considered the oldest.
Age: It has no single founder and roots that stretch back over 4,000 years.
Evolution: It emerged from the Vedic period (c. 1500–500 BCE) but incorporates prehistoric Dravidian and Indus Valley Civilization elements that are even older.
The "Eternal" Nature: Many Hindus refer to their faith as Sanatana Dharma (the Eternal Way), viewing it as a timeless truth rather than a historical movement.
If you are looking for the oldest tradition based on the worship of a single God, there are two main contenders:
Zoroastrianism: Founded by the prophet Zoroaster in ancient Persia, it dates back to roughly 1500–1000 BCE. It introduced concepts like heaven, hell, and the battle between good and evil, which heavily influenced later Abrahamic faiths. While its population is small today (the Parsi community), it still exists.
Judaism: While the biblical patriarchs date back to roughly 2000 BCE, the formalization of Judaism as a monotheistic religion occurred around the 9th–6th century BCE. It is the oldest of the three major Abrahamic religions.
| Category | Tradition | Estimated Age |
| Oral/Cultural | Aboriginal Australian | 50,000+ years |
| Organized Religion | Hinduism | 4,000+ years |
| Monotheism | Zoroastrianism | 3,000–3,500 years |
| Written Scripture | The Vedas (Hinduism) | 3,200–3,500 years |
The main problem is syncretism. Religions don't usually "start" on a specific Tuesday; they evolve. For example:
Shinto in Japan has prehistoric roots, but it wasn't "organized" until much later.
Hinduism today looks very different from the Vedic religion of 3,000 years ago.
When we look at these traditions, we aren't seeing a static museum piece, but a living "ship of Theseus" where the parts have been replaced over millennia while the identity remains the same.
Are you looking for a tradition with a specific "start date" or founder, or are you more interested in the survival of ancient oral myths?
How do we know that Aboriginals have traditions of ancient sea-level rise and volcanic eruptions?
We know this because of a fascinating field of study called geomythology, where scientists compare ancient oral traditions with geological data like sonar mapping and carbon dating.
The evidence isn't just "vague myths" about water; it involves specific geographic details that were only true thousands of years ago.
During the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower, and Australia’s coastline extended kilometers further out.
The Depth Check: Researchers have identified at least 21 locations around Australia where Aboriginal stories describe a coastline that hasn't existed for at least 7,000 years.
Specific Geography: For example, the Yindjibarndi people have a name for Fitzroy Island (gabaɽ) that literally means "lower arm" of a mainland promontory. For this name to make sense, the sea level had to be at least 30 meters lower than it is today—a condition that last existed roughly 10,000 years ago.
The "Walking" Stories: Numerous traditions across the continent describe ancestors walking to islands (like Kangaroo Island or the Tiwi Islands) that are now separated by deep, treacherous water. Geological records confirm these "land bridges" were submerged exactly when the stories say the "water came in."
The most striking example is found in the Gunditjmara tradition in South Victoria, regarding a creator being named Budj Bim.
The Oral Record: The story describes a giant who transformed into a volcano, with his teeth becoming the lava and his hair the smoke.
The Scientific Match: In 2020, geologists used argon-argon dating on the lava rocks at Budj Bim and found the eruption happened approximately 37,000 years ago.
Human Witness: Archaeological evidence (stone tools) found beneath the volcanic ash layers confirms that people were living in the area at the exact time of the eruption.
Western scientists were initially skeptical, believing oral stories "decay" after a few centuries. However, Aboriginal culture uses highly structured memory systems:
Cross-Verification: Stories are often owned by specific families; others are not allowed to tell them, which prevents "telephone-game" style distortion.
Ritual Repetition: The stories are tied to "Songlines"—physical paths in the landscape.
This video explains how researchers and Gunditjmara elders worked together to scientifically date the Budj Bim eruption, confirming it as one of the oldest witnessed events in human history.
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| Credit: Stefan Burns/YouTube |
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| Credit: Gabe Poirot/YouTube |
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| Credit: Eye of Wisdom/YouTube |
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| Credit: GOD REVEALED/YouTube |
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| Credit: Sarah Hall/YouTube |
Just a small sample of the Blood Moon scare hitting YouTube as we speak. Both Christians and New Age believers seem to be in on the show. Oh, and I didn´t know that the eclipse co-incides with the first day of Purim, a Jewish celebration of how the Jews in Persia killed all their enemies as per the Book of Esther.
OK, I suppose *that* is interesting. You know, Persia, Iran, that kind of thing. Will it lead to the end of the world, though? Of course not. But I suppose it might just work as conspiracy candy...
A very interesting scholarly video on the Book of Revelation, the Number of the Beast and the (sometimes bizarre) political situation in the Roman Empire after the death of Nero. Think Nero pretenders behind every bush. In Greece, one of the pretenders was actually hailed as "Nero Zeus the Liberator"!
Contains a lot of info I didn´t know about before. For instance, similarities between Revelation, the Ascension of Isaiah and the (Jewish) Sybilline Oracles.
Recommended.
Our man Anton Petrov discusses various speculative hypotheses concerning the Star of Bethlehem. They are surprisingly interesting, including a recent attempt to prove that the "star" was a comet in geosynchronous orbit. Apparently, such a comet would appear to be move "right ahead" an observer and even "stand still" over the same location for hours. Sounds familiar?
However, there are also problems with this theory (as with all the others) and Petrov eventually reaches the conclusion (backed by most secular Bible scholars) that the Star of Bethlehem is pious fiction. After all, the only source for such a phenomenon *even in the Bible* is the Gospel of Matthew! Of course, a Christian might explain it as a miracle, perhaps an angel appearing as a star (I believe the Jehovah´s Witnesses claim it was the Devil instead).
I suppose it´s possible that a real celestial event, perhaps a nova or a planetary conjunction around the Year Zero, could have inspired the author of the Gospel to invent an even grander story. Note also the peculiar fact that the new Jewish king is hailed by astrologers from the Parthian Empire! Which surely means something.
With that, I close this little post. Merry Christmas!
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| Venkateshwara and Bhargavi - impossible to get rid of? |
ChatGPT continues its lecture on the monotheism situation. I´m probably going to stop here.
This is a very fruitful angle, because failed monotheisms reveal much more than successful ones. They show what normally prevents monotheism from stabilizing.
I’ll examine the clearest cases, then draw out the structural reasons for failure.
By “failed” we mean:
• A clear move toward exclusive worship of one god
• That did not persist or did not become socially dominant
• Or reverted to plurality after initial success
This excludes:
• Philosophical monism without cult
• Henotheism that never claimed exclusivity
• Exclusive worship of Aten (solar disk)
• Suppression of other cults
• Closure of temples
• Elimination of divine images
• King as sole mediator
This is the earliest clear attempt at monotheism.
• Imposed top-down by the state
• No deep popular support
• Disrupted economic networks (temples were major employers)
• Depended entirely on the king’s authority
After Akhenaten’s death:
• The old gods returned almost immediately
Lesson:
Monotheism imposed without grassroots meaning collapses instantly.
• Strong ethical dualism
• Ahura Mazda as supreme creator
• Moral universalism
• Cosmic struggle between truth and lie
• Early Zoroastrianism may have been close to monotheism
• Later forms retained:
– Yazatas (divine beings)
– Ritual plurality
• Could not eliminate intermediary beings
• Ritual and cosmic pluralism remained
• Adapted to empire without exclusivity
Lesson:
Ethical monotheism alone does not guarantee exclusivity.
• Yahweh as national god
• Other gods acknowledged but forbidden
• Gradual move to exclusivity
• Repeated returns to polytheism
• Local cults persisted
• Texts reflect constant anxiety about apostasy
What saved it:
• Trauma (exile)
• Scribal class
• Canon formation
• Moral universalism
Without these:
• It would likely have reverted
Lesson:
Monotheism requires sustained social stress and textual enforcement.
Solar-focused cults appear repeatedly:
• Egypt (pre-Aten)
• Mesopotamia
• Indo-Iranian traditions
Why they fail to become exclusive:
• The sun is too embedded in nature
• Competes with agricultural, local, and ancestral cults
• Lacks moral specificity
Lesson:
Natural phenomena don’t displace relational gods easily.
Examples:
• Plato’s Good
• Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover
• Neoplatonic One
Why these failed religiously:
• Too abstract
• No mythic narrative
• No ritual economy
• No emotional reciprocity
They influenced theology later, but:
• Did not generate popular monotheism on their own
Lesson:
People worship persons, not principles.
Even where monotheism “succeeds”:
• Angels
• Saints
• Demons
• Intercessors
These function as:
• De facto minor gods
This shows:
Human religious life naturally re-multiplies agents.
Failed monotheisms show this pressure clearly.
Summarizing the recurring causes:
No exclusivity enforcement
No narrative that absorbs older gods
No trauma to motivate theological consolidation
No bureaucratic infrastructure
No emotional accessibility
Miss more than one → failure.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam succeed because they:
• Absorb older gods as:
– Angels
– Demons
– Saints
• Moralize cosmology
• Universalize ethics
• Tie belief to identity
• Are portable across geography
Failed monotheisms lack one or more of these.
Failed monotheisms suggest:
Monotheism is not a “natural religious evolution” but a fragile cultural achievement requiring constant reinforcement.
It is easier to break monotheism than to create it.
Early monotheisms usually failed because they demanded exclusivity without yet having the social, emotional, and institutional tools to sustain it.
If you want next, we could:
• Compare failed monotheisms with non-dual traditions
• Examine monotheism’s internal pluralization
• Explore why exclusivity becomes morally compelling
• Or bring this back to deep prehistory and plural humanity
Just say the direction.
An interesting take on the strange Biblical tale of the Magi. Why would three Zoroastrian priest-astrologers recognize baby Jesus in Betlehem as the new universal "king"? Or at all?
It seems Greeks and Romans knew about the king-making function of the Magi, even claiming that Sulla was prophesized to become the new leader of Rome by Magi from the East. Both Jews and Parthians believed in prophecies about the fall of the Roman Empire. Thus, the Gospel story of Magi recognizing a rival king to the Roman puppet Herod the Great (who became ruler by deposing a pro-Parthian Jewish king) was a potent "geopolitical" symbol.
If the Gospels were written after the destruction of the Second Temple (which seems very likely), the Magi could also be an allusion to Cyrus the Great, who liberated the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity and allowed them to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Of course, this also raises a more intriguing question: why should *we* care about Judeo-Parthian-Roman conflicts 2000 years ago? Are we Levantines?
So Christianity is a Jewish sect syncretized with Near East paganism and Zoroastrianism, with implicitly pro-Parthian geopolitics. You know, the Magi.
And this is relevant for me in Sweden in 2025 (CE)...how?
There doesn´t seem to be any AI Hindu pics scheduled for today, so instead I give you this dramatic illustration of three Magi discovering the Star of Bethlehem in the East heradling the birth of the Messiah who saveth the world.
Or was it just three superstitious old men with a penchant for herb lore and magical incantations serependitiously seeing one of many purely naturalistic supernovae somewhere in Parthia circa year zero when a barbarian allegedly named Quirinius temporarily occupied one of the Empire´s border provinces?
So much hinges on your answer to these questions...
Some more speculations about the elusive "soma" of the Vedic scriptures. The idea that soma was really the lotus is intriguing, to be sure. I think ephedra was the most official proposal 20 years ago (when I studied comparative religion at university level). What it is today, who knows.
It´s fascinating that while the original Veda Samhitas have been preserved for 3000 years, the knowledge of soma (necessary for many of the rituals) has been lost...perhaps forever.
So strictly speaking the Vedic rituals are no longer efficacious. They are LARP-s. The gods want their mad honey!
The Alevis are a religious minority group in the Middle East, mostly in Turkey. This video (made by a US scholar of religion) is an excellent introduction to Alevism. Or perhaps ethnic Turkish Alevism? Kurdish and Zaza versions also exist.
The Alevis turn out to be a broad religious landscape rather than a specific movement or faith group. They could be described as a heterogenous cluster of nominally Sunni Muslim groups heavily influenced by Shia Islam and Sufi mysticism (which probably strides the Sunni-Shia divide). There are connections to the Bektashi Order and the Kizilbash rebel movement. Conversely, there are no overt connections to the Alawites (except the name), a radical Shia sect mostly based in Syria.
Alevis have continued to redefine their identities throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. They have also been redefined by outsiders. The claim that Alevism is really a primordial form of Shamanism turns out to come from Turkish secular nationalist discourse! Some Alevis emphasize their Muslim identity, while others ("Alevis without Ali") claim to be a separate community altogether and have even been condemned by Turkish president Erdogan himself as dangerous splitters.
As already indicated, Kurdish Alevism is only mentioned in passing and the Zaza version not at all. Years ago, I met a certain person who told me that the Zaza Alevis have a legend according to which they killed Kemal Atatürk somewhere in Kirmanjiye (in reality, Kemal died of natural causes at Istanbul). Maybe next time, bro?
Recommended. Actually!
Kind of. John Michael Greer builds up the suspense to his forthcoming analysis of Wagner´s last opera "Parsifal". The idea that the Holy Grail is really the fallen Sophia and has something to do with the Cathars is interesting.
Here is something that struck me: some people in Wagner´s time apparently believed that Parisfal is an Iranian name. And the Cathars were inspired by Manichaeism. Which comes from Persia.
Other interesting stuff in this essay, too!
“The Self-Immolation of Kalanos and other Luminous Encounters among
Greeks and Indian Buddhists in the Hellenistic World” is a rather short article
by Georgios T Halkias published in 2015 in the scholarly “Journal of the Oxford
Centre for Buddhist Studies”. Or perhaps not so short, since Halkias has
appended a large number of voluminous footnotes! The author further states that
his study is “revisionist”, but not being an expert on Kalanos and other luminous
beings, I can´t really tell what the “revisionism” entails. Perhaps the
identity of the famed gymnosophists, and perhaps…something else. Stay tuned!
During the campaigns of Alexander the Great (here referred to as Alexandros of Macedonia), the Greeks encountered “gymnosophists” or naked wise men, obviously a reference to some kind of Indian ascetics. But what kind? There are many different kinds of ascetics in South Asia, and I suppose the usual guesses are Hindus (or rather what we would call Hindus) or Jains.
Halkias
proposes Buddhists instead. Kalanos accompanied the Greek army of Alexander and
then committed suicide by self-immolation on a pyre. Apparently, Jains oppose
self-immolation, instead preferring suicide by voluntary starvation. They
aren´t even allowed to handle fire, since it can kill flying insects. Nor is
there any archeological or documentary evidence of a Jain presence in Taxila,
where the Greeks encountered the gymnosophists, during the relevant time frame.
But what about the nudity? Halkias believes that nudity was prevalent in many different
Indian contexts, not just among Jains, citing as an example near-nude Indian diplomatic
envoys to the Persian king.
The author further argues that there is evidence that members of some early Buddhist sects only wore rags or were “open air dwellers” rather than building shelters for themselves. That the gymnosophists allowed women to practice or debate with them also points to Buddhism. So does the fact that Kalanos willingly accompanied the Macedonian army when it departed for another part of the conquered Persian Empire. Missionary work directed at non-Indians was standard Buddhist practice. But apparently the “smoking gun” (pun almost intended) is Kalanos´ self-immolation. This may come as a shock to those who think that Buddhism is a strictly non-violent religion which opposes suicide, but there you go.
I´ve
previously reviewed a scholarly article on ritual suicide among Pure Land Buddhists
in China and Japan. If Halkias is correct, acceptance of suicide runs deep within
Buddhism, including its earliest forms. It was acceptable for ascetics (not laity)
to commit suicide if sickness or old age seriously impaired their meditative practice.
Indeed, this seems to have been precisely what Kalanos was doing. Buddhist
monks, but not Brahmins, were cremated at death. Brahmin holy men who committed
suicide usually drowned themselves in sacred rivers. Therefore, suicide by fire
would have been a Buddhist practice.
Halkias references a presumably apocryphal tradition according to which
the Buddhist emperor Ashoka killed himself by self-immolation. From a much
later period, there is a description of Indian ascetics by the Gnostic Bardesanes
which must refer to Buddhist monks, and which also states that they practice
self-immolation. More disturbingly, perhaps, Bardesanes states that the
ascetics take their own lives *not* when they are sickly or elderly, but when
their spiritual practice is most successful! Halkias recounts legends about
Buddha´s former lives or about bodhisattvas, which include self-immolation. The
point of self-immolation is, Halkias believes, to imitate the Buddha´s funeral
pyre and produce holy relics. He even believes that the Buddha himself self-immolated,
but I don´t see how the quoted material bears this out.
Here is another bizarre quote: “A Buddhist narrative from the Mahavastu tells
that at the moment of Shakyamuni´s conception in his mother’s womb five hundred
pratyekabuddhas assembled at the Deer Park in Sarnath (where Shakyamuni would later
deliver his first sermon) and liberated themselves from their bodies in a spectacular
manner. Rising high up in the air to a height of seven palm trees they immolated
themselves, bursting into flames. This pyrotechnic phantasmagoria anticipates
the Buddha’s enlightening teachings at the Deer Park and suggests some ancient
form of sacrifice/offering that marks the birth of a great leader.”
The author ends his study by arguing that the ancient Greeks didn´t
disapprove of the antics of the self-immolating gymnosophists. Quite the contrary,
the suicide by fire motif also existed in Greek mythology and tradition…
I admit that I don´t quite like the implications of this revisionist piece
of scholarship.
The YouTube
clip above is a surprisingly good introduction to the life, philosophy and
(perhaps) mysticism of Muslim polymath Ibn Sina or Avicenna (980-1037). Unsurprisingly,
it turns out that Avicenna wasn´t a very orthodox Muslim, at least not in terms
of his philosophy. Rather, he was a Neo-Platonist.
His
philosophical argument for God´s existence (which sounds very familiar still
1000 years later) goes something like this: all composite things are caused by
another thing, the entire chain of composite things we call “the universe” must
therefore also have a cause, the ultimate cause of everything must be simple. And
that´s what we call God. Or rather: that´s not really the god of classical
theism, but The One of Plotinus (whose ideas were known in the Islamic world
through a paraphrase called “The Theology of Aristotle”). Avicenna did believe
that the universe was eternal, but an eternal chain of composite things still
needs an uncaused cause that´s simple. This is also derived from Plotinus, where
The One eternally overflows and emanates various lower ontological levels, one
of which is our universe. Thus, the universe is both eternal *and* dependent on
The One as its eternal cause. The Avicennian-Plotinian god is a primordial and
perfect unity and simplicity, which emanates the lower level as part of its
very nature, while being completely blissful and unaware of the suffering and
privation at the lower levels. This god only knows “universals”, never
particulars. He, or rather It, stands outside time and space.
But how
can this kind of god ever save anyone? It seems that he strictly speaking
cannot – The One can be reached only through philosophical contemplation or
perhaps mystical states. The One does emanate two levels in between itself and
the universe: the Intellect and the Universal Soul. Strictly speaking, it is
the latter that then emanates the universe. The god of classical theism could
perhaps be assimilated to the Intellect, while the Universal Soul could be seen
as the “anima mundi”. Or they could both be seen as the god of classical
theism. But in this system, the apex of the ontological hierarchy is above Allah
or God the Father. This makes it problematic when Christian apologists tries to
use arguments derived from Avicenna to prove the Biblical God. You simply can´t
go from “even the entire chain needs a cause that must be uncaused” to “that
uncaused cause is Bible God”, since Avicenna´s whole point was that the uncaused
cause must be simple and non-composite. But the god of the theologians is
surely anything but simple: he is gendered, personal, can feel both anger and
love, is recognized in three persons, one of the persons being born as a man in
a specific location on Earth, and seems intensely interested in the behavior
and ultimate fate of Homo sapiens. How is this “simple”? Note also that this
god isn´t known through philosophical speculation but only through special revelation
(or theological speculation on special revelation).
In the
Orthodox Church, I suppose the three highest levels of the Neo-Platonist hierarchy
are all considered “God”. The One is the dazzling darkness, the unknowable
essence of God. The Intellect is God as he appears in the Bible. And the
Universal Soul is perhaps the uncreated energies described by Gregory Palamas.
But surely this is still composite by Avicenna´s standards? As for modern science,
perhaps space and time aren´t “composite” and can hence play the role of uncaused
cause Avicenna assigned to The One, but I suspect Ibn Sina would disagree with
this. Space and time can certainly be conceptualized as composite. The One,
presumably, cannot.
The religion with which Avicenna has most in common is actually Hinduism. The One has a family likeness with Brahman. In certain forms of Hinduism, Brahman brings forth Bhagawan – the personal god (such as Vishnu) – and Bhagawan then emanates Brahma, who creates the universe. This certainly sounds as a personification of the Intellect and the Universal Soul.
Personally, I have some kind of sympathies with both the panentheist-pantheist and theist camps, and mystics certainly report encounters with both kinds of god. Ultimately, humans probably can´t know these things anyway…
The entire history of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. And the entire history of theology is a series of footnotes to Plotinus.
So I amused
myself by trying to decode a very heavy scholarly essay by Jeffrey Kotyk, with
the appealing title “Japanese Buddhist Astrology and Astral Magic: Mikkyo and
Sukuyodo”, published in the “Japanese Journal of Religious Studies” and copyrighted
in 2018. I admit that I hardly got half of it, but it was still a fascinating
read, after a fashion. My man Kotyk might be on to something! Perhaps he has a
good horoscope?
Apparently,
contemporary Japanese astrology is called sukuyo and is attributed to Kukai,
the medieval founder of the esoteric Buddhist sect known as Shingon. However,
this form of astrology is evidently fully modern and has very little to do with
“real” Japanese astrology from the actual Middle Ages (to use European terminology).
Kotyk argues that there were two distinct forms of astrology during the period
in question. He calls them Mikkyo Astrology and Sukuyodo. The former is part
and parcel of esoteric Buddhist practice, while the latter could be regarded as
“standard” astrology, including natal horoscopes, predictions of wealth and
success for prominent individuals, etc.
Mikkyo Astrology, as should be evident by its name (Mikkyo being the Japanese word for Vajrayana or esoteric Tantric Buddhism), was introduced to Japan from China by Shingon and Tendai monks, including the aforementioned Kukai. The two prominent Tendai monks Ennin and Enchin were two other transmitters. Mikkyo Astrology is based on highly complex Chinese manuals which in turn go back to Indian sources. It was necessary to correctly time various esoteric rituals. Of course, “Vedic” astrology in its turn is heavily influenced by Greek astrology. Mikkyo Astrology also includes astral magic, including worship of planetary deities, to ward off disasters forecasted in the horoscopes. Kotyk therefore regards this form of astrology as non-fatalistic.
While the system is Indian in origin, the author
has also identified Iranian elements in the Chinese sources. These in turn can be
traced further back, to Greek or Egyptian sources. The icon of Saturn used in
these texts is “Iranian-Mesopotamian” rather than Indian. During the later Tang
period in China, the cult of Saturn (seen as a malefic planet to be appeased)
became prominent among both Buddhists and Taoists. The main feature of the
astral magic, however, is presumably Indian in origin: the cult of a bodhisattva
referred to by modern scholars as Tejaprabha (a name unattested in any Sanskrit
source). This powerful figure was worshipped when heavenly anomalies disturbed the
peaceful skies, such as comets appearing in the “lunar mansion” associated with
the incumbent ruler. To complicate the criss-crossing lines of cultural influence
even further, Mikkyo Astrology in Japan also interacted with Onmyodo, a school
of divination indebted to Taoism. Its practitioners worshipped the Big Dipper
as yet another example of astral magic.
Sukuyodo
seems to have been originally connected somehow to Onmyodo, but later became an
independent lineage or school (or actually several). It had strong support in
the medieval Japanese aristocracy. What makes Sukuyodo interesting to the
author is that it must be derived from Chinese sources dependent not on any
Indian source, but on Iranian sources the contents of which goes back to the Hellenistic
astrologer Dorotheus. The lore itself can be traced even further back, to Alexandria
or even Babylonia. One intriguing fact is that Sukuyodo used the tropical zodiac
(also used in ancient Greek and modern Western astrology) while “Vedic” astrology
uses the sidereal zodiac. The positions of the star signs are somewhat
different in the two versions. Even Indian traits in Sukuyodo, such as the use
of the imaginary planets Rahu and Ketu (actually the lunar nodes) in horoscopes
could come from Iranian sources, since these had evidently taken up the
practice. What makes all this important is that it could point to a previously
unknown path of cultural diffusion from the Near East to China and Japan
(without passing India). The author wonders aloud whether music or medicine
could have followed this path of transmission, too.
What he doesn´t
mention is the profoundly humbling effect all of this should have on Chinese
and Japanese nationalists. Much of their “unique” cultures really come from “barbarians”,
including the White devils. If they will ever admit it, is another thing
entirely. Ex *Occidente* Lux? White Boy Summer is a thing!
An interesting look at the Qalandariyya and some other fringe Sufi groups within medieval and early modern Islam. We are talking "crazy saints" or "holy fools" of a kind that seem to exist within (almost) all religions. Compare the pagan Cynic philosophers, the Eastern Orthodox fools in Christ, the Pashupatas and other antinomian Shaiva sects within Hinduism, and certain siddhas within Buddhism. Among others?
The Qalandariyya and similar groups deliberately broke social and religious conventions to provoke hostility and ostracism. It´s really a form of ascesis. They didn´t follow sharia, since they were "dead to the world", but they were also indifferent to heavenly rewards, instead preferring a kind of mystical unity with God in the here and now (compare certain "pantheist" forms of Hinduism and Buddhism). Since all of the world is imbued with God´s presence, why insist on leaving it?
While the origins of this kind of Sufism were apparently Persian, I don´t think it´s a co-incidence that it became so strong in India. However, it also existed in the Middle East. We are clearly dealing with a specific spiritual personality type, otherwise the phenomenon wouldn´t be global.
Which of course raises the question: where are the antinomians today?
