The Crowns of Sages and Warrior-Kings (Part 1)

[David Talbott]

Is it possible that the historic theme of "the crown" has a unified explanation?

I believe it does and that this explanation can be confirmed by simply comparing our model to the recurring symbolic patterns discussed earlier in this thread. For an argument to really add up, the one requirement is that you continually compare layers of factual evidence to the hypothesized formations that "predict" them.

Identifiable phases or aspects of an evolving "Polar Configuration" will account for a full spectrum of crown-like forms. And no more than three phases will account for the vast majority of crowns and headdresses in antiquity:

1. The radial discharge of Venus
2. This discharge in its off-axis appearance
3. Material stretching between Mars and Venus, seen off axis.

In the radial discharge phases briefly noted in the opening thread, the red sphere of Mars stands in front of the star of Venus, so that Mars is surrounded by the streamers radiating from Venus. Both the number and the shape of the streamers change over time.

Below are two of the many variations in the radial discharge as its intensity changed, maintaining a general equilibrium in distance between the separate discharge streamers. The stylized images present two variations of many, consistent with the theme of the great sage or warrior-hero wearing a radiate crown that turns out to be a goddess (Venus).

VenusFullFlower(b).jpg

(40.73 KiB) Downloaded 2072 times

The 8-pointed star is, of course a well-established symbol of Venus, though more abundant "rays" will often be apparent. The pic below is a Babylonian image of "the star of Ishtar," whom all experts identify as Venus.

Another interesting image of Venus shows the planetary "star" resting inside a giant crescent--which is the context in which the crescent almost always appears in ancient Mesopotamia. (Please forgive the type over the image--it's from a slide presentation.)

I've never seen any specialist wonder about the ring around the depicted sphere. As I'll try to make clear, the ring is a vital clue as to what is going on in the famous "conjunction of Mars and Venus." The star and foreground sphere signify Mars, wearing the rays of Venus as his crown of glory, while the great crescent (the Babylonian god Sin) is the illuminated portion of Saturn, the primeval sun. Nothing in the early data on the crescent is consistent with the popular notion that it signifies the moon.

By simply tracing the theme of the warrior's radiate crown back to it's most archaic expressions, we should be able to confirm all of the integrated meanings that must be there if the model is fundamentally correct. We can start with the wide-ranging images of the mother goddess implied by the model. The goddess who serves as the hero's crown is the "great star" Venus. But that star is also:

The eye, heart and soul of the primeval sun (Saturn)
The animating life, power, and glory, of the primeval sun
The hub and spokes of the cosmic wheel
The plant of life
The warrior's shield
....
And this is, of course, a greatly abbreviated list of the mythical interpretations provoked by the form.

The model therefore requires numerous outrageous identifications--which is not a disadvantage, but an advantage. The crown must be the radiant eye, heart and soul of the primeval sun. It must be hub and spokes of the cosmic wheel. And it must be, simultaneously, the warrior's shield. When seen as things in themselves, the diverse cultural symbols could hardly suggest the underlying unity that is demanded by the model. Therefore, not only the crowns of sages and warriors, but the entire complex of symbols inspired by the celestial reference (the discharging Venus), must be added to the uncompromising tests of the model.

Here is a quick example, one of hundreds that could be given, to illustrate the underlying coherence once you step into the model:

In both images the head of the Greek god Apollo is placed within a radiant sphere. Of course, popular modern day myths say that Apollo was the Sun, an identification that evaporate the moment you begin to examine the figure with any seriousness. The cult of Apollo is already acknowledged to be a precise counterpart to the cult of the Latin Mars. But quite apart from this undeniable correspondence, no stretch is needed to identify the god as the axle of the cosmic wheel, since his name Aegeius, makes the identity explicit: the Greek word means "axle." The god's radiate crown is thus constituted of the spokes of a cosmic wheel.

A good counterpart here would be the Persian god Mithra seen below:

Mithra.jpg (22.15 KiB) Viewed 61549 times

... to which we might add the Roman version (Mithras):

If you want to follow the concrete implications of the model for yourself, don't stop with Apollo or Mithra. You can apply the same reasoning to images of the eye goddess or any other mythic image implicated in the list above. If the goddess is an Eye with radial streams (hub of the wheel, with radial spokes), who is the heroic "pupil of the eye," or the "little man in the eye," or "the child in the eye," or the "apple of his mother's eye"? Perhaps you thought that latter expression had no intelligible meaning . In all of these instances the radiance of the goddess as discharging star will be inseparable from the hero's crown: the goddess is the discharging star; the goddess is the crown of glory; the goddess is the radiant eye; the goddess is the hub of the wheel with radiant spokes, and all mean precisely the same thing.

Similarly, the hero is the child in the womb of the goddess; the small sphere inside or in front of the discharging star; the god crowned in his glory; the pupil of the eye; and the axle of the wheel. The symbols differ, but the meanings and spatial relationships are the same in all cases, all requiring alignment, all taking us back to the conjunction of goddess and hero.

In other words, there's a lot of ground to cover here, and more than sufficient opportunity for the model to fail early on if we're on the wrong track. So rather than elaborate on the warrior-hero's radiate crown, I'll next post a few comments on the second item listed above, the discharge seen off-axis due to fundamental movements (librations) of the celestial bodies.

Questions and suggestions will be welcome, particularly anything that will help to make these posts as direct and understandable as possible.

David Talbott

[Plasmatic]

Ive posted some corresponding motifs in the Japanese Myth thread.

[David Talbott]

In the past couple of days, as time has allowed, I've been doing some re-arranging of the "Crowns" threads to enable me to add material without it being too out of sequence. The notes below were originally in Part 2, but the present thread is more appropriate, and I'll be elaborating on the points here in coming days (Actually, I've already started.)

Crown and Throne

I’m trusting that many readers will already realize that, if we’re on the right track, the warrior’s crown and the warrior’s throne will (in terms of cosmic origins) be the same thing. At the archetypal level, the warrior king must be "crowned" by the same discharge formation that provides his celestial seat. But the symbolic, man-made forms, in their practical and more specialized functions, are irreconcilable.

This is why it's so crucial to work with visualization. In the images of the radial discharge we've given, there is nothing incongruous in seeing the small dark, reddish sphere as simultaneously "crowned" by the discharge streamers, and resting safely within them as on a "throne." The principle is impossible to miss in these archaic images from Ireland, corresponding to a global pattern:

And you see the same relationship in these prehistoric pictographs from California:

The innermost sphere is "crowned" by the discharge streamers. And notice in both instances the gap between the innermost sphere and the steamers, which would be the brightest portion of the discharge. The limbs of the discharging body behind the innermost sphere are not visible.

Below is a prehistoric design from Mexico consistent with our interpretation of the mythic warrior-hero crowned by the radial discharge.

These two are from the American southwest after the European arrival, but still carrying forward the more archaic tradition--

The concept is universal. While the Buddha is crowned by the spokes of a radiant wheel, he is also the owner of a wheel-throne:

He is called the "axle," here a close counterpart to the classical Apollo, who was aegeius, the "axle." Many lines of evidence will suggest that before there was a sage, there was a warrior transmuted by later philosophy and insight into a sage. In the Dhammapada, Buddha is "the warrior in shining armor." (As I intend to demonstrate the warrior-hero's "armor" is nothing else than the discharge streamers or "spokes" of the cosmic wheel.) Thus, the great warrior Indra of Hindu myth also carries the epithet "axle," confirming that within the archaic symbolism there is no contradiction between the spoked crown and spoked throne.

In the earliest symbolic systems, the original identity shines through, even as the artistic representations depart from the root form. Though the Egyptian Isis, along with her many counterparts, takes the form of the warrior’s crown, she is also the “lap” or "throne" on which the warrior king rests. Thus, the hieroglyphic determinative in the name of Isis is simply a throne, and every pharaoh was brought into conjunction with the goddess simultaneously as child on the lap and crowned warrior-king. (See image of Isis on the right below, with the King in the role of the warrior-child Horus.)

Another example, from Babylon:

It's also interesting to observe how, as artists attempted to express the concept of human form, various contradictions could not be avoided, as in this illustration of Krishna on his mother's lap:

Since the mother is the discharging Venus of the prehistoric pictographs, and the child is the innermost orb in the same images, one way the artists could preserve the surrounding aura, while placing the child on the lap of the goddess, was to duplicate it.

In the absence of the celestial referent, interpretive concepts increasingly came to dominate, progressively fragmenting the original unity of the archetypes, as cultures elaborated their own artistic, poetic, and magical variations.

David Talbott

[Lloyd]

- I think Radiate is only a verb, whereas you initially used it as an adjective a few times. It looks like you switched to the appropriate adjective-form, Radiant, eventually.
- I don't think I heard anyone discuss the crown motif before. Or maybe it just makes more of an impression now, because of the images that you added to the discussion.

[David Talbott]

- I think Radiate is only a verb, whereas you initially used it as an adjective a few times. It looks like you switched to the appropriate adjective-form, Radiant, eventually.
- I don't think I heard anyone discuss the crown motif before. Or maybe it just makes more of an impression now, because of the images that you added to the discussion.

Lloyd, if you Google "radiate crown" (i.e., in quotes), you'll get over 5,000 web pages, in which "radiate" is an adjective. Radiate crown means a crown with radial spikes or "rays."

You're definitely right that the pictures are a key to visualizing the planetary configuration and its impact on human imagination. I've got at least a thousand or more to add to these threads as time allows. One key is to note how the innermost sphere of the archetypal "nimbus" appears when it is presented directly, free from its mythical interpretation as a (human) warrior king:

But when envisioning the warrior king in human form (essential to the identification of the regional king with the celestial prototype), the artists did not limit themselves to placing the nimbus on the head of the figure. As seen in the Assyrian cylinder seal impressions below, depicting the nimbus around the entire human form was also quite acceptable:

Such images are best understood as illustrations of the celestial "wheel-throne," the model for various wheel-thrones of Near Eastern kings. Wheel-throne and radiate crown are just two of many mythic variations on the same underlying form.

Pictures will also underscore the progressive elaboration of originally pristine forms. In the Yezidis image of Murugan below you can see how the simple nimbus worn as a crown is juxtaposed with the "radiance" of the peacock throne, which I've addressed briefly in Part 2, though I'll have a good deal more to add.

Murugan (Hindu Murukan) is a local counterpart to the popular Hindu "warrior gods" Kartikeya and Skanda (whose connection to Shiva is often stated in scholarly expositions). Astronomical identification with the planet Mars is relevant here as well.

David Talbott

[Plasmatic]

Say Dave how about this comparison from Japan. Theres the swirled rope , the peacock feathers and the orb in the middle with radiant strands coming out.