Chariots

[Aithrobates]

As I was reading for the first time the Cantong Qi, I was impressed by the images of a chariot, associated with circular mouvement, and going down. I should have noted the place of that passage precisely, anyway I'm sure it's in there.

 

I got intrigued, because I seemed to fit another chariot image I know very well from the greek Parmenides' poem (500BC).

 

It's hard to explain that in a few words. But basically it's the Chariot of The Sun, and you are invited to  it by Godesses who lead the way and drive the Chariot. And they are describded in a language that clearly alludes to the fact that you are marrying them.

 

It sends you in a paradoxical place deep in the underworld where high and down merge (you're both in the top of heaven and at the roots of the earth), where the opposites are the same thing, in a way that mortal intellect can not comprehend.

 

There Parmenides meets with a Godess which, in a nutshell, explains that the world we live in seems to be ruled by the balance of light and darknesss, but that the two of them are utimately the same reality.

 

The description of this descent is filled with references to circular movements and to the sound of flutes, the hissing of snakes. Now there is this iranian text, a part of the Avesta, the Mihr Yasht, a hymn to the God of The Sun, Mithra. There too you have that Chariot of The Sun, with Godesses leading the way and driving the chariot. They invite Zarathustra to enter it. Here too the chariot makes a peculiar sound.

 

By other texts we now that one of this Godesses helps your soul to get the other Goddess pregnant, this way a Saviour is created. Remember that Parmenides is married to his Godesses too. And we know that in the kind of mysteries the greeks were involved the initiate was considered to be born again, to become a baby, often represented with the head of an adult.

 

Latter the cult of Mithra, now called Mithras found its way into the Roman Empire, and we have that famous text: the "Mithraic Liturgy". There the Sun is mentioned in association with the sound of a flute. And we have a lot of representations of Mithras entering the Chariot of the Sun.

 

Well. The Chariot in which the Sun travels beetwin the underworld and our world draws the rythm of nature which determines the cycles of day and night, of seasons. It creates this world, ruled by the play of light and darkness.

 

If Hermes, God of traduction, is with me... The paradoxical underworld where the light/darkness, yang/yin is not relevant is the Pre-celestial state (Heaven and Earth do not really exists as they are mysteriously the same). Our world of life and death where light and darkness are different and interract is Post-Celestial.

Does is make sense ?

 

The Sun as it travels from one realm to the other, symbolises the processes of generation and reversion to the original state. When it rises it emanates mortal life from the underworld-heaven, and when it sets it reverses back to it. So in entering this Chariot, we conscioussly align with the processes of nature, instead of following our human only, one person only, life.

 

This is theory, I do NOT know (for sure) the practices that correspond to it. But you'll admit that with the image of the child and this possibility of reversing generation (by following the path of the Sun into the underworld), it smells a lot like Alchemy. Greek speaking people working in the ways of Parmenides latter moved to Egypt. There they participated to the melting pot that will eventually gave birth to Pagan, then Christian and Islamic Alchemies.

 

So... Weird as it is... That's what I think when I hear of that chariot in the Cantong Qi. I latter read about a "River Chariot" in Wang Mu, and searching the net with that key word I found that reference of it being a "macrocosmic circulation". To me the circulation of the Sun, as described here, seems macrocosmic enough.

 

Is there any truth in that intuition, or is it just an educated guess ? At this point my whole understanding of Alchemy is that it affects the body not through something circulating inside it (microcosmic circulation), but through something that circulates in the whole cosmos.

 

Btw. Parmenides is considered the founding father of western thinking, the creator of our logic. In that case, the apple landed far from the tree.

 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Adding to the list of chariots:

First thing that rang bells when i saw the topic of "Chariots" was something about Merkavah (spelling?) mystic/esoteric tradition, a chariot pulled by angelic beings has a major role there too.

 

Had to get that out, i'll reread the op closely tomorrow when mind is rested

Edited May 28, 2015 by Rocky Lionmouth

[Aithrobates]

Yes. I just did not wanted to complicate things even more. But indeed this Chariot too send people to the divine world. And in some Merkabah texts, the trip is a descent.

[Marblehead]

Yeah, the chariot is an important symbol from the ancient world and is still part of many myths and belief systems today.

 

But I don't have enough knowledge to get involved in a discussion so this will likely be my only post in this thread.

[Taoist Texts]

As I was reading for the first time the Cantong Qi, I was impressed by the images of a chariot, associated with circular mouvement, and going down. I should have noted the place of that passage precisely, anyway I'm sure it's in there.

 

I got intrigued, because I seemed to fit another chariot image I know very well from the greek Parmenides' poem (500BC).

 

It's hard to explain that in a few words. But basically it's the Chariot of The Sun, and you are invited to  it by Godesses who lead the way and drive the Chariot. And they are describded in a language that clearly alludes to the fact that you are marrying them.

 

The closest chiniese parallel to Parmenides jorney is the Nine Songs, where the narrator is meeting goddesses along his way

 

 

"Nine Songs" from the Songs of Chu, the performer narrates a wedding journey with him in a chariot drawn by two dragons.^[3]

 

 

As to alchemy the imagery there is not of a chariot but rather of a wheel or a waterwheel, albeit also connected with the sun's rotations. later on this imagery of a wheel was infrequently conflated with buddhist imagery of deer and goat carts but the original and mainstream concept was still that of a wheel.

[Aithrobates]

Thank you for telling me about Nine Songs. That's exactly the kind of things I was hoping to discuss by joining this forum Be sure I'll get my hand on that and read it!

 

It's true that in Parmenides' poem the focus is more on the wheels of the chariot (their circular movement, their sound) than on the chariot as a whole.

[Taoist Texts]

This is where we come back to the crucial
importance of Parmenides. Traditionally Parmenides is
referred to as the founder of Western logic and the
father of rationalism. But what he states, so logically, is
that all movement is an illusion along with all change,
colour, birth and death—and he puts this very logical
teaching into the mouth of a goddess whom he encoun-
tered, as a priest of Apollo, on an ecstatic journey into
another world.

In other words, Western logic began by
denying all of the beliefs that we hold most dear and
undermining the reality of what we consider most rea-
sonable and real. You find exactly the same situation in
the history of Buddhist logic; and frankly, the Buddha's
discovery of the five great truths about desire and suf-
fering strikes me as a perfect example of real logic. In
fact I would go so far as to state that true logic has its
origins in mystical experience and demands a funda-
mentally religious point of view.

 

It is something infinitely more than that strange compromise called ratio-
nality. One only has to think of Socrates, who pushed
his reasoning with people and their beliefs so hard that
eventually the Athenians killed him. Nowadays he is
taught in universities, discussed and written about by
countless scholars.

 

But if Socrates himself was to walk
into a university today, I doubt whether he would last
very long. People generally want the ideas, not the reality.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kingsley_(scholar)

[Aithrobates]

Be careful with Peter Kinsgley ... I got my copy if "In the dark places of widsom", and then of "Reality" 10 years ago. I then started reading Parmenides and Empedocles, and 10 years latter I'm still reading them! And I think I'll read them all my life.

 

I started having dreams telling me what topics to investigate, so I bought the relevant books, and books have their own way to tell you what to read next (ie bibliographies). My personnal library moved from a bunch of SF and Fantasy classics to an unmanageable amount of books about spiritual traditions, which fills half of my (25 m2) home. I learnt greek, and bit and pieces of other ancient language (you do really not need to learn shcolarly, just be a jack of all trade, master of none, get enough of the language you need to read the texts you need, ans screw the rest).

 

Ten years latter, I'm still reading Parmenides or Empedocles, only to "discover" from time to time that this teaching I've just heard of in a book about Zoraster, Buddha, whaterver... well it was here, in the greek text too, and I did not noticed up to that point.

 

The same can be said of Peter Kingsley's own work. He really absorbed the style of his masters, so he says stuff in a way so simple, so honest, that you can read a passage 100 time without understanding that he's giving you a perl. That's because we're used to this complicated and deceptive world we created for ourselves, and we are no longer able to recongnize the truth, even if it's in front of our nose.

 

About Buddhism: there's a book about "Pyrrho: Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia" by Christopher I. Beckwith It will be available this summer.

 

A lot of BS have been said about Pyrrho, but if you read honestly what's left of his teaching you'll realize he's close to Parmenides. As far as I know one italian shcolar saw that, but he must feel lonely.

 

BTW, I ordered a translation a study of Nine Songs for cheap, and the chinese is available on ctext.org. thank you again for this hint.

[Apech]

http://polytheist.com/noeseis/2015/04/20/polytheism-and-science-ii-parmenides/

[Taoist Texts]

 

The maidens gently persuade Justice, guardian of these gates, to open them so that Parmenides himself may pass through to the abode within. Parmenides thus describes how the goddess who dwells there welcomed him upon his arrival:

And the goddess received me kindly, and in her hand she took/ my right hand, and she spoke and addressed me thus:/ “O young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers/ and mares who bear you as you arrive at our abode,/ welcome, since a fate by no means ill sent you ahead to travel/ this way (for surely it is far from the track of humans),/ but

Right and Justice.”

(Fr. 1.22–28a)

 

 

 

 

The hrst reference to contemporary philosophical issues in the Li sao appears in the names of the spirit who descends at the beginning of the poem: Zhengze  or True Principle and Lingjun or Numinous Equity or Spirit Fair-share. These refer to moral principle and moral practice respectively. 

 

One of the burning questions in fourth- and third-century BCE China was where do valid moral principles come from—are they an inborn tendency or do we acquire them from outside? 

 

 

 

[Aithrobates]

Thanks. I'll try to find a place in my book buget for this one.

 

Should I assume that a lot of what I'm looking for is inside the Chuci ? Are those texts the only of that kind ? Or should I investigate this anthology as a whole ?

[Taoist Texts]

Thanks. I'll try to find a place in my book buget for this one.

Maybe you wanna read whats available of it on google books first?

 

Should I assume that a lot of what I'm looking for is inside the Chuci ?

I think so but what is that you are looking for?

 

If it is parallels between Chici and Parmenides, then we have established already that they both

- perceive the human values as false and go on a marital journey to marry with the Heavenly truths

- meet goddesses with strikingly resembling names

 

It is unclear at this stage what were their aspirations on their return. Change the world to the better? Become the sole bearers of the aforementioned? 

 

 

 

 

Are those texts the only of that kind ?

Chuci is a unique text in the chinese tradition. So yes if that was your question.

 

Or should I investigate this anthology as a whole ?

You mean the Chuci? If you wanna go deeper than the paralells above, then yes.

[Aithrobates]

The more I re-read my question, and the more I see how your answer is multi-layered and cautious, the more I find that question irrevelant. If the ancient put those texts together, there must be a reason. And  maybe I was about to fall into the old good western "let's cut everthing in little pieces in order to examine each of them separately", you know... à la carte knowledge which destroys the integrity of what your trying to be inspired by

 

I'm doing my first steps in the realm fo Chinese litterature, so everything is still a bit confusing. I'm working with Archies Barnes' "Chinese through Poetry", and I'm starting to grasp bits and pieces of the texts here and there. So reading the Chuci should be possible in a few mounths. It's all on ctext.org but I'll have to find a book.

 

For the time beign, the Nine Songs english traduction I ordered and the ctext.org Chinese text will be a good start.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Aithrobates