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Lunar beasts (part one)

1. Lunar Beasts (part 1)
2. Lunar Beasts (part 2)
3. Lunar Beasts (part 3)
4. Lunar Beasts (part 4)
5. Lunar Beasts (part 5)
6. Lunar Beasts (part 6)
7. Lunar Beasts (part 7)
8. Lunar Beasts (part 8 )

Previously, I have referred to the bull and lion as the animal representatives of the temporal-lunar and eternal-solar aspects of divinity, and how both further symbolize their respective modes of existence in the cosmos and the world beyond. Whereas the solar representative is limited to mainly two animal forms (the lion and the eagle), the lunar representative has numerous zoological forms, including bull, serpent, stag (or other assorted horned beasts), and the boar (or pig).

Attributes of Lunar Beasts

The bull appears to be symbolic of the temporal nature due to it’s horns, being reminiscent of the crescent moon. The boar with it’s tusks and the stag’s antlers seem to be prototypical of the bull, while the serpent, with it’s association with water (a reoccurring cosmic motif), and the ability to shed it’s skin (rebirth motif), occupies a unique class of it’s own, although even the serpent is sometimes depicted with horns.

The lunar aspect of the divinity

Here, I intend to focus on the lunar aspect of the divinity in theriomorphic form, although, due to the mutable nature of myth, and the interdependence of both the solar and lunar aspects of god, it is often difficult not to mention one without the other. For example, Dumuzi’s temporal-theriomorphic transformation is actualized through the power of the sun god Utu, and likewise the destruction of the temporal aspect of the vedic god Soma, produces the eternal-solar ambrosia. To entirely exclude references to the coinciding aspects of the temporal and eternal is both problematic and unnecessary, however I shall draw up a more wide-ranging presentation of the temporal-eternal interplay further on.

The cosmic bull sacrifice in Zoroastrian mythology

In the Zoroastrian Bundahishn (The Creation), the cosmic sacrifice is inadvertently performed by the evil Angra Mainyu, who, in the act of corrupting Ahura Mazda’s perfect creation, kills both the primal bull and Gayomart, the primal man. The seed of the bull is purified within the moon, giving birth to all living creatures (10.1-4; 14.1-5), while the seed of Gayomart is purified by the sun, engendering a double-sexed plant (Rivas), that becomes Mashya and Mashyana, the first human couple (15.1-5). At the end of time, the cosmic saviour Saoshyant will sacrifice another bull called Hadhayosh (Sarsaok), and mix it’s fat with haoma (Vedic: soma) to create Hush, the ambrosial food of immortality (30.25).

Cosmic Sacrifice

The Zoroastrian myth of cosmic sacrifice discriminates between the evil slaying of the primal bull, that plays a part in the creation of the cosmos, and the good sacrifice of the ambrosial bull, performed by the eschatological Saoshyant, at the end of the alloted cosmic span of twelve thousand years. Zoroastrian mythology introduces the idea of time as a straight line, the beginning and end of all creation being distinct, whereas, in the preexistent lore of the mythological victim, both the beginning and the end are bound together in cylindrical time through a single cosmic sacrifice, that also impartments the ambrosial boon of life, not at the resurrection at the end of the world, but actually within the temporal realm itself, here and now, which is exactly what we find in the earlier Vedic Soma sacrifice of India.

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