Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Q KEY TO ANCIENT COSMOLOGY. 21 the very world in which immortal Homer lived and sang. It is no longer an obscure crag in Thessaly, from which heaven-shaking Zeus proposes to suspend the whole earth and ocean. The eye measures for itself the nine days' fall of I-Iesiod's brazen anvil from heaven to earth, from earth to Tartarus. The Hyperboreans are now a pos- sibility. Now a olescensus aol inferos can be made by voyagers in the black ship. Unnumbered commentators upon Homer have professed their despair of ever being able to harmonize the passages in which Hades is repre- sented as beyond the ocean, with those in which it is represented as subterranean Conceive of man's dwelling-place, of Hades, and the ocean, as in this key, and the notable difficulty instantaneously vanishes. ln- terpreters of the Odyssey have found it impossible to understand how the westward and northward sailing voy- ager could suddenly be found in waters and amid islands unequivocally associated with the East. The present key explains it perfectly, showing what no one seems hereto- fore to have suspected, that the voyage of Odysseus is a poetical account of an imaginary circumnavigation of the mythical earth in the upper or northern hemisphere, includ- ing a trip to the southern or under hemisphere, and a visit to the dnrpalrig tmlfiocryy, or North Pole. The difficulties hitherto experienced in representing in a satisfactory manner the Yggdrasil of Norse mythology, the cosmical fig-tree of the Vedas, the wing:-ia oak of Pherecydes, etc., quite disappear when once, with un- derstanding of the supposed true position of the universe in space, the centre line of the trunk of the tree is made coincident with the axis of the starry heavens. In any chart or picture of the ancient Iranian cosmol- ogy, constructed according to this key, the Iranian Olym- pus, Haro berezaiti, will join the solid earth to heaven, while underneath, the mount of demons, dread Arezura, will penetrate the nether darkness of the lowest hell. In Egyptian and Hindu cosmology the same opposed circum-

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20 BOSTON UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. undermost region of all, that centring around the south- ern pole of the heavens, the lowest hell. The two hemis- pheres of the earth were furthermore conceived of as separated from each other by an equatorial ocean or oceanic current. To illustrate this conception of the world, let the two circles of the diagram upon the preceding page represent respectively the earth-sphere and the outermost of the revolving starry spheres. A is the north pole of the heavens, so placed as to be in the zenith. B is the south pole of the heavens in the nadir. The line A B is the axis of the apparent revolution of the starry heavens in a per- pendicular position. C is the north pole of the earth 3 D, its south poleg the line C D, the axis of the earth in perpendicular position, and coincident with the correspond- ing portion of the axis of the starry heavens. The space 1111 is the abode of the supreme god or gods, 2, Eu- rope, 3, Asia, 4, Libya, or the known portion of Africa g 5 5 5, the. ocean, or f' ocean stream 5 6 6 6, the abode of disembodied spirits and rulers of the dead, 7 7 7 7, the lowest hell.1 N ow, to make this key a graphic illustration of Homeric cosmology, it is only necessary to write in place of 1 1 1 1 ff LoF1'Y OLYMPOS 5 in place of 5 5 5, ff THE OCEAN STREAM 3 in place of 6 6 6, ff HOUSE or Ainms QHadesDg and in place of 7 7 7 7, f' GLOOMY TAR'rAnos. Imagine, then, the light as fallingefrom the upper heavens-the lower terrestrial hemisphere, therefore, as forever in the shadeg imagine the Tartarean abyss as filled with Stygian gloom and blackness-fit dungeon-house for dethroned gods and powers of evil, imagine the ff men-illuminating sun, the ff well-tressed moon, the ff splendid stars, silent- ly wheeling round the central upright axis of the lighted hemispheres, -and suddenly the confusions and supposed contradictions of classic cosmology disappear. We are in 1 The True Key to Ancient Cosmology and Mythical Geography. By Wil- liam F. Warren. The Independent, New York, Aug. 25, 1881, p. 3.

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22 BOSTON ,UNIVERSITY YEAR BOOK. polar projections of the earth are clearly traceable. To Haro berezaiti QAlborzD corresponds Mount Sar of ancient Egyptian mythology, the Kharsalc Kurra of the Alcka- clians, the I-lar Mocd ot' liabylonia Clsa. xiv.13, 1-lj, the Sumeru of the Hindus and Buddhists, thc Asgard of thc Northmen, the Pearl Mountain of the Chinese. The comparative study of those mythic mounts can leave no one in doubt as to the location of that heavenly height, where , i e H the ever firm Seat ofthe gods is, by the winds unshaken, Nor ever wet with rain, nor ever showered With snow, but clondless :ether o'er it spreads, And glittering light encircles it around, On which the happy gods aye dwell in bliss. . In like manner, the comparative study of the myths of the ocean and of the under-worlds of ancient peoples leaves no room for doubt that these, too,'were originally adjusted to a geocentrie conception of the universe, and ,to an earth which was figured as a globe. With such a key the most perplexing cosmological problems, such as the origin of the strange concentric dwipas of the Pura- nas, the origin and significance of the Sabean myth of Ur, the son of Rouhaia, and many others, receive at once a plain and satisfactory solution. Even the Kojiki, the most ancient of the sacred books of Japan, should have taught us to credit the early na- tions of' the world with better knowledge of the earth than we have doneg for in its beautiful eosmogony the earth revolves, and lzanagi's spear is only its upright axis. As one out of a multitude of possible tests of the fore- going key, let us apply it to the interpretation of the tall pillars of Atlas, which yaidv re :cal abpavbv dptlg Exovazvl '10dysaeu.I.,52-54. '